Death Run Read Free Page B

posing as a security officer.
    Bolan pulled his Beretta from his shoulder holster and asked the man, who was dying too slowly to avoid intense suffering, "Do you speak English?" He received no answer. The man had entered a state of shock and wasn't able to respond. Bolan estimated he would be dead within minutes.
    He holstered the Beretta and began searching the body for some identification but stopped when he heard movement behind him. He spun around just in time to see a steel pipe swinging toward his temple. Then the lights went out.
* * *
    The Persian Gulf
    The Executioner knew he was on a boat the moment he regained consciousness. From the sound of the muffled diesel engines and the carpeted floor on which he lay, he guessed he was on some sort of pleasure craft. The musty smell of the carpet told him it was an older boat. He heard at least two people conversing in Arabic, but otherwise he deduced very little information about his current situation. What felt like duct tape covered his eyes and mouth. His hands were bound behind his back and his feet were tied together tight, presumably with the same material.
    His head hurt almost as much as his broken rib, but the soldier suffered in silence. He didn't want his captors to know he was awake. Though he didn't speak Arabic, he'd picked up some phrases here and there and was able to glean some information about his captors, most importantly that they were Saudis, not Qatarians.
    They were angry Saudis. Apparently the man that Bolan had sent to visit Allah back at the racetrack had been one of their brethren. This virtually eliminated the possibility that he'd killed a law enforcement officer, since Bolan knew Qatar didn't hire Saudis for its police force. Qatar had a dark side when it came to its discrimination against immigrants, especially Saudis, because of the poor relationship Qatar had with its giant neighbor to the west. The two countries had only recently settled a border dispute that had simmered for almost two decades.
    Bolan could hear the sound of other boats over the angry conversation between the Saudis. Because he couldn't hear the telltale industrial noise of the Doha Port, he guessed that he was either in the Doha Harbor or the Old Harbor area. As he listened, the sound of the other boats grew more distant, which meant they were leaving the harbor and heading out to open water. Bolan didn't know how long he'd been out, but he guessed that it was no longer than an hour, and probably less.
    Bolan lay immobile until the Saudis began to kick at him, gently prodding him at first, but getting progressively harder.
    "Wake up!" one of the men shouted in English.
    Bolan felt the duct tape rip away from his eyes, taking half his eyebrows with it.
    "You're not dead yet!" The man ripped the tape away from Bolan's mouth with the same force he'd used to remove it from his eyes.
    Bolan looked around the cabin of what seemed to be a sport fishing boat and estimated the craft to be thirty-five to forty feet in length. Looking out the cabin windows, he saw land on the starboard side, which meant that they were heading south.
    In addition to the man who'd waxed the soldier's eyebrows with duct tape, two other men sat on a threadbare lounge, looking down at him. An AK-74 rested on each of their laps. The scar-faced thug who'd removed the duct tape wore the desert-camo uniform of a Qatar security force officer, but the AKSU-74 machine pistol slung around his neck and shoulder indicated he was an imposter — the well-funded Qatarian forces carried top-shelf European weapons, not twenty-year-old Russian sub machine guns.
    The man whose patchwork face looked like it had been launched through a dozen windshields, grabbed Bolan and hoisted him up onto a stool by the galley counter. The two goons took a roll of duct tape and taped Bolan's ankles to the stool's pedestal, then gave his wrists another round of tape, tightening up the soldier's bonds. This put him in an awkward