The Libya Connection by Don Pendleton Page B

Browning. He unscrewed the low-watt bulb near the door. The hallway bisected the stone building. There had been noise tonight, from the Browning. But security at this level, deep beneath a secret meeting place, was spacious — sparse and unassuming like a secret itself.
    At the opposite end, stairs led up to the main room of the structure where Bolan would find his primary targets. His concern, too, was to get Fahima and Bushir out of the killing zone.
    Bolan inched the door inward a few inches. He scanned the narrow, rutted dirt street outside the doorway.
    The scene was deserted, cloaked in darkness. The village of Bishabia dozed beneath the desert night.
    Bolan could sense the tension of the father and daughter who stood close behind him.
    He also sensed an electricity out there in the night. There was a crackle to the air. Bolan knew in his gut that others were roaming. On the kill. He did not know how many or who. But they were there.
    He holstered the Browning and spun the Galil into readiness. He toed the door further open and stepped into the night like a shadow. A shadow in combat crouch.
    He surveyed the scene: he saw nothing but the night.
    "Move along the wall away from me," commanded Bolan over his shoulder to Fahima and her father. "When we get to the end of the building, you're on your own. Good luck."
    They exited the building and did as they were told. Bolan covered them from the rear.
    They almost made it.
    The crunch of several pairs of footsteps came from around the corner of the building when Bolan's group was less than two yards from it.
    Four of Jericho's free-lance terrorist troopers, black and burly and uniformed like the men Bolan had killed inside, came into sight at a leisurely clip.
    Everyone saw everybody else at the same instant.
    Bushir and his daughter knew they would only be in Bolan's way. Father and daughter went low, wisely falling away from the hellground that would be the airspace above. Bushir moved with an agility surprising for a man his age.
    Bolan was diving into a prone firing position. The rifle was right for night killing like this.
    He pumped off two rounds, was rewarded with the sight of one soldier flopping back, open armed, as if kicked by a mule.
    The Galil's report echoed like a thundercrack in the tight confines of the village street.
    The soldiers were scattering. They appeared untrained. But they were pulling their weapons around fast enough.
    Bolan sighted in on one guy dodging to the side. The Galil pumped two more lead destroyers that flipped the man into a forward somersault, minus his face.
    The two survivors had held flank positions in their original formation. Both men opened fire with their rifles. But they could not see Bolan. They were firing at where they thought he was.
    Saffron flashes of gunfire knifed the darkness.
    Bolan was rolling in a sideways fling, wide and wild to his left. He heard bullets chunking into the dirt where he had been moments before.
    He came out of the roll, sighted at the man to his left and squeezed the trigger. The guy jackknifed with an ugly grunt and pitched to the ground. Bolan had heard clearly the
thwack-suck
as the heavy round splattered through living matter. That soldier was dead.
    The remaining man of the group tossed a fast trio of parting shots and started to turn.
    Bolan heard a gasping noise to his right. He concentrated immediately on taking out the soldier who was two paces from gaining cover at the corner of the building.
    The assault rifle thumped once, twice more. The target was twisted around and slammed into the corner of the building he had been trying to hide behind. His corpse slumped slowly to the ground. Bolan had heard those hits, too. The guy was dead.
    The night was responding with a hum of activity. The babble of awakened villagers merged with something else.
    Bolan heard two separate engines gunning to life. He heard voices raised in alarm. He heard the sound of men mobilizing.
    Bolan hurried to where