Radical Edge. Don Pendleton

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      He fired from retention, blasting away as the skinheads crashed into him, colliding with him in their panicked rush. He heard the grunt of the first man’s death as 9 mm hollowpoint rounds from the Beretta tore into the skinhead’s gut three at a time. The weight of the collision bore the Executioner back to the floor, under the dying man, his blood soaking them both.

      “Get him! Get him!” someone shouted.

      “Renny’s in the way!”

      “Screw Renny! Kill the bastard!”

      Bolan rolled the hapless and dying Renny off his chest to the side. From his back, he had only his legs to protect him. It was enough. As the pair continued to push toward him, dumbly rushing on top of him, he snapped a savage piston kick into the closer man’s shin. His heavy combat boot struck with enough force to produce an audible crack.

      The scream the skinhead made was inhuman. Bolan drew his Beretta through an arc that covered both the screaming man and the confused skinhead behind him. He pulled the trigger twice for each, taking them out of play.

      Covered in blood, sawdust and pieces of trash, Bolan surged to his feet. He was nearly through the doorway to the rear of the house when yet another skinhead terrorist collided with him, this one from behind.

      Instinct had Bolan swiveling before the skinhead could complete the attack. He fired the Beretta empty as the terrorist, an enormous bodybuilder type wearing only camouflage pants, smashed him against one of the plywood walls. The skinhead roared and pulled a double-edged dagger from a leather sheath on his belt.

      The Executioner was faster.

      He opened his hand and let the Beretta fall away. From his waistband he drew the black-coated Sting dagger. Locking his left hand in an iron grip on the skinhead’s knife arm, he succeeded in stopping the blade as it slashed toward him. The wounded bodybuilder howled again, his eyes bulging with shock and pain.

      Bolan’s knife stabbed into a brick wall. The barrier constricted and now the soldier’s own wrist was being crushed under his opponent’s left hand. The two men were frozen like that for an instant, the terrorist’s strength slowly ebbing from his wounded body, his breath coming in rasps and snarls as he tried to bull Bolan over with his superior size.

      The soldier had been careful to position his hand on the terrorist’s upper arm, where the dagger could not catch him. The skinhead had taken no such precaution. Bolan curled his dagger around the other man’s wrist, carving his way through and out of his viselike grip.

      The bodybuilder didn’t react as Bolan cut to the bone. The man’s tendons gave way, and as they did so, his grip on Bolan’s arm released. The Executioner shoved the knife deep into his flank, jamming the short, double-edged blade in and out.

      Finally, the skinhead’s strength gave out. His resistance dissolved and he crashed to the floor like a felled tree.

      Bolan left the knife lodged in his enemy, scooped up the Beretta and dropped to one knee, ready to slam the other into the dying skinhead’s chest, should he rally and try for another charge. The rattle that caught and churned in the big man’s throat belied any horror-movie last stands. Bolan waited nonetheless, listening carefully for some sign of further resistance.

      He counted off a full two minutes in his head. Most men thought themselves patient, but given a full minute of complete silence, they started getting anxious. Bolan was depending on that. If there were more enemies hidden with the house, he would flush them.

      He waited through another full minute. Something wasn’t quite right. Scanning the room, he stood, holding the bloody Beretta at the ready. Bracing the machine pistol with his off hand, he took up a position in the doorway. From this vantage he could see the last room of the house, from which the enemies now piled on the floor had come. It was a bunkhouse of sorts. Old wooden twin beds, never intended to be stacked, were sitting one atop another, nailed in place with cross-braces of plywood and metal wire. A makeshift table in the center of the room—just a large wooden utility spool—was piled with cards, trash and empty bottles.

      “Striker to G-Force,” Bolan said quietly. He shifted to his right.

      The shots that came were fired from underneath the farthest of the “bunks,” ripping through the mattress and tearing holes in the wall a good three feet away. Bolan simply flicked his Beretta’s selector to single shot, took his time aiming, and squeezed off a single round. The bullet punched a hole through the concealed skinhead’s mattress where his skull would be. The hole bloomed crimson and movement from underneath the bed stopped.

      Bolan let out a breath.

      “G-Force here,” the voice in his ear said.

      “G-Force” was Jack Grimaldi’s code name. The Stony Man pilot was even now somewhere overhead, far enough off that the whirring of his chopper’s rotor blades wouldn’t tip off any hostiles. Bolan wore a tiny earbud transceiver, designed in part by Stony Man electronics expert, Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, which transmitted the soldier’s words to Grimaldi and relayed critical communications back to him. The earbud could be connected to Bolan’s secure satellite phone if required, but at the moment, he and his pilot were just connected locally. Grimaldi was Bolan’s lifeline in the sky. Should he become enmeshed in a situation he truly could not handle, Grimaldi would descend, guns blazing. More than once, a well-timed air strike with his colleague at the stick had saved Mack Bolan’s life.

      “Stand by, Jack,” Bolan said quietly. He swapped 20-round magazines in the Beretta and ran his hand over its slide. The knife edge had cut a deep gouge into the well-worn bluing on the steel, but hadn’t damaged the machine pistol’s function. He eased the weapon back into its custom leather shoulder holster.

      “You forgot about me, cop,” said a voice behind him. “Put your hands up or I’ll just put one in your back.” The shotgun that racked behind him for emphasis had already been chambered. Bolan heard the heavy thump of the loaded 12-gauge shell hitting the debris on the blood-strewed floorboards.

      “I’m not a cop,” Bolan said, not moving. His hand was still on the Beretta in its holster under his arm. “I was hoping I could take you alive. You may have information I need.”

      “I don’t know jack,” said the skinhead whom Bolan had kicked unconscious. “They don’t trust me with nothin’. I do what I’m told and I like it that way.”

      “Figures,” Bolan said.

      “Ain’t no way I’m going quietly. I ain’t givin’ up nobody. You ain’t takin’ me alive,” the skinhead said.

      “I’ve learned to live with disappointment,” Bolan said. He pulled the trigger.

      The bullet fired through the open rear of the leather shoulder holster, the muzzle-flash burning the back of Bolan’s shoulder. Turning, he left the weapon where it was, not knowing if shooting from within the holster had prevented the action from cycling properly. He ripped the Desert Eagle from its Kydex scabbard and extended the weapon, snapping the safety off. The skinhead had taken a round through the heart and was dead.

      “You okay down there, Sarge?” Grimaldi said through Bolan’s earbud.

      “Affirmative. I had a brief complication.” He looked down at the dead terrorist. “It’s resolved now.”

      “Roger.”

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