Throw Down

And then, when the man finally did take his time and line up the sights, he had run the Makarov dry.

Again, Bolan had to wonder if there wasn’t something more than so-called luck at work here within the chapel.

Bolan cleared his mind. The time for action was at hand; there would be opportunity for philosophical reflection later. No more stealth now; a hundred percent full-court press was needed to eliminate the Hezbollah terrorists at the front of the chapel. And Bolan could not allow himself to be killed or disabled while doing so. The bomb would go off just as surely as if he had dropped the detonator after taking out the man in the red-and-white scarf.

Drawing the mammoth .44 Magnum Desert Eagle from his hip holster, Bolan kept the remote button depressed with his middle finger, and used his index finger and thumb to pull the slide back just far enough to make sure a copper jacket was chambered in the barrel. Then he flipped the safety off with his thumb.

And with the Desert Eagle in his right hand, the remote “dead man” detonator in his left, he started toward the front of the chapel.

* * *

CoMPARED TO WHAT HE ’ D already been through, the rest of the battle seemed like a cakewalk.

When Bolan emerged from the side of the staircase, he saw that the police out front had found their mark on yet another of the Hezbollah men shooting back at them. A terrorist with long black hair, partially covered by a green baseball cap, lay facing away from the windows. The corpse’s hands were still wrapped around his throat in what had proved to be a vain attempt to curb the blood flow brought on by the round that had sliced through his carotid artery. His BDU blouse was soaked with blood, and what had undoubtedly been a gusher not unlike a freshly tapped oil well had subsided into a mere trickle of red running down his neck.

The man’s caramel-colored skin had turned white in death.

Bolan dragged his eyes away from the body. Two of the six terrorists were down. That meant four more needed killing.

Taking his time, Bolan raised the Desert Eagle and aimed it at the back of the head of the man on the far left of the row of windows, then tapped the trigger. The Desert Eagle exploded, far louder than the 7.62 mm rifle rounds going the other way. And as it hit its mark, it drew the attention of the Hezbollah men still engaged in the gun battle.

All three turned as one.

Bolan swung the Magnum right, firing a round into the face of a man wearing a checkered kaffiyeh. The blast made the tail of the headdress blow back as if caught in the wind, and the features of his face disintegrated into a mass of blood, muscle and bone.

Bolan’s attack was little different from a bowling pin pistol match, in which competitors kept swinging to the right in order to knock over the wooden pins. Bolan did so again, and the shot he aimed at the next terrorist caught the man in the throat as he attempted to rise from where he’d been firing out of the window.

The round went between the carotid artery and the jugular vein and took out his larynx. He coughed and sputtered spasmodically as his chest jerked in and out. He would die from the wound, Bolan knew. But he might not die fast enough to keep him from returning fire if Bolan moved on. So, as AK-47 fire from the last terrorist began to whiz past him, Bolan put another round between the choking man’s eyes.

That .44 Magnum ended the choking and coughing. For eternity.

Bolan swung the Desert Eagle toward the last man, who had, like the bomber with the Makarov, suddenly run his weapon dry. But you could tell the terrorist was a practiced warrior in the smooth way he dropped the empty mag and reached for a full one in the sash tied around his waist. He was fast.

But the Executioner was faster.

Bolan sent a double-tap of .44 Magnum rounds into the man’s chest, and the magazine fell from his left hand, the rifle from his right. He collapsed onto the floor, which had become a mass of OD green BDU uniforms soaked black, and several ever-growing pools of bright red blood.

Rounds were still exploding from the police outside the chapel. But they began to slow as no more return fire flew back at them from within Saint Michael’s.

Bolan pulled out his satellite phone and tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm. “Let them know it’s all over in here, Hal,” he said into the instrument. “Tell them I’ve got the detonator and it needs to be turned over to the bomb squad.”

“Great work as always,” Brognola said. “Anything else I should tell them?”

“Yeah,” Bolan said drily. “Tell them not to shoot the big guy in the stretchy blacksuit.”

The Executioner ended the call. Two minutes later, SWAT teams and explosive experts had entered the chapel. Bolan carefully turned the detonator over to the captain in charge of the bomb squad as other members of his team removed the bomb itself and gingerly carried it out to their van.

