"Where is Strakhov right now?"
"I am afraid we don't know that."
"Have you been able to learn why he's here? This is a hot spot for a ranking KGB commander to put in an appearance."
"I'm hoping the informer we're on our way to see will shed more light on the subject," said Herzi. "Her name is Zoraya Khaled." He told Bolan the address of the woman's flat not far from the Avenue des Frangais in central Beirut.
Bolan committed the address to memory.
"You have no clue as to why Strakhov has set up shop in Beirut?"
Strakhov.
The top priority.
The Executioner had come to Beirut to track down the elusive Soviet terror boss, destroy whatever the cannibal had going for him and terminate the KGB major general once and for all.
"It could be assassination," said the Israeli.
Bolan wheeled the Fiat into the turn.
The Muslim suburb up ahead looked deserted under the flickering illumination from the flares and distant fires.
Bolan could hear the sounds of automatic weapons in the distance from several sources, noneaimed at the Fiat.
"The president?" The Israeli nodded.
"Possibly to assassinate him and replace him with an Arab who is Christian but in fact a dupe of the rivals. As you can see, there is anarchy. A successful revolution? It could backfire. Israel could rush in to assist the Christians the Maronites. Your country would help. The government would prevail."
"Where is the president now?"
"Safe enough. He is under tight security at the presidential palace in Baabda, just outside Beirut. Now you know all that I know. Probably a great deal more. Zoraya will be able to fill you in, I'm sure. Is there anything else?"
"Yeah, there is, Captain." Bolan's voice warmed. "Good work. Your Uncle Yakov sends his greetings."
Herzi started to grin and say something above the din of warfare around them, but at that instant a piercing whistle needled through the other noise.
"Incoming," Bolan snarled. His right arm propelled Yakov's nephew down roughly but effectively.
"Get ready to move!" Bolan punched off the Fiat's headlight and accelerated, veering.
Too late.
The world exploded in a deafening clap.
The Fiat, escaping a direct hit, caught enough of the blast to be lifted up and over. For several heartbeats, reality existed to Bolan as a tumbling kaleidoscope, crunching car metal and shattering glass.
When the vehicle stopped its roll, Bolan felt relief that his body responded to the mental command ordering it to seek cover well away from the car. He experienced another surge at the sight of his companion scrambling from the opposite side of the Fiat as approaching footfalls came up on them. In the arcing glow of overhead flares, Bolan counted four men, civvies-clad snipers wearing the red armband of the Shiite militia.
Bolan and Herzi sought the cover of darkness and undergrowth beyond the road.
The soldiers approached, laughing among themselves.
One of them carried a grenade launcher. They all toted Soviet-made Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles.
Then one of them spotted Herzi, who had not sought cover fast enough. The militiamen opened fire on the Israeli.
Bolan saw Herzi dive away from the line of fire an instant before two of the Shiite gunmen opened up on him.
Bolan straightarmed the mighty .44 AutoMag and triggered a couple of hammering rounds that blew apart two gunners' heads, pitching their corpses backward. Then The Executioner tracked on the third sniper, who was bringing up his AK in Bolan's direction.
Bolan's survival instincts flared too late at the rustle of attacking movement from behind. He knew this Beirut hit could end for him before it had even begun. The sniper down below him was in his sights, sure, but The Executioner had been outflanked with no time to turn.
A 3-shot stutter erupted from Captain Herzi's Uzi from the shadowy clearing across the road.
Two more Shiite bandits tumbled into death sprawls: the last Muslim fanatic, who was carrying the grenade launcher that blasted the Fiat, and a street fighter coming in behind Bolan, stopped forever by the burst from the Mossad agent.
Bolan and the Israeli joined up moments later to survey the now useless Fiat surrounded by the fresh dead and rapidly widening pools of blood.
"I owe you one, Captain. Let's move out." They jogged away from the scene, traveling parallel to the road for a while in the direction of the buildings on the outskirts of Beirut, a half mile away.
"This far from the fighting, those men could only have been out for themselves," Herzi opined.
"Kill crazy," snapped Bolan.
2
There appeared to be a lull in the shelling of the city.
Beirut pulsed with the panic of its civilian population in the fires and devastation that assaulted the senses wherever one looked. Small-arms fire and the grumble of tank fire continued here and there.
A flare arced, partially blotted out by thick clouds of smoke from a fire somewhere nearby, but it cast enough light for Chaim Herzi to openly appraise the American in blacksuit as the two of them jogged along.
"As you can see, my friend, you will not stand out moving through the streets of Beirut tonight in your combat suit and weaponry. Tonight belongs to Death."
They passed a haphazard pile of four entangled bodies. PLO. Ropes had been tied around the dead men's necks, the heads almost torn loose from the bodies.
"Dragged behind trucks," Herzi explained as they continued past. "No one takes prisoners here." Bolan lifted a hand to silence the Israeli and Herzi got the message.
Both men fell farther away from the road.
An army tank rumbled into sight from behind a row of two-story, battle-scarred buildings. The war machine clanked by, never slowing as it passed the spot where Bolan and the Mossad man took to cover.
"On their way to investigate our firefight," Bolan noted.
"They will find nothing but dead Muslims, which is what they want to find," whispered Herzi. "The Fiat cannot be traced."
"How far are we from Zoraya's apartment?"
"Quite frankly, considering the situation in Beirut tonight, we could probably get there on foot in the same amount of time it would take to drive. There is heavy fighting between here and where she lives."
"All the better to be on foot then," Bolan remarked. He looked in the direction of the Lebanese army tank that had been swallowed by the night.
"Let's move out. They'll be back when they find out there's nothing over there to shoot at." They left their cover and continued on, cutting across an alley.
Automatic weapons stammered in the distance two or three blocks away. Bolan heard people screaming.
"The soldiers are not our main concern," Herzi warned. "The Maronite Phalangist militia... they will shoot at anything that moves."
Bolan knew of the Phalangists, the radical military arm of a powerful political party in Lebanon.
It had been Phalangist militiamen who slaughtered those hundreds of unarmed Palestinian refugees following the assassination of a Lebanese president a couple of years back.
Herzi led Bolan from one deserted back dirt alley to another, moving ever deeper into Beirut, toward the worst of the devastation.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the near distance.
Bolan caught vivid glimpses of pure havoc each time he and the Israeli darted across a side street that bisected the alleys.
Everywhere he looked, Bolan saw chaos: walls of buildings disintegrating from the shelling; families, residents standing around numb with shock; automobiles flaming, trashed in the streets; dead bodies sprawled everywhere Muslim and Christian soldiers and civilians, men, women and children fallen in awkward positions on the sidewalks, in the gutters.
A pack of drunk Phalangist troops were too busy looting a Muslim store to see Bolan and Herzi slide by behind them. The cries of the wounded and others mourning their dead echoed throughout the ravaged city.