Death Run Read Free

container. When he looked up, he'd see Bolan on top of it. The soldier grabbed an M-84 flashbang grenade from the vest he wore over his blacksuit, pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade over the edge of the container toward the officer.
    The man spotted the motion and fired at Bolan. He only got off one round before the flashbang detonated, but that round struck the soldier square in the chest. He wore a vest containing an experimental lightweight armor that John "Cowboy" Kissinger had developed back at Stony Man Farm. The weapons specialist claimed this thin, flexible armor could stop anything up to and including a standard 7.62 mm round, though he wasn't sure about high-velocity armor-piercing rounds. Fortunately it was capable of stopping the 9 mm round from the officer's machine pistol, though the bullet struck the Executioner with enough force to knock him over the edge of the container.
    Still in midair when the flashbang went off, Bolan covered his ears, closed his eyes and let out a shriek to equalize the pressure in his lungs. He landed on his feet, his legs pumping as soon as they hit the ground. The security officer would recover from the flashbang, but not before Bolan slipped back into the vent through which he'd entered the building.
    Doha was a quiet city, and if the shots that the officer fired didn't bring nearly all eight thousand men of the Qatar security force to the warehouse, the flashbang's explosion certainly would.
    The Executioner moved the grate covering the vent pipe aside, slid inside, replaced the grate and climbed up the pipe. When he got to the top of the vent, he crawled through the rectangular vent pipe that ran along the roof toward a blower fan until he reached the hole he'd cut in the bottom of the pipe. There was only about eighteen inches between the pipe and the roof of the warehouse so he had to snake his way out of the pipe. He could see flashing blue lights from the security force vehicles driving toward the front of the warehouse. Bolan ran to the back edge of the roof where he'd left the rope he'd used to climb up and clipped his descender to the rope. He let himself down the side of the building as fast as he could without breaking any bones. Upon hitting the ground, he ran toward the hole he'd cut in the security fence on his way into the warehouse facility. He was in his Range Rover and driving back toward his hotel before the security officers even discovered he'd left the building.
    Bolan was grateful that he hadn't injured any of the officers who kept the peace in the tiny emirate. Qatar's security force had a reputation for being good cops, honest and reasonable men who had never been charged with a human rights violation.
    He hadn't been so lucky; he was pretty sure he'd broken a rib when he took the round from the officer's MP-5, but he'd survive. He hadn't located the plutonium, but at least he had a lead: Free Flow Racing. He knew that the Losail circuit in Doha would be hosting Grand Prix motorcycle races that weekend. He wouldn't be able to get back in the warehouse after the fiasco that had just occurred, but at least he knew where to look.
    First, he'd have to find a reason to be at the race. He drove back to his hotel and dialed the secure number for Stony Man Farm on his cell phone. It took a few moments for the signal to travel its circuitous but untraceable route before he heard Kurtzman on the line. "What's up, Striker?" Kurtzman asked, using Bolan's Stony Man code name.
    "I need to be someone else," Bolan replied.
    "Anyone in particular?"
    "I'd kind of like to try an average Joe, but maybe another time. Right now I need to be a salesman."
* * *
    Posing as Matt Cooper, Bolan presented his credentials to the paddock guard. Overnight Kurtzman had created a background for Cooper, an American sales rep for the racing fuels division of CCP Petroleum, a Russian company created from the ashes of the failed Yukos Oil. Cooper's assignment was to get MotoGP racing teams to