Armed Response

“Where is Striker now?”

“Under the truck,” Price replied.

“Oh, God in heaven! Get out of there, Striker, get out now!”

Yemen

HE TWITCHED. HE GROANED.

Pain washed over him in waves. Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. A tiny voice told him that he was injured, that a hand grenade had exploded, that he was dead unless he moved.

Hakim Haddad groaned again and attempted to open his eyes. He was blind! He couldn’t see! He panicked; his hand shot up to his face. His fingers found his left open eye by accident, causing more pain as he poked it too hard. Wincing, he felt for his right eye. There was nothing there. A hollow space. Gone.

Haddad screamed in terror and frustration. Before he realized it, he had rolled onto his front. His mouth filled with sand and dirt. He stopped screaming and started to gag. Choking, fighting the horror, Haddad forced himself to calm down, take deep ragged breaths.

The infidels had taken his eye!

Trying to remember what had happened took an age. The agony was everywhere. He blinked, finally seeing some light through his left eye. He could see his blackened fingers covered in sand. Sanity was returning. There had been a bag, a soldier’s bag. They had emptied it, turning it upside down. Military equipment had spilled out. Weapons. There had been a clatter, which he had heard above the excited chattering of his men. He watched the grenade roll, thinking at first it had fallen from the bag. But he saw that it had no pin and realized that it had been thrown. He pushed the man closest to him toward the grenade, turning…

Haddad praised Allah for placing an unworthy soul next to him, an inconsequential soldier who should have been glad to sacrifice himself to save his leader. The man had taken the full brunt of the explosion, his body shredding in slow motion, the velocity of the steel ball bearings in the grenade vastly decreasing as they passed through his body and then struck Haddad. He knew nothing after that.

He understood that Allah had saved him, had guided his actions. That soldier would now be feasting in paradise. Hakim muttered a quick prayer. It wasn’t his place to understand what Allah wanted, he knew. But he could guess. Vengeance. Destruction of the attacking infidels.

He closed his eyes—his eye—breathing, just breathing. He attempted to rise. The pain flooded back and Haddad fell onto his face. He pushed himself up onto his knees, rocking back and forth, waves of nausea washing over him. Eye closed, he listened. There was shooting, a lot of it, close by. The infidels were still here. His men were brave, resisting. He would join them. Lead them. Set an example.

Qutaiba.

The name popped into his mind. That man was their true leader. And an infidel with his alcohol-drinking ways. He meant to kill Qutaiba. He had been waiting for the right moment—now it had arrived. Kill the man and blame it on the ambushers. The great Mullahs would understand what had happened and expect him to lead. Except he didn’t know the details of the attack. Only Qutaiba did. But he had a book, a little blue book. He had to find it before the enemy did.

Hakim opened his eye. He could now focus. He turned his head slowly, painfully to the left to see the bodies of his men lying on the ground, ripped apart by the grenade. He got to his feet with difficulty. He saw stars, staggered forward and found a warm mud-brick wall to lean against. He gasped. More nausea. He needed a weapon, something to kill Qutaiba with. He didn’t want to bend to pick up a fallen weapon. If he did, he might stumble and fall, never to regain his feet. His right hand moved down his robes, feeling, patting. Somewhere…yes, there. He withdrew an old Russian pistol his father had taken off the body of a Soviet soldier. He stood upright, breathed deeply, then turned and reeled toward Qutaiba’s building.

He tripped several times but didn’t fall, keeping his balance, windmilling his arms. He stopped outside the hut, at first not comprehending what he was seeing. Qutaiba lay there, red holes in his chest. The attackers had already been here. Good. The Mullahs could not blame him for this. Where was the book, the little blue book? Haddad lurched into the room, standing on Qutaiba’s bullet-riddled chest. Blood oozed out, covering his boots. Hakim didn’t notice. The book had been on the table, next to the devil’s drink. It was gone. Rage filled him. He had to find the book! It was important. He didn’t know exactly what Qutaiba had written in there, but it had to have been important. He had to get it back.

