Hellfire Crusade

14

"How much farther do we have to go?" asked Kevin.

His face looked ashen even beneath the pale mask of sandy grime. He had been shaken up by more than the rattling, bumpy ride.

Bolan checked the instruments. "Twelve miles, maybe less."

Each of them was riding alone with his or her own thoughts. That fracas with the police patrol had cost them more valuable time. Bolan was pushing the Hog as fast as he dared, taking his bearings whenever they crossed the higher ground.

They skirted the cracked, crystalline surfaces of the dried-out mineral beds, raced down a wadi, then churned through a patch of looser gravel.

As they climbed out of a dip, Danny looked back over her shoulder — the rugged heights of the Jebel Kharg were now a dark, jagged line on the horizon, obscured by the glare of the afternoon sun. She turned her head slowly, scanning the horizon. "Look at that smoke!"

Even at this distance three distinct columns of oily smoke were belching up from the direction of the airfield. Bolan nodded to indicate he'd spotted it, too, but said nothing.

He figured Zayoud's men had obviously struck their blow for the Crescent Revolution, but there was no point in alarming the others with speculations as to its outcome. Bolan wondered where Grimaldi was at that moment. The rest of the team involved could be counted on to play their parts, right on the button; it was up to him to stick to the schedule.

Still, the fighting around the airfield must be fierce.

Bolan pushed the pedal hard and the Hog hammered down the track.

The sand was softer here, pitted with pebbles. Other vehicles had come this way before, leaving twin sets of tire ruts to follow. Suddenly the left front end of the Hog sagged, and Bolan fought the wheel as he braked. The dust settled around them.

"We have a blown tire." Bolan jumped out onto the track. The rubber was torn open. "Kevin, grab the jack." Bolan loosened the spare wheel from its mounting. "See if you can find a couple of flat stones, Danny. We'll need to build a firmer base under that jack."

Danny swung down over the back. She was aware that every second they lost jeopardized not only themselves but the guys who were staging the retrieval operation.

She saw some larger stones that had been smoothed into flattened disks, half buried on the far side of a clear patch of sand. They looked suitable and Danny ran over to get them.

Fifteen feet away from the track the earth seemed to give way under her. The ground was dry, but Danny suddenly fell like she was running through molasses.

The sand, powdery fine, was sucking at her feet.

She stumbled to a halt, unable to make headway.

"Mack! Help me, I'm..." The thought froze in her throat. She was being inexorably dragged under.

"Don't struggle, Danny! I'll get you out," shouted Bolan.

He dropped the wheel wrench; he had only started to loosen the first nut.

"Chip, can you drive?"

Kevin was staring wide-eyed at Danny's predicament. The sand had already swallowed her up to the thighs. He jerked his head to show that he could manage the Hog.

"Back it up a little, no farther than that gravel strip!" Bolan unbuckled his belt and quickly tugged it free of the loops.

Kevin started up the Hog behind him. Testing each step, Bolan worked his way to the very edge of the shingle that seemed to mark the shoreline of this desert dust pool.

Despite Bolan's warning, Danny struggled instinctively against the clammy grip of the quicksand. It was no use. There was nothing to give her purchase; and without anything solid to use as a lever she sank deeper... The river of powdery sand now lapped at her hips. Bolan threw the belt out to its full length, stretching as far over the danger spot as he could manage.

Danny bent over, her hand quivering with the effort of reaching out to her fullest extent. There was a maddening gap between her shaking fingers and the tip of the leather lifeline.

"It's no good!" gasped Danny. At least eighteen long inches separated her from the end of the belt, swirling sand was pouring around her waist. "Your head cloth! Try the head cloth!"

Bolan ripped off the red-checkered burnoose, twirling it into a makeshift rope, and chucked it across the surface.

The efforts to reach the belt had cost Danny dearly; the dust trap was pressing in on her, forcing her down. Now she could not quite reach the rolled-up head cloth... maybe eight, not more than ten inches were all that kept her from grabbing hold. It might as well have been a mile.

Kevin rolled forward cautiously. He did not want to knock Bolan into the same awful dilemma; but the big man looked back and waved him on, then flashed his palm to stop the Hog.

Danny suppressed the urge to scream. She could feel the sand pressing in against the bottom of her ribs. She bit her lip, drawing blood, as she watched Bolan loop his belt around the front fender. He jumped forward; the sand quickly covered his boots but he sank no farther. With the end of the belt twisted around his wrist, Bolan leaned as far as he could across the death trap. He worked his free arm in a semicircle, slapping down the head cloth in a straight line between himself and Danny.

She snatched hold of the end. There was just enough to loop it once around her wrist and hold tight.

"Got it!" Bolan began to exert pressure, doing his best to drag her bodily from the grip of the quicksand. She didn't budge. She had stopped sinking.

Danny felt as if her arm was going to be torn from its socket as Bolan built up the strain.

