What were you doing with this?” He held up the satellite tracking device the soldier had attached to the shipping container. Before Bolan could say anything, the man backhanded him across his face, nearly knocking him off the stool. He felt his nasal cavity fill with blood.
When Bolan righted himself on the stool, the man put the barrel of his AKSU against the soldier’s forehead. Unable to move his hands, Bolan realized that his war everlasting might finally be about to reach its end. The Saudi slowly squeezed the trigger. The Russian Kalashnikovs weren’t known for their clean trigger breaks and time seemed to stop as Bolan watched the man slowly squeeze. Though it was barely perceptible, he saw the man’s finger tense up as the sear hit the breaking point.
Instead of the muzzle blast he expected, Bolan only heard the firing pin click on an empty chamber. All three men laughed.
“You should be so lucky,” the man said. “Death is preferable to the fate my boss has in store for you. We have to keep you alive for two more days. When my boss comes, he’ll send you to hell long before you have the good fortune to die.”
“Who’s your boss?” Bolan asked.
Instead of replying, the man smashed the machine pistol into the side of Bolan’s head, once again knocking him unconscious.
2
Jameed Botros hated racing. He hated motorcycles and he hated the people who rode them. He had never cared for any form of Western decadence, but being in the center of one of the West’s biggest and gaudiest spectacles was almost too much for him to bear. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that he hated the Western world even more than he hated motorcycle racing. And if all went as planned, this would be a very short racing season.
So far everything had been going as planned, until that damned gasoline sales rep had showed up and started nosing around. Somehow he had known which container held the plutonium. If he knew, surely others knew, which meant that they would have to get their equipment to America fast, and once there, they would have to alter all their plans.
Botros’ boss, Musa bin Osman, Free Flow’s vice president in charge of all racing activities, had chastised him for killing the American racer. Botros knew he might well have met a worse fate than Darrick Anderson’s had he not convinced his superior that the American had overheard him discussing the plan with Nasir, his compatriot who was posing as a member of the Qatar security force.
Nasir had the troublesome sales rep trapped aboard a fishing boat. Botros had wanted to kill the big stranger immediately, but bin Osman wanted to interrogate him before killing him. He wanted to know exactly what this man knew, or thought he’d known, about their operation. He wanted to find out who the big man really worked for, how he and his employers learned of the plutonium, and how much they knew about Team Free Flow’s planned activities in the U.S. As bin Osman wanted to question the man himself, but he couldn’t arrive until Sunday, the day of the race, Botros and his men had been forced to keep the interloper alive.
Botros thought the Malaysian businessman was making a mistake by keeping the man alive. The big American was clearly a man to be reckoned with. He had dispatched with one of Botros’ best men as if squashing an ant. Bin Osman is weak, he thought. He is as much a slave to his own vices as any Westerner. In this case, bin Osman’s vice was the thrill he received from torturing a human being to death. Botros had watched him do it on several occasions, and the pleasure bin Osman received from the act seemed almost of a sexual nature. Botros found his boss’s behavior disgusting, but he didn’t dare call him on it lest bin Osman decide that Botros himself might make a fitting subject on which to practice his fetish.
Botros had come close to finding out what it would be like to be tortured at the hands of his superior after he had killed Darrick Anderson, but he had placated bin Osman. Of course he had lied to the man; he had been looking for an excuse to kill the decadent young American since he first met him. Anderson, a drug addict, alcoholic and whoremonger, represented everything he hated about Westerners. Anderson claimed to have reformed, but Botros knew he only pretended to have given up his vices in order to attain a job racing motorcycles. He was still a weak American, a slave to his vices, and Botros knew that at the first opportunity he would return to his hedonistic ways. Botros had made a promise to Allah that he would kill Anderson at the first possible opportunity. Bin Osman, being a slave to his own vices, could not have understood why Botros had to do what he did.
But at least bin Osman shared Botros’ hatred of Westerners. The Malaysian hadn’t always been such a devout believer in Wahhabism, the ultraconservative form of Islam embraced by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, but his years of dealing with the West had converted him. As a young man, bin Osman had suckled at the teat of Western decadence, attending the finest universities in England and America, denying himself no pleasures of the flesh in the process.
But after a series of failed business ventures, the Malaysian had finally been made to see the need for jihad to cleanse the world of the social disease that was Western culture. At last bin Osman understood that the only way to bring that about was to have a world governed by Sharia law.
When the Malaysian allied himself with al Qaeda, he proved to be one of the most capable operatives the organization ever had. Now he was about to execute what would be not just a blow against the decadent West, but a death blow to Arab leaders who weakened Sharia with Western concepts. When bin Osman’s plan came to fruition, there would be no so-called “moderate” Islamic states left, and the entire world would be subject to the strictest interpretations of Sharia.
Bin Osman may have still had his vices, but he also had the power to make Botros’ desire a reality. He’d obtained the plutonium, he had the resources to make a bomb, and he had the connections needed to carry out the plan once they got to America. Botros may have hated the man, but he needed him more than he hated him.
WHEN BOLAN regained consciousness, he had no idea where he was. He could tell he was still on a boat, but the boat wasn’t moving. It took a few moments for him to remember Scarface striking him. He had no idea what time it was, but the stiffness in his shoulders and legs told him he’d been out for a long time. He raised his head to look around and almost lost consciousness again. He realized he must have received a concussion from his captor’s blow.
Through sheer force of will, the soldier made himself sit up and try to focus on his surroundings. He saw that he was in the lower bunk of a small stateroom. His hands were still bound behind his back and his ankles were still bound together, but at least they hadn’t put duct tape over his eyes and mouth again.
He worked his way to the edge of the bunk, swung his legs over the edge, and stood, balancing on his tied-together legs as if they were a single limb. The small room had a sliding pocket door that probably led to the hallway between the main stateroom and the steps leading up to the galley. He looked out over the top bunk. From the angle of the light coming through the small rectangular window above the bunk, he could see that the sun was just starting to rise over the Persian Gulf. That meant that he’d been unconscious all night.
He looked around for anything he could use to help him escape from his bonds and spotted a nail that was working itself loose from the wood frame of the top bunk. The head of the nail rose just barely high enough above the wood for the Executioner to see a faint shadow around its edge. It might be enough.
Bolan put his mouth over the nail and worked it loose from the wood with his teeth. When he finally got it in his mouth, he bent down and spit it onto the mattress of the lower bunk, right where he estimated his hands might rest. Then he lay down on top of the bunk and felt the nail with his right hand. He grabbed the nail with his fingers and worked it around until the point was aimed at his wrists. Then with the heel of his hand he maneuvered the point of the
