Beirut Payback: MacK Bolan by Don Pendleton Page B

garage that had somehow remained untouched thus far.
    Bolan soundlessly closed the door behind him with his heel. Icy eyes and a cold Beretta fanned the gloom. He discerned rusted-out hulks of cars on blocks, stripped of parts over the years.
    There was nothing else except a table and a dim lightbulb. Then Bolan noticed a djellaba-robed Arab who stood tentatively watching the fearsome combat figure approach him.
    Another small business chewed up and spit out by the ravages of war.
    "Yes, effendi, may I be of service?" The Arab's eyes took in Bolan's weapons fearfully.
    "You address me in English," Bolan noted. "I am the one you expect. Where is Zoraya?"
    Relief shone in the old man's eyes, then reverted to paranoia again as he glanced cautiously back in the direction of the door.
    "You were not followed?"
    "There are no government soldiers behind me."
    "Bah! We have as much to fear from Amal and the Druse!" the old man spit.
    He walked over and locked the street door, then returned and spryly stepped up onto the table.
    He used a pocketknife to pry open a break that looked like nothing more than the juncture between ceiling and wall from where Bolan stood. The old man tugged. A ceiling panel angled down to reveal some wooden steps leading up into an attic.
    The man gestured