This door was locked and Bolan extracted a tiny tool from his penetration gear. He was almost through picking the lock when he heard footfalls on the stairs behind him. He finished his illegal entry, then slipped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
A lone Syrian sentry made it to the landing where silent death waited ready for him. The guy didn't hear or see his executioner until this dark apparition confronted him. Before the man had time to react or scream, combat-hardened fingers were slicing the air toward his throat. The punishing thrust ruptured the guy's windpipe, and the man uttered only a muted gurgle before he stopped breathing forever.
Bolan grabbed the sentry before his dead fall could alert those downstairs or beyond the door through which they had taken Masudi.
The Executioner hauled the body and rifle over the threshold.
Bolan placed the dead man and his rifle on the floor and relocked the door.
Then he looked around.
An office.
Chances were good that no one would find this corpse until after it was too late.
Bolan moved to the window.
This side of the HQ building faced away from the barracks.
The first gray smudge of false dawn etched the mountains in the east in stark silhouette.
Bolan moved fast. He unlatched the office window and opened it. A narrow ledge ran beneath the window, around the building. He climbed out onto the lip.
A bloodcurdling scream emanated from behind a lighted window a few feet from Bolan.
He inched forward, pressing himself against the building, never relaxing his sense-probing of the night. He almost reached the window when two sentries strolled shoulder to shoulder around the far corner of the building and approached on a course directly below him.
Standing motionless on the ledge, Bolan did not even breathe, his heart thumping against his rib cage.
One of the sentries glanced up almost casually at the lighted square, the only illumination along the second level of the building. He saw nothing but shadows around the window. He and his companion continued on their rounds.
Bolan heard harsh voices coming from behind the glass. He inched the final distance along the parapet for a glimpse inside the room.
It made sense for Strakhov to bring Masudi here, Bolan mused. The Soviet embassy in Beirut would be buzzing, and for the most part the Soviet terror machine kept a low profile in the Middle East, according to Bolan's considerable intel gained from documents captured during The Executioner's hit in Russia.
The situation in Lebanon was far too fluid, changing minute by minute, for anyone's intel to be very accurate, but the KGB habitually avoided direct active presence here, letting their Syrian clients front for them.
Bolan had a suspicion that even the KGB'S Beirut control knew nothing of the events at Biskinta tonight, or even of Strakhov's mission to Lebanon.
Strakhov's activities since arriving had clandestine written all over them.
Bolan eyeballed the scene through the window.
They had Masudi in the office, sure enough.
Bolan pegged it as the Syrian CO'S office.
Masudi sat in a wooden chair, nursing his right hand, rocking back and forth. His handcuffs had been removed.
The Syrian general towered over Masudi, scornfully glaring at the Iranian prisoner.
The bulky, horse-faced guy in cheap East European threads who Bolan had guessed to be the Syrians' GRU control stood with his back to the door, observing what the Syrian had done to make Masudi scream. The GRU man idly worked crud from under his fingernails with a penknife and flipped the dirt onto the Syrian general's carpet.
The words they spoke sounded a bit clearer to Bolan this close to the window. They spoke English. Not unusual with so many nationalities warring throughout the region. Most of the participants in Lebanon's war spoke French or English, common languages often used for communication.
No sign of Strakhov.
"You have nine more fingers, General Masudi," the GRU man at the door growled without looking up from his nails. "Then I will have General Abdel begin on... more sensitive areas." Abdel did not budge from crowding Masudi.
"It would be my pleasure, Major Kleb. It has always been my opinion that Iranians are the issue of diseased camels mating with lepers." Abdel appraised Masudi like a butcher sizing up a slab of meat. "I would take my time with this one. He would scream so much..." The Iranian gulped and Bolan could see the terrified man's Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
"But, Major," Masudi pleaded to the Russian around Abdel's bulk, "are we not allies? I beg of you."
"Beg all you want," snarled the Syrian. "The Iranian Revolutionary Guards fight beside the Druse, yes, but you have never been asked into this by either our government or..." and Abdel shot a quick glance to the GRU advisor "com'th of our friends. And so you will die. You will pay for your unwarranted intervention."
"We fight for the glory of Islam!" protested Masudi. "And who has asked Syria or the Soviet Union into this?"
"Impudent swine," Abdel snarled, backhanding Masudi hard enough to send the smaller man and the chair sprawling to the floor.
Abdel pulled a booted foot back for a kick at Masudi.
The Russian officer continued to work on his nails, but spoke.
"General Abdel, one moment, please." Kleb folded and pocketed the penknife and gazed coolly at Masudi. The Iranian wiped blood from his face. "The Disciples of Allah," Kleb said in a monotone. "Tell me what you know of them, General, and perhaps we will let you live."
"The Disciples? This... there is no such group," Masudi gasped, working to get his breath back. "It is a temporary name. Nothing more than a loose band. Shiites and Druse. I have only heard of them. They carry out raids, yes, suicide fighters... but the Disciples of Allah is but a name to give the impression of greater numbers, you understand?" Abdel eyed the Russian.
Kleb nodded.
The Syrian knelt across Masudi's chest and grabbed the Iranian's right hand.
Bolan, from his perch outside the window on the ledge, clearly heard something snap above Masudi's bleat as the Syrian broke another finger.
"He screams like a woman, this one," Abdel snickered, standing again.
"He will scream the truth."
"We know when you lie, you see, General Masudi," Kleb said, chuckling. "We know of the plot to assassinate the Lebanese president. We know of the Disciples part in this. We know of your role that of sponsor and protector to these madmen. Now I want you to tell me the rest of it. All of it." Masudi forced himself to his knees. He looked utterly defeated, but Bolan discerned a fierce determination on the man's features.
"But I... I do not understand. The government befriends Israel and the devil nation, America... surely we fight on the same side, Muslim brothers... the Disciples strike for us!"
"You will be tortured until you tell us what we wish to know," Kleb continued in his monotone. "General Abdel, commence, and do not stop until he talks."
"With pleasure, Major." The Syrian bent to his task.
The bloodied Masudi got a new glint in his painclouded eyes and somehow, despite the oddly protruding broken digits of his right hand, he no longer looked defeated at all.
"You shall never stop us!" he screamed and rocketed to his feet before Abdel could reach him. "There are others. We are Shiites! We die for Islam! Allah be praised!" Abdel rushed forward, grabbing for Masudi.
The Iranian twisted away from the outstretched hands while his uninjured hand darted down inside his left boot.
The GRU man at the door lost all his cool then and dived for concealed hardware. But it all happened too fast.
The Syrian generai twisted around almost as fast as Masudi and clamped both hamlike hands around the Iranian's neck.
Abdel grunted a curse in Arabic and yanked the smaller man around.
The Iranian allowed himself to be swung. He used the momentum to plunge a stiletto to the hilt under Abdel's breastbone, into the heart.