Mack Bolan, on combat duty in Vietnam, led his Penetration Able Team on many successful classified missions behind enemy lines. Bolan was a penetration specialist, a penetration master.
That was how he appreciated immediately, by taking position in the background from where a soft surveillance could be maintained, the interesting information that security at the Jericho villa in Bishabia was very tight.
The Executioner felt a respect for Kennedy in the manner in which Jericho's top merc had deployed his manpower to guard this villa. Subliminal quivers in the psyche called Bolan to quick-pass a number of emplacements that were planned to bite inward as well as out. This was the whole nine yards here. It tickled something in his combat instinct, he felt the tremor of the game now.
The death look they wore indicated that the soldiers in this base were lethal even if they were also non-notable, the wolf pack fit to devour at any moment, savages in every respect.
After he outfitted himself in the armory in desert camouflage fatigues, and armed himself with a Galil, some grenades and a holstered Browning hi-power, Bolan made his way across the villa's courtyard, past the Hueys and up the tall ladder to the parapet, toward the villa's southeast corner. Mike Rideout was obediently following Kennedy's orders.
Bolan eyed Kennedy's heavily armed troops as he did so. In addition to a few AK-47s, Galils and Largos, he also noted several new Beretta Model 70 assault rifles that Bolan knew to be capable of spitting out 5.56mm death-dealers at a blistering 700 rpm.
Some of the mercs wore munitions belts heavy with grenades. Two men seen by Bolan wore .357's on their hips Western-style, the way Bolan now wore his Browning hi-power.
The only other small arms he could see were several SIG 9mm Parabellum P210 autos. Some of the mercs carried these in underarm shoulder holsters.
"Rideout" had drawn duty with a U.S. merc named Teckert, who sat perched behind a belt-fed Cartouche light machine gun, tripod-rigged atop the wall's ledge. A sheet held up by four posts protected each of these gun posts from the sun.
Teckert was a man of few words.
So was Bolan.
They got along fine.
Nothing moved beyond the villa walls. Utter stillness reigned.
At one point a Swede merc named Hohlstrom came along the parapet. Teckert introduced Hohlstrom to Bolan. Hohlstrom barely nodded. His eyes were dark marbles. His expressionless face was hard beneath a high intellectual brow and a pate of thinning hair.
Hohlstrom said nothing to Bolan.
Hohlstrom and Doyle exchanged grunted monosyllables, then Hohlstrom lumbered on. This was a world where a man kept his counsel unless he knew well the man to whom he was speaking.
A few minutes later another merc approached along the parapet. Apparently, Kennedy had roving sentries in addition to those at set stations, like Teckert and Rideout.
This merc was a German national named Bruner. Teckert and Bruner knew each other; there was a brief, low-keyed exchange between the two mercs as Bolan eavesdropped.
"So what do you think of this scene, Teckert? Easy money so far?"
"So far."
"Reminds me of the time we took Brother Khaddafi's wages at Aozou in Chad. Remember?"
Teckert spat over the wall.
"I remember. I hate these frigging desert jobs."
"But do you remember the women of Aozou?" prodded Bruner with a guttural laugh.
Teckert grunted. "Yeah, I remember. Too bad we had to torch that village."
Bruner snorted. "You should not think, my friend."
And he moved on.
Yeah, thought Bolan. These are the bad ones. These are the purest enemy.
Don't think, huh? Very soon, Mack Bolan was going to force them to think, even though it would be their last lesson.
He was going to teach them an essential paradox of warfare. He was going to show them that men are never more in danger than when they believe themselves secure.
And that they — or rather he, Mack Bolan — would never be more secure than when in the very greatest danger.
That required some thought. Mack Bolan's kind of thinking.
"Be right back," grunted Bolan to Teckert. "Time for a pitstop."
Bolan ambled off toward a nearby ladder leading down from the parapet.
Teckert said nothing to stop him. He continued gazing out from behind the Cartouche machine gun at the dark wasteland beyond the villa walls.
Bolan kept his easy pace until he had climbed the ladder to a point out of Teckert's line of vision. Once he could not be seen, Bolan moved with speed and economy of movement.
Even in the light-hued desert camo fatigues, Mack Bolan was a wraith in the darkness as he descended to the base of the wall. He carried the Browning and, on its strap over his shoulder, the Galil assault rifle.
This corner of the villa was removed from the hubbub in the courtyard. Bolan found himself in mottled shadows. He melded with the lighter shades, reversing the tactic he used with his skintight combat blacks. His movements were of silence and cunning, pure stealth in the pale night.
He strode along the far end of the courtyard, toward what looked like the main residence.
He turned right at a generator shack that was feeding power to Jericho's villa.
It would have been a pleasure to plant some plastique in the generator shed. But Mike Rideout was not in a position to be carrying that kind of material.
Bolan moved on, angling toward the part-time residence of Leonard Jericho.
Bolan figured the odds were as good as not that Eve was being held in this villa outside Bishabia. Therefore an intel probe was required.
He cut into the shadows under a stone arch. He was near a side door to the private residence. He could see a faint light glowing from a window along the wall.
Bolan tried the door handle. The door was unlocked, as he had expected it to be. Security around here came from guns, not locks. What could not be contained by heavy guard deserved to be trapped into temptation.
Bolan slipped soundlessly into a darkened foyer.
His every sense was alert as if to sniff out a trap. The only light in the hallway was a rectangle of illumination midway down the corridor, coming from a half-open door that corresponded with the light Bolan had seen from the outside.
He closed the door behind him, then unlimbered the Browning hi-power from its hip holster. Bolan kept to the wall and moved toward the lighted doorway.
When he was three feet from the doorway, he heard sounds.
A man, a Libyan outfitted in servant's attire, emerged from the room at a leisurely pace. He was still munching the remnants of a sandwich.
The servant saw Bolan. His eyes and mouth widened in alarm.
Bolan stepped forward and chopped the guy hard with a downward snap of the Browning's butt. The step and the chop were one and the same movement. The blow connected at the base of the man's neck.
The Libyan fell to his knees. His eyes rolled back in his head as he pitched forward onto the floor. He did not move. His breathing was an uncertain rattle. He would be out for at least half an hour.
Bolan frisked him. The guy was unarmed. So Bolan would not kill him.
The Executioner grabbed the unconscious figure under both arms. He dragged the servant back to a walk-in closet next to the door. He laid him out on the floor of the closet, then closed the door and walked on.
It took him all of eight minutes to give the sprawling two-story residence a thorough search.
Lenny Jericho was a man who apparently lived in luxury wherever he went. His home in the desert was a living museum of exquisite tapestries, rugs and furniture in various Mediterranean and African styles.
Evidently the servant was the only one home.
There was no sign of Eve Aguilar. There was no sign of any part of the house being used as a place of detention.
Damnation.
Bolan exited the house by the same open door near the unconscious servant.
He hoped that Teckert would assume by now that Rideout had been assigned some other duty during his time below the parapet.
He kept to the shadows and eased out from the corner of the private residence to the rear wall of a one-story building that formed part of the villa's square courtyard.
Bolan's finger stayed curled around the trigger of the Browning hi-power. His senses scanned the darkness around him as he stayed close to the wall, stealthily moving toward another single lighted window.
He bent his knees slightly when he reached it, and edged an eye to the lower corner of the window. He looked in.
The room was an office.
Kennedy and Doyle stood near the office doorway. They were earnestly discussing something that Bolan could not hear. The windows had been double-glazed to facilitate the air conditioning.
Bolan watched.
Doyle snapped a curt salute at Kennedy. The subordinate left the office. When the door was closed, Kennedy turned and crossed over to the window through which Bolan was looking.
Bolan ducked down out of sight. He took care to prevent the barrel of the Galil from poking out over his shoulder.
As he crouched against the cool brick of the building and looked up, he had a good chance to study Kennedy's features.
The merc honcho stared out above him into the blackness.
It looked to Bolan as if Kennedy had plenty on his mind. The merc's too-perfect good looks were intact and unruffled. But Bolan was close enough to see that Kennedy's eyes were not as clear as before. They were heavy lidded, as if important matters were weighing on Kennedy's mind.
Close to two minutes passed before Kennedy turned from the window. Then Bolan took another chance and peered into the room.
Kennedy was locking the office door. Bolan watched him cross to an empty niche in the wall across from the window.
Then Kennedy stooped and pressed the floorboard. The wall slid open.
The head merc stepped briskly into a secret passage. The sliding panel closed shut behind him.
Now what was this?
Bolan straightened from his crouch. He tried the window. It was latched shut.
He used his elbow to tap it with just enough strength to crack the glass, not enough to shatter it. He pressed his fingertips along the crack in the glass. It gave way and fell onto the sill inside, with nothing more than a soft, dull thud.
Bolan reached in with his free hand and swiftly unlatched the window. He pushed the window up, then swung his leg up and over the window ledge, fanning the interior with his eyes and pistol.
It was not a trap.
The office was empty.
Bolan strode without hesitation toward the bare niche in the wall.
The Executioner was going after Kennedy, who would take him to Eve Aguilar.
Before it was too late.