Yeah, the Lebanese post office wasn’t at all interested in what James Russel was receiving in the mail from America, Rust thought sarcastically. He looked at the return address and saw it was from Egypt, but labeled from a blind intel dump that a man named Striker had set up with him. Rust had worked with Striker and a covert strike team on two dangerous operations, one in Pakistan, and one in Lebanon, racing to deal with forces ready to blow the Middle East wide open in a nuclear conflict.

Since then, Striker had tapped Rust personally, knowing that the CIA man had his ear firmly planted to the ground in regards to Middle Eastern politics and terrorism. Born eating and breathing the cultures of the Islamic nations from the Mediterranean through the Kashmir, Rust was an expert not only in Arabic dialects but mannerisms and mind-set. This ingratiated him to the movers and shakers of the nations he frequented. Either as an invisible part of the embassy staff, or, slightly more out there, as a journalist, Rust was able to blend in, become a fly on the wall, and get information to the ears that needed to hear it.

Rust thought about the need to get information to the right ears, and thought of 2001. Maybe that was why a veteran CIA man was so willing to buck the system and risk his job by leaking information to a phantom not even the Company was sure about. Striker went to the field and actually put boot to ass.

He signed for the box. The damn thing weighed a ton.

Hauling it under one arm, he left the post office. That’s when he saw a dark-featured young man out of the corner of his eye. Rust’s alarm bells went off when he knew that the young guy didn’t fit in. There was something wrong about him, but he couldn’t place what.

Things were really tight now. Unbalanced and hindered by the heavyweight box, he couldn’t rapidly reach the tiny Glock 26 he had nestled in an ankle holster. He knew how to draw quickly with the ankle rig he wore, but that was with his hands free and his ability to turn unhindered by a big, heavy box. The CIA man was of a mind to just dump the box, but that wouldn’t be good for his health if the package contained a bomb.

“Russel,” a voice called. It had a mixed Midwestern and South Florida drawl to it, and Rust had to look twice at the man who spoke using the voice.

It was the guy who set off Rust’s instincts. The features were a little too dark for Egypt, and not hooked enough to be fully Semitic, but he did look like he fit in Lebanon, even though his manner was that of a Westerner. The hair, though, was nappy and short to his head, and dark eyes studied him carefully.

“Russel, I’m here on ranch business,” the man said. His hands were occupied, filled with a rolled newspaper in his left and a bottle of water in his right.

Rust relaxed. It was kind of an unwritten code among the agents in the area that they have their hands filled when they met, to distinguish friend from foe. Empty hands meant that the person you were meeting wanted his options open to immediately grab a weapon. The plastic water bottle and newspaper, however, were indicative of a savvy mind—they could be dropped with no hassle, and guns could be grabbed as trouble arose.

Ranch business was another clue. It was a code phrase that Striker had used with him in their private dealings.

“Let me set this hunk of crap down and we can talk somewhere,” Rust answered.

The handsome man smiled, and easily slipped the bottled water and newspaper into the deep pockets of his cargo pants. Reaching out, he took the box. “I’ll carry that.”

He could see the younger man’s dark arms ripple with corded muscle. “Oh sure. Just because you’re young, strong and agile…”

The kid grinned. “Old age and treachery will win over youth and purity every time.”

“I like your attitude, kid.”

“Just want to live long enough to get to old age and treachery, Mr. Russel.”

He nodded and led the way. “Got a name?”

“Alex Johnson, sir.”

Rust paused and looked him over. “You look like a Johnson.”

“Excellent, sir. I was barely able to detect the sarcasm in your tone.”

“Come on, Alex.”

ALESSANDRO KALID SET DOWN the cardboard box with a grunt, causing the rickety old table to wobble under the sudden impact. Kalid held his breath for a moment, but the spindly legs held. In the heat, it was heavy work, and he was glad for the breeze that pushed and puffed-up the gauzy drapes to Rust’s apartment. He didn’t know how much was in it, but knowing the man he knew as Striker, the box certainly wasn’t filled with jelly beans and Easter eggs. He looked at the seal on the box and saw the telltale signs that the tape had been stripped off and replaced.