2

The hotel room on the third floor of Detroit’s downtown Hilton looked no different from thousands of others across the globe. It contained two double beds separated by a nightstand and lamp, with a Gideon Bible tucked in a drawer. At the foot of the beds, centered along the wall, was a wooden desk and chair. The bedspreads were generic, as were the pictures hanging on the cream-colored walls.

The room looked much like all the others weary travelers occupied the world over.

What was different were the occupants.

Bolan had changed out of his combat blacksuit while still at Saint Michael’s, using a downstairs closet for privacy. He now wore khaki slacks, a navy blue blazer, a white shirt open at the collar, and black-and-oxblood saddle shoes. For all the world to see, he appeared to be just another businessman who had taken the liberty of removing his necktie and folding it into a pocket of the blazer.

What could not be seen, however, were the weapons beneath that sport coat. The sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R was once again fully loaded, with the first round already chambered and the selector switch thumbed to safe. Opposite it in the leather-and-nylon shoulder rig hung an extra pair of 15-round 9 mm magazines, with subsonic loads that also helped keep the weapon down to a whisper when he pulled the trigger.

Almost in direct contrast to the Beretta was the bigger pistol he wore on his right hip. The Desert Eagle sounded like a nuclear bomb when it went off inside a building, and not much quieter outside. The .44 Magnum was loaded with 240-grain semijacketed hollowpoint rounds, and extra box mags for it were secured behind Bolan’s left hip.

In addition to the big firearms, he carried a North American Arms .22 Magnum, rimfire, single-action minirevolver in the right pocket of his blazer. The tiny firearm could be hidden in the palm of Bolan’s big fist or secreted in any number of other places around his body, as the situation called for. At the moment, it was doing double duty as a “last ditch” backup, and also as a weight that allowed the tail of his jacket to be swept back from his side, for a lightning-fast draw of the Desert Eagle.

Bolan’s final weapon was the newly manufactured Spyderco Navaja. With the ancient Spanish navajas—sometimes known as “caracas” due to their ratcheting sound when opened—as its prototype, the Spyderco was an updated, four-inch-blade version built with the latest innovations in steel and technology.

Bolan had found the Spyderco folder with its one-handed opening hole to be an indispensable tool, and sometimes weapon.

He sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door, facing a man who was just as unique, in his own way, in the cookie-cutter motel room. Father Patrick O’Melton wore a black suit and cap-toed black dress shoes. But above the equally dark tunic, his white Catholic priest’s collar stood out in bold relief. His sandy-red, wavy hair had been combed straight back, barely covering the tips of his ears at the sides. The priest’s nose appeared to have been broken more than once, and a long scar, almost as white as his collar, extended from his left ear down the side of his face to his chin, parting the short, stubby beard that covered the rest of his jaw.

The two men had just entered the room and sat silently for the few seconds it took to check each other out. Bolan, never known to beat around the bush, broke the silence. “My people tell me you were a U.S. Army Ranger.”

O’Melton nodded slowly and his lips curled into a small smile. “That’s right,” he said pleasantly. “First Gulf war. I got to sneak around Baghdad dressed like an Iraqi, and help guide our missiles and bombers onto target.”

Bolan tapped his throat, then gestured to the priest’s collar. “This was a pretty dramatic career change, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, it was dramatic,” O’Melton agreed, his head still bobbing. “But not as strange as it might seem at first.”

When Bolan didn’t respond, the priest went on. “It was toward the end of the war,” he said. “When Saddam Hussein was pulling his troops back to Iraq and setting fire to all the oil wells he could on the way. The deciding moment wasn’t all that colorful, I’m afraid. I just pretty much thought okay, you’ve killed a lot of bad guys, and that was what you were supposed to do. But now it’s time to do your best to save some.”

Bolan finally nodded in understanding. He leaned forward slightly, clasped his hands together and said, “Tell me about this snitch of yours.”

