Outback Assault

“That’s why they’re calling me in. Print the e-ticket. If you want, you can stay behind and make up for our lost time in Hong Kong,” Augustyn replied. “They assume I travel alone anyhow, so you’d have to make your own way.”

“No, thanks,” Eugene replied. “I’d receive enough worried phone calls that I’d be stuck up the creek without a paddle if I took even another day away.”

“You?” Augustyn chided.

“And you, too, by extension,” Eugene amended, walking off.

The big assassin picked up a sleek cordless phone off the disklike answering machine and dialed a series of numbers. “Set up my usual Australia safari package. Darwin,” he said.

Bolan skulked down a hallway and closed in on Eugene as he hovered over a keyboard, scanning through e-mail messages. The Executioner waited until the man hit the print command on the electronic ticket, then stepped into the den behind Augustyn’s business manager. He jabbed a quick punch under Eugene’s ear, a blow placed perfectly to render him unconscious. The businessman slumped into Bolan’s arms, and he lowered the man on the floor. It took only a few moments to bind Eugene’s wrists and ankles to keep him to the upcoming fight. He’d need more intelligence from the man later.

A sudden movement in Bolan’s peripheral vision ignited his reflexes, throwing him to the floor an instant before the roar of a .45 split the air. The liquid crystal flat panel display for Augustyn’s computer burst, a quartersized hole blown through it.

“You’re good, whoever you are. I didn’t even know you were in the apartment until I heard Eugene’s grunt as you knocked him out,” Augustyn said.

Bolan didn’t answer. He had two alternate ways out of the office. One door to the right would force Augustyn to move more to intercept him, and it was close at hand. He shoved the desk chair toward that door and spun toward the farther exit from the den as another pair of .45-caliber slugs punched into the back of the chair.

As soon as he saw Augustyn disappear to intercept Bolan’s false path, the Executioner exploded in the other direction, drawing his .45 in one swift movement. By the time the assassin discovered he’d been bluffed, it was too late for Augustyn to do anything except blow a chunk of wall apart with another big slug.

“Nice trick,” Augustyn called out. Bolan heard him reload his half-depleted handgun. The Executioner remained silent, waiting for his opponent to reveal himself. Augustyn’s chatter was meant to distract Bolan, covering noises. The way that the apartment was laid out, with soundproofed walls, there was no certain way to locate Augustyn by sound, though the noise of reloading or acquiring new weapons could be heard.

Bolan cursed himself for not taking down Eugene in a quieter manner, but the business manager was fit and brawny enough to turn a struggle into an extended wrestling match had he taken any other approach. Lethal force would have left Bolan behind the curve in figuring out what Augustyn had just been hired to do. Considering Eugene’s voiced disgust, it had to be bad and he assumed a lot of people would die. Bolan had just declared war.

He looked down the hall to the corner and saw a reflective vase. He spotted Augustyn, observing the same curved, mirrored surface. Both men spotted each other at the same time, using the glassy surface to grant an around-the-corner view for defense. Bolan triggered the Norinco, blew the vase to splinters and retreated away from the intersection. Seeing another vase, he picked it up and hurled it toward the other end of the hallway. Crashing glass and an involuntary grunt of surprise told the Executioner that his distraction play worked and he nestled against the wall, crouched low and away from the edge so that he wouldn’t be in hand-to-hand range if Augustyn whipped around the corner, prepared to disarm him.

Bullets punched into the wall, noise and fury rocking through the quiet calm of the apartment, but the gun battle’s thunder was swallowed by Augustyn’s nearly obsessive privacy measures. The Executioner waited a moment, but he didn’t hear his enemy reload, and he knew that Augustyn had fallen back to flank him. Bolan turned and cut back toward the entrance to the apartment.

He was taking a chance, leaving Eugene at Augustyn’s mercy, but as disposable as Bolan had assumed the manager was, the assassin would be loathe to get rid of a good asset just because the Executioner had dropped in on their little setup. If it appeared that Bolan was getting a decisive advantage, Augustyn might fall back and make the effort to take out the older man, but for now, the cocky killer assumed that on his own turf, he was unbeatable.