“Someone’s been looking in Striker’s stuff,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” Rust stated. “The Lebanese have been interested in the packages that come in to me.”

Kalid flipped out his Tanto knife with a deft wrist movement, slashed open the box and returned the blade with a flourish. “If that’s the case, your cover might be blown.”

“That’s on the short list of things that are certain in life,” Rust answered.

Kalid could only shrug and pull out the contents of the box. “A laptop, a printer and some digital cameras.”

“Son of a…” Rust said.

Kalid smirked. “The printer works, but it’s twice the size it should be.”

He flipped over the unit and looked at the bottom. “No, not smuggling guns.”

“So what’s that?” Rust asked, pointing at the silver square that Kalid was removing from the printer’s plastic shell.

“Consider it the ultimate in wireless modems. State of the art. I think I’m supposed to light my eyeballs on fire for knowing about this,” Kalid said. He looked through the heavy booklet in the box. “And the manual on how to use the cameras.”

Kalid flipped through the book. “You think they’d slip something into this that could give us a clue as to what’s going on?”

Rust held out his hand, and Kalid handed over the book.

“The manual’s copyright page,” Rust spoke up after a moment. “There’s a user name and password for the laptop.”

Rust powered up the laptop after plugging it in to the modem and the wall outlet.

Kalid watched Rust type the access into the computer, then looked out the window.

More than the gauze curtains were moving. Traffic had cleared off the street, as had most of the women and children. Kalid’s brain went into overdrive as he saw two blurs flying through the air. On pure reflex, Kalid drew a shaken throwing star and flipped it at one blob, knocking it back, slowing it in midair enough to determine the identity of the object. It was a cylinder, with writing on the side, smoke spewing out the top in a gout. Somewhere in the distorted adrenaline overdrive of the moment, Alex Kalid recognized the tear gas projectile. One part of his brain wondered what the second object was. Reflex, however, threw his mouth wide open, screaming loudly to Rust.

The cry of alarm saved Kalid’s brain from a battering from the concussion grenade’s explosion. The second blurring minibomb had sailed through the window and landed under Rust’s chair. The thunderclap of pressure was brain numbing, shaking Kalid’s hyper-perception back to something resembling normal.

Rust was on the floor, his chair collapsed, eyes open and dazed, the laptop spilled across his chest.

“Yeah, your cover’s blown,” Kalid quipped, lips engaging on their own while his hand reached for his knife. He wondered where his gun was, the concussion knocking away the memory that his SIG-Sauer P-226 was back at his hotel, in a hidden compartment of his luggage. He snapped out his arms to each side, corded muscles bracing him against the disorientation.

His brain stopped sloshing in his head after a few heartbeats, his vision clearing. His gaze locked on the door, which shuddered under an impact. Dust and splinters fell from the door and its frame, and Kalid realized he had only one more smash before whoever was on the other side swarmed in and took them. He glanced around. Rust looked back at him, eyes unfocused from a point-blank concussion, then lifted one leg, trying to bring it up.

Kalid noticed the pistol in the CIA agent’s ankle holster. He lunged, grabbing it off the dazed man’s leg and swinging it up. No safeties, no bells, no whistles, even punch-drunk, Kalid knew it was a Glock of some kind and he opened fire, not even waiting for the door to crash open. The door splintered again, but the second impact didn’t have the force of the first after Kalid slammed four shots through it at chest level. A rent appeared in the top panel, a jagged shard bent out by whatever battering ram was being used. He could see the men in the hall scrambling and tending to their wounded.

Kalid opened fire again, sweeping the hallway for another eight shots before the 12-shot magazine on the Glock ran dry. With the little pistol at slide lock, the door was slammed again. This time, it buckled and burst inward. Two men rushed in and the ex-blacksuit spun the Glock in his hand and hurled it at the first one through the door. Despite being a lightweight gun with a polymer frame, the twenty ounces of steel in the gun still made a big impression on the forehead of the first thug through the door. The intruder went stumbling to the floor while the guy behind him leaped, snarling and bringing up a pistol, as if to stuff the gun in the American’s face.

