LITMIR.BIZ

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      The Stony Man pilot was in the doorway, following, when Bolan clambered through the window and began his steep rush down the fire escape.

      * * *

      ABDULLAH RAJHID WAS SLOWING, almost at the alley’s mouth with cars and foot traffic beyond, when Salman Farsoun overtook him, blurting out, “I’ve seen them!”

      “Seen who?” Rajhid asked him without stopping, without looking backward.

      “The Crusaders! One of them, at least.”

      “Then he’s seen you,” Rajhid replied. “Come on!”

      Walid Khamis was already ahead of them, shoving his Micro Uzi underneath his baggy shirt. Rajhid did likewise with his MAC-10, hoping Farsoun could do something with the larger MP-5 K submachine gun he carried. The sounds of battle from the building they’d abandoned were already drawing notice. Rajhid did not fancy jogging down the boulevard with military weapons on display, alerting passersby to summon the police.

      “He was a white man,” Farsoun said, still going on about the fellow he’d seen or had imagined. “An American, perhaps.”

      Rahjid would never fully understand these Palestinians. Although himself a Saudi, he was well aware of how the Arab residents of Palestine had suffered since the state of Israel was created by outsiders from the West. Indeed, that had been the spark that lit the fuse on Rahjid’s own jihad, but there was still something peculiar about soldiers such as Khamis and Farsoun. They suffered from excitability, erratic moods, and Rajhid found them easily distracted at important moments of an operation.

      Now, for instance, when his mind was focused on escape, Farsoun wanted to talk about some man he’d seen—but why? To what result?

      “Come on!” Rajhid repeated. “We can talk about it later.”

      “But—”

      “Enough! Now hide that gun or leave it here!”

      Farsoun lifted his shirt and shoved the MP-5 K underneath one armpit, lowering his arm to keep the weapon clamped against his side. Rajhid hoped he could keep it there, but had no plans to stay behind and help Farsoun if he got careless, drawing notice to himself.

      The sidewalk they emerged on to was crowded, some people already slowing, peering down the alley toward the sounds of battle echoing along its length. Rajhid pushed through and past them. He might have warned Khamis to slow his pace a bit, attempted to act more normal, but he didn’t want the strangers passing by to put the two of them together.

      One less thing for them to tell the police when they finally arrived.

      And the police could turn up any moment, Rajhid realized. Then there could be gunfire, explosions, smoke and flames, for all he knew. The residents of Ciudad del Este were well acquainted with crime, but not with pitched battles fought in their midst.

      Putting distance between himself and the scene, Rajhid spared a thought for whoever had raided the complex. Unlike Farsoun, he’d seen none of the raiders, therefore had no clue if they were locals or some kind of special unit from outside. The charm of Paraguay, for freedom fighters on the run, lay in its curious interpretation of what constituted terrorism. Any opposition to the ruling party was suppressed, but what a man did elsewhere—most particularly if his actions were directed against Jews and their supporters—might be overlooked, especially if cash changed hands.

      But if the raid had been conducted by Crusaders, as Farsoun surmised, that would be something else.

      Bin Laden had been slaughtered a US Navy SEAL team, at his lair in Pakistan, without a by-your-leave to the legitimate authorities. How many other heroes had been slain by rockets from a clear blue sky, triggered by hunters sitting in a bunker somewhere, half a world away?

      Watching the traffic pass, alert for military or police vehicles, Rajhid wondered how the damned Crusaders could have found him here.

      No matter.

      For the moment, all he had to focus on was getting out alive.

      * * *

      THE ALLEY STANK, but that was par for any urban landscape in the tropics, where the seasons ranged from hot and damp to hot and soaking wet. The blacktop under Bolan’s feet was old, but still felt tacky from the heat, as if it had been freshly laid. He was halfway to the alley’s intersection with the street when Grimaldi dropped from the fire escape and started after him.

      The runners he had glimpsed were gone, but they had turned left when they reached the street and Bolan went from there, tucking the AUG back underneath his raincoat, pausing long enough to let Grimaldi overtake him on the sidewalk.

      “Farsoun was the one I recognized,” he said. “That makes the others Khamis and Rajhid. Two wearing white shirts, one in red, all three in khaki trousers.”

      “Packing?” Grimaldi asked, while his eyes swept both sides of the street.

      “Farsoun had something like an Ingram or a Micro Uzi. It was hard to tell. Assume they’re loaded.”

      “There!” Grimaldi said, pointing as Bolan’s eyes locked on to a red shirt, retreating through the flow of window shoppers. Even as he spoke, the man in the red shirt glanced backward, seeming to meet Bolan’s gaze.

      “Farsoun,” he said. “Let’s go.”

      Before they’d covered half a block, he saw the other two, moving ahead of Farsoun on the same side of the street. Rajhid and Khamis wasted no time looking back, perhaps afraid of what was gaining on them, maybe just intent on getting clear and finding someplace new to hide. Whatever, Bolan had them spotted now, and he was bent on stopping them before they had a chance to disappear.

      That thought had barely formed when one of them, wearing a white shirt, separated from the others, darting into traffic like a kamikaze bent on suicide, ducking and dodging as he ran to reach the far side of the street.

      “I’m on him,” Grimaldi said, launching from the curb into a stream of steel and chrome, ignoring angry bleats from auto horns.

      Instead of watching the pilot’s progress, Bolan pursued the targets dressed in red and white. They weren’t exactly running yet, but they were picking up the pace, anxious to clear the neighborhood before it swarmed with uniforms. Bolan had much the same idea himself, but couldn’t bail before he’d caught at least one of the fugitives.

      Or done his best to catch them, anyway.

      In a scene like this, he knew there was a chance he could lose both of them, or else be forced to take them down without a chance to ask the vital questions. Given that choice, Bolan would prefer dead terrorists to killers still at large and plotting their next move.

      Ahead of him, the runners reached a cross street; one of them said something to the other, then they broke in opposite directions. One guy peeled away to Bolan’s left and out of sight around the corner, while his comrade bolted to the right, crossing against the light and nearly getting flattened by a taxi just before he reached the other curb.

      There was no way to take the farthest runner down without endangering civilians and revealing he was armed. Bolan turned left and started running hard after the red shirt as its owner put on speed.

      * * *

      GRIMALDI WASN’T BIG, but he was fast. A mad dash through traffic with horns blaring at him, brakes screeching, had gotten his heart pumping. The shoulder-slung Spectre M4 slapped his ribs as he ran, until the Stony Man pilot clamped his right arm against it to stop the drumbeat. Every footfall sent a jolt along his spine and urged him to run faster.

      Up ahead, his target—leaner, younger, desperate—had gained a lead on him and wasn’t slowing. The guy had glanced back once, treating Grimaldi to a glimpse of a familiar bearded face, then started running as if his life depended on it.

      Which, in fact, it did.

      Crossing the street in mid-block took them to another alley and more stinking garbage

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