As Bolan entered the living room, he caught a glimpse of the tall, black-haired assassin and dived to the carpet as the rattle of a machine pistol cut through the air. Parabellum shockers snapped into the wall he’d been standing in front of only a brief moment before. Bolan returned fire, emptying the Norinco and pulling the suppressed Walther to keep up the heat until he reached the cover of the alcove. The Executioner’s withering fire sent Augustyn packing into retreat, his autofire only resulting in damaged walls and shattered picture frames.

Bolan swiftly reloaded, shielded by Augustyn’s sofa, but he realized his enemy had accessed a heavier supply of weapons. He’d been outgunned before, so it wasn’t worth considering. Instead, he focused on what he could control. He looked into the kitchen, but a small mirror had been smashed, obscuring its ability to betray Augustyn’s presence.

That was good news. Bolan’s discovery of Augustyn’s corner views meant that the assassin was destroying his own means of detecting the Executioner’s pursuit. It was a two-edged sword, and Bolan wasn’t going to rush headlong into the kitchen in case Augustyn was laying in wait. Without grenades to clear the rooms of the penthouse, Bolan was going to have to take things slow and steady, using his senses to their utmost.

Just as he made this realization, the Executioner heard the familiar sound of the bounce of a grenade hitting carpet. Bolan tucked down and cut loose with a loud roar, instants before the living room’s atmosphere split apart in a peal of catastrophic noise. The shout saved his eardrums from the effect of the stun-shock grenade, and the bulk of the sofa protected him from the blazing glare of the mini-bomb’s flash powder and shock wave. He pushed to his feet, already knowing what was coming next and he spotted Augustyn as a blur through the kitchen doorway, wielding a pair of long-bladed knives.

Bolan fired the Norinco, but the assassin was moving too quickly for a direct center mass shot. A .45-caliber slug sliced through Augustyn’s side, slowing him and throwing off his pace. One of the nine-inch blades lashed down and rang violently against the slide of Bolan’s .45, knocking it from his hands. Only the steel of the pistol had prevented Bolan’s finger from being severed by the vicious slash, and he lunged in before the killer could follow up with the second knife. His shoulder-block took Augustyn in the breastbone and knocked him off balance, blowing breath from his lungs. Bolan wanted to unsnarl his Walther from where he’d pinned it between his opponent’s torso and himself, but with the glare of knife blades in his peripheral vision, he took the path of least resistance, hooking his emptied hand around and catching Augustyn over his ear.

The blow was meant to stop the assassin cold, but the savvy killer had seen it coming and tilted to one side, reducing the force from fatal to merely mind-reeling. The tip of one of the butcher knives flicked out and took Bolan across the bicep, a shallow cut, but one that forced the Executioner into a momentary retreat. Reflex had pulled him out of position for a shot with the Walther.

Bolan pulled the trigger anyway, the .32-caliber bullet exploding against the carpet next to Augustyn’s head and distracted him enough so that the kick the assassin had been intending to launch missed shattering Bolan’s jaw by mere millimeters. Another tug of the Walther’s trigger elicited a grunt of pain, but it was answered by a second kick that took Bolan in the gut, staggering him backward.

Augustyn lunged, reaching for Bolan’s fallen .45, but the Walther spoke again, a bullet chopping the frame of the Norinco and spinning it out of Augustyn’s grasp.

“Son of a bitch!” Augustyn snarled. The knife whipped out of his hand as he threw it, the blade whirring so close it gouged a narrow furrow in Bolan’s shoulder. He struggled to reach the .45, but Bolan lunged for the killer as he dived again for the big pistol. Their bodies crashed like great rams, paused in the air as the forces of their momentum struggled to overcome each other and then gravity pulled them to the floor.