Kalid grabbed his wrist and drove his palm into the guy’s elbow, leveraging him and tossing him against the wall with a bone crunching thud. The pistol went flying across the floor, but Kalid wasn’t going to give up any advantage over even a dazed enemy while he might still be able to stab him in the back. Instead, he brought up his knee hard, two quick pumps into the kidneys of the captive Lebanese, then dropped back and twisted.

The terrorist went sailing out the window, catching the half-open pane on his way out, as well as the gauzy curtains. Glass, wood and fabric enveloped the falling man as he went tumbling into the street twelve feet below. Kalid pivoted on his heel as he heard the scrape of steel on steel in the doorway.

A big, bearded man had a long curved fighting knife clenched in his fist. His face was drenched with blood, but there were no visible injuries on him. Kalid assumed he had to have been behind another guy who took a high velocity 9 mm pill.

“We were going to try to take both of you in alive, but Faswad only needs one prisoner,” the knife goon sputtered.

Kalid smirked and answered him in his own language. “Quit talking and bring it, crybaby. Papa doesn’t have all day to play with children.”

Crybaby gawked at the taunting response, and paused. That gave Kalid a half step to grab his knife from where he dropped it by Rust. Then the Lebanese knife fighter charged, swinging at chest level. Kalid dropped like lightning, first to scoop up the blade, and second to snap his foot out into the shin of the blade man. The minute his fingers met the handle of the Tanto, he brought the blade around in a fast arc, only to have his wrist trapped by the half-fallen Crybaby.

Bringing his weight to both feet in the crouch, Kalid swung up his left hand and hammered it into Crybaby’s face, feeling cartilage crunch and collapse under the impact. It seemed the complaining Lebanese was made of stern stuff, as he kept up his fight, bringing his knee into Kalid’s shin to knock his balance from under him. The curved knife arced up, but Kalid braced his forearm against the knife fighter’s forearm, the impact jangling nerves in both arms. Still, the fighting knife didn’t fall from numbed fingers, and Kalid had to wrap his hand around the bigger man’s wrist.

There was no time for a wrestling match, not when the guy could roll onto him and drive that foot-long tusk of curved steel into his chest. With a surge of strength, the ex-black-suit launched his forehead into his enemy’s nose. This time, the impact stunned Crybaby, his head rolling back onto his shoulders. Kalid hurt from the hit too, but it was minor in comparison. He slapped the knife away and pulled his own wrist free, punching forward with both fists to slam into the man’s rib cage.

The big terrorist rocked backward. Kalid scrambled to his feet and out of reach. No more wrestling against someone who had a weight and leverage advantage. It was time to employ some sharpened steel in the fight.

Kalid lunged and lashed out hard, blade poking from the bottom of his fist. The blow was a little short, the tip of the Tanto only parting skin, not muscle and bone as the slash connected with the upper torso of the guy. Crybaby grunted and brought his blade down, but Kalid had moved enough that the downward swing only nicked his shoulder, instead of plunging into his clavicle. He brought back his knife and turned away, luring the Lebanese terrorist in closer.

As soon as the first boot stomp sounded, Kalid continued with his pivot, bringing up one heel hard and fast, connecting with the knife man’s groin. As Crybaby grunted, Kalid finished his total 360, slashing savagely with the Tanto across the exposed neck and shoulder of the enemy knife fighter.

The Lebanese grunted as he clutched his wounded shoulder. The knife dropped from his numbed fingers and Kalid stepped in, carving a fatal slash across his adversary’s face and throat.

Kalid stepped back, and watched the dead man hit the floor.

He looked up. The doorway was suddenly crowded with a throng of angry-faced men, their fists filled with automatic weapons. Kalid set his jaw tight, clenched his knife tighter and glared back at them.

“My life will not be sold cheap!” he shouted.

Suddenly, the gunmen in the hall began jerking, going into what seemed to be epileptic fits as puffs of gore burst into the air all around them. Automatic weapons fire chattered in the hallway. One by one, the dead gunmen tumbled to the floor, their perforated corpses stacking atop one another in a bloody heap.

Kalid felt a moment of terror as he realized how close he’d come to death, and looked to see if he could find the lost pistol on the floor when a large form filled the doorway.

