Kitabı oku: «Agent Of Peril», sayfa 2
“That’s what they call me,” Bolan said. He knelt on the hardguy’s chest, lifted the stainless-steel Taurus and let swing with a savage stroke. Already, his brain had cleared enough to recognize Bidifah Sinbal.
“A long death or a short death,” Bolan said. “Your choice.”
“Generous offer. I give you nothing.”
Bolan looked down at Sinbal, then realized that droplets of blood were pouring onto the guy’s face with every exhalation of his own breath. The soldier put the back of his hand to his nose and came away with a glove of sticky, slick fresh blood.
“Looks like you overdid the explosives, punk.” The terrorist chuckled, lying on his back, wheezing as he finished off his laugh.
Bolan sighed. He was too dizzy and hurt to conduct a proper interrogation on Sinbal. The Hezbollah savage wasn’t going anywhere.
The Executioner got to his feet and climbed up the side of the tank, calling back to the wounded terrorist.
“Sit. Stay.”
Inside, the mystery of the first generation M1’s origins were revealed.
Outside, flags and insignias were scoured off and replaced with desert paint that broke up the graded and scaled camouflage pattern of the metallic beast. Inside, however, the writing on the controls was in Arabic.
The Executioner knew only one modern Arab military force that used the U.S.-built armored vehicle.
Egypt.
Hezbollah was in Pakistan, selling three Egyptian tanks. Bolan crawled up through the hatch once more, wiping his nose. The bleeding had stopped. He was still hurt, hammered and beaten.
But someone was moving top of the line tanks around like they were common contraband.
That was a someone the Executioner had a vested interest in shutting down—permanently.
It was time to call the Farm.
2
The flat LCD screen popped up a still image of the Executioner’s hawkish features, giving Barbara Price something to visually focus on as the satellite phone connected them vocally.
“Did I catch you after a full night’s sleep, or are you delusional from Bear’s coffee?” Bolan asked.
“Mix and match.” Price sighed. “What’s wrong?”
“Lots. I’ve got three M1 Abrams tanks. I’m thinking they’re U.S. military aid package tanks because they have the old 105 mm cannon instead of the new 120 mm tubes,” Bolan told her.
“Abrams tanks?”
“The Hezbollah operatives I followed had them transported here for the auction.”
Price summoned recent intel-footage on her second monitor. “We had three M1s roll into a Gaza Strip settlement and kill a few hundred people.”
“A tank attack on the Gaza strip? Where?”
“Nitzana.”
Bolan paused a moment. “If I remember my map of the space between Israel and Egypt well enough, it makes sense to strike there. Nitzana is far from any other major settlements. Vast expanses of empty hills, desert, and desert farmland surrounded the settlement.”
“It took twenty minutes for the Israelis to scramble aircraft.”
“A few hundred people?” Bolan asked.
“The count is 249 dead, another three hundred missing, and over twelve hundred injured. They blew up buildings…Hell, they even blew an F-16 out of the sky. That crash killed almost fifty people by itself,” Price said.
“Three hundred missing, which means that we could see the death toll get over four hundred as a conservative estimate,” Bolan said.
“Most of those missing are from a school and a hospital that the tanks shelled,” Price told him.
“Children and the infirm.”
Price knew the tone in Bolan’s voice—grim and torn. He was getting ready to revisit hell on the kind of savages who would drag the innocent and helpless into their petty political games.
“Striker, how many tanks did you say you had?”
“Three here. With Arabic writing on the controls. I’m looking for a good way to dispose of them, but I don’t have the kind of firepower needed to take them out.”
Price turned. “Hunt, I need a way to dispose of three M1 tanks without bringing the entirety of the Pakistani military down on whoever’s blowing it. They might think it’s India.”
“A Force Recon off the USS Stennis is stationed in Tora Bora. They can chopper in hot and fast, set daisy cutters on each vehicle and be out before anyone knows what’s going on,” Hunt Wethers stated. He managed a grin. “I’ve got Captain Hofflower on speed dial.”
“Send them on in,” the Executioner said.
Price heard a wet sniff on the other end of the phone. “What’s wrong? You sound…sick.”
“Got too close to an improvised Claymore mine I made. Or rather, didn’t get far enough away from it,” Bolan answered. “The shock wave broke blood vessels in my nose and I’m bleeding all over.”
“Why can’t you get nasal drip like most people?” Price asked.
“Just get the team here quick. I’ve got a live prisoner, and he’s Hezbollah.”
“Striker, you’re going to hand over a member of Hezbollah to a Marine?” Price asked.
