Omega Cult. Don Pendleton

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      He left the flat-screen playing some demented game show to an empty house, crossing the room in four long strides to reach a door that granted access to a hallway running north and south. As he emerged into the corridor, a man’s voice shouted, “There!” and Bolan spun to find two bodybuilder types with shaved heads, wearing outfits that consisted of plaid shirts, both black-and-white, untucked above black slacks, and running shoes. Both carried semiauto pistols with a measure of authority, their muzzles aimed at Bolan.

      “Stop right there and drop your weapon!” one of Lee’s defenders ordered.

      Bolan did the next best thing: he stopped dead in his tracks and swung the M-4 in an ark to meet them, triggering two 3-round bursts fired from the hip.

      The lookouts seemed to stumble then collided with each other like two actors in a slapstick sketch, rebounding from that contact to strike opposite walls before they slid to the floor, both smearing their respective walls with blood. The warrior didn’t stop to see if they were dead, but rather brushed past them, trusting in his aim and the impact of 5.56 mm tumblers traveling at 3,070 feet per second, striking with 1,325 foot-pounds of destructive energy.

      From somewhere overhead—a set of hidden speakers, obviously—Bolan heard a male voice bellow, “Intruders! Armed intruders on the premises! If you cannot evacuate, defend yourselves!”

      Terrific. Now, for all Bolan knew, the whole house was against him. Hoping a majority of tenants had already fled the burning structure, he pushed on to reach the stairs that served the mansion’s upper floors. There, he found a quartet of excited stragglers descending, but none was armed and no one made a move to oppose him, giving him a wide berth on the staircase as they passed.

      Bolan slowed to watch them go, thinking one or more might try to jump him from behind, but they were solely focused on escaping to the street. The closer Bolan got to the top floor, the stronger the smell of smoke and charring wood from overhead.

      Two more guards waited for him on the third-floor landing. Both had pistols, like their late comrades, but these two opened fire as soon as they saw Bolan. He dropped prone onto the stairs, aiming uphill, and stroked the M-4’s trigger twice to bring them tumbling down.

      How many more?

      It didn’t matter. Lee was somewhere up ahead, atop the house, and waiting for the Executioner.

      * * *

      LEE JAY-HYUN WAS TERRIFIED, sitting behind his desk, worried he might soil himself. As it turned out, waiting to face a gunman—maybe several—was altogether different from sitting in a padded chair, planning mass murder of however many strangers in a city several hundred miles away. This had immediacy to it, and the only death that he could think about was his.

      Lee’s hand was sweating, fingers cramping, so he set the H&K pistol on his padded desktop blotter, flexed his fingers painfully and wiped his palm along the right thigh of his trousers. That done, and embarrassed by his gun hand’s trembling, he snatched up the weapon once again, thumbed back its hammer—pointless, since the pistol had a double-action trigger, but it made him feel better prepared—and braced its butt against the blotter, muzzle pointed at his office door.

      From practice, Lee well knew the sidearm’s capabilities. Firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, it could empty its magazine in something like two seconds, if he did not fumble in his panic and release it. Aiming would be problematic. From the automatic fire he heard downstairs, Lee surmised there would be no time to use the three-dot tactical sight he had scored so well with on the firing range, standing with earmuffs on in air-conditioning and wholly unopposed by any other human being.

      No. This would be kill or die. And, if his enemy was a professional of any quality, the outcome must be foreordained.

      If Lee Jay-hyun had been a true religious man, instead of just a fraud using the Congregation as his cover for the moment, prayer might be an option. But to whom? And seeking what? Should he employ the great American vernacular Dear Lord, please do not let me get my ass shot off?

      Preposterous. A more devout man might have called it blasphemous.

      Hunkered behind his desk as if inside a foxhole, Lee strained his ears for any sound issued from the staircase or the third-floor landing. It was obvious that his security had failed him, the entire detachment likely slain by now. Their deaths presumptive meant no more to Lee Jay-hyun than any insect he might crush while strolling down a sunlit sidewalk. They were pawns who’d served their purpose in a losing game.

      Now it was down to him, the king—or bishop, if he gave the ranking role to Shin Bon-jae in Seoul—and he was cornered, out of moves. He could not zoom across the checkered playing field and strike from unexpected angles at his unknown enemy.

      Once again, Lee felt the urge to call and caution Park Hae-sung. And once again, he quashed it. If he managed to survive somehow, the record of that call could finish him: prison for life without parole, perhaps death row, neither alternative appealing to him. On the other hand, if he did not emerge still breathing from this confrontation, why should he help Park escape?

      With Master Shin, the damned son of a bitch from Pyongyang had convinced Lee to participate in the deranged Los Angeles attacks, promising the reunion of his sundered homeland as the ultimate reward.

      Madness. Where had it gotten him so far?

      Right here, clutching a pistol, waiting for the end, while all his wealth and future tax-exempt income circled the sucking drain.

      Footsteps sounded outside, muffled by carpet but as clear as cadenced drumbeats to Lee’s tingling ears. He heard a lone, familiar floorboard creak, the footsteps pausing as his unknown adversary hesitated just outside his office door.

      Lee almost started firing but knew he would be lucky if he grazed the enemy, much less disposed of him. There was a ringing in his ears, and it required a moment for the second soul of the Omega Congregation to decide that he was hearing distant sirens—fire trucks, possibly police—rushing toward Delmar Street in an attempt to save him.

      Would they be in time?

      His office door burst open, framed a figure clad in black, and Lee Jay-hyun began to fire his pistol like a man insane, no thought of aiming accurately, simply jerking at the trigger to unleash a hail of hollow-point rounds.

      * * *

      BOLAN SAW THE muzzle-flash before he heard the shot and dived headlong across the office threshold, landing on his stomach, his M-4 pointed toward a heavy desk. The gunman crouched behind it like a meerkat peeking from its burrow, somehow armed and dangerous.

      How heavy was the desk? He knew of only one way to tell.

      Bolan unleashed a stream of 5.56 mm NATO rounds, stitching a line of holes across the shiny, dark wood facing him At least a couple of the slugs hit home, punching the shooter backward, against the nearest wall. The gunman lost his pistol then. It tumbled into his bloody lap and down between his knees, while he sat gaping at the man whose shots had gutted him.

      The man’s lips moved, the voice emerging from them speaking flawless English.

      “Who are you?”

      “Names aren’t important,” Bolan said, rising. “The point is I know you and Park Hae-sung. Hit like you are, you’ve got a chance to live. Tell me about your plans with him and I’ll take off. You take your chances with the law.”

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