Outside he teetered to the back of the buildings, inadvertently following Bolan’s path. There lay two more soldiers, one man’s chest soaked in crimson. The other Hakim recognized but was unable to recall the man’s name. He seemed to be alive, but one leg was covered with blood. They had been a patrol that he had sent out. Was he the only man alive, the only man able to challenge the intruders? There was shooting somewhere, as if to remind him that there were other survivors, waiting for his leadership. He looked up and saw a shadow, a man in black, duck behind the end building. Haddad knew that this was the man that he was destined to kill, the reason why Allah had spared him. He moved forward, one foot in front of the other, the pistol heavy in his right hand, using his left for support against the walls of the buildings.

He finally reached the end of the row. He swung around the corner, pistol raised, fully expecting to find his target cowering and begging for mercy. Nothing. Only empty space. There was more shooting close by, panicked yelling. An explosion. He fell backward two steps. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the black-clad commando dart up between the garage and middle building, run back down the way Haddad had just come, then duck into another alleyway. The devil was fast. Haddad staggered after his enemy, feeling more and more light-headed. Pain seared where his right eye had been.

For a second, sanity returned. He was pursuing a single man. A single man had done all this? Had taken down his handpicked soldiers, men who he had trained himself? Impossible. The enemy could not be that good!

Haddad reached the alley between two buildings. There was the enemy commando, kneeling, waiting to fire. Haddad grinned. He would get close, raise his pistol, witness the fear in the demon’s eyes, then pull the trigger, sending the evil into oblivion. He crept, swaying, down the alley. Up ahead he saw one of his men run straight into the enemy’s gun sights. The infidel showed no mercy, gunning the brave soldier down. The man’s weapon locked on empty. Haddad had him; now would be his chance. He raised his pistol, trying to bring the shaking in his arm under control. The commando in black stood, turned to face him. He dropped the rifle and reached for a sidearm. Haddad pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

There was a strong mechanical resistance. He tried again. Then it dawned on him that he had neglected to release the safety. He had failed. Completely.

As Haddad’s enemy raised his own pistol, the terrorist hoped that Allah would still welcome him with open arms.

* * *

MACK BOLAN SQUEEZED the trigger of the Beretta, its muffled shot hidden behind the firing of another terrorist’s AK-47. The target jerked, all life exiting in an instant. His friend didn’t notice, as he was too busy shooting at shadows. Bolan introduced him to real shadows with his second silenced shot. The village went quiet, the silence broken only by the ticking of the cooling truck engine. Bolan wormed his way backward, out from under the truck, regained his feet and his AK-47.

Frenzied calling erupted, coming from the barracks. Another voice joined in. Bolan was certain that there was still another man in the area, the one he had seen jump out of the truck. But which two had he just shot? Had the two in the barracks been joined by a third or was the third man hiding somewhere else? Bolan decided to check out the garage quickly before lobbing a grenade into the barracks. The men in the barracks opened up, their Kalashnikovs spraying bullets in full-auto mode. Several slammed into the truck, glass shattering. Bolan ducked, not believing that they knew his position. Again they were just firing for effect. He crouch-walked into the garage, peering under the vehicles. Nothing, only the body of the mechanic. Bolan nodded, satisfied. Then he worked his way down to the front of the truck, noting that he had enough space to drive the UAZ out of the garage.

Two terrorists poked their rifle barrels out of an open window, looking for something to shoot. Hidden behind the front wheel, Bolan removed his final grenade from his combat webbing. He pulled the pin, waited all of a second, then spun out from hiding, lobbing the grenade in a perfect arc through the open window. He ducked back behind the wheel, hearing the screams of the two terrorists, feeling the loud crump as the bomb detonated. The screaming stopped. Quiet returned.

Bolan poked his head around the truck, eyeing the village. Had he taken them all out? A barrage of bullets gave him his answer, the rounds hammering into the truck just above him, the headlight and light cluster shattering, the front tire detonating from the sudden release of air pressure. The soldier moved, fast. He rocketed away from the truck, down the alley between the garage and the fourth building, autofire tearing chunks out of the walls as he passed. Sprinting, he tore around the corner, then right, up the next alley. He slowed as he approached the end, dropping to his knees, his AK-47 up and searching.

