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Bolan knew from experience that this was a deadly terrain of sand vipers, scorpions and clouds of loathsome flies. The only visible vegetation were the occasional stunted pines or thorny, knee-high shrubs.

It was startling, at one point, to see Arab tents and a flock of sheep and some camels amid this barren no-man's-land of sand and stone.

An arid land. But to Mack Bolan, a jungle nevertheless.

It was six o'clock.

A mere thirty hours since Mack Bolan's assault on Leonard Jericho's yacht, the Traveler, on the other side of the world in Exuma Cay in the Bahamas.

The oasis village of Bishabia was nothing more than a jumble of squalid stone houses and two main dirt streets.

But Leonard Jericho's villa, screened by desert trees beyond the village proper, was in a class by itself.

Doyle wheeled the jeep off the highway and along a winding approach to the front gate.

The walled estate was a blend of Roman and Moorish architecture. Bolan spotted clusters of cedar and aleppo pine trees growing near the outer base of the wall.

The entrance to the grounds was to the west. The concrete wall that surrounded the property was twenty feet high and six inches thick. An iron grille gate barred entrance.

The gate opened mechanically and the jeep passed through. Thus far things were so much easier than breaching Marker's damnable conglomeration in Algeria's Tanezrouft region of this same desert. Grim memories.

A brick gatehouse was situated just inside the wall. A guard, armed with a Galil ARM assault rifle, gave a sharp salute as the jeep rolled past.

Lansdale's intel had been correct. Jericho's security force was paramilitary all the way.

The wrought-iron gates closed automatically behind the jeep. Doyle and "Rideout" drove a short distance into a spacious courtyard at the villa's core.

The core of Lenny Jericho's Something Big.

Three single-engine jet-turbine Bell UHi-D "Huey" helicopters, buff-colored desert models without markings, rested on the pebbled turf of the courtyard. All three choppers were heavily armed, boasting 40mm cannons and 5.56mm miniguns mounted externally on turrets.

Three alert mercs stood guard around one of the aircraft. Other "soldiers" lounged here and there at points around the courtyard, looking hot, oppressed, drenched in sweat.

Bolan made the scene even before the jeep had rolled to a stop. The heavily guarded copter would be carrying whatever cargo it was that Jericho's forces had lifted from the States. The other two Huey gun-ships would guard the cargo when word came down to rendezvous at a trade-off point with Jericho and Colonel Shahkhia.

The jeep stopped at the front of a flight of marble steps. The opulent-looking steps led up to the entrance of the villa itself.

A man stood waiting, hands on hips, halfway up the wide steps. He was dressed in lightweight fatigues. He had watched the jeep approach. When the vehicle halted, the guy came down the rest of the way with an almost arrogant stride.

This would be Kennedy. Blond-haired, boyish good looks did not fool Bolan. The guy's eyes told the story: the eyes of a killer.

Kennedy carried a 9mm Browning hi-power in a cross-draw position at his left hip. Like those mercs Bolan could see who were not toting Galils, Kennedy also carried a Largo-Star submachine gun strapped over his shoulder.

Bolan knew the Largo as a Spanish copy of the German MP-40, or "Schmeisser." The weapon, referred to by Konzaki back at Stony Man Farm as the Z-45, is fully automatic with a cyclic rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of some 1,500 fps. Hot stuff.

Kennedy looked at Doyle as Bolan climbed from the jeep.

"Was he wired?"

"Now, he was clean," reported the driver. "No tails. He's all yours."

"Check out the north wall with Bruner," Kennedy told the driver. "We'll be getting word to pull out any minute now."

Doyle nodded, wheeled the jeep out of sight.

A sweating Kennedy eyeballed Bolan. Bolan eye-balled the honcho right back. Even the long-term pain in his left shoulder from his last overseas mission would not deflect Bolan from meeting iron with iron, which was the way of his new terrorist wars.

"Where the hell you been, Rideout? We could been pulled out by now."

"Then I guess I'd have made ten grand the easy way," grunted Bolan in response. "The airlines tied me up. Got here fast as I could."

"I don't like this crap, not knowing who's supposed to be working for me," spat the head cock. "You could be any-damn-body. How do I know you're Mike Rideout?"

"You don't," said Bolan. "So you call it."

Kennedy paused several heartbeats to decide. Few men who ever stood eye to eye with Mack Bolan carried more than a confused and invariably false impression of what the anti-terrorist avenger actually looked like. But there was one detail that never escaped the living memory of a Bolan encounter. And that was the coldly purposeful eyes of the combatman. The Bolan gaze was actually composed of many diverse qualities and could switch from cold death to warm compassion in a flick — or could contain both at one moment. This was not one of those moments. Now it was all cold death. Bolan had the guy psyched and when Kennedy's decision came, Bolan knew that "Mike Rideout" was in.

"Get yourself to the armory in the garage over there," growled the merc. "Arm yourself and suit up. Then go to the southeast corner of this place. You'll find a guy named Teckert. Tell him I sent you as backup."

"Sounds like you're expecting something."

"Always expecting, pal. Always ready. We'll be pulling out of here within the hour. Be ready to move."

6

The rider wore crude shepherd's clothing as a disguise. The gray charger beneath him soared at full gallop across the tumbling landscape of desert wasteland.

Colonel Ahmad Shahkhia pulled rein at the crest of a dune. Below, a stretch of the Benghazi-Jarabub highway arrowed from north to south.

A three-sided tent was pitched against the scorching Sahara sun, some twenty yards off the highway.

One man sat in a camp chair, waiting alone in the tent's shade.

Pornov.

Of course, thought Shahkhia.

The Russian would be here early for their meeting. He always was.

Colonel Shahkhia clearly discerned, through the shimmering mirage of afternoon heat, a small bodyguard force, deployed around a cluster of desert vehicles parked another ten yards up the highway from the tent.

The sentries were all heavily armed. Shahkhia spotted rifles, machine guns, a grenade launcher.

The man in shepherd's clothing felt a certain satisfaction at this.

The amount of protection for the general was an indication of their respect for Shahkhia.

And what he was capable of.

Yet, he must be careful. And cautious.

This was a treacherous game he played. Especially now.

Shahkhia fully understood that success, at this point, rested solely on his maintaining a confident facade to all involved in the unfolding drama.

The rider spurred his mount into a sideways canter along the face of the sloping dune.

Shahkhia wondered why the Russian had contacted him for a meeting. This was not a time that Colonal Shahkhia wished to be seen making contact with anyone who might cast the slightest hint of suspicion on him, most notably the Russians. Most notably on this day of days.

Nothing would stop Colonel Shahkhia from keeping his rendezvous this evening with Leonard Jericho.

Nothing!

Shahkhia realized once again exactly how dangerous was this game he played with Pornov, the KGB agent from Moscow.