Mack Bolan dumped the empty magazine from his Uzi and fed it a fresh one. Kalid saw an array of fresh bruises and cuts on his face, but he still managed to have a smile on his face at seeing a comrade in arms.

“Grab Rust. We’re leaving the laptop behind,” he told Kalid.

“The chase is on,” Kalid said under his breath.

Bolan recuperated from his concussion on the flight from Afghanistan to Lebanon. What with a two-hour helicopter ride, and arranging an airplane from Kandahar to Beirut burning another three hours, the Executioner had enough time to feel the throbbing in his head come back down to a manageable level. With more hours of sleep on the plane, and years of athletic endeavor tuning his body’s recuperative powers, he felt almost healthy. None of this counted the couple hours where he was X-rayed and given a tetanus booster at a field hospital. He still ached from head to toe, and his multiple stitches tugged and pinched if he moved too quickly.

Bolan supplemented the stitches on the gunshot wounds on his arm and legs with duct tape to pin everything in place. It was a cheap way to make sure the skin wouldn’t flex and pop the stitching open, and it reinforced the closing power of the nylon loops. He couldn’t do anything about the sewjob at the back of his scalp, however. He was just glad that there was no skull fracture. The original brain swelling from the concussion was also not evident on the X rays.

Good news all around, he thought sardonically.

But now J. R. Rust was among the walking wounded, though he seemed to be getting better.

“Can you hear me, J.R.?” Bolan asked as he and Kalid loaded him into the back seat of a Toyota 4Runner in an awkward balance of speed and gentleness, neither of which was completely accomplished. The Executioner still kept his Uzi by his leg, just in case, looking up and down the alley.

“How’d you know we’d be in trouble?” Kalid asked.

“I took a look at how dead this street got when the two goons at either end of the road cleared it out.”

“What goons?” Kalid asked.

“The ones who threw the grenades and caught some 9 mm bullets,” Bolan explained.

“Ah. That’s what kept you.”

“I only cleared this side of the alley. We’re going to have to run a gauntlet,” Bolan told him.

“I’ll drive, you shoot,” Kalid said.

Bolan nodded, the desire to chuckle driven away by the dull pain in his head. He admired Alex Kalid’s acceptance of life with the Executioner at his elbow. They’d only worked together for one day some months ago, but the young agent proved he had the blood of a soldier running in his veins.

Bolan slipped into the shotgun seat next to Kalid. “Drive.”

Kalid gunned the engine and swung the 4Runner onto the street. Almost instantly, a shout went out, and gunfire popped downrange. Rust gave a loud grunt and tucked himself tight into a ball in the back seat as something hammered the side of the 4Runner. Bolan spared a glance to see if Rust was all right, and confirming his party was still unharmed, whipped up the Uzi and tapped out a short burst at the gunner sending fire at the SUV as it whirled.

The gunner wasn’t hit. Bolan knew he didn’t make the connection on instinct, but the short burst did drive the terrorist to ground, sending him out of their path. Dust kicked up on the dry street as Bolan kept watch for more gunners, but the terrorists were clearing out. The soldier knew that sticking around when the Beirut police were in the area was idiotic for both sides.

In the time since the Executioner’s last visit, the country had cobbled together again. The discord and chaos in the streets was under control, a nation unified and ready to tolerate no dissent. Sure, terrorist organizations hid among the country’s nooks and crannies, but Lebanon knew that if they didn’t control violence in its territory, Israel once more would surge across the border to do some cleaning.

And Bolan knew that cleaning didn’t involve feather dusters and furniture wax.

“Keep moving. We’ll drive around for a while,” Bolan told Kalid.

“No destination, Colonel?” the ex-blacksuit asked, using Bolan’s Brandon Stone identity.

“Yeah, but I want to check for tails first,” the Executioner explained. “Looks like Hezbollah knew about J.R.’s cover identity.”

“And they only acted when there was a big signal marker that someone was coming to see him,” Kalid replied.

“Not necessarily,” Bolan countered. “You okay, J.R.?”

“I’ll live. I’m just now getting my hearing back,” Rust answered. “Which code name are we using, Striker?”

