Agent Of Peril. Don Pendleton

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      4

      Bolan recuperated from his concussion on the flight from Afghanistan to Lebanon. What with a two-hour helicopter ride, and arranging an airplane from Kandahar to Beirut burning another three hours, the Executioner had enough time to feel the throbbing in his head come back down to a manageable level. With more hours of sleep on the plane, and years of athletic endeavor tuning his body’s recuperative powers, he felt almost healthy. None of this counted the couple hours where he was X-rayed and given a tetanus booster at a field hospital. He still ached from head to toe, and his multiple stitches tugged and pinched if he moved too quickly.

      Bolan supplemented the stitches on the gunshot wounds on his arm and legs with duct tape to pin everything in place. It was a cheap way to make sure the skin wouldn’t flex and pop the stitching open, and it reinforced the closing power of the nylon loops. He couldn’t do anything about the sewjob at the back of his scalp, however. He was just glad that there was no skull fracture. The original brain swelling from the concussion was also not evident on the X rays.

      Good news all around, he thought sardonically.

      But now J. R. Rust was among the walking wounded, though he seemed to be getting better.

      “Can you hear me, J.R.?” Bolan asked as he and Kalid loaded him into the back seat of a Toyota 4Runner in an awkward balance of speed and gentleness, neither of which was completely accomplished. The Executioner still kept his Uzi by his leg, just in case, looking up and down the alley.

      “How’d you know we’d be in trouble?” Kalid asked.

      “I took a look at how dead this street got when the two goons at either end of the road cleared it out.”

      “What goons?” Kalid asked.

      “The ones who threw the grenades and caught some 9 mm bullets,” Bolan explained.

      “Ah. That’s what kept you.”

      “I only cleared this side of the alley. We’re going to have to run a gauntlet,” Bolan told him.

      “I’ll drive, you shoot,” Kalid said.

      Bolan nodded, the desire to chuckle driven away by the dull pain in his head. He admired Alex Kalid’s acceptance of life with the Executioner at his elbow. They’d only worked together for one day some months ago, but the young agent proved he had the blood of a soldier running in his veins.

      Bolan slipped into the shotgun seat next to Kalid. “Drive.”

      Kalid gunned the engine and swung the 4Runner onto the street. Almost instantly, a shout went out, and gunfire popped downrange. Rust gave a loud grunt and tucked himself tight into a ball in the back seat as something hammered the side of the 4Runner. Bolan spared a glance to see if Rust was all right, and confirming his party was still unharmed, whipped up the Uzi and tapped out a short burst at the gunner sending fire at the SUV as it whirled.

      The gunner wasn’t hit. Bolan knew he didn’t make the connection on instinct, but the short burst did drive the terrorist to ground, sending him out of their path. Dust kicked up on the dry street as Bolan kept watch for more gunners, but the terrorists were clearing out. The soldier knew that sticking around when the Beirut police were in the area was idiotic for both sides.

      In the time since the Executioner’s last visit, the country had cobbled together again. The discord and chaos in the streets was under control, a nation unified and ready to tolerate no dissent. Sure, terrorist organizations hid among the country’s nooks and crannies, but Lebanon knew that if they didn’t control violence in its territory, Israel once more would surge across the border to do some cleaning.

      And Bolan knew that cleaning didn’t involve feather dusters and furniture wax.

      “Keep moving. We’ll drive around for a while,” Bolan told Kalid.

      “No destination, Colonel?” the ex-blacksuit asked, using Bolan’s Brandon Stone identity.

      “Yeah, but I want to check for tails first,” the Executioner explained. “Looks like Hezbollah knew about J.R.’s cover identity.”

      “And they only acted when there was a big signal marker that someone was coming to see him,” Kalid replied.

      “Not necessarily,” СКАЧАТЬ