Desert Fallout

The leader of the group spoke to his men in Arabic, directing them to store the containers out of sight. Bolan didn’t speak much of the language, and he wasn’t capable of determining the dialect that they spoke, pinning down their nation of origin, but he could make out what was happening with the assistance of the commander’s hand movements and phrases he did recognize. He also heard the word helicopter and knew that there wasn’t going to be much time to spy upon this group. Depending on the tent where the commandos stored their ancient prize, it was also possible that they would discover Metit’s disappearance.

Just to be certain, Bolan readied his Egyptian Beretta to buy a few more moments of time. He screwed a sound suppressor onto the pistol’s threaded barrel. He would rob the hardball ammunition of some of its velocity as the silencer baffles would trap propelling gases as well as their resistance against the bullet. Fortunately, Bolan and Kamau had picked up a supply of military-grade ammunition, loaded to much higher levels than civilian rounds. Again, experience had taught the warrior that 9 mm full-metal-jacket bullets would do the job he needed them to do, if only his accuracy was dead-on.

With Bolan’s lifetime of shooting experience, as well as his training and familiarity with the Beretta 92 platform, he didn’t think the slightly lower velocity and lack of frangibility would hinder him from making swift, decisive kills. He slithered toward the rape tent, his senses reaching out not only for conspirators heading toward the enclosure, but for indications that the enemy had noticed his presence. Luckily, the Executioner’s stealth had kept him in the shadows, just outside their awareness.

He shadowed one of the teams that had been given the task of stowing the containers that the whole group had brought with them. They rolled one toward a tent next to where they had found Metit. It was a small bit of fortune on a mission that already seemed so wrought with troubles. Bolan had only two advantages so far, one of them being Kamau, an assistant who was luckily a man of the same moral caliber as the Executioner, and who had the skills to assist him. Kamau’s knowledge of Arabic dialects as well as African languages was worth the Somali’s weight in gold. The other advantage was that his enemy was unaware that Bolan was pursuing them. It wouldn’t last long, though. His luck couldn’t hold out forever.

Bolan glanced toward the gully and saw that Kamau and Metit were long gone from sight, but he wasn’t willing to risk that the gunmen couldn’t track the pair even on the hard rocky ground. An added problem was that the small gash in the earth was the most blatant route that an escaping woman would take. If the mystery soldiers headed out to capture Metit, they’d know that Bolan and Kamau were present. He turned his attention back to the two men who were retrieving one more of the containers, the last one that was out in the open.

There was some brief conversation as the two men spoke with their commander. They pointed at the storage tent, then over to the one that Metit had been in. The leader nodded and waved them toward the rape tent. Bolan grimaced and circled to the front, the hammer on the Beretta drawn back to give him an effortless pull of the trigger if necessary. From his new angle, he saw only one of the men push the container on its trolley through the flaps of the tent. He left, leaving the trolley just inside the entrance, then turned back to his leader.

It was a moment of laziness, a lapse in judgment that gave Bolan’s allies a reprieve. He allowed himself a brief smile when the clatter of a falling crate sounded just inside the flaps. The trolley had to have been on uneven ground, or worse, it had been shoved against the corpse of Metit’s rapist, an act of happenstance that blew things for Bolan.

The flap had been pushed aside by the dolly’s back. There was a moment of grumbling as the guy bent to pick it up. He stood, his head tilted at a quizzical angle. Bolan rested the Beretta’s front sight on the commando’s goggles. The beginning of a question escaped the soldier’s lips, and Bolan applied just over three pounds of pressure. The Beretta 92 wasn’t a gun that kicked much, and with the suppressor weighing down its muzzle, the recoil impulse was nonexistent. Plexiglas imploded as the 115-grain FMJ round speared through it, driving deep through facial bones. Splinters of shattered skull exploded through the soldier’s brain and his head snapped back violently.

The sudden, violent death of one of their own froze two of the mercenaries in their tracks as they watched their comrade collapse to the dirt in a lifeless pile. Their confusion gave the Executioner a couple more targets while the rest of the group sprang into motion. The commandos’ training and experience was readily apparent as most of them broke for cover at the first sign of violence.