“This animal’s buddies killed a few hundred people. Including children. I don’t care what the Marines decide to do with him.”
With that, the phone went dead.
PUSHING HIS TONGUE between his upper and lower molars, General Nahd Idel forced his lower jaw to relax, but the clenching muscles were relentless. His personal physician had tried all manner of muscle relaxants and therapy, but that didn’t help. A mixture of stress and old rooted pain from a botched wisdom tooth removal had given him a case of lock-jaw that he couldn’t kick.
Idel jammed several sticks of gum into one cheek and looked at the aide who was finishing his report about the “terrorist raid” on Nitzana.
“They’re saying that at least a quarter of the dead were Egyptian or Palestinian,” Major Pedal Tofo concluded. “Hezbollah won’t be so darling with some of their friends because of this.”
“No concern,” Idel replied. “Why did they only attack with three tanks? Didn’t we give them a dozen?”
Tofo shook his head. “We have people who are in Lebanon. They were watching Sinbal and his men leave Beirut on a cargo freighter with six oversize boxcars. He only left three in Alexandria, and stayed with the freighter. Records list the ship en route to Gwadar, Pakistan.”
Idel bit his tongue, muscles swelling and straining. Outwardly, his face remained impassive, but inside, he was strung as tight as a bear trap. He sat up and squared off a stack of paperwork on his desk, making sure the corners were sharp on the pile. Come to think of it, the jaw clenching could have just been another symptom of the obsessive-compulsive disorder that drove him to be the perfect officer, and kicked him through the ranks of the Egyptian military.
“Sinbal took three of our fucking tanks out of the country?” Idel asked.
“We gave him the tanks. Any money he’d get selling them would be pure profit,” Tofo answered.
Idel stood and walked to the window. Sunlight burned outside, flaring off the almost white sands surrounding his base’s compound. He took a deep breath, then spit out his gum, lighting a cigar to chew on. Grinding his teeth into the fat tobacco roll made him feel better, the sponginess cushioning his aching jaw muscles.
“Do we have anyone who can do a wet operation on Sinbal when he returns to Lebanon?” Idel asked.
“Affirmative,” Tofo stated.
“Make sure Sinbal doesn’t spend an evening more in Beirut without a bullet in a major part of his anatomy.”
“A pleasure.”
“That said, how did the three tanks do?” Idel asked.
“Reports have 375 dead so far, 250 missing, and thirteen hundred injured,” Tofo reported. “The border between Egypt and Israel has been locked down, and the Gaza Strip and West Bank are under heavy military patrols at this time. Combat aircraft are on constant patrol, too.”
“Their armored divisions?”
“They’ve brought up two divisions, in the north and the south to cut off access to their coastal settlements.”
“Only two?”
“Others are in motion, and a third is passing by Nitzana and has set up temporary camp across the Nitzala River.”
Idel smirked. “They’re wondering if Cairo had anything to do with an attack on their stolen territories.”
“Or they’re simply not taking chances. Israel might be outgunned by her enemies, but she makes up for it by not fucking around.”
“Good. Good.”
“Have we been given any green light by Cairo, sir?” Tofo asked.
Idel looked over his shoulder, pulling the cigar from between his lips and stretching out his jaw. He let his ears pop before continuing. “Would it make you feel better if we had our benighted leaders’ support?”
“I’m already dedicated to the cause of getting back Egypt’s lands from the Israeli thieves. I merely worry that…”
“We will be seen as traitors and thieves if we are caught. I understand, Pedal,” Idel said, clapping his aide on the shoulder. “We won’t be tied to the events that turn the cold peace between Egypt and Israel into a hot war. But we will be there at the forefront when it is time to be heroes and take back what is rightfully ours.”
Tofo nodded. “I do not doubt you, or this plan.”
Idel smiled and took a drag on his cigar.
But if Tofo truly didn’t doubt the success of the plan, he was the only one in that room.
THE STRAPPED FOR COMBAT SH-60 Seahawks tore over the landscape, penetrating deep into Pakistani airspace. Captain Carlton Hofflower perched in the doorway of the lead chopper, eyes sweeping the horizon for an angry response coming over the horizon. Nothing, however, was turning its attention toward the quintet of helicopters this day.
The message from HQ was quick, simple and terse.
“Retrieve Colonel Stone. Bring lots of explosives. Coordinates to follow.”
“Captain. We have smoke,” Lieutenant Charles Ellis, the pilot, reported.
