Lethal Tribute. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ muzzle of his rifle. He had one hand grenade left, and he was nearly out of ammo for his rifle. Bolan ground the butt of his gun into the sand and pointed the muzzle skyward. The rifle boomed and the antipersonnel round shot skyward. Bolan took out his last hand grenade. Somewhere up in the dark the rifle grenade lost its upward impetus and nosed over and arced back down toward the plateau like a mortar round.

      The rim of the plateau above flashed orange as the grenade detonated. Bolan hurled his last grenade up and over, and Makhdoom followed suit. The two grenades cracked and sent shrapnel hissing across the open ground. Bolan slapped leather. He filled his right hand with his .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol and his left with a Beretta 93-R machine pistol.

      The two men charged up the side of the mountain and went over the top to the plateau. The plateau wasn’t really flat, but just an area of rolling rocky terrain rather than vertically falling hillside. Nothing moved other than a summer-dried shrub that one of the grenades had set on fire. Bolan and Makhdoom went back-to-back as they walked across the open ground.

      Rotor blades thumped in the distance.

      Something scraped on rock thirty yards to Bolan’s left.

      The Executioner tracked his pistols like a twin gun turret and flame shot from both muzzles as he extended them. Makhdoom showed his professionalism by covering the rear.

      “Anything?”

      Bolan scanned the darkness with his night-vision goggles.

      Nothing moved.

      “No.”

      Translator 2 spoke. “They say ETA one minute.”

      The hammering of rotors shook the night sky.

      Kurtzman came online. “Striker, your fireworks have been noticed. Satellite imaging shows Indian army gunships are taking off five miles east of your position.”

      “Affirmative, Bear, I—”

      God’s own flashlight speared the plateau with light as the Pakistani helicopter swept the broken ground with its searchlight. Bolan kept his eyes on the terrain around him. The light suddenly blasted him and the captain, and the sound of rotors slowed as the Mi-8 Hip helicopter descended to just a few feet above the ground.

      Makhdoom jerked his head. “Go!”

      Bolan didn’t argue. He turned to board the helicopter.

      Something flashed in his vision. It was for but an instant, but in the clouds of dust there was a flash of something. More a flash of nothing. There was a moment of totally incongruent space where the dust fluttered and coalesced against the rotor wind.

      As if it were striking something that wasn’t there.

      Bolan fired both pistols as rapidly as he could squeeze the triggers. The Pakistani door gunner leaning out of the helicopter couldn’t see what Bolan was shooting at but his PKT light machine gun ripped into life and green tracers streamed into the seemingly empty space.

      Bolan stopped firing and strained to see through the whirling dust storm.

      “What was it?” Makhdoom slapped a hand on Bolan’s shoulder and roared in his ear over the rotor noise. “What did you see?”

      “I don’t know.” Bolan kept his guns leveled. “Something. Nothing.”

      “I must apologize, given the debt I owe you.” The uncomfortably warm muzzle of Makhdoom’s pistol pressed behind Bolan’s ear. “But you are under arrest.”

      Bolan had expected nothing less. He opened his hands and let his pistols fall forward from his grip, hooked only by a single finger through the trigger guards. “Captain, get us the hell off this hilltop and I’ll be the one in your debt.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Islamabad, Pakistan

      Bolan had been in worse cells. This one actually had a sunroof. Bolan peered up through the three iron bars in the ceiling. The late-morning sun threw shadows against the western wall of the cell, and he idly wondered what happened to the occupants when it rained. He ate the last bite of mystery meat he had been served and was wiping the remaining couscous from his bowl when someone hammered on the battered steel door of the cell.

      “Prisoner! Step away from the door!”

      Bolan was already sitting in a half-lotus position on the opposite side of the cell, but he decided cooperation was his best gambit for the moment. “I am away from the door.”

      A slot in the steel door shot back and a glowering, bearded face noted his location. “Do not move!”

      “I won’t.”

      Keys turned in the massive lock and the door swung open. A hulking guard with a pistol on his hip filled the entryway. He carried a three-foot length of roughly turned wood wrapped in leather. Bolan knew that such truncheons were most often used in the Middle East for beating the bottoms of the feet of prisoners. A man with collapsed arches was unlikely to make trouble, much less attempt any escape. The guards had taken his boots upon incarceration. Bolan eyed the club in the man’s hands.

      The guard should have brought backup.

      The guard moved aside as Captain Makhdoom entered the cell. Bolan nodded. “Captain.”

      The Pakistani frowned. “You have put me in a very difficult position.”

      “I saved your life,” Bolan countered.

      “Yes.” The captain nodded solemnly. “Which puts me in a very difficult position.”

      “I see.” Bolan smiled in a friendly fashion. “How may I be of further assistance to you?”

      “Um, yes.” The special forces captain shifted uncomfortably. “The United States government denies any knowledge of your existence, much less any legitimate reason for you to be lurking, illegally, and armed, within the borders of Pakistan.”

      Bolan shrugged. It was a very old story.

      Makhdoom shrugged in return. “And yet, my superiors have received—” the captain raised a troubled eyebrow “—intimations, from very, shall we say, oblique sources, that any consideration shown you will be appreciated.”

      Bolan kept the smile off his face. “I’m prepared to assist you in any reasonable fashion within my means.”

      The guard stared back and forth between Bolan and Makhdoom. His bludgeon creaked in his fists. He clearly yearned to do away with the pleasantries and beat Bolan into paste.

      “Captain, may we speak privately for a moment?”

      Makhdoom waved the guard away. “Corporal, you may wait for me down the hall.”

      The guard’s face twisted in indignation as he gnashed his teeth and stormed from the cell.

      Makhdoom’s voice went grim. “I cannot vouchsafe your safety in this place. There are those who wish to see you dealt with severely.”

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