Bolan took one of the stunned gunmen with a second Beretta round to the throat. The sneeze of the 9 mm’s passage was discreet, but he knew that even that gentle sound would betray his position. He didn’t wait to see the effects of his shot on the second of the marauders, sidestepping to the shelter of a slab of sandstone before he rose from the ground, his camouflaging cloak fluttering behind him. The burp of 5.56 mm rifles popped through the air, and Bolan slid around the other side of the flat stone he’d swung behind. In the transition from one side of the rock to the other, Bolan had holstered the sidearm and gripped the AK on its sling. Two of the Arab-speaking gunmen were visible to the Executioner from his new vantage point, firing their bullpup assault rifles in profile to him. He shouldered his AK and triggered his own autoweapon.

The first of the enemy gunners jerked violently, his skull smashed under the hammering force of 7.62 mm steel-cored slugs. A grisly, thick soup of brains and blood slashed from the remains of his head, smearing across the goggles of his compatriot. With a curse, the other rifleman wiped his bloodied lenses and spun. Bolan triggered a second triburst from the AK, this blast of autofire crashing through the man’s shoulder and upper chest. The gunner’s arm flopped limply at his side, but his body armor had prevented serious trauma to his torso. All that mattered was that the second gunman was temporarily out of the fight.

The Executioner scanned for fresh targets as he began a short retreat to a man-size column of stone. It was a calculated move that allowed Bolan to draw the attention of the marauders away from Kamau and Metit. The chatter of gunfire would hopefully give Metit a little more pep in her step, but Bolan was concerned that Kamau might double back and assist him. Bullets smashed clouds of pulverized stone off the column, and the big American knew he had to make certain that this engagement ended quickly. Four men were out of action, but nine trained fighters were still operating, and the torrent of gunfire that they threw at him was consistent. It wasn’t panic fire, it was concentrated autofire that would pin down any lesser man.

Bolan realized that the covering fire would only have been provided by a few of his opponents, alternating their bursts in order to keep up the pace while they reloaded. He reached under his cloak, grabbing a hand grenade hooked onto his harness. He jammed his thumb through the cotter pin’s ring, then flicked the safety out of the minibomb. Once the pin was pulled, the grenade was no longer a friend to anyone on the battlefield. Bolan loosened his fingers on the fragger so that its spoon lever would pop free, beginning the countdown on its fuse. It was a process called cooking the grenade, burning off a fraction of the bomb’s timer to make it less likely that the recipients could throw it away from them. With a powerful lob, Bolan sailed the grenade high over his cover.

Bolan had heard the cry of “Grenade!” in dozens of languages over his years of combat, so he knew that the enemy saw death drop from above. The concentrated autofire that held Bolan in place sputtered and died out. The subsequent detonation of several ounces of military-grade high explosives shook the ground and filled the air with thousands of pieces of notched wire and the grenade’s broken steel shell.

Bolan kicked into the open and charged toward the next position he’d picked to take cover behind. To his right, an assault rifle opened up, chewing at the ground and plucking at the camo-pattern blanket that had given the Executioner his concealment. The flowing cloak no longer provided a stealth function now that the enemy was aware of his presence, but the cloth obscured Bolan’s body. The enemy gunners had been trained to fire at center of mass, and the concealing cape altered that target, moving it away from Bolan’s body and saving his life by a matter of inches.

With a wild dive, the Executioner returned to the column he’d previously evacuated. Bullets slammed into the ground, chasing him.

The enemy was smart and fast. The gunners didn’t have a good angle on the Executioner yet, but it would only be a matter of moments before they could get him in their sights.

The doomsday numbers tumbled as Bolan looked for a way out of this trap.

CHAPTER FIVE

Bullets slammed into the stone column Bolan crouched behind. The mystery commandos surrounded the veteran warrior. Alone and outnumbered, he scanned for an angle where the enemy’s rifles hadn’t filled the air with blazing-hot steel-cored slugs.

During his career, the Executioner had found himself backed into many corners by overwhelming enemy forces, so much so that one part of his mind always sought escape routes from any location or situation. Countless hours of practical experience had ingrained a situational awareness that would give him the means of evasion once an emergency presented itself.