Hofflower’s hazel eyes focused like lasers on the spiraling rub of charcoal smearing upward into the blue over the rolling hills. He didn’t need a map to equate the billowing smoke to the location of Colonel Stone. “That’s our guy, GPS be damned.”
Ellis glanced back at Hofflower, and then returned his attention to guiding the Seahawk.
In moments, the sharklike chopper was splitting the sky over the smoldering battlefield, and Hofflower could see a conflagration. Two major blast craters, and a half dozen minor smoking pits plumed smoke skyward, while one man stood with an old-fashioned bolt-action rifle over an injured man.
“That’s Stone?” Ellis asked.
Hofflower nodded.
“Who’s the wounded?”
“I don’t know, but he doesn’t look like a friendly. Tell the other choppers to land in a diamond around this airfield,” Hofflower said.
Hofflower gave Ellis’s helmet a tap, and the SH-60 dropped to the ground, landing with a light bump. As always, the six-foot-six Marine captain “unassed” first, hands resting on the M-249 hanging from his neck and massive shoulders.
“I have a present for you,” Bolan stated in lieu of a greeting.
“I see. Middle Eastern, Lebanese by chance?” Hofflower asked.
“Yeah,” Bolan returned.
“Bidifah Sinbal. Works for Hezbollah,” Hofflower said. The Marine grinned and cracked his knuckles. “Colonel Stone, this is a wonderful gift.”
“I want to know where Sinbal got his tanks from, and if it was his people that were behind Nitzana,” Bolan said.
An interesting question, the Marine thought.
He intended to make Sinbal squeal and spill his guts.
IT TOOK TWENTY MINUTES for a medic to clean and dress all of Bolan’s injuries, but during that time, the Marine Force Recon platoon was busy wiring up the M1 Abrams tanks with enough explosive power to chop them to splinters.
Inside, even more insidious devices were being planted. The insides of the tanks would be able to survive the destruction of the hull and engine section. Nothing short of a nuclear weapon would pulverize every component of the tank in one shot, and even then, the M1s were designed during the Cold War. Their very design was meant to get the massive steel beasts through a nuclear-explosion blasted war plain and continue fighting, even as atomic artillery shells created football field-sized craters all around them.
The Marines were putting miniature Fuel Air Explosive charges inside the tanks. The mini-FAEs were designed for house clearing the easy way. First, a burst would spread a cloud of fuel through a space as large as a single floor of an apartment building. With the air saturated with explosive fuel, a second burst would spark and ignite the atmosphere. Everything within the space would be vaporized.
Bolan had seen entire mountainsides crumbled with a Fuel Air Explosive device improvised from a simple propane tank.
The mini-FAE would smash every ounce of valuable electronics and design inside the M1 to useless pulp. The last thing the world needed was a reverse-engineered version of the U.S. Army’s best tank.
The Marines were meticulous in setting the charges on the armor, though. That was the one thing that Bolan was most concerned about. Abrams armor, indeed any modern tank armor, was a secret design, and each nation had its own proprietary formula. Having that secret drop into the lap of even an ally was considered a disastrous development.
“I’m done,” the medic said. “You can stop the Zen meditation.”
Bolan managed a weak smile. “I was just thinking about the tanks.”
“How the hell did these get here?” the medic asked. “I mean, Pakistan uses old Soviet T-72s.”
“They were brought by the Hezbollah, and the Hezbollah somehow got them from Egypt,” Bolan answered. “How they got them, I intend to find out as soon as I get some intel.”
A gunshot rang out and Bolan turned his head. The sudden reflex action filled his head with sloshing, hot liquid pain, but it was dying down and his equilibrium swiftly returned to normal. It took a moment for his brain to register the sound as a .45-caliber pistol. Captain Hofflower was returning, stuffing his MEU (SOC) custom 1911 into its holster with one hand, holding a small black box with the other hand.
“I recorded everything,” he said, tossing over the digital recorder. Bolan caught it with one smooth motion.
“Make sure that someone sends me a new recorder. With all the features,” the Marine captain said.
“How much did he have? Nutshell version,” Bolan said.
“Well, he helped load the van with explosives for the 1983 Marine barracks attack.”
“That was more than two decades ago.”
“He’s forty-three. And he’s been Hezbollah since he was a teenager,” the captain explained.
“The tanks?”
“Given to him by his commander. He doesn’t know exactly where they came from.”
“Who’s his commander?”
“A creep named Faswad.”
