He aimed purposely high, and the Mossad men ducked back inside long enough for Katz to do a wheelie out of there, feeding the bike so much power. He roared down the driveway before additional personnel around the "farmhouse" could be alerted to what was happening.
The motorbike whizzed along the smooth surface of the driveway.
Katz knew the difficult part would be when he hit that shell-destroyed stretch of road leading back into Beirut. Right now he had no trouble controlling the handlebar accelerator with the prosthetic device on his right hand.
He thought he had a good chance. He didn't need to use the hand brake on that same side. If he had to stop he'd use the foot brake. But if the ride was too rough.... He dismissed the thought. He only had to get around the first bend in the road. They would be after him within seconds and would easily overtake him in those cars.
But Katz only intended to clear the bend, then ditch the motorcycle and cut into the rugged terrain. He'd lose them on foot in the undulating hill region and find other transportation.
He had no intention of rotting away under Mossad interrogation while Mack Bolan fought alone less than two hours away.
Katz had gotten Mack into Beirut, and he would damn well give everything he had to help the big guy get out.
He heard car engines waking up in the distance behind him and the popping reports of gunfire after him. But no bullets from the direction of the house found their mark. He reached the end of the driveway and leaned into the turn, feeding the speeding machine more gas instead of less for the curve onto the main road.
He had to make it.
Bob Collins crouched out of sight.
A Syrian supply convoy lumbered onto the base at Zahle.
When the trucks had passed, the CIA man returned to his prone position on a knoll overlooking the base. He focused his binoculars, waiting for something to happen.
Collins had parked his vehicle in the brush off the road. He was armed with a Colt.45 automatic.
As he had feared, the interrogation of Yakov Katzenelenbogen had yielded nothing, so Collins and Randolph had decided to play a long shot on intel Mossad fed them for coming in to help on the Katz thing.
The two CIA men had left the clay house where Katz had been questioned and started north back into the hellzone, their Company authorization passing them through Israeli forces happy to be rid of them.
Collins and Randolph had started toward Zahle, but only Collins made it alive.
They had driven over a land mine planted in the road, left by withdrawing Druse forces. The right front tire had touched the explosive, which tossed the agents' vehicle onto its side.
Collins had rolled free through his open window and for a moment thought his partner had made it, too.
Randolph had not made it.
Collins had walked around to the other side of the car and had seen that the force had ripped away most of the right side of Also's body into an awful palpitating red gristle.
Collins had turned his eyes away, puked, then continued on until another means of transportation a car he hotwired and drove brought him to Zahle.
He raised the glasses and scanned the base again, shaking his head at the loss of his friend.
Also was dead, no rhyme or reason to it all, and Collins was surprised that he felt nothing yet but a kind of emptiness over the death of a guy who had become sort of a brother.
Collins had pushed on to Zahle where Mossad said a summit of terrorist insurgent factions had been called by none other than Major General Greb Strakhov of the KGB. It was probably taking place down there right now.
Collins had a hunch that Mack Bolan would not miss a chance like this to take on the eradication of the terrorist camp. The CIA agent also knew the air strike would descend on that base and would hit sometime within the next twenty minutes. And if Bolan is down there, he'll be caught right in the middle of it.
Collins in his tour of duty had seen what the Israeli Air Force could do to a target. And if the air strike did not get Bolan... Collins would.
Because a good agent named Also Randolph was dead and Collins was mad as hell about that.
And because those were Collins's orders.
Terminate Bolan on sight.
The CIA agent panned the base and the vehicles appearing with the principals of this emergency summit, like the jeep carrying Fouad Zakir, the Druse biggie and his militiamen bodyguards.
No sign of The Executioner.
Yet.
Come on, Bolan, thought Collins from his place of concealment overlooking the camp. Where the hell are you? Let's have some action.
18
The driver of Fouad Zakir's jeep stopped in front of the Syrian headquarters building.
Zakir punched Bolan in the shoulder from the back seat and brusquely gave an order in Arabic. He pointed to the building where Bolan knew he would find Greb Strakhov.
Bolan did not need a translation this time, either.
The Druse commander wanted his "militiaman" to accompany him inside. That made sense.
Bolan knew the factions Strakhov had called for a summit maintained an uneasy working alliance with each other, but no one confused it for trust.
The bloodspilling would continue between these groups after the imminent fall of the Arab Christian president's government to the insurgents. Unless Bolan hit them now; a head-shed hit to make sure. Then the Israeli Air Force could level what was left and Bolan would be sure.
First, though, he had to find Zoraya. If she was on this base; if she was held captive or... if she belonged there.
If. Maybe she wasn't there at all.
Bolan had to find out before he made his collective head hit and... no, that would not be easy at all, even to a master of role camouflage.
The "militiaman" stepped from the passenger side of the jeep without another glance at the driver. Bolan made sure to position himself toward the rear of the vehicle so he would be facing Zakir's back. The terrorist boss debarked, snapped an order at the driver, then turned to march directly into the Syrian headquarters.
The jeep pulled away.
Bolan followed Zakir.
The Arab did not notice the ill fit of Bolan's uniform or if he did he did not care. And that made sense, too. The insurgents were a barely organized, ragtag force at best.
Bolan quickly eyeballed the place in the moments before he and Zakir left the merciless midday sun for the relative coolness of the same headquarters building Bolan had penetrated in blacksuit a few hours ago.
None of the Syrian regulars or Russian officers that Bolan and Zakir passed made any connection between the Druse bodyguard and the hell-bringer who had delivered these terrorists a taste of real terror.
Bolan's olive complexion, the high cheekbones and firm, squarish jaw contributed to the effect.
The Syrians and Russians saw what Bolan the role-camouflage expert wanted them to see; they even expected a Druse gunman to wear an almost comically ill-fitting uniform. The Druse gunmen were considered bumpkins and worse by the comparatively well-disciplined Syrian army and their Soviet advisors.
Bolan's quick daylight scan of the inner compound around the building confirmed his first impressions from the predawn hit.
If they had a prisoner here, if they had Zoraya, she would be kept and interrogated in one of two places, since Strakhov would not have the HQ building to himself as he had when he brought Masudi here for questioning.
If they have Zoraya, she's in the HQ basement or over in that smaller building that looks like an office annex, Bolan thought. They won't question her in the ground or second level because Strakhov doesn't want the Syrians to know anything he could torture out of her. And they won't take her to the barracks buildings for the same reason, but to the low, sprawling building five hundred feet to the north of HQ. There would be more foot traffic in and out of a building like that, with its Syrian battalion emblem on the door, unless Strakhov has ordered the area cleared of Syrian personnel and has Zoraya in there.