The eruption of bullets against the face of one stone showed Bolan that there was a two-foot gap, close to the ground. Thought was action for the lone soldier, and he tucked his rifle flat to his chest. In another heartbeat, his long, muscular legs propelled him into that gap, his tattered cloak flapping behind him and jerking as rifle rounds tore through its fabric. Nothing struck Bolan’s back or lower limbs, and with serpentine agility and speed, he slithered along the ground and out of the path of enemy gunfire. He could hear shouts of communication among his Arabic-speaking opponents. They knew he’d moved out of the pocket they’d tried to sew him into with full-auto fire as their needle and thread.

Bolan didn’t spare their consternation another thought, seeing another furrow in the earth that would allow him to run while maintaining cover. He somersaulted into the crease and got his feet beneath him. After two long strides, he felt the air shake as a hand grenade detonated behind him. His improvised camouflage cape shuddered as it absorbed a wave of shrapnel that would have been deadly had Bolan not gotten enough distance between himself and the explosion. It was an uncomfortable set of factors that spared the soldier’s life for a few moments more, but he charged on, unhooking one of his own explosive eggs from his harness.

With a deft turn and a hard throw, Bolan sailed his grenade at the torso of an enemy gunman who scrambled into view. The baseball-size knot of steel and RDX crunched against the man’s goggles, cracking them and knocking him onto his back. Moments later, the fuse ticked down to zero and detonated. Arms and legs were thrown into the air in a grisly display of carnage. Shreds of human tissue vomited upward in a column of debris that would rain down once gravity overcame their initial acceleration.

Bolan knew he’d taken down one more of the enemy, but given the skills of the group, he wasn’t going to take that as a major victory. They were simply too good to take for granted. He skidded to a halt and dropped prone while facing the direction he’d just come from. The collapse to the dirt was swift, and his tattered blanket settled over his flat form. The crunch of racing boots sounded in the distance, and Bolan swung the barrel of his AK toward the noise. He had his weapon aimed, and one eye on the front sight, but his ears were open and his peripheral vision was peeled in order to keep from being flanked. He was still outnumbered and outgunned.

A crunch off to Bolan’s left spurred him to roll onto his side, transitioning from the rifle to one of his sidearms. Aside from the AK and the Beretta, Bolan liked to have a handgun with considerable penetration and power. Normally, that was the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, but the rapid trip to the Sinai had left him needing a locally acquired alternative. His substitute was a Smith & Wesson .45 Military and Police with a 10-shot magazine. A hooded, goggle-wearing commando head appeared where Bolan had aimed the hand cannon, and he pulled the trigger, spearing a 230-grain round-nosed slug through his pursuer’s face. The goggles vaporized, along with the man’s eyes, and he flopped backward out of sight.

The bellow of the polymer handgun’s discharge slowed the approaching boot stomps. Unfortunately for the pair of mercenaries, their forward advance hadn’t halted soon enough to save both of them. Bolan had kept his AK trained on the spot he’d expected them to appear, and now that the enemy was in sight, he held down the trigger on the Kalashnikov. A snarl of full-auto fire raked across the upper thighs and groin of one of the mystery gunmen. Heavy, steel-cored slugs shattered the rifleman’s femurs and pelvis while other rounds tore through femoral arteries. The sputtering roar of the AK was a death sentence for the gunner, and he toppled into a thrashing heap.

The second of the killers managed to throw himself back toward cover. His reflexes had helped him to avoid the relentless, merciless slash of bullets that had taken down his partner. Bolan would have been tempted to go after the escaping gunman, but a hand grenade clanked on the stone furrow he was in, thrown by a third mercenary who hadn’t jolted out into the open. With his own reactions honed by countless battles, the Executioner hurled himself out of the gully, rolling on the flat ground as the fragger went off. In his tumble to escape the shrapnel and shock wave, the AK was torn from his grasp.

Bolan didn’t bother to retrieve the assault rifle, both hands clasping around the grip of the Smith & Wesson .45. He rolled to one knee, maintaining a low profile out in the open. Two more grenades sailed from the crack, and Bolan scrambled to the cover of a low mount of stone. Thunderous booms resounded from the double blast, jarring the soldier’s ears, but the concussive energy wasn’t strong enough to do more than momentarily disorient him. With practiced wisdom, Bolan lay still behind the mound, allowing the plumes of dust and smoke from the explosions to obscure his presence.