The remaining terrorist was somewhere on the other side of the street. Where? The man stepped out of a building opposite, eyes fixed on Bolan’s last-known position by the truck, then took off down the street, screaming wildly. Bolan opened fire, stitching the man with a burst of fire. The terrorist staggered a few more steps and fell face forward. Bolan’s rifle locked on empty.

He was regaining his feet when he heard shuffling behind him. Dropping his empty AK-47, the Executioner spun, right hand reaching for his Desert Eagle. He was too late. The apparition behind him, covered in blood, an eye missing from its socket, had already raised a Makarov pistol. The barrel was wavering, the guy unable to hold it straight. Bolan briefly recognized him as the big thug who had emptied the gear bag onto the street. Bolan’s Desert Eagle cleared its holster. He brought the weapon into target acquisition and fired, the .50-caliber round all but decapitating the half-blind man. The corpse fell backward, the pistol falling from nerveless fingers.

That had been close. Bolan reloaded the Desert Eagle and waited, crouching, ready to fire. There was no more movement. All resistance had been neutralized. After several moments he rose to his feet and walked slowly into the street. Death was everywhere. The barracks were on fire; soon it would consume the interior of the building. Bolan moved cautiously toward the garage.

How many men had he killed in the last five minutes? He had no idea, and didn’t bother with a count. Killing was something he would never get used to. His only respite from remorse was knowing that for every enemy he killed at least one innocent life had been saved somewhere. He reached the building without incident. Climbing into the UAZ, he adjusted the seat to fit his six-foot-three frame and inserted the ignition key. The engine turned over once, twice, then fired. Bolan shifted into First and slowly accelerated out of the garage and around the truck. He stopped the vehicle by the ruins of his gear bag and climbed out, leaving the engine running, gearshift in Neutral. Bolan stepped around the corpses of the fallen terrorists and began to retrieve the damaged equipment, not wanting to leave it behind for somebody else to find and then accuse the United States of interference. As he heaved the contents into the back of the jeep, the reserve satellite phone began to buzz. Bolan grabbed it, opening the connection.

“Striker…”

“Get out! Get out now! Run!” Kurtzman yelled.

Bolan dropped the phone to the ground, jumped into the vehicle and threw it into gear. He stamped the accelerator, the driver’s door open, flapping as the vehicle shot away from the village. Behind him, in his rearview mirror, the truck at the end of the village turned into a fireball as the Hellfire missile struck, rendering it only twisted metal. The garage, the burning barracks and several neighboring buildings turned to rubble in a blinding flash. The shock wave shook the UAZ. Bolan fought hard to keep it under control.

The soldier stopped to observe the village when he was sufficiently far away. The buildings that hadn’t collapsed were burning fiercely. Thick smoke rose into the sky from the garage and truck wreckage. He knew that the Yemeni army would be on its way, ready to clean up and take credit for his actions.

It was time to make his way to the rendezvous point, to meet his contact and to get out of Yemen before anybody realized that he was there.

CHAPTER SIX

It was destined to be another scorching day in Yemen. The sun was already high, the sky bright blue, not a cloud in sight. Nelson Thompson pushed his shades back up his sweaty nose and took a sip of warm water from the plastic bottle. The contact was late. Thompson would give him a few more minutes before relocating to another position a couple of miles away and waiting there for a short while. If the contact still didn’t show up, then it was time to report in and retreat back to Aden.

Thompson tried to ignore the large column of thick smoke behind him to the east, searching instead to the west where another column of black smoke, this one much thinner, was attracting the attention of several Yemeni army helicopters.

Thompson shifted uncomfortably. He had been born in Phoenix, Arizona, so the desert heat didn’t really bother him. He grimaced as the familiar ache shot through his right leg, a leg he no longer had. He shifted his weight to his left, cursing the phantom pains in his artificial limb.

His official profession was that of freelance journalist, keeping tabs on the political situation in Yemen for several big newspapers back home. Unofficially he was to keep an eye out for terrorist activity and feed the information back to a contact in the Justice Department.

