"Tennyson!" the Executioner roared. "Go with Svarzkova! Get McCain away from the windows!"

Tennyson blinked. "Right!"

William McCain looked like a deer caught in a truck's headlights as Svarzkova yanked him to his feet. The trooper grabbed him by an arm and pulled him along as Svarzkova grabbed her gear bag and moved down the hallway deeper into the house.

Bolan took a quick look around the kitchen door. A man lay in a crumpled heap, and broken gla.s.s and pans lay everywhere. Two dark figures were moving in from the back porch. He fired the M-203 and whipped back around the doorjamb.

The grenade detonated, and Bolan went around the corner with Ramzin covering his back. One of the men had fallen, and the other had dropped to one knee. Bolan shouldered his carbine and put two quick shots into the a.s.sa.s.sin's chest. The man jerked with each shot and fell forward.

Ramzin opened fire back in the living room, and Bolan turned. Two men stood on the front porch with their silenced weapons hissing in their hands. Ramzin staggered as he took more hits, but he stood firm and returned fire. Bolan leveled the carbine's sights on the man on the left and put a burst into him. The man tottered but remained on his feet as his companion fell under Ramzin's fire. The Russian tracked his carbine to the remaining man, and he and Bolan cut the a.s.sa.s.sin down with simultaneous bursts.

The big American grabbed Ramzin's shoulder and shouted above the ringing in his ears. "Are you all right?"

Ramzin nodded and thumped his vest. His armor had held. "Da!"

"We have to find a defensible position!"

Ramzin rammed a fresh magazine into his carbine and slipped another grenade into his launcher. "Da! Go! Find a room! Radio for reinforcements!"

From back inside the house a gun went off, followed by a long unsilenced burst from an automatic weapon. Gla.s.s broke and Svarzkova screamed in rage.

"Cover my back!" Bolan said as he moved down the hallway at a run. The hall opened into a large room dominated by a shattered large-screen television and racks of stereo components. A black-masked figure lay on the floor, and Tennyson was flat on his back next to him with three holes in his chest. William McCain was slumped in the doorway clutching a b.l.o.o.d.y shoulder. Lieutenant Svarzkova was rolling on the floor, screaming, fighting with a dark-clothed figure in a ski mask. Her submachine gun lay off to one side. The a.s.sa.s.sin had rolled on top of her and was awkwardly trying to get the muzzle of his Uzi in line with Svarzkova's head.

The woman squirmed as she desperately held the muzzle away from herself and made a yanking motion at her left wrist. Steel rasped and the AK-47 bayonet gleamed in her right hand. The a.s.sa.s.sin hunched and let out a howl as the agent plunged her knife into his side.

Bolan strode forward and brought his boot up into the gunman's face. The a.s.sa.s.sin sat up with the force of the blow, and the Executioner shot him in the chest. The killer slumped forward on top of Svarzkova. She snarled and pushed the corpse off her. Bolan grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "You all right?"

Svarzkova wiped her knife on her pants leg and resheathed it. She took a deep breath. "Yes. See to the policeman." Bolan called down the hall. "Ramzin! What's happening?"

Ramzin called back. "No movement!"

The soldier went over to Tennyson. The state policeman was gulping air and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Bolan opened the trooper's shirt. Three bullets were lodged in the trooper's bulletproof vest. It was standard-issue police soft armor, but it had been enough to stop the 9 mm subsonic hollowpoint ammunition in the a.s.sa.s.sin's submachine guns. Trooper Tennyson would feel as if he had been beaten with a bat tomorrow, but he was otherwise unhurt. The policeman wheezed dazedly as Bolan helped him to his feet and put his service revolver back in his hand.

Svarzkova knelt beside William McCain. He flinched as she examined his shoulder. Bolan glanced down the other hall. He could see the broken window where the two killers had made their entry. He looked over at McCain, who looked pale. "How is he?"

The woman frowned. "Bullet went cleanly through his shoulder." McCain grunted as she probed his upper back. "I do not believe the bullet expanded. I will try to stop the bleeding, but he will require medical attention."