Bolan closed his eyes and reviewed his mental files. Imal Faswad moved into the Bekaa Valley after Bolan rampaged through to take out a terrorist-backed drug cartel. He’d been behind some major counterfeiting of American hundred-dollar bills, approximately fifty million worth, before the U.S. Mint updated to the new bills. The Hezbollah headman was someone who was never quite on the top of the Executioner’s “to do” list because he was mostly attacking people who could, and did, fight back. Bolan’s previous interest in Faswad was derailed when the guy’s headquarters was blasted to atoms by an Israeli air strike and a dozen thousand-pound bombs.
It looked like it was time for the Executioner to pay Mr. Faswad a visit to find out why he was suddenly selling off tanks.
“Who did Sinbal come to sell the tanks to?” Bolan asked.
“Somewhere in the piles of grease you left littered all over the place, there was a party of Filipinos who are, er, were with Abu Sayyaf.”
Bolan’s jaw clenched for a moment. Abu Sayyaf was aligned with al Qaeda. Another case of unfinished business that the Executioner would have to get to.
“You sure I got them?” Bolan looked around. “A lot of guys just took off running.”
“Well, give me a good DNA lab, we’ll know for sure,” the Marine replied.
“All right. I’m lucky I got a single prisoner for you to interrogate,” Bolan conceded.
“Thanks for helping bring a little justice to the Corps,” Hofflower said, putting out one beefy paw.
Bolan took the hand, remembering what felt like a lifetime ago, his own incursion to avenge Marine blood. He could feel the bond with the fighting man before him.
“It’s time to unass and blow this Popsicle stand,” Hofflower called out, pulling Bolan effortlessly to his feet. “It’s good to have you aboard, Colonel.”
“Thanks,” Bolan answered. They got into the Seahawk and Lieutenant Ellis pulled the chopper into the sky, rising a half mile before stopping.
Hofflower handed over the radio detonator to the Executioner. “Your prerogative, Colonel.”
Bolan accepted the detonator, flipped up the safety cover on the firing stud and thumbed it down. Even through the rotor slap and vibrations of the SH-60’s powerful turbines, the shock wave from detonating the tanks was palpable. Concentric rings of smoke, indicating the rippling forces that devastated the armor, were still visible down below.
That was just the opening salvo to the scorched earth process being undertaken.
The four orbiting Marine Seahawks were armed with artillery rockets and Hellfire missiles. Pilots and gunners opened fire instantly on the ground where the terrorists sought to sell the Devil’s tools. Explosions formed a scouring cloud of devastation that swept from the four corners of the auction ground toward the middle, shredding and splintering anything in its path. Stomped flat as if under the feet of giants, the hodgepodge mixture of surviving jeeps, guns, helicopters and low-speed jets, as well as various missiles and other explosives, disappeared in a cacophony of devastation that Ellis yanked the SH-60 out of just in the nick of time.
Bolan could almost reach out the side door and touch the blossoming mushroom of smoke from the hell blitz.
An explosive start to a mission that promised more such devastation ahead.
3
It was time for the weekly mail drop, and J. R. Rust, posing as a journalist, stepped up to the cage, smiling.
“Your new cameras and printer are here, Mr. Russel,” Rudiah, the mail clerk, notified him. He was wrestling a box onto the counter.
Cameras and printer? Rust thought. The box looked fairly large. “I hope the editors thought to include an instruction manual this time,” he said.
Rudiah almost said something, and then smiled tightly.
Yeah, the Lebanese post office wasn’t at all interested in what James Russel was receiving in the mail from America, Rust thought sarcastically. He looked at the return address and saw it was from Egypt, but labeled from a blind intel dump that a man named Striker had set up with him. Rust had worked with Striker and a covert strike team on two dangerous operations, one in Pakistan, and one in Lebanon, racing to deal with forces ready to blow the Middle East wide open in a nuclear conflict.
Since then, Striker had tapped Rust personally, knowing that the CIA man had his ear firmly planted to the ground in regards to Middle Eastern politics and terrorism. Born eating and breathing the cultures of the Islamic nations from the Mediterranean through the Kashmir, Rust was an expert not only in Arabic dialects but mannerisms and mind-set. This ingratiated him to the movers and shakers of the nations he frequented. Either as an invisible part of the embassy staff, or, slightly more out there, as a journalist, Rust was able to blend in, become a fly on the wall, and get information to the ears that needed to hear it.
Rust thought about the need to get information to the right ears, and thought of 2001. Maybe that was why a veteran CIA man was so willing to buck the system and risk his job by leaking information to a phantom not even the Company was sure about. Striker went to the field and actually put boot to ass.
