Lethal Tribute. Don Pendleton
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they know you. They know we’re after them.” Bolan held up the strange, dully gleaming piece of fabric. “They’ll want this back. They’re coming. Sooner rather later.”
“Muhjid! Kaukab!”
The two young men came skidding into the room at their father’s call. Makhdoom pulled a large wad of notes from his wallet. “Take this money. Take the shotgun. Take the car. Take your mother out of the city.”
The two boys’ eyes widened.
“Do not dally! Evil men are coming. Take care of your mother. Go!”
Muhjid ran to the mantel and took a double-barreled shotgun off the rack and then a box of shells from the chest beneath it. Kaukab ran to find his mother.
Makhdoom rose. “My friend, I want you on the opposite roof. I will give you binoculars and a rifle. When they come, I will be inside and act as bait. When—”
Zarah ran into the room. “There is a car out on the street.”
“What kind of car?”
“A black one.” She glanced fearfully from Makhdoom to his guest. “It is full of men.”
Makhdoom picked up the phone. He clicked the old-fashioned receiver twice and grimaced. Most of Pakistan still used phone lines rather than cell phones. The phone line to the house had been cut. He turned to his boys. “My sons. Take your mother upstairs. Kill anyone either than myself or the American should they attempt to come up.”
Muhjid and Kaukab went wide-eyed, but they hesitated only for a second. They took the shotgun and their mother and ran upstairs.
Bolan polished off his tea and rose. “We need guns.”
General Hussain’s men had demanded they surrender their submachine guns and had not seen fit to give them back.
“Follow me.” Makhdoom strode down the hall and entered his study. Maps of the world covered the walls that weren’t dominated by bookcases. In one corner was a small desk with a computer.
Opposite the desk was a gun cabinet.
He opened the twin glass panels and pulled out a pair of rifles. They were Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles of WWII vintage. Sporting stocks had replaced the full wood furniture stressed for bayonet fighting. The barrels had been shortened to twenty-two inches and telescopic sights had been fitted. The old battle rifles had been customized for hunting, but both would still hold ten rounds of the powerful British .303 military ammunition.
Makhdoom checked the loads in both rifles and then tossed one of the weapons to Bolan. He removed a box of shells and dumped half of the cartridges into Bolan’s hand, then thrust the rest in his pocket.
They had twenty shots each.
“They’re not coming invisibly this time.”
“No, not during the initial assault.” Bolan flipped on the safety of his weapon. “But they may come sneaking up during it.”
Something struck the front door a tremendous blow. The house shook and wood creaked and splintered. Bolan flicked the safety off of his weapon. “Here they come.”
A heavy piece of pipe rammed the door off of its hinges.
“Here they go,” the captain snarled. They walked to the end of the hall and pointed their rifles across the living room into the foyer. The iron battering ram crushed tile as it was dropped onto the floor and men in long coats waving short automatic weapons spilled into the captain’s home.
The two hunting rifles thundered as one. The first man in shuddered and sagged as Makhdoom’s .303 rifle bullet smashed in his chest. The second man’s head erupted like a melon as it failed to absorb the 2200 footpounds of muzzle energy Bolan delivered into it with the precision of a trained sniper. He flicked the bolt of his rifle and chambered a fresh round. The men in the doorway were screaming in a language Bolan didn’t recognize.
A line of bullets pocked up the wall beside the Executioner as the invaders behind fired their weapons blindly into the house.
“Amateurs,” Makhdoom growled.
“They’ll be coming through the back, as well.”
The captain nodded. “Go kill them. I will stay here and prevent the ones in front from coming in.”
Bolan strode down the hall toward the back of the house. He swept into the kitchen as a man crawled through the shattered window. He perched precariously on the sink, trying not to cut himself on broken shards of glass still in the window frame.
He had a single split second of wide-eyed horror before Bolan blew him back through the window with a bullet through his sternum. The big American flicked his bolt open as the back door to the kitchen smashed inward and charged into the invaders. The throat of the first man in was torn away as Bolan shot him point-blank. There was no time to work the bolt of the ancient weapon for a second shot, but the dying killer had sagged into his companions and clogged the doorway. Bolan swung the butt of his rifle in a brutal arc and shattered the jaw of the second man. The third desperately tried to shove his machine pistol past his broken comrades.
Bolan lunged and rammed his rifle forward in a bayonet thrust.
No blade was mounted on the end of Bolan’s rifle, but the steel muzzle and the front sight of his rifle rammed up through the assassin’s teeth and crushed his upper palate. A muffled mewl of agony bubbled through the shattered remains of the man’s mouth. The assassin’s agony was cut short as Bolan whipped the butt of his rifle around and brought it into the killer’s temple with bone-cracking force.
The soldier racked the bolt of his rifle and stepped over the men he had taken out of play.
Makhdoom’s house was very typical of the Middle East and East Asia. The front of the house was a nearly blank wall except for a door and very narrow upstairs windows. Beyond the interior living space was a walled courtyard in back.
A man sat straddling the wall shouting into a cell phone and waving a machine gun.
“Igor! Igor!” the man shouted.
Bolan raised an eyebrow.
Igor.
That wasn’t a typical Pakistani name. Bolan sighted and shot the man through the leg he had thrown over the wall. The assassin howled, clutched his shattered thigh and toppled forward into a rosebush.
Upstairs a shotgun boomed.
The fallen assassin was thrashing and howling in the rose thorns. Bolan shot him through the other leg. The man screamed as Bolan slung his rifle and picked up a pair of the fallen weapons of the men clogging the kitchen doorway. The weapons were Kiparis submachine guns. Bolan flicked their selectors to full auto. The man thrashing along the garden wall looked up and screamed as Bolan charged him with a weapon in either hand.
The man shrieked as the soldier vaulted him. Bolan dropped the commandeered weapons on their slings and caught the wall as he leaped. He swung his leg over the top and dropped to the street below.
Bolan ran down the back alley and rounded the corner of Makhdoom’s house. A black Landrover was parked on the street with a man waiting behind the wheel. In one hand he held a cell phone into which he was talking rapidly. The other held a silenced handgun. He was craned around in his seat, and his attention was fixed on the front door of Makhdoom’s residence and the pitched gun battle going on there. He caught sight of Bolan in the corner of his eye and whipped back around.
Bolan raised both machine pistols and held down his triggers. The windshield of the Landrover went opaque with bullets and then splashed red from the arterial spray within. Three men were in the doorway of Doom’s house. A fourth lay dead on the stoop. They were spraying their weapons like firehoses into the house. Bolan raised his left-hand weapon and burned the rest of his magazine into the back of the rearmost assassin. Bolan dropped the spent machine pistol and raised the weapon in his right hand. One of the remaining killers spun, and Bolan walked a burst up from his belt