She looked up at Bolan while she applied pressure to McCain's shoulder. "What is happening?"

Bolan slid a fresh magazine into his carbine. "That was the first wave. They tried to come in and do it stealthily. We ruined that plan for them, so now they'll come in force, and they'll do it soon."

Tennyson opened his revolver and replaced the spent rounds from his revolver. "So what do we do now?"

Bolan jacked a fragmentation grenade into his M-203 launcher. "We call in the fast movers."

14.

Tomas Broz's eyes narrowed as he trained his binoculars on the house by the lake. He had sent in the first team to take out the commando and his compatriots quickly and silently. The action had been anything but silent, and now it seemed they had failed. Broz could see three of his men lying dead on the porch. He had seen the other men make their entry, and none of them had come out of the house. All was silent. Nothing moved. Baibakov had warned him not to underestimate the American, but Broz simply couldn't fathom how the three of them had been ready for an attack less than five minutes after entering the house.

Broz smothered a vague feeling of dread and picked up his radio. "First team has failed, Commander. I am a.s.suming all of them are dead or incapacitated."

Igor Baibakov's voice came across the radio. "Enemy casualties?"

"One state policeman is a confirmed kill. The American, Ramzin, the woman, one trooper and McCain are still inside. Their status is unknown. What are your orders?"

Baibakov's voice was like granite. "If they live, you must a.s.sume they are calling for help. Time is now critical, Broz. Use your superior numbers and firepower, and take the house by storm now, before help can arrive. Confirm the kills yourself, and then extract as planned. I am sending the helicopters for you now. You will contact me when your mission is accomplished. Baibakov out."

Broz's face set with grim resolve. In forty-five minutes he would be safely in Canada. The Russian mafiya was well established in Quebec, and had promised them a safe haven. Once there, the Red Falcons would be free to take their real objective. The act that would break the Americans' will in Bosnia. He grinned savagely at the thought.

But before they could move on to that glorious act, the American commando had to die.

Broz put down his binoculars and rose to his feet. The four heavily armed men behind him got up, as well. His men had been in place for the past fifteen minutes. Now it was time to act. He picked up his radio. "Are all teams ready?"

The other three teams called in. "Ready, Commander."

Broz racked the action on his M-16 rifle. "Fire RPGs! Now!"

Bolan moved down the hall at a crouch. Ramzin knelt in the entryway and peered around the corner and out through the shattered living-room window. He had slung his carbine, and the 7.62 mm Dragunov sniper rifle lay cradled in his arms. Bolan moved past him and grabbed a padded black nylon bag off the floor and crab-walked back into the cover of the hallway. He opened the bag and quickly set up his radio. He punched the Send b.u.t.ton and spoke. "Jack, I need you."

Grimaldi's voice was crystal clear across the link. "What's the situation?"

The Executioner looked up as a sizzling hiss split the air outside. He grabbed Ramzin's shoulder and yanked him deeper into the hallway as a smoking streak flew into the living room. High explosives thundered, and orange fire lit up the hallway. The Russian rose up off his stomach. "They have rocket grenades."

The frame of the house shuddered as another rocket struck the second floor a moment later. Grimaldi shouted anxiously over the radio link. "Sarge! Are you there?"

Bolan's voice was steely calm. "We're under heavy attack. I need immediate air support."

"I don't know your exact location from the air. Can you pop smoke?"

Bolan smiled grimly to himself as the smell of smoke began to overcome the odor of burned high explosive. "No, but I'll be in the only house that's on fire."

"Hang tight. I'm on my way."

Bolan slung the radio bag across his back and kept his headset on. He had told Grimaldi to attach the weapons pods while he and the others took a look at the McCain house and the surrounding area. It would still take the pilot at least two minutes to power up the weapons, then at least five more to get airborne and overhead. In the real world it would be ten.

Another rocket grenade detonated against the house and plaster dusted down from overhead.

They would just have to survive for ten minutes.

