LITMIR.BIZ

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I mean, how long can you bang rattan sticks against each other and stab your training partner with rubber training knives before you’d kind of like to get out and do something else for a while? “He paused, took in a deep breath and let it out again. “Don’t get me wrong. I love what I’m doing. Kali, Arnis, Escrima—the Philippines have the most practical martial arts in the world, you ask me, and the best of the best is right here on Mindanao. But other than that, once you’ve been to Fort Pilar and seen the Yakan Weaving Village, there’s not a whole lot left to do.”

      When Bolan didn’t respond, Latham went on.

      “Okay, look,” the Texan said, lifting his hat off his head and wiping a hand across his scalp. “Hawk was the best friend I had when I was a kid. I could tell you stories about trouble we got into that would curl your ears.” He stopped, glanced at the Executioner, then amended the statement. “Well, maybe not your ears but most people’s. And Hawk was the best trooper to ever come out of Delta Force, too—don’t listen to him when he tells you I was just as good. I wasn’t. Anyway, one thing you could always count on out of Hawk was getting the truth. Bottom line—if he says you’re okay and I should work with you and not ask questions, that’s good enough for me.”

      The Cherokee passed Don Basillio Navarro Street, then turned south on Alvarez. A few minutes later it turned east and entered the city proper. Barely slowing the vehicle, Latham guided them in and out of residential and business areas, past houses, restaurants and bars. The streets were alive with activity. Children played happily in front of houses and older, more sullen youths, gathered on street corners to glower as they passed.

      Bolan was reminded that Mindanao’s cities, as well as its hinterland, were hotbeds of crime. Robberies, rapes and murders of both tourists and natives were common, and kidnapping for ransom—especially of Americans—was almost the national sport.

      Pablo Lorenzo Street took them to Valderoza and they drove past Fort Pilar, which Latham had mentioned earlier. Bolan recalled that the fort had been founded by the Spaniards in the early seventeenth century, and conquered at various times by the Dutch, Moros, British and even the Japanese during World War II. Finally claimed by the Filipinos themselves, the fort now housed a marine museum and an ethnographic gallery that concentrated on the Badjao—or sea gypsies—who spent most of their lives on houseboats along the Sulu Archipelago.

      Just past the fort they turned away from the city. According to the CIA, Subing’s home was in Rio Hondo, a small village—almost a suburb—to the east.

      The Jeep topped a rise in the road and in the distance they could see the spiral towers of a village mosque. The Texan snorted humorously and shook his head. “Rio Hondo,” he said. “Sounds like a John Wayne movie, doesn’t it?”

      Bolan smiled as they drove toward the village. He had taken a liking to Charlie Latham and appreciated the man’s unique way of viewing life. Latham was a straightforward type and, according to Hawkins, one heck of a fighter both with, and without, weapons. The Executioner hadn’t seen any firsthand proof of it yet but he suspected he’d find out up close and personal before this mission ended. Until then Hawkins’s word—which had given Latham confidence in Bolan—also meant the Executioner could trust the Texan when the going got tough.

      The road rose and fell as they neared Rio Hondo and with each rise Bolan caught glimpses of the shoreline and water beyond. Several shallow-draft sailboats—vintas—moved gently back and forth along the coast. In them he could see tiny brown figures casting fishing nets over the sides. He was so occupied when he suddenly heard Latham say, “Uh-oh,” in a calm voice.

      The Executioner turned his attention back to the road. They had just rounded a curve and Latham was slamming on the brakes, barely coming to a halt before hitting an ancient, rusting Chevrolet parked in the lane in front of them. Blocking the oncoming lane—and preventing them from passing—stood an equally old Ford Fairlane with a huge dent in the front fender. Two men stood between the vehicles, their arms waving wildly as they shouted at each other. To the average tourist it would have appeared that they had just been involved in an accident and were attempting to assign the blame.

      But Bolan was neither tourist nor average. And neither was Latham.

      “Kidnappers,” Latham said quickly as he pulled the Browning from his waistband. “Fake car accident. Standard ploy.”

      Bolan didn’t need to be told. The Desert Eagle had come out of its holster the moment he’d seen the two cars. Now, as the two arguing men turned to face the Cherokee, he held the big .44 Magnum pistol just out of sight below the dashboard.

      Both men wore dingy brown shirts, the tails untucked over baggy, tropical fabric slacks. They smiled as they began to casually walk forward as if to ask for assistance.

      Then the shirttails came up and both men pulled pistols from their belts.

      The Executioner twisted the door handle, threw open the door and leaped from the Cherokee. As he did, he saw a half dozen more men with AK-47s suddenly rush out of the jungle at the side of the road. The outbreak of automatic rifle fire behind him told Bolan that even more gunmen had appeared from the jungle on the other side of the road. As he dived below a burst of 7.62 mm rounds he wondered briefly if Latham had gotten out of the car. He hadn’t heard the man’s door open amid the explosions.

      Bolan returned his attention to the men on his side of the vehicle. Latham was either alive or he was dead. Either way, there was nothing the Executioner could do to help him at the moment.

      Another volley of fire struck the Cherokee as Bolan hit the ground and curled his body into a shoulder roll. As he rolled he caught a flash sight of the six men in front of him, his brain registering the fact that they wore a mixture of camouflage and more traditional dress. He wondered briefly if kidnapping was really their objective. The ambush was taking on more of the aura of a well-thought-out terrorist op.

      Maybe even an assassination. Did the Tigers know he was on the island?

      The Executioner pushed the possibility to the back burner for the moment. Right now it made little difference who the men were or what they wanted. They meant to kill both him and Latham, and at this point the important thing was to make sure they didn’t get it done.

      Bullets struck the highway’s shoulder to both of the Executioner’s sides. Huge chunks of black asphalt, heated to softness by the hot Mindanao sun, ripped open as if tiny earthquakes had erupted. Bolan’s brain raced at near-inhuman speed, analyzing, evaluating, taking in the details of the situation. He weighed the odds and calculated the percentages of every possible course of action as he rolled beneath the onslaught.

      The bottom line was grim. He was outnumbered and outgunned. There were six men directly in front of him, and even if he could make it to the rear of the Cherokee some of them would still be angled for clear shots. But the rear of the vehicle was the nearest thing to cover available so it was toward that goal he would have to fight.

      Bolan rolled again amid a shower of lead. The gunmen on Latham’s side of the vehicle continued their assault, their rounds exploding from that direction.

      The Executioner rolled up to one knee and lifted the Desert Eagle. The enemy had both superior manpower and firepower. He and Latham had superior thinking, superior thinking that could be turned into superior strategy. And both the thinking and the strategy would have to be far superior.

      The Executioner pointed the barrel of the Desert Eagle at the man closest to the rear of the Cherokee. Heavyset and bareheaded, the would-be kidnapper wore what looked like faded blue gym shorts and sandals below a camouflage BDU blouse. A tap of the trigger sent a 240-grain semijacketed hollowpoint round exploding from the .44 Magnum pistol’s barrel. It drilled through the third button in the stenciled leaf-pattern cammie shirt, snapped the man’s spine in two, then blew on out of his back taking with it a hurricane of mangled muscle tissue, blood and splintered bone. The man himself went limp, collapsing to the ground like a dropped rag doll.

      The soldier swung the Desert Eagle to his left, toward the next man closest to the rear of the Cherokee.

      This man sported a stringy mustache

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