“He’s a diamond in the rough,” O’Melton said. “Former Hezbollah terrorist. He knows a lot of the ins and outs of the organization—but not everything, of course. Each cell in each terrorist organization—Hezbollah, al Qaeda, or any of the others—operate on a need-to-know basis, just like a lot of our own intelligence agencies. But my man says he’s willing to help.”

“How’d he come to tell you about the attack on Saint Michael’s?” Bolan asked.

“He told me in confession,” the priest said. “And since it was a crime that hadn’t yet occurred, I wasn’t bound to the confidentiality pact. In fact, I was bound by law to report it.” Father O’Melton held a fist to his mouth and coughed slightly.

“He was in confession,” Bolan said. “Are you telling me that he’s given up Islam for Christianity?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Well, his intel was great,” the soldier said. “The attack on the chapel came off just as he told you it was going to. If the Detroit PD hadn’t gotten advance notice, instead of a few dozen bullet holes in the walls, your chapel wouldn’t even be standing now.”

“He was on the money right down to the tiniest detail,” O’Melton agreed.

“And he’s willing to help us go after Hezbollah and other terrorists, as well?”

“That’s what he said.”

For a moment, the two men fell silent, staring into each other’s eyes. But Bolan hadn’t missed the slight tone of voice change, or the ambiguity, in two of Father O’Melton’s answers. When he asked if this snitch had converted to Christianity, instead of a simple yes, the priest had said, “That’s what he told me.” And when questioned about the informant’s willingness to help, O’Melton had answered, “That’s what he said.”

Father O’Melton might be a man of God, but he wasn’t naive by any means. He knew what double and even triple agents were made of, and that there was always the possibility his informant was trying to play him and the feds rather than help them.

Bolan finally broke the silence again. “There’s something in how you’re answering my questions, Father. The tone of your voice. And the fact that your answers come in sort of a neutral way, such as ‘that’s what he told me’ instead of just a simple ‘yes.’”

“I’m just reporting to you as best I can,” O’Melton said.

“That’s good,” Bolan stated. “But there’s one thing that bothers me.”

“It bothers me, too,” the priest said. “Christianity and Islam are similar in some ways, but quite different in others. For a Christian to deny Christ is a mortal sin. But Muslims are allowed to masquerade as Christians or Jews or anything else they find advantageous in order to further their Islamic jihad.” He paused to cough again, then said, “The typical American—and I might also include the typical American Christian—either doesn’t know that or chooses to ignore it. But it’s right there in black-and-white in the Koran.”

Bolan nodded. “I’ve read it.”

O’Melton smiled again, but this time looked more sad and weary. “What that means for us,” he said, “is that if we use this guy, we can never be sure we can trust him until the op is completed.”

Bolan leaned back on the bed. “You say ‘us,’” he said. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I want to go with you,” O’Melton said. “I feel a calling to help. I speak reasonably good Arabic and Farsi. And I’m well-trained to assist you, both in combat and in helping interpret any theological leads that might come up.”

“The heavens didn’t open this time, either, I’m guessing,” Bolan said.

O’Melton threw back his head and laughed. “No, again it wasn’t that dramatic. Just a feeling God’s given me. Like maybe this was my calling all along—to be trained as an Army Ranger, then go to seminary for training as a priest, then combine the two in order to help save the world from...well, who knows what?”

The Executioner sat quietly for a moment. If Father O’Melton could remember what it was like to use a gun, he might indeed be valuable during this mission. And what, exactly, was that mission? Bolan wondered. At this point, it was to meet the priest’s informant and run him for all he was worth, taking out every Hezbollah terrorist or other threat to the world until they’d exhausted the man’s use.

But Bolan was getting his own “feelings” at the moment. And one of them told him that this could turn into a much larger operation than they were able to see at the moment.

He sat up straight again. “Well,” he said, “let’s take your man and go with him. Where is he?”

The priest didn’t answer verbally. He just stood up and walked to the side of the room. Bolan had noticed that they were in a connecting room when he’d first entered. He watched O’Melton unlock their side of the twin doors and rap his knuckles on the other.

A moment later, that door opened, too.

And standing in the doorway, Bolan saw one of the scruffiest looking men he’d ever seen.