He heard the enemy conversing, wishing he had enough of a grasp of Arabic to pinpoint the style of speech. They could have been emissaries of any of a half-dozen governments, from Syria to Pakistan, and only their cold-blooded execution of hostages had dispelled any qualms Bolan would have had for gunning them down. Even if they were a “friendly” government’s death squad, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, they were heartless murderers, and as such had earned the cleansing flames of his wrath.

Bolan noticed the man he’d shot in the face, sprawled on the ground not far from him. To replace his fallen rifle, he made a crablike scurry on all fours toward the fallen assault weapon. With a quick scoop, he retrieved it, a Steyr AUG A-3. He tore the pouch holder off the dead man’s thigh. It felt half-empty, but it was still more ammunition than none at all. With the straps clattering on the stone, he made enough noise to draw the attention of the enemy riflemen, but by the time they focused on the sound, Bolan had reached the cover of the outcropping he’d initially hidden behind. Bullets speared into the ground where he’d been only seconds earlier.

The Executioner shouldered the rifle and tapped the trigger lightly. Unfortunately, the assault rifle he’d acquired had no selector switch; only the position of his finger on the trigger shifted the cyclic rate from semi-auto to full-auto. His tap on the trigger was to release a 5.56 mm round on a single shot. He needed to conserve ammunition, and at this close range, he was able to kill an opponent with a single shot, though he wasn’t going to stick around for long. He popped a round toward a standing figure, causing him to retreat. Another pair of quick taps induced a salvo of enemy rifles to erupt, spraying the area where they had seen his muzzle-flash.

Bolan faked an agonized cry. It was a convincing ploy, and the warrior slithered along the ground. The enemy commandos had unintentionally kicked up new, thicker clouds of debris and dust that concealed Bolan as he slithered back into the gully. The sun had descended lower in the sky, and the long shadows cast by the ridge to the west had given the battleground between the Executioner and his enemy plenty of places for Bolan to conceal himself. The patches of darkness and the obfuscating clouds worked both ways, unfortunately. He needed to keep his senses sharp in order to continue his retreat.

Bolan needed some information, which meant one more retrieval. He stayed low and rushed toward where he’d seen a specific part of a grenade-blasted corpse drop. While the enemy was busy making certain that the Executioner was down for the count, Bolan decided to give himself a hand. Specifically, he grabbed up the severed forearm of the commando he’d taken out with a high-explosive blast. The tattered remnant would give him some fingerprints in order to identify at least the origins of this enemy force. He didn’t need the whole limb, but for now, he’d carry it.

It was time to get back to Kamau and Metit, before the Somali giant’s sense of duty brought him back to pitch in on this fight. Bolan wasn’t a moment too soon as he spotted the tall, powerful form of Kamau crouched in the shadows, AK at the ready. The two men made eye contact, and Bolan hand-signaled his colleague to remain concealed. Kamau nodded.

Behind him, Bolan could hear the commandos as they conversed with one another. They had halted their advance on Bolan’s former position. The clouds had dissipated, and he could see them clearly, despite his presence in the shadows providing his own concealment. It wouldn’t last long.

Kamau looked anxious, but he held his ground. This was going to be a stealth extraction. Rotors thumped in the distance, indicating that the mystery commandos were about to extract. They had to make a choice between finishing off Bolan, or grabbing the weapon they had killed dozens for.

The enemy began an orderly retreat back to the camp, making their decision quickly apparent. From the shape of the helicopters in the sky, Bolan could tell that there was at least a transport as well as a smaller, more agile craft with lethal armament providing escort. The presence of the escort bird or birds would mean trouble for Bolan and Kamau if they had infrared optics on board, but it wasn’t an insurmountable problem.

Bolan rushed to Kamau’s side, holding his grisly prize. “Where’s Metit?”

“I dropped her off in a cave fifty yards that way,” Kamau said. “Those helicopters convinced me that I made the right choice.”

“Is it big enough for the three of us?” Bolan asked.

“And then some,” Kamau answered.

“Then let’s get out of sight of any eyes in the sky,” Bolan offered.