He signed for the box. The damn thing weighed a ton.
Hauling it under one arm, he left the post office. That’s when he saw a dark-featured young man out of the corner of his eye. Rust’s alarm bells went off when he knew that the young guy didn’t fit in. There was something wrong about him, but he couldn’t place what.
Things were really tight now. Unbalanced and hindered by the heavyweight box, he couldn’t rapidly reach the tiny Glock 26 he had nestled in an ankle holster. He knew how to draw quickly with the ankle rig he wore, but that was with his hands free and his ability to turn unhindered by a big, heavy box. The CIA man was of a mind to just dump the box, but that wouldn’t be good for his health if the package contained a bomb.
“Russel,” a voice called. It had a mixed Midwestern and South Florida drawl to it, and Rust had to look twice at the man who spoke using the voice.
It was the guy who set off Rust’s instincts. The features were a little too dark for Egypt, and not hooked enough to be fully Semitic, but he did look like he fit in Lebanon, even though his manner was that of a Westerner. The hair, though, was nappy and short to his head, and dark eyes studied him carefully.
“Russel, I’m here on ranch business,” the man said. His hands were occupied, filled with a rolled newspaper in his left and a bottle of water in his right.
Rust relaxed. It was kind of an unwritten code among the agents in the area that they have their hands filled when they met, to distinguish friend from foe. Empty hands meant that the person you were meeting wanted his options open to immediately grab a weapon. The plastic water bottle and newspaper, however, were indicative of a savvy mind—they could be dropped with no hassle, and guns could be grabbed as trouble arose.
Ranch business was another clue. It was a code phrase that Striker had used with him in their private dealings.
“Let me set this hunk of crap down and we can talk somewhere,” Rust answered.
The handsome man smiled, and easily slipped the bottled water and newspaper into the deep pockets of his cargo pants. Reaching out, he took the box. “I’ll carry that.”
He could see the younger man’s dark arms ripple with corded muscle. “Oh sure. Just because you’re young, strong and agile…”
The kid grinned. “Old age and treachery will win over youth and purity every time.”
“I like your attitude, kid.”
“Just want to live long enough to get to old age and treachery, Mr. Russel.”
He nodded and led the way. “Got a name?”
“Alex Johnson, sir.”
Rust paused and looked him over. “You look like a Johnson.”
“Excellent, sir. I was barely able to detect the sarcasm in your tone.”
“Come on, Alex.”
ALESSANDRO KALID SET DOWN the cardboard box with a grunt, causing the rickety old table to wobble under the sudden impact. Kalid held his breath for a moment, but the spindly legs held. In the heat, it was heavy work, and he was glad for the breeze that pushed and puffed-up the gauzy drapes to Rust’s apartment. He didn’t know how much was in it, but knowing the man he knew as Striker, the box certainly wasn’t filled with jelly beans and Easter eggs. He looked at the seal on the box and saw the telltale signs that the tape had been stripped off and replaced.
“Someone’s been looking in Striker’s stuff,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Rust stated. “The Lebanese have been interested in the packages that come in to me.”
Kalid flipped out his Tanto knife with a deft wrist movement, slashed open the box and returned the blade with a flourish. “If that’s the case, your cover might be blown.”
“That’s on the short list of things that are certain in life,” Rust answered.
Kalid could only shrug and pull out the contents of the box. “A laptop, a printer and some digital cameras.”
“Son of a…” Rust said.
Kalid smirked. “The printer works, but it’s twice the size it should be.”
He flipped over the unit and looked at the bottom. “No, not smuggling guns.”
“So what’s that?” Rust asked, pointing at the silver square that Kalid was removing from the printer’s plastic shell.
“Consider it the ultimate in wireless modems. State of the art. I think I’m supposed to light my eyeballs on fire for knowing about this,” Kalid said. He looked through the heavy booklet in the box. “And the manual on how to use the cameras.”
Kalid flipped through the book. “You think they’d slip something into this that could give us a clue as to what’s going on?”
Rust held out his hand, and Kalid handed over the book.
“The manual’s copyright page,” Rust spoke up after a moment. “There’s a user name and password for the laptop.”
Rust powered up the laptop after plugging it in to the modem and the wall outlet.
Kalid watched Rust type the access into the computer, then looked out the window.
