a small ASP flashlight from another pocket of his blacksuit, the Executioner risked training a two-second beam of light down the steps. He saw and heard nothing. So, with the M-16 at the ready, he began to make his way down the stairs.
It took time for Bolan’s eyes to readjust to the near darkness of the third floor of the chapel. But he waited, not wanting to risk giving away his position with another flash from the ASP. A small amount of light came down from the open trapdoor, so he moved to a corner of what appeared to be a Sunday school classroom. He was ninety-nine percent certain that no one was with him on the top floor of the chapel. But in case that one percent came through, he wanted the darkness to work for him rather than against him.
As soon as he could make out the blurry shapes of tables and chairs in the room, the Executioner glanced around. He saw no light switches or signs of electricity in any form. But on the tables, and built into the walls, were large candles and oil lamps. Moving toward the staircase in the middle of the room, he passed a large crucifix, then a painting of Jesus Christ with his hands folded in prayer. Continuing on toward a hallway and another set of steps, Bolan kept listening to the rifle rounds exploding below him. They had become more muffled since he’d entered the building, but were just as regular.
And, he knew, just as deadly.
When he reached the staircase, Bolan aimed his assault rifle downward and stared at the steps. The second floor of the small building seemed as deserted as the third, and he nodded to himself. The clock was ticking. There was a bomb somewhere inside the chapel. What kind of device, and how it was rigged to go off, had not been included in Brognola’s brief. Bolan had barely had time to find out how Stony Man Farm’s director had come across the intel in the first place.
He needed to talk to the priest and the converted Hezbollah man. This was a golden opportunity—a one-in-a-million chance to learn the ins and outs of what else the terrorist group had planned for the near future. But that was not the primary goal at the moment. Before he interviewed the informant and the priest, he needed to keep Saint Michael’s Chapel from blowing up. And to do that meant both ridding the world of the terrorists on the ground floor and deactivating the bomb without destroying the chapel and the neighborhood surrounding it.
The Executioner’s brain continued to roll near the speed of light. He suspected this was a fairly low-tech operation on Hezbollah’s part. That meant that as soon as the terrorists began to think they were losing the gun battle, they would detonate the bomb by hand.
Slowly and quietly, Bolan began to descend the steps to the second floor. With each creak his boots made he paused, listening, to see if the men below had noticed it. But the gunfire continued, drowning out his quiet sounds on the stairs. Bolan realized the men below weren’t likely aware that he’d taken out their two snipers. That meant he still had surprise on his side.
And he’d need it. He was vastly outnumbered, and surprise was the only advantage he would have in this ongoing firefight.
Reaching the second floor, Bolan saw that it was as deserted as the third, and he realized that the terrorists’ plan for rifle fire had been as elemental as their plan for the bomb. Except for the two snipers he’d taken out on the roof, all of them were on the first floor.
Bolan halted his progress again, rapidly analyzing the situation. He could probably take out the men below by suddenly bounding down the final set of steps and launching a furious barrage of fire from the rear. But if he didn’t get the individual in charge of the bomb, or if the explosives were connected to a dead man’s switch, which would go off as soon as whoever was holding it relaxed his grip, Bolan might as well blow up the chapel himself.
He paused another moment before starting down the steps to the first floor. He had to admit, Hezbollah’s attack might be low-tech, but it included a well-thought-out battle plan. Men who didn’t mind dying, and thought it bought them a first-class ticket to paradise, held an incredible edge over warriors who were trying to kill the enemy and stay alive at the same time.
Bottom line in this situation was that the sooner Bolan wiped out all the terrorists on the first floor, the sooner the bomb would go off and destroy the chapel and probably the police officers surrounding it. Not to mention him.
He was fighting himself on this one.
* * *
THE CHAPEL WAS SMALL in comparison to most churches, and built of irregular stones that formed both the inside and the outside walls. One main room per story, with the staircase near the middle of each.
That meant that from where he stood presently, at the top of the steps, Bolan had a clear view of about half the ground level. The up side to this situation was his superior position. The down side was that many men firing out through the shattered stained glass windows could see him if they turned around.
And there were bound to be more Hezbollah out of sight behind the open staircase.
Luckily, the three men he could see were too engaged in their battle with the police to pay attention to their flanks or rear. So Bolan crept farther down the steps, the M-16 A-2 aimed and ready. He squatted momentarily, resting the rifle across his knees as he again sized up the situation. Blasts from the firearms of more men—unseen but heard—confirmed his suspicion that there were other terrorists at the rear. Exactly how many murderers there were in all was anyone’s guess.
Squinting slightly, Bolan searched the men he could see for any sign of a bomb or a remote detonator. Several wore rucksacks, and such packs could hold anything from the most simple dynamite or nitroglycerine explosives to a small tactical nuclear device. But the scanty intel he had received from Brognola told him there was no nuke involved. Not in this strike, at least.
The Executioner took in a deep breath. At least that was something. He nodded to himself as the gunfire below continued. What he was facing was most likely plastic explosives—probably Semtex left over from the old Soviet Union that had found its way into Hezbollah hands. If he fired quickly on semiauto, he suspected he could put a .223 caliber hollowpoint round into the back of all six brains before whoever had the explosives even knew what was happening.
But what of the men he couldn’t see, in the rear of the chapel? What if the bomb was with one of them? They would have more than enough time to see what had happened to their brothers in terror and detonate the explosive no matter how fast the Executioner descended the steps to take them on.
The gunfire both out and into Saint Michael’s Chapel continued relentlessly. Through shattered remnants of stained glass still stuck in corners of the windows, Bolan could see dust floating through the outside air—the product of police rounds striking the stones of the walls around the apertures. As he continued to watch, one of the terrorists took a round in the head and fell backward, dead on the cold stone floor.
That was good. But it didn’t change things much for the Executioner. Shooting two men and then turning toward the rear of the building was hardly different from killing three. The bomb would still have plenty of time to go off.
The unusual history of the antiquated chapel, and how out of place it looked in the neighborhood, ran through the Executioner’s mind once more. He was surprised that the city inspectors would have passed the candle and oil lamp lighting. Even more remarkable was that the Detroit Fire Department would have allowed a three-story structure to be built with only one way up and down. The chapel would be a death trap if any of the lamps or candles was ever mishandled.
The realization struck Bolan suddenly: the building inspectors might have insisted on a second escape route. One he couldn’t see. And medieval architecture was famous for hidden rooms, staircases and tunnels.
Quickly and quietly, he rose to his feet. There was a second way down; he could feel it. A route the terrorists would undoubtedly be unaware of, so that he could emerge suddenly, with surprise on his side.
He just had to find it.
But time had become a factor, too. Every second he took searching for the hidden route down was a second during which the Hezbollah might decide that the gunfight had gone on long enough. And that they should detonate the bomb.