The two men didn’t have to debate it further. Already, both Bolan and Kamau could see the dark, bug-like forms of the enemy helicopters in the distance. The Executioner had been tempted to pull out his binoculars to get a better glimpse of the three aircraft, but to do so would be to court death. Even without advanced optics, the helicopters would be able to see him once they advanced, getting closer to the two men on the ground. Right now, their only saving grace was that they were out of naked eyesight range and in the shadows of the swift-flying specks in the sky.

What he did see, however, was disheartening. There was one transport helicopter and two smaller escorts. The smaller craft were undoubtedly armed or packing more commandos to replace the several that Bolan had eliminated. If they were of the same caliber as the ones the Executioner had battled, then there was no doubt that he would be pushed harder, especially with eyes in the sky assisting in tracking down the warrior and those he’d sworn to protect.

The difficulty of dealing with enemy aircraft was just too much to surmount with the firepower and numbers he had on his side. Right now, all he could do was hide, and hope that he could catch up with the opposition later. He had the hand and the fingerprints, which hopefully would give him an indication of who the enemy was.

Bolan and Kamau scurried into the cave, Metit watching them wide-eyed in shock as the two were in full retreat. She bit her upper lip and looked at Bolan.

“I hear helicopters,” she whispered.

“We’re staying out of sight,” Bolan said. “It doesn’t look as if we’ve got to worry about too much trouble sticking around.”

“The gunfight?” Metit asked.

“It was touch-and-go for a while. I did enough to convince them to evacuate as soon as possible,” Bolan explained.

Outside, the unmistakable thunder of a heavy machine-gun salvo slashed down from the sky. A storm of lead tore at the ground, eventually a line of bullets clawing up the ground in front of their cave. Bolan and Kamau shielded Metit from the flying debris kicked up by the bursts of heavy slugs striking the earth. Bolan gritted his teeth as rocks and pebbles bounced off his back, pelting him relentlessly. Kamau grimaced as the leaden rain ceased. “Fifties.”

“Something in that range,” Bolan agreed. He looked at the roof of the cave, and gave a silent thank-you to the cliff that had shielded them. “If they swing around and go on a second strafing run, we don’t have enough cave to get out of its way.”

Metit’s lips had drawn tight into a bloodless line. She was getting close to the breaking point. This was going to be too much for the young woman, so close on the heels of her torturous captivity and the murders of so many of her friends. Bolan reached out and squeezed her hand, giving her an emotional anchor. Her smoldering, beautiful eyes glinted in the shadows of the cave, and he nodded to her. He’d shield her against the nightmares swarming outside on the plateau.

He allowed the young woman to bury her face in the crook of his neck, his strong, muscular arm wrapped around her shoulders like a cape, providing warmth and comfort against the maelstrom of horror that plucked at her nerves. The rumbling thud of helicopter rotors made the shadows vibrate, and he could feel Metit whimper.

Though it was just an arm, muscle stretched tautly over bone, sheathed in tough, rip-proof nylon, Bolan’s embrace was a spiritual fortress for Metit. The shudder of her sobs had disappeared, and even the clawlike grasp she had dug into Bolan’s sides had loosened.

It was several long, nerve-racking minutes that finally faded with the retreat of the helicopters’ rotors.

Kamau looked toward Bolan. “Stay with her. I’ll take a look outside.”

Bolan made a face at the suggestion, but the big Ethiopian held up his hand. “She’s practically glued to you, Cooper. I’ll be careful.”

“All right,” Bolan replied. His jaw set as he waited. Metit finally pried her face from where she’d buried it against his chest.

“You can go if you want to,” she whispered.

Bolan shook his head. “Too many scouts can betray our presence here. I’ll let Kamau do his recon.”

“I’m sorry,” Metit offered.

“For what?” Bolan asked. “You did fine.”

“I’m a wreck,” she explained.

“You’re human,” Bolan told her, cupping her chin gently. “It’s normal to be scared, especially with all of that racket going on.”

Metit’s teary eyes glistened as she looked at Bolan.

Kamau returned, kneeling at the mouth of the cave. “The helicopters are gone, but they shot up our wheels.”

Bolan sighed. “How badly?”

“They saw through the little bit of concealment we tossed over the vehicle,” Kamau explained. “We’ll have to hike it, because I’m sure they didn’t leave any of the archaeological crew’s vehicles in any condition to use.”