More than the gauze curtains were moving. Traffic had cleared off the street, as had most of the women and children. Kalid’s brain went into overdrive as he saw two blurs flying through the air. On pure reflex, Kalid drew a shaken throwing star and flipped it at one blob, knocking it back, slowing it in midair enough to determine the identity of the object. It was a cylinder, with writing on the side, smoke spewing out the top in a gout. Somewhere in the distorted adrenaline overdrive of the moment, Alex Kalid recognized the tear gas projectile. One part of his brain wondered what the second object was. Reflex, however, threw his mouth wide open, screaming loudly to Rust.
The cry of alarm saved Kalid’s brain from a battering from the concussion grenade’s explosion. The second blurring minibomb had sailed through the window and landed under Rust’s chair. The thunderclap of pressure was brain numbing, shaking Kalid’s hyper-perception back to something resembling normal.
Rust was on the floor, his chair collapsed, eyes open and dazed, the laptop spilled across his chest.
“Yeah, your cover’s blown,” Kalid quipped, lips engaging on their own while his hand reached for his knife. He wondered where his gun was, the concussion knocking away the memory that his SIG-Sauer P-226 was back at his hotel, in a hidden compartment of his luggage. He snapped out his arms to each side, corded muscles bracing him against the disorientation.
His brain stopped sloshing in his head after a few heartbeats, his vision clearing. His gaze locked on the door, which shuddered under an impact. Dust and splinters fell from the door and its frame, and Kalid realized he had only one more smash before whoever was on the other side swarmed in and took them. He glanced around. Rust looked back at him, eyes unfocused from a point-blank concussion, then lifted one leg, trying to bring it up.
Kalid noticed the pistol in the CIA agent’s ankle holster. He lunged, grabbing it off the dazed man’s leg and swinging it up. No safeties, no bells, no whistles, even punch-drunk, Kalid knew it was a Glock of some kind and he opened fire, not even waiting for the door to crash open. The door splintered again, but the second impact didn’t have the force of the first after Kalid slammed four shots through it at chest level. A rent appeared in the top panel, a jagged shard bent out by whatever battering ram was being used. He could see the men in the hall scrambling and tending to their wounded.
Kalid opened fire again, sweeping the hallway for another eight shots before the 12-shot magazine on the Glock ran dry. With the little pistol at slide lock, the door was slammed again. This time, it buckled and burst inward. Two men rushed in and the ex-blacksuit spun the Glock in his hand and hurled it at the first one through the door. Despite being a lightweight gun with a polymer frame, the twenty ounces of steel in the gun still made a big impression on the forehead of the first thug through the door. The intruder went stumbling to the floor while the guy behind him leaped, snarling and bringing up a pistol, as if to stuff the gun in the American’s face.
Kalid grabbed his wrist and drove his palm into the guy’s elbow, leveraging him and tossing him against the wall with a bone crunching thud. The pistol went flying across the floor, but Kalid wasn’t going to give up any advantage over even a dazed enemy while he might still be able to stab him in the back. Instead, he brought up his knee hard, two quick pumps into the kidneys of the captive Lebanese, then dropped back and twisted.
The terrorist went sailing out the window, catching the half-open pane on his way out, as well as the gauzy curtains. Glass, wood and fabric enveloped the falling man as he went tumbling into the street twelve feet below. Kalid pivoted on his heel as he heard the scrape of steel on steel in the doorway.
A big, bearded man had a long curved fighting knife clenched in his fist. His face was drenched with blood, but there were no visible injuries on him. Kalid assumed he had to have been behind another guy who took a high velocity 9 mm pill.
“We were going to try to take both of you in alive, but Faswad only needs one prisoner,” the knife goon sputtered.
Kalid smirked and answered him in his own language. “Quit talking and bring it, crybaby. Papa doesn’t have all day to play with children.”
Crybaby gawked at the taunting response, and paused. That gave Kalid a half step to grab his knife from where he dropped it by Rust. Then the Lebanese knife fighter charged, swinging at chest level. Kalid dropped like lightning, first to scoop up the blade, and second to snap his foot out into the shin of the blade man. The minute his fingers met the handle of the Tanto, he brought the blade around in a fast arc, only to have his wrist trapped by the half-fallen Crybaby.
Bringing his weight to both feet in the crouch, Kalid swung up his left hand and hammered it into Crybaby’s face, feeling cartilage crunch and collapse under the impact. It seemed the complaining Lebanese was made of stern stuff, as he kept up his fight, bringing his knee into Kalid’s shin to knock his balance from under him. The curved knife arced up, but Kalid braced his forearm against the knife fighter’s forearm, the impact jangling nerves in both arms. Still, the fighting knife didn’t fall from numbed fingers, and Kalid had to wrap his hand around the bigger man’s wrist.
