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.

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