Bolan grunted, shaking his head to clear the sweat from his eyes as he kept urging Danny on. "Try to wriggle your hips free. Lean down on the surface a little more... I've got hold of you!" He was blind to all else but saving this woman. They had just been across hell and back together — Bolan wasn't going to lose her now.

"It's working!" cried Danny. She knew her life depended on the next few seconds. She buckled over, trying to kick with her legs, as Bolan manhandled her toward the shore. It was almost like swimming, but in painfully slow motion.

Inch by inch Danny was moving closer to his outstretched arm... He let go of the head cloth and clasped her hand.

"One last effort, Danny!"

"Why don't you leave the little lady right there?" The words cut through the air like a knife. Then Ruark chuckled. "After all, it'll save us a bullet."

Ruark, Billy Joe Hooker and two of Zayoud's soldiers stood on the knoll overlooking the deadly quicksand.

Bolan paid no heed to the order. He kept on pulling and knew he was making headway. Danny was definitely coming free. He heard the ominous click as the bodyguards cocked their weapons and brought them to bear.

"You're not going anywhere, fella, so just drop her back in the soup." Ruark did not like to be ignored, especially when he had the whip hand.

"Just heard over the radio that your buddy's about land at the airfield. Zayoud might have gone off at half cock, but there should be a nice welcome waiting for, your plane." Billy Joe snickered and Bolan knew he was just itching to pull the trigger.

"Hey you, kid," snapped Ruark. "Get out of that Jeep."

"Stay where you are, Chip. Don't move," countermanded Bolan. He could crook his arm now, Danny was almost home free. "You were in that mess around Khe Phong, weren't you, Ruark?"

"Yeah..." What the hell did this guy know about that?

"And you got a Purple Heart, didn't you?"

"What the hell's that to you? Yeah, I was wounded at Khe Phong."

"Then this little lady, as you call her, might just be one of the women who patched you up!"

Ruark was stunned; even the muzzle of his gun dropped slightly to one side. Danny seized hold of Bolan's arm as he dragged her onto the gravel.

Billy Joe Hooker waved his rifle at the Hog. "Cap'n told you to climb out of there, kid. Do it!"

This time Kevin did as he was told. He stood up, his head hung meekly, ashamed to be giving in to these bullies. No one expected him to be holding the Uzi.

Ruark was still trying to place the big guy with the piercing blue eyes when the first long burst hit him in the chest. He died with a puzzled frown creasing his forehead.

Hooker was nicked in the side. He spun around and dropped his weapon in surprise at the stinging pain.

Kevin's lips were drawn back tightly. He uttered an unintelligible scream and kept on firing. The withering hail of bullets cut down Zayoud's men; one peppered in the abdomen, the other dying with a shot through the face. The magazine was exhausted.

The boy stood there, gripping the top of the wheel, trying to stop trembling.

Danny sat leaning against the front of the Hog, too drained to move. Bolan ran up the short slope and picked up the nearest rifle. Billy Joe Hooker was whimpering for mercy. He was on his knees, rocking back and forth, holding a blood-smeared hand against his side.

"On your feet, Hooker! You've got a tire to change."

Billy Joe Hooker was forced to drag the bodies of his comrades out of sight behind the knoll.

Bolan threw their weapons into the sinkhole and watched them disappear under the hungry sands while the Southerner, still pleading for his life, changed the ruined tire. Danny went to make sure Kevin was all right. The youngster had walked on farther down the track. His eyes were watery and he still shook with spasms of dryretching at the thought of what he had done. Before today death had been something he had only seen on TV: playacting on the detective shows, or sometimes for real on the news.

It was difficult to tell the difference. The toll in nuclear war was measured in megadeaths-figures so large they were meaningless. But until now Death had never touched him, involved him, used him as its agent... Kevin had never liked Ruark much, as the man strutted around the castle, but he would never forget that look on Ruark's face or the way he poked an accusing finger at Kevin as he collapsed on the slope back there.

"You did what had to be done, Kev," Danny said to him. "You saved our lives. It was very brave of you to stand up to them."

Kevin did not feel at all heroic. He still felt sick to his stomach.

"Are you brave enough to stand up for yourself? I'm sure things can be worked out. I'll be there and I'm going to speak up for you."

Kevin nodded. He did not turn to face her. He had to blink quickly to stop the tears threatening to trickle out. She was touching his arm; he placed his hand on top of hers — yes, he wanted to go home.

"Ready to roll!" Bolan called out.

They trotted back to the Jeep together and climbed aboard.

"Hey, what about me?" whined Billy Joe.

"You're not worth a bullet. You can walk," said Bolan. He prodded the wounded merc, pointing to the quicksand patch.

Danny knew all too vividly the living horror of those sinking sands. "Please, Mack, no..."

Hooker stood there sweating it out.

The chilling gaze of those ice-blue eyes never wavered, but Bolan relented. He tossed his head and growled, "Back off — you're on your own." Bolan stomped on the gas. The back wheels spewed a ton of grit all over the stranded Hooker.