A storm of automatic-rifle fire opened up outside, and the house rattled as if it were being hit by hail as Bolan and Ramzin moved down the hall and back into the McCain entertainment room. Svarzkova had made McCain an improvised field dressing while Trooper Tennyson watched the other doorway. The bags of a.s.sorted gear were piled in the middle of the floor.

Ramzin's face was grim. "The house is on firea"we cannot stay."

Bolan nodded. Being burned out was the least of their worries. He didn't think the Red Falcons were going to wait around for that to happen. The house was surrounded. The entertainment room wasn't defensible against men with heavy weapons, and the Red Falcons would a.s.sault any second. Bolan looked at McCain. "There's no door on the northwest side of the house, is there?"

"Um, no. Both doors on the west side of the house face the lake. There's just a chimney and window on the second story facing north."

That would be the least defended area outside. Bolan went to one of his gear bags and pulled out a half-pound block of C-4. He held up the plastic explosive. "We're making a door and breaking out of here."

Bolan led them down the hall to the north side of the house. Wisps of smoke curled near the ceiling as the house began to burn in earnest on the second floor. The hall opened into a large, second living room with a square of couches facing a ma.s.sive fireplace. The window facing east had been shattered where the first group of attackers had made their entry. Bullets spattered against the wall and tracers streamed in smoking trails through the open window.

Bolan calculated. He had two blocks of C-4. Each of the logs forming the walls of the house was as thick around as a man. They were dovetailed in place, and their immense weight held them in position. The plastique would certainly damage them, but there was no guarantee it would make any kind of convenient door. There would be no second chance, and they wouldn't have the time to try to hack their way out. Speed would be life. Bolan eyed the stone-and-mortar fireplace. Masonry, on the other hand, was brittle. It would shatter rather than flex or splinter.

"Give me some cover."

Ramzin knelt and fired his grenade launcher out the window as Bolan walked on his knees and elbows to the fireplace. The riflemen outside opened up with renewed fury, but their aim was to reach deeper into the house. They didn't see the Executioner or even aim in his direction. Bolan packed the high explosive against a seam of mortar holding the blackened stones at the back of the chimney. When he was satisfied it would stay, he pushed an electrical detonator into one of the blocks, and pulled a small black box the size of a television remote control out of his web gear.

"Get behind the couch. When the charge blows, follow me!"

The Executioner overturned a couch for himself and flipped open the remote detonator's plastic shield. He pressed a b.u.t.ton, and a small green light flicked on. The charge was armed. Bolan could hear gla.s.s shattering and the sound of men shouting back in the rear of the house as the Red Falcons stormed the house. He pressed his thumb on the red b.u.t.ton.

Thunder split the room, and the couch heaved as it was pummeled by flying stone and mortar. Bolan was up even as bits of debris were still falling. The mantel had fallen, and much of the chimney front had sagged away. Trees were visible through a ragged hole three feet in diameter. He pulled a fragmentation grenade from his belt and threw it through the hole. The air outside split with the sharp explosion, then Bolan was at the chimney. He put his boot into the stones surrounding the hole, and they fell away under several quick kicks. The Executioner dived through the hole and came up with his carbine ready to fire.

Bolan smiled tightly. He had gambled and won. The Red Falcons had concentrated their forces on the doorways and windows. As he made his way to the corner of the house, the front door smashed in and the Red Falcons made their a.s.sault. He shifted back around the corner as rifles opened up from the woods. The explosion hadn't gone unnoticed. The covering teams knew what had happened. In seconds so would the men inside.

Ramzin came up behind Bolan as Svarzkova and Tennyson pulled William McCain through the blackened hole in the chimney. The Executioner looked at the Dragunov sniper rifle slung on Ramzin's back. "Give me your rifle. Take McCain and the rest up the beach."

The major shook his head. "Wait." He unslung his rifle and handed it to Bolan, who slung his carbine and racked the sniper rifle's action. Ramzin pulled two cylindrical grenades out of his web gear. There was a serial number and three words in Russian Bolan couldn't read on the grenade bodies, but he recognized the chemical symbol emblazoned in large red letters: HCNa"hydrogen-cyanide.