Several years ago he had been a Ranger and loved every minute of it. The training, the assignments, the various wars in foreign countries—it all fulfilled him in a way that life back home in Arizona could not. Then it all changed. He had been at Fort Benning when orders had come in specifically for him. A new assignment, a special job, nobody had known what it was or where he was being sent. The only thing he’d discovered was that an unknown somebody had recommended him.

A week later he’d been standing in a field in the Blue Ridge Mountains, dressed in civilian clothes and armed with a submachine gun and instructed by his new CO, one Buck Greene, to guard a farmhouse with his life. He had been rotated into a team of professional guards known only as blacksuits. Welcome to Stony Man Farm.

He threw himself into his six-month assignment, knowing that the oath he’d sworn would not allow him to discuss the six months with his fellow Rangers back at Benning.

Three months into his rotation he and a small team of blacksuits had accompanied a five-man team on a mission to Central America. Thompson had stepped on a Claymore and lost most of his right leg. That had ended his stint with both the blacksuits and the Rangers.

While in the hospital, a government type had visited him and told him that the blacksuits looked after their own and offered to cover all expenses for any retraining Thompson needed.

Thompson had recovered, accepted the offer and had become a journalist. With a helping hand from his Justice Department contact, he was employed by a national newspaper. Due to his combat experience, he was often sent to war zones. In exchange for the assistance, Thompson had agreed to keep an eye out for anything that might be of interest, particularly terrorist activities in whatever country he was visiting. Never once had he queried why his contact was from Justice and not State.

The previous day he had been leaving Aden International Airport after covering a story about international aid when he had spotted a known terrorist. After sending a text message over his phone using a special number, he’d followed the man at a discreet distance. Once in the desert, when he could no longer follow his quarry, he’d texted that, as well. A reply had come through a few minutes later. The target was being tracked. Meet a man at specific coordinates in the morning and assist him with exfiltration. Nothing more.

Thompson took another sip of water. Still waiting. The game of spies was deadly dull. Apart from the helicopters, apart from the distant long-gone sounds of a car, there had been nothing. No sign of life anywhere. He turned his attention to the larger column of smoke coming from Aden.

As he did so, he felt the cold muzzle of a pistol being pressed behind his left ear. Thompson knew in that dreadful moment that either his skills had deteriorated so much that he deserved to be shot or the guy holding the pistol was the stealthiest bastard he would ever come across. He tensed, waiting for the bullet.

“Six Alpha Green.” It was the sound of a chilling graveyard whisper.

“Alpha Deep Six” was his response. The gun was lowered and Thompson breathed out. He raised his hands cautiously into the air. “May I turn around now?”

“Yeah. But do it slowly and put your hands down.”

Thompson did as instructed and turned to face an apparition from hell. The man was covered in dried blood, sand and combat cosmetics—his face, his hands, as well as the all-too-familiar blacksuit. The man stared back, his ice-blue eyes penetrating deep, inadvertently causing Thompson to flinch. It took the African-American several seconds to find his voice, during which the man holstered his Beretta.

“Shit! You sure know how to make a guy turn white. I must be slipping to have allowed you to sneak up on me like that.” Thompson caught himself babbling and reddened, feeling unprofessional. He tried again. “Hey, um, I recognize you. You used to train with us sometimes. Buck called you Striker. Damn, you were good.”

“You’re making me blush. Where’s your car?”

“Just down the slope, on the other side of the road. I brought some water so you can wash, and a change of clothes. When you’re finished, we can head out to the safehouse. But I have no idea how to get you out of the country quickly. And what should I call you?”

“Cooper. What’s the problem with the evac?”

“See for yourself.” Thompson pointed in the direction of Aden, to the thick column of black smoke, which was now spreading across the sky.

* * *

MACK BOLAN HAD already seen the pillar of smoke. He turned to Thompson for an explanation.

“It’s the airport. A passenger flight from Turkey crashed about an hour ago. From what I heard on the radio, it appears that there was a Mayday, a fire on board, and an emergency landing was attempted. Other than that…” He shrugged. “The city will be bogged down in traffic. The airport is more or less right in the middle of Aden. It will be closed for a quite a while. I’m missing one hell of a story.”