* * *

ZAID AHMAD WAS PERHAPS five feet five inches tall if he stood on his toes and stretched his neck as high as it would go. Bolan estimated he’d tip the scales at a hundred forty pounds—if the dirty BDUs he wore were soaking wet. Ahmad sported long hair like some young prophet from another century, and his beard looked to be at least a foot long. Both hair and beard were just beginning to sparkle with tiny patches of white.

Father O’Melton stepped back and let the man shuffle across the carpet.

Ahmad’s dark brown eyes darted nervously from the priest to Bolan and then around the room. The Executioner didn’t blame him. Brognola had already told him that Hezbollah knew Ahmad had turned on them and even tipped the authorities off about Saint Michael’s. So the swarthy little man had a price on his head. In fact, he was probably number one on the Islamic hit list.

O’Melton took the frightened man’s arm and guided him toward the desk, pulling out the chair and turning it around so he could sit down. Ahmad did so, then leaned forward with his hands folded and his arms between his legs, looking as if he was trying to further shrink his already diminutive size.

Bolan had seen such behavior thousands of times in the past. Even when the subject wasn’t obsessing on it, his subconscious mind always held the knowledge that he might already be marked for death. In this case, Ahmad’s body language suggested that he was trying to make himself the smallest target he possibly could.

Of course, there was another viable answer to the man’s nervous demeanor. He might just be one heck of a good actor.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Bolan said. “What do you want me to call you?”

“Zaid is my first name. Ahmad my second. Please choose whichever one you like.”

“Okay, Zaid,” Bolan said. “Father O’Melton tells me you’ve turned to Christianity.”

For a second, the informant’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” he said. “I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.”

Bolan continued to stare into the man’s face. “What caused this drastic change?’ he asked.

“In addition to the Koran,” Ahmad said. “I began to read the Bible. Especially the New Testament. I cannot explain it to you any more than I was able to explain it to Father O’Melton, but a change came over me. And I recognized the writings of Paul the Apostle and the other writers as the word of God.”

Bolan waited while the man in the desk chair caught his breath. Then he said, “Who all knows about your conversion? Your Hezbollah buddies?”

“I have heard that they do,” Ahmad said. “At least the Hezbollah men here in the U.S., on assignment with me. I have even heard that there is a bounty out on my head. I fear I would be killed immediately if they find me.”

“So how is it you were allowed to stay away from Saint Michael’s during the attack?” Bolan asked.

“I wasn’t,” Ahmad replied. “I was dressed and ready. I even entered the chapel with the other men. But in the confusion that followed, I was able to sneak back out and get away.”

Bolan’s eyebrows lowered. The story had holes in it big enough to ride a camel through. “So explain to me how it was that, if they knew you’d changed sides, they allowed you to come along on this strike. And tell me how you got away.” He stared deeply into the man’s dark eyes, looking for any sign of deception. “I’m assuming you had on the BDUs you’re still wearing, and were armed.”

“I had a pistol belt, extra ammo and an AK-47,” Ahmad said.

“And you’re telling me that with all the hoopla going down at the chapel, nobody—not just your own Hezbollah team—”

“My former Hezbollah team,” Ahmad interrupted.

“Okay, former team. How is it that none of them, or any of the cops who’d already arrived at the scene, saw you sneak back out of the chapel in full terrorist battle gear?”

Father O’Melton cleared his throat. “I can answer that,” he said. “I was waiting for him a block away in my car.”

That statement made Ahmad’s story a lot more plausible. Not a lot. But some.

“So you think you can still help us with future Hezbollah strikes?” Bolan asked.

“I do,” the man in the green BDUs said. “That is, if the suspicions the Hezbollah men had about me died here, with them. If they didn’t pass them on before the gunfight.”

“I’m assuming you mean other Hezbollah cells back in Lebanon and Syria,” Bolan said. “But even if word never left the men who died here today, how are you going to explain to your people back home that you survived the attack on the chapel when all the other men died?”

“By telling the truth,” Ahmad said. “Or at least part of it.”

Bolan’s eyebrows furrowed even deeper. “I think you’d better explain a little more, Zaid.”