Ramzin pulled the pins from both grenades with his thumbs and held down the safety handles. "I had intended to use these against Baibakov if we pinned him down. Now they will buy us time instead. Move out, now."

Bolan nodded grimly. Hydrogen-cyanide was fast and lethal, and it had been banned for use in war by the Geneva Convention. The streak of tracers drew smoking lines out through the hole in the chimney. Bolan decided not to argue the point. He turned to Svarzkova. "Let's move!"

Ramzin tossed one of his grenades back through the hole in the chimney. As Bolan led the group into the trees, the Russian tossed the other one around the corner of the house. The rifle fire coming from out of the chimney suddenly ceased. Deeper inside the house men yelled in rage and fear.

Bolan heard the hiss of an RPG-7 rocket and dragged McCain to the ground. Svarzkova tackled Tennyson, and the two of them fell in a tangle in the light snow. The RPG-7 warhead exploded behind them. Bolan rose. It hadn't been aimed at them. The corner of the house Ramzin had used for cover smoldered, and large chunks had been blown out the corner logs. The major lay in the snow and didn't move. Bolan turned to Svarzkova. "Get McCain and Tennyson out of here!"

"Leave him! There is no time!"

Bolan ignored her and dodged through the trees back toward the house. Thick smoke churned into the sky from the burning second floor. Behind him he heard Svarzkova swearing in Russian. She suddenly broke into English. "Tennyson! Get McCain out of here!" Bolan heard the snarl of her submachine gun as she began to lay down covering fire for him as he ran.

Bullets struck the trees over the Executioner's head, and suddenly he was clear as he put the burning house between himself and the Red Falcon riflemen. Bolan ran to Ramzin and rolled him over. His face was a mask of blood. His nose had been rebroken, and a large gash split the left side of his face where a flying chunk of wood had struck him. The Russian blinked up at Bolan dazedly. There was no time to check him for a concussion. Ramzin would have to run or die.

Bolan yanked him to his feet and shoved the Russian's weapon back in his hands. Then he slammed Ramzin on the back and roared a command at him in his own language at parade-ground decibels. "Run for the trees, Ramzin!"

Old instincts died hard, and Ramzin's legs obeyed. The Russian broke into an awkward run for the trees. Ahead Svarzkova's weapon was chattering in long bursts. Streams of tracers ripped through the trees back at her. Bolan moved to the still smoking corner of the house. The pulsing flashes of at least half a dozen rifles firing flickered among the trees facing the front of the house, and a slight, wet shimmer hung in the air between the house and the trees. Bolan whipped the Dragunov to his shoulder, and one of the pulses resolved into a man armed with an M-16 in the telescopic sight. The Executioner put the cross hairs on the man's chest and squeezed the trigger.

The gunner flew backward and fell to the snow.

Rifles trained on Bolan, and armed men broke from the trees in a charge. He could hear the shouts of men on the lake side of the house, as well, and knew he would be caught between them. The Executioner counted in his head. It had been about fifteen seconds since Ramzin had thrown his grenade in front of the house.

The soldier broke for the trees.

The charging men yelled as he burst into view, but Bolan ignored them as he ran. Ramzin's weapon joined Svarzkova's as they tried to draw the fire from the trees. A strangled scream suddenly erupted behind Bolan. He kept running until he pa.s.sed a large tree, then hurled himself behind it.

Two men lay in the front of the house. One was motionless, but the other twisted about on the ground, then ceased movement. A third clutched his throat and staggered about. The fourth man had pulled up short and was nearly falling over himself as he backed away. He shouted a word over and over as loud as he could in warning. The man clutching his throat fell and lay still in the snow.

Hydrogen-cyanide was colorless and odorless. All the attackers had seen was Ramzin throwing a grenade that hadn't gone off. The leading three men had run straight into the gas cloud without knowing it. Bolan rose and ran through the trees. He spied Svarzkova ahead and Ramzin a few yards away. "Move! Move! Move!"

The Russians broke cover and ran.

