Path To War. Don Pendleton

toward this Baraka and his brigands. Assuming he walked out the other side of this mess, Bolan knew he’d have to contact Brognola for a sitrep and background check on Baraka. Smart money told Bolan this Baraka was the spearhead, a grunt on the firing line for some shadow conspiracy. What he wanted with the suitcase nuke, his agenda or the endgame for whoever he answered to…

      There was only one way to get to the truth, he knew.

      Bolan supposed the only good news was that he was going in, solo, prepared to wax and roll from his east by southeast vector. It was his task to take out as much of the motor pool as he could. No small feat, he knew, considering the number of vehicles, but he’d brought plenty of 40 mm high explosive rounds for the M-203 launcher fixed to his M-16. Togged in blacksuit, face, hands and neck smeared with warpaint, he was as close to invisible at the midnight hour as he could hope for.

      That was until the shooting started and he announced his lethal intent.

      He had come in through the wadi, dropped off two klicks from the camp by chopper. A check of his watch and he knew the doomsday numbers were rolling off in a hurry, Tachjine in a grim knot of adrenaline and urgency, anxious to get the fireworks started. His own team of agents was reluctant to remain behind in a Huey, but Bolan didn’t want to get bogged down shouting orders under fire. Besides, he was unsure how they would fare in all-out combat, certain, too, a few of them were family men. If he could help it he never wanted the blood of either the innocent or those fighting on the side of good on his hands. Dawkins, however, was manning an M-60 in the Huey, and with the other agents able to shoot from above, they weren’t exactly left sitting on the bench.

      Long odds, however it was sliced, but with this many enemy guns, the soldier knew he would need all the help he could get. As for Tachjine, well, if it turned out the Moroccan wasn’t playing it straight, the desert would simply get littered with another corpse.

      Shedding his night-vision goggles, Bolan adjusted his eyes to the sheen of firelight glowing just over the edge of the southeast rise. M-16 leading the way, scanning the ridgeline, he climbed the slope, then dropped into a prone position when he topped out.

      And found his first three marks.

      They were grouped around a fire barrel, AK-47s slung around their shoulders as they rubbed their hands near the flames, smoking and conversing quietly among themselves in Arabic. Between tents, stone ruins from some ancient village long since dead and gone and the motor pool, the soldier figured he was looking at a compound that covered at least three city blocks. An extremist training and operations camp this large had to be backed, he knew, by power-players, either high up in the Moroccan military, government or both. It always left a bad taste in his mouth, but he was realist enough to know that bribery was alive and well in this part of the world.

      A hundred shooters, he considered.

      He had three in his sights, so why not get started?

      Drawing the sound-suppressed Beretta, shouldering his M-16, he spied a narrow gully, and dropped into the crevice. Hunched and homing in on their voices, he advanced down the gully, intent on cutting the range to kissing close. At what he figured was twenty yards or so, he crawled up an incline, took a knee and aimed the Beretta over the lip. There were other armed shadows in the vicinity, but they were moving away, vanishing in the gaps of the second line of tents. He steadied the weapon in a two-handed grip, drew a bead on a kaffiyeh, gently caressed the trigger. Number One extremist was toppling, the headcloth sheared off his shattered skull, when Fanatics Two and Three came alive. Swinging his aim, the Executioner cored a 9 mm Parabellum shocker through a vented mouth, shoving whatever the fanatic was going to shout back down his throat, as a crimson finger jetted out the back of his skull. Fanatic Three froze for a mircosecond, lurching back at the sight of still another of his brothers in terror sprawled at his feet, and the Executioner punched his ticket, painting a third eye on his forehead.

      And then it went to hell.

      According to Tachjine’s time frame, the soldier still had two more minutes to get into position, but he saw the Cobras bearing down on the camp, as they unloaded their opening salvo. Cursing Tachjine’s impatience—or was it something else altogether?—Bolan stowed the Beretta, filling his hands with the M-16/M-203 squad blaster. A brief sideline stand, and Bolan watched as Gatlings, miniguns, 20 mm automatic cannons and 70 mm missiles began churning up the north end rows of tents. Armed figures, maybe twelve in all, were spiraling to earth with death and fury from above.

      And the Executioner got busy doing his part.

      A short march down the incline and five hardmen, armed with a hodgepodge of assault rifles, machine guns and RPGs, burst through the flaps of their tent, the air rife with angry shouts in Arabic.

      The Executioner hit them with a long burst, sweeping the M-16 autofire, left to right, knocking them down, human bowling pins, but sliced to red ruins.

      A clean strike, but the soldier knew the worst was yet to come.