Augustyn wrapped the fingers of one powerful hand around Bolan’s throat, the grasp strong enough that the soldier felt the air cut off from his lungs, fingertips pressing against his carotid artery to deny his brain fresh blood. Bolan clamped one hand over Augustyn’s bicep and punched hard into the assassin’s elbow. Bone cracked like a gunshot, eliciting a wail of agony. The lethal pressure crushing his throat was gone, and Bolan saw that the hired killer’s opposite shoulder had been wounded by the Walther, keeping Augustyn from using it to throttle Bolan. It was a small mercy that had saved Bolan’s life.

The Executioner rammed a hard knee into Augustyn’s breastbone, ejecting the breath from the man’s lungs. He knuckle-punched the Hong Kong hit man in the Adam’s apple and the assassin’s eyes bulged as his throat collapsed under the brutal strike. His tongue lolled from his mouth and his wounded arm reached up to grab hold of Bolan’s jacket. A second jutting-knuckle strike spiked between Augustyn’s eyes, bone shattering under the force of the blow. The hit man fell limp with a full-body shudder.

Bolan cradled his aching knuckles. The blows had done their job, saving his life and ending that of a triad-hired murderer.

He staggered to his feet, retrieved the Norinco .45 and went to look for Eugene.

The Executioner had travel arrangements to make to meet with Augustyn’s former employers.

2

Eugene Waylon’s eyes fluttered open, and he felt the blood settling in his head. A cool breeze brushed through his hair, and as his vision focused, he could see Hong Kong’s skyline. But it didn’t quite look right. As his consciousness grew stronger, he realized that it was upside down. A grip like a vise held on to both ankles, and suddenly he slipped, dropping a foot. He looked around and saw the streets below, a blaze of garish neon ready to suck him down.

“Glad you could join me again,” a grim and harsh voice said. Waylon tried to speak, but his throat had constricted in fear. His glasses slipped off his face and tumbled away, spiraling into the distance below. The businessman could feel his skin contracting all over his body, his stomach churning. Bile crept into the back of his throat.

“You don’t need to know my name. You just need to know I exist.” The voice cut into his terror. Waylon looked up to see the man’s face. He looked as if he could have been Wade Augustyn’s brother, except his blue eyes were even more chilling and penetrating.

“What do you want?” Waylon croaked, the sourness of his bile burning like a cloud of napalm through his mouth.

“The man you fronted for is dead,” the Executioner said. “I’ll be taking his place for a while, and when I’m done, I want you to fold up his operation and throw it away.”

“What operation?”

Bolan released one of Waylon’s ankles, which elicited a bleat of fear from him. He could see the arm still holding his ankle was wrapped in a bandage around the biceps. The businessman was able to see the raw power in Bolan’s arms, but a smear of red grew in the center of the bandage.

“You can either quit playing stupid, or you can see how long I can hold you up with an injured arm,” Bolan said.

“Wait! Wait!” Waylon howled. “Don’t drop me!”

“Keep talking, Eugene,” Bolan said.

“All right, I’ll make Augustyn’s assassination operation disappear,” Waylon conceded. “Just don’t let go.”

Bolan took hold of Waylon’s other ankle. “Before making it disappear, e-mail all the details to the address I wrote down on your computer desk. All of his contacts, everyone who supplied him, everyone who contracted him.”

Waylon nodded. “Yes.”

“Which triad was Augustyn working for?” Bolan asked.

“The Black Rose,” Waylon answered.

Bolan knew the organization. They were a particularly aggressive and brutal group, given to bouts of violent infighting. “If I hear you’ve set yourself up as someone else’s front man, I’ll make you wish I dropped you off this roof,” Bolan told him. “I’l be watching your every move.”

“Yes, sir,” Waylon said.

“But first, tell me who Augustyn would use as his supplier for an operation in Darwin, Australia,” Bolan ordered.

Waylon looked up. “He’d kill me if I gave him up.”

Bolan pulled Waylon up farther. Eye-level with the balcony, he could see Augustyn’s corpse. “You really think he’ll ever take a shot at you?” Bolan asked.