Through the trees Bolan could see Tennyson helping McCain. They had broken out of the trees and were trotting over the flat ground of the lakesh.o.r.e. Bolan dropped behind the bole of a large pine and jerked his head at the Russians. "Keep going!"

The Russians ran past as Bolan sighted through the Dragunov's scope. Armed men in ski masks had moved around from the lake side of the house and were approaching. He swept the scope eastward. More men were giving the front of the house a wide berth and were circling around through the trees. Bolan fired several rounds, and the leading men dropped flat and returned fire. They would quickly have him flanked.

Bolan spoke into his headset. "Jack, where are you?"

Grimaldi's voice broke out across the receiver. "I am inward bound, coming in from the north over the lake." There was a second's pause. "I see smoke, Sarge. A lot of it. I'm a.s.suming that's you."

Bolan raised the Dragunov and fired three more rounds to keep the Red Falcons' heads down. They were leapfrogging from cover to cover, and tracers streaked closer as they walked fire onto his position. "A party of four friendlies is running. The party right behind us is unfriendly."

"Roger that."

The soldier broke cover and ran through the trees. The Red Falcons saw him almost immediately, and he heard the supersonic crack of a rifle bullet pa.s.s close to his head as he wove from tree to tree. Men yelled behind him, and Bolan could hear the crunch of their boots as they charged after him. He raced through a break in the trees, and a hammer blow struck him between the shoulders, the force of it nearly pitching him forward.

The Executioner burst onto the beach and broke into a dead sprint across the stony sh.o.r.e of Lake Champlain. There was a cl.u.s.ter of large rocks a hundred yards ahead. From behind it he could see Svarzkova and Ramzin, and they shouted at him desperately. Bolan ran for all he was worth. He could hear shouting behind him, and more rifles were opening up as the trees thinned. In seconds the Red Falcons would break out of the trees onto the beach. Bolan looked up at the sound of jet engines.

Low in the sky a gleaming shape seemed to be suspended in the air as it flew directly toward Bolan. In the blink of an eye the shape resolved itself into a plane. Bolan's earpiece crackled. "You're the lone runner, Sarge?"

Bolan grunted out a reply over his burning lungs. "Good guess."

Grimaldi's voice was the essence of calm. "Hit the dirt." Bolan threw himself down on the rocky beach.

The Lear jet screamed in overhead. Yellow flames rippled beneath its wings, and 2.75-inch folding-fin rockets sizzled through the air. Grimaldi pulled his plane into a steep bank as his deadly ordnance flew on. The Red Falcons burst out of the trees into the waiting arms of Armageddon.

The sh.o.r.e erupted in orange fire, and sand and rock fountained into the air as the high-explosive rockets detonated. Bodies flew into the air, and several trees at the forest's edge burst and toppled. Bolan rose and sprinted for the rocks. Grimaldi's voice spoke in Bolan's earpiece. "I'm coming in for another pa.s.s. Switching to guns."

The Executioner reached the rocks and knelt beside Svarzkova. Rifle fire came from the trees, but it was ragged and sporadic. The woman's chest heaved, but she grinned at Bolan. "That is our friend, Mr. Jack?"

Bolan nodded as he caught his breath. "He's very resourceful."

The Learjet came in low over the water, and a few tracers streaked up at it from the trees. The aircraft came on implacably. Over the howl of its engines there was a sound like a giant sheet of canvas being torn in two. Tracers streaked down in a steady stream of fire as Grimaldi opened up with his .50caliber Gatling gun. The tree line shuddered as heavy machine-gun bullets walked through it at one hundred rounds per second.

The Lear jet peeled up into the sky and began another banking turn. "Sarge, I have heavy casualties among the enemy. Survivors are scattering. Most seem to be fleeing back toward the house."

Bolan set down the Dragunov and unslung his carbine. "They must have had an extraction plan, Jack. Go high. See if you spot a boat big enough for at least two squads of men."

The radio crackled. "Roger that."

The Learjet climbed into the sky. Grimaldi spoke almost immediately. "I have three helicopters, coming in low over the lake. Should I go to say h.e.l.lo?"