Bolan gazed at him, wondering if Thompson was missing the point of the tragedy. People had died. People who had lives, dreams. It was more than just “a story.”

“If it’s a story you want, then I’ll give you one,” he said coldly, “but for now you have an unexpected guest who needs an alternative method of extraction. Return to your car. I’ll join you in a few minutes with my vehicle. I need to transfer a few things over.”

Thompson nodded and hobbled away, his artificial foot making scuff prints in the sand. Bolan watched him for a few moments before turning his attention to the distant, burning village on the far horizon. Shielding his eyes, he could just make out the two helicopters buzzing around, searching for survivors. The army troops would find the tracks of his UAZ once they got over the initial shock of finding so many bullet-riddled bodies. Time was of the essence.

He started to jog toward the dunes where the UAZ was hidden. The sun was searing.

It took him several minutes to reach the vehicle, start it and drive to where Thompson was waiting, the trunk of his white Peugeot car open. Bolan hopped out, opened the rear and prepared to transfer his equipment.

Thompson spoke up. “You do know that we have to pass through several checkpoints before we can enter the city, don’t you?”

Bolan closed his eyes, disappointed with himself. Of course he knew that. Lack of sleep had made him lax. He had been on the go for almost thirty-six hours. The catnap in the Hercules had done nothing to ease his weariness. He nodded. “We’ll have to bury the equipment and burn the vehicle. My fingerprints are all over it. Just in case.” He sighed, knowing that he had wasted precious time. He pulled an entrenching tool out of the UAZ and proceeded to dig a shallow hole at the side of the road. He chucked the ruined gear bag in along with the remains of his sniper rifle, several grenades and various other items for which he no longer had a use. He noticed that the sat phone was missing. He thought it had fallen into the back of the UAZ when Kurtzman had yelled at him, but now realized that it had been left behind in the village. Another mistake.

Kurtzman would be able to remotely erase any electronic footprints, but it was still careless to have left it behind. Too much was going wrong with this mission. He refilled the hole and scattered the remaining sand. “I’ll drive your vehicle over the hill and burn it,” Thompson said. “You really need to get yourself cleaned up. There’s a small compartment under the passenger seat. You can stash the hardware there. It’s also where your papers are hidden. They were rushed over to me during the night. You’re now a freelance journalist like me. Water is in the trunk. Once the UAZ is burning, we’ll have to move. Another smoke column will attract the choppers.”

Bolan opened the hidden compartment as Thompson drove away. Inside he found a passport along with forged Yemeni travel documents. The name inside the passport was Mike Blanski. He smiled. That was one name he thought had been put to rest long ago. The passport looked a little tatty, and Bolan wondered where it had come from, where it had been stashed. A picture of his younger self stared back. How many miles had he traveled since he’d last held this?

He removed and reloaded his weapons before placing them in the compartment. The blue notebook of Qutaiba’s joined the two guns. If anybody did a thorough search, then they would be quickly discovered. In the trunk he found a bowl to be used as a basin and a gallon of water in a large plastic bottle. A bar of soap had also been provided. A white shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of casual training shoes, all cheap imitations of famous American makes, lay neatly inside.

Bolan stripped off his ripped bloodstained blacksuit and proceeded to wash himself all over. Within minutes he felt human again. He dressed, the clothes a perfect fit, then buried the blacksuit and his combat boots in the sand. Somewhere over the dune there was a muffled whump, the familiar sound of a gasoline explosion. A few moments later he saw Thompson working his way down to the car. Bolan poured the bowl of soapy water into the sand, slammed the trunk shut and waited.

Thompson grinned when he got close to Bolan.

“Wow, you sure look pretty enough to ask to the prom.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Let’s go before they see that.” A column of smoke was working its way into the air.

“Yeah.” Thompson got into the vehicle and turned the engine over. The old car belched black exhaust fumes, coughed, then caught. Thompson grinned again at Bolan, who was climbing into the passenger seat. “Well, she ain’t pretty, that’s for sure, but I keep the engine fine-tuned, and she won’t attract any undue attention. There are hundreds of them in Aden.” He put the automatic transmission into Drive and accelerated away.