“I will contact another Hezbollah cell and tell them I pretended to convert to Christianity to further the jihad,” he said. “And that a priest helped me escape.” For the first time, a smile crossed the man’s face. “They will think it’s hilarious.”

“That sounds like it might just work,” Bolan said. “But I’ve got one more question for you.”

“Please ask it,” Ahmad prompted.

“How am I supposed to know which side you’re really on?”

A long and uneasy silence filled the room. It was clear that Ahmad knew as well as Bolan did that it was impossible to be certain of where his true loyalties lay. Finally, the little man cleared his throat and said, “All I can do is tell you that I believe Jesus, born to a virgin, was God on earth,” he said. “But he was also a man—a man who resisted all temptation from Satan and lived a sinless life. I believe he was crucified to pay for the sins of all who accept him, and that on the third day he arose from the dead.”

Bolan continued to stare at the man. He knew no more than he had before Ahmad’s last speech. The little Hezbollah man could have read the New Testament, just as Bolan and O’Melton had read the Koran, and learned exactly what he was supposed to say if he was pretending to be a Christian.

It could all be a ruse. And only time, and Ahmad’s actions in the operation they were about to undertake, would prove he was telling the truth or lying.

“Okay,” Bolan said. “Assuming you’re on the level, what can you tell me about upcoming Hezbollah activities?”

Ahmad seemed to shrink even smaller in his chair and his eyes flittered around the room once more, as if he was afraid someone besides Bolan and the priest might hear. When he spoke, it was in a whisper. “Ever since the death of Osama bin Laden, all Islamic jihad organizations have been aching to hit the U.S. with a strike that exceeds the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.”

“Has Hezbollah united with al Qaeda?” Bolan asked.

“No,” Ahmad said. “There are too many philosophical differences between the two groups.” He paused, then took in a deep breath. “The fact is, the two hate each other.”

“They just hate America more,” Father O’Melton interjected.

“‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Bolan quoted.

“Precisely,” Ahmad said. “But as far as I know, there are no joint operations currently being planned.”

“So just tell us what you do know,” Bolan said.

“I cannot tell you the details of any small future strikes such as the chapel,” he said. “We were never given details until the last minute. But I do have information that I believe will help America, and Christians and Jews throughout the world.” When he drew in a breath this time, the long shaggy tails of his mustache were sucked into his mouth along with the air. Carefully, he pulled them back out with a thumb and forefinger. “There are things being planned that are far bigger and more destructive than the attack on the chapel. Things that will make the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks pale in comparison.”

“Give them to me in a sentence or two,” Bolan said. “Then I want you to go down to the barbershop in the lobby. I want your hair cropped short and your beard gone.” He stood up and stretched his back. “If you’re going to be running with us, you need to look like us. And while all the Hezbollah men in your cell are now dead, there’s always a chance we’ll run into some other terrorist who recognizes you.”

Ahmad just nodded.

“So tell me what you know,” Bolan said.

“I know that Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction,” the little man on the desk chair said. “But he had time to ship them out of Iraq to sympathetic and allied countries before the United States invaded.”

For a moment, the Executioner was struck silent. He had expected Intel, but nothing this big. “Do you know what they were and where they went?” he asked.

“There were large stores of chemical and biological weapons, and one medium-range rocket with a nuclear warhead.”

“Tell me,” Bolan said, with a trace of suspicion in his voice. “How does a Hezbollah soldier such as yourself come by such ‘inside’ information?”

Ahmad shrugged. “For many years now, Hezbollah has transported both weaponry—rifles, ammunition and the like—as well as documents from Iraq to Syria and back. We did not always know what we were delivering. It is one of the duties we perform in return for the protection both countries provide for us.” He stopped speaking for a moment, then said. “Allow me to rephrase that last part. My English is not always so good, and I should have spoken in the past tense. These jobs are done in exchange for the protection both countries provide for my former comrades in Hezbollah. In any case, as you might guess with any peoples, rumors abound under such conditions. I cannot be certain, but I suspect Syria took possession of large quantities of biological or chemical agents. My reasoning for this is that only a few days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, we drove the largest and longest convoy of supply trucks we had ever taken from Iraq to Damascus.”