“Striker or Colonel Brandon Stone,” Bolan answered.

Rust nodded, holding his head. His vision was still unfocused, and Bolan knew that Rust was suffering from a concussion. He sympathized with the CIA man; he’d just been there. But he still needed the sharp mind that had just taken a beating. “I heard that the Hezbollah was jumpy because Sinbal never phoned home from the yard sale he went to.”

“And then they see a possible CIA plant getting forty pounds of something at the local mail drop, something super-suspicious,” Kalid groaned. “Just perfect.”

“Your cover was already smoked, J.R.,” Bolan stated, apology flavoring his tone. “I didn’t intend for either of you to get hurt.”

“Fuck that shit,” Kalid answered. “I signed on to this to break some heads.”

“Like the chicken said, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it,” Rust agreed. “That’s why they pay us the big…er…pathetic bucks.”

Bolan nodded, accepting their allegiance. A moment of hope surged in his heart with the bravery of these two men, then he settled down to check the mirrors for signs of pursuit.

“OUR MEN TRIED TO PICK up Russel, but they met with resistance,” Cabez informed his leader, Imal Faswad.

Faswad shook his head. “Resistance? I sent two dozen men after the American.”

The Hezbollah leader took a deep drag on his cigarette, and then blew smoke out of a corner of his mouth. “Two dozen men. How many came back?”

“Six,” Cabez answered. “They think they recognized one of the men involved.”

“Really?”

“He was over six feet tall, with black hair and cold blue eyes.”

Faswad paused for a moment. “Black hair and cold blue eyes?”

“Familiar to you?” Cabez asked. “That’s the description of al Askari.”

“Not only that,” Faswad answered, “it’s the description of the man who paved my way to leadership here.”

Cabez allowed himself a moment of surprise, but then relaxed. “The Soldier has rampaged several times through Lebanon, sir.”

“Perhaps this could be the time he comes for me,” Faswad stated. “Sinbal never reported in, did he?”

“No, but we have reports from our friends in Pakistan that something happened to the weapons auction. The place was utterly destroyed, and scores were mowed down like wheat before a thresher,” Cabez stated.

Faswad flicked ash off his cigarette to the floor and glowered. “I was too late in having Russel picked up for spying on us.”

He crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray, and then weighed the consequences of hurling the heavy crystal against the far wall. It would take forever to clean up, and it would only serve to make more of a mess when what he required was more order. Faswad breathed deeply and let out his tension. It was always good to think of the consequences—that’s how he methodically crawled his way up the organizational maze of Hezbollah splinter politics until he reached his position.

Cabez waited until Faswad broke out of his train of thought. “Do you think Russel knew of our deal for the dozen American tanks?”

“He spotted something moving, we have no idea what for sure, and from the destruction in Pakistan, we’re not sure if the tanks were even uncrated. Something destroyed everything, flattening any piece of materiel to component atoms,” Cabez answered.

Faswad fired up a fresh cigarette. “And al Askari is with Russel now.”

“Al Askari and another man. Dark-skinned, spoke Arabic, younger than the Americans, and athletic. They all got away in a gold-colored Toyota 4Runner.”

Faswad frowned. “Watch them. If they try to roust us, we roust them. Burn them down. We can find what we need from a dead body as easily as we can from a live one.”

Cabez nodded. “You’re right, sir.”

KALID FINALLY PULLED the 4Runner into Bolan’s safehouse, and the Executioner helped Rust up the stairs. He had regained much of his strength, but the CIA man wasn’t going to be running and jumping or shooting and looting in the near future. That was fine with the Executioner, who preferred to be the cat that walked by himself.

Bolan spared a glance back to Kalid, who was double-checking the streets for any signs of surveillance. His own icy blue eyes swept the perimeter and found little more than daily life. Still he didn’t let down his guard. Danger signals were not going off in his brain, but that didn’t mean he could relax.

“Alex, I want you to guard Rust,” Bolan told him. “I need both of your heads working on figuring out what we’re dealing with.”

“I’d be more useful on hand, translating and interrogating,” Kalid spoke up. “But I can understand. I’ll be your baby-sitter.”

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