Beirut Payback: MacK Bolan by Don Pendleton Page B

fighting down there had ceased, all of Masudi's command either dead or captured.
    The chauffeur-driven Syrian staff car left the compound, traveling the rutted road leading from Biskinta, and disappeared from Bolan's view around the far side of the mountain.
    It would be a matter of three to four minutes before it would pass the point where Bolan had left Zoraya and the child in the hidden Volvo.
    Bolan jogged faster, not bolstering the AutoMag.
    He met no further interference.
    Too many people had died already this night — good people like Chaim Herzi and uncounted, anonymous innocents and others caught in the cross fire of rampant savagery — for Bolan to let this vital thread slip through his fingers.
    His view of this mission had altered in the hours he'd been in the country.
    He had originally come with the sole objective of locating and terminating Greb Strakhov. He now realized he could not leave Beirut without doing something decisive to attempt to restore some course of stability in Lebanon.
    It could be done. Bolan wasn't sure just how yet. That's why he could not afford to let the staff car escape.
    He reached the darkness alongside the road where the Volvo had been parked just as the headlights of the limo pierced the night, Strakhov's driver making good speed despite the road's poor condition.
    Bolan crouched.
    The headlights missed him as the limo roared past.
    The nightfighter glanced around.
    Zoraya, the child and the Volvo were gone.

7
    The staff car that raced by Bolan's hidden position had company: a camou-painted, tarp-covered two-and-a-half-ton truck with Syrian army markings rumbled along to catch up. Protection.
    The troop carrier could not take the battle-rutted road as fast as the limo. Strakhov must be impatient to get Masudi to their destination.
    All right.
    Another chance.
    The staff car disappeared again around another bend of the mountain road.
    Bolan approached one of the trees, the shadows of which had hidden the Volvo from view of the road. He willed himself not to worry about Zoraya and Selim. Emotion dulled the combat edge. He reached up on the run and grabbed a sturdy branch well off the ground and hoisted himself up.
    The truck upshifted as the road straightened itself out until the next bend. Good, thought Bolan, who was perched on the branch well above the line of headlights or vision from those in the cab of the truck. The noise of the acceleration would cover any noise resulting from what Bolan had in mind.
    As the vehicle lumbered by beneath him, he swung gracefully from the branch to gain a footing on the step under the passenger-side door.
    The nightscorcher opened the door so swiftly that the first thing the Syrian soldier riding shotgun knew of it was when Bolan used his left hand to snap him back hard while his combat knife sliced down. A fountain of blood sprayed the interior of the cab and dotted the windshield. Bolan heaved the body into the gloom.
    The driver, who broke his concentration from the tortuous mountain road, reacted too late. Bolan killed him and also tossed the body into the darkness.
    The slight jar when the steering wheel changed hands went unnoticed by the soldiers jouncing around in the back of the truck.
    The tumbling bodies were swallowed from view in the vegetation to either side of the road before Bolan's passengers could see them.
    He coaxed more power from the heap and that did get curses and shouts from the back, but nothing more. He rounded another turn in the road into a valley, and the taillights of the limo popped into view. And Bolan knew he still had a hold on this tiger of a night.
    * * *
    General Abdel tried not to let his fear show. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander felt himself shaking, felt shriveled in his uniform. They had not removed his handcuffs.
    Masudi rode in one of the pull-down seats in the spacious tonneau of the Syrian staff car.
    Three men sat across from him: a broad, bearlike man whom Masudi did not know and who