Shadow Search. Don Pendleton
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On the other hand…
He heard the tap on his door. Room service. Bolan crossed the room and opened the door. The muzzle of an automatic pistol was thrust in his face.
“Step away from the door,” the man holding the gun said.
Bolan eased back, the man following. Without warning Bolan’s hands swept up, fingers clamping around the gunman’s wrist. The Executioner pulled the man toward him, half turning and throwing the gunman over his hip. The African gave a startled yell as he was hurled across the room. He hit the floor hard, the gun bouncing from his hand. He squirmed over on his back, bleeding from a split lip. He saw Bolan closing in and tried to stand. He barely managed to get his feet under him before Bolan reached him, driving a hard foot into the man’s chest that knocked him back down.
The Executioner wondered if the man was on his own and turned to check the open doorway. He caught a glimpse of a dark shape lunging at him, saw the glint of metal an instant before something hard clubbed him across the side of the head. The blow stunned him. Bolan stumbled, fell to his knees, nausea rising. A second blow drove him to the floor, and he felt the room shrink around him, turning black and swallowing him.
BOLAN CAME AROUND SLOWLY, staying still so as not to alert his captors he was awake. He was on the seat of a car by the sounds and movement. He could hear the sound of the motor, feel the bump and sway as the vehicle sped along an uneven road.
There were at least two of them that he knew of. Maybe there were more. It was hard to tell from his current position. He was aware of the pulse of pain in his skull. He could also feel the sticky streaks of blood that had run down the left side of his face from the gash in his temple.
Bolan assessed his situation. He had walked right into the attack. Opening the door without verifying who was there. He made no excuses. The opportunity to check had been in his own hands. His momentary lapse had let his captors subdue him. The next question asked where they were taking him and why? The options were few. They would either question him or kill him. Bolan couldn’t see any other variants. Either way his evening looked grim.
He decided that playing dead wasn’t going to gain him a great deal. He moved and uttered a low groan, pushing upright on the seat, then flopping against the backrest. Within those few seconds he checked out the passengers. One man behind the wheel, a second sitting across from Bolan on the rear seat, holding a gun on him.
“Wake-up time, brother. Wouldn’t want you to waste your last ride missing all the local sights.”
“I can live with that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the driver said. “You’re not going to live at all.”
Bolan ignored the threat. He was checking their location. They were speeding along a dusty strip of rutted road between boarded-up buildings. It looked like an abandoned industrial area. Weeds were already choking the empty lots and creeping up the walls of derelict structures. The bush regaining its own. Beyond the rooftops the sky was starting to show red as the sun sank lower. Shadows were spreading.
The car swayed as the driver took a sharp turn, sweeping across a littered area and heading for the gaping doors of a large, empty building. The car rolled inside the cavernous building, coming to a jerky stop.
The gunman nudged Bolan with his boot. “End of the line, brother. Get your white ass out of the car. I don’t want to shoot you in here. Makes too much mess.”
The driver switched off the motor and pushed open his door.
Backing out of the car the gunman held his autopistol on Bolan, gesturing with his free hand. “You make it faster or I’ll change my mind.”
Bolan slid across the seat, his reflexes setting themselves for a fast reaction. He needed to move now, not in five minutes, because by then he would be incapable of doing anything.
“Speed it up, Benjo,” the driver said.
The gunman—Benjo—glared at the driver for using his name.
The Executioner burst into action the moment the man’s eyes flickered away from him. He launched himself off the rear seat of the car, powering himself upright. He grabbed Benjo’s gun arm, curling powerful fingers around the man’s wrist. Bolan ducked under the gunman’s arm, coming up behind the man and snaking his left arm around the man’s neck, jerking back hard. Benjo gasped, trying to suck in air through his restricted windpipe. Bolan slid his hand down to the gun in the hardman’s right hand, slipping his finger inside the guard, over Benjo’s own trigger finger. He jerked Benjo’s arm around, lining the muzzle on the driver as the man rushed around the front of the car, reaching for the handgun he kept tucked in the waistband of his trousers.
Bolan pulled the trigger. The autopistol fired, the bullet hitting the driver high in the chest. He stumbled, yelling in pain, his body bouncing off the front of the car. He was still fumbling for his weapon, feeling the pain from the wound, when Bolan fired a second time. This time he took the bullet in the side of his head. The impact knocked him to the ground and he lay in a jerking heap, blood spreading from under his shattered skull.
Benjo, shocked by the sudden, unexpected reversal of roles, struggled in Bolan’s grip. He was weakening fast, desperately attempting to suck in air. He offered little resistance when Bolan spun him and slammed him against the side of the car, snatching the pistol from his hand. Benjo felt the muzzle grind into his forehead.
“This can be easy or hard, depending on how you deal with the next couple of minutes,” Bolan said.
“I don’t know what you want.”
“We can start with why?”
“You were interfering in something that was none of your damn business. We took a contract to kill you.”
“That answers my second question then. All I need is the name of the one who gave the order.”
Despite his position Benjo managed a nervous laugh. “You expect me to tell? You might as well shoot me. I give you names I’m a dead man.”
“Don’t fool yourself I won’t do it,” Bolan said. “Your people went over the line when you set off that bomb yesterday. You killed innocent children in the name of your struggle and expect mercy?”
“Hey, man, I’m no rebel. I just took a job from them. The ones who died in that blast were just unlucky they were in the way.”
“Pity they weren’t asked if they wanted it that way.”
Benjo pushed against the muzzle pressed to his head. His face showed the anger inside. “So go home, Yank. This is not your fight. Go home before you die, too.”
Bolan’s smile was all the more chilling because it failed to reach his eyes. They were hard and cold, without a shred of pity.
“Tell me what I have to be frightened of? A bunch of backstreet thugs who bomb women and children? Real hardmen who can only kidnap the president’s young kids because they don’t have the guts to challenge him in the open?”
Bolan spun Benjo aside and pushed him away. He leveled the pistol.
“Game’s over, Benjo. You had your chance and wasted it. Time’s up.”
Benjo looked back over his shoulder. Maybe gauging how far he had to go to reach the freedom of the dark night. He even made a tentative movement with his foot. His manner changed abruptly. Benjo dropped to a crouch, yanking up the leg of his trousers, and snatched a slim-bladed knife from an ankle sheath. His arm went back in the first stage of a throw.
Bolan reacted quickly, twisting to one side, bringing the pistol back on line.
From somewhere behind Benjo a handgun fired, briefly illuminating the shadows with its muzzle-flash. The bullet hit Benjo between the shoulders, exiting through his upper chest. The velocity of the powerful slug created a substantial wound, shards of bone mingled with the lacerated flesh. Benjo fell facedown on the concrete floor, his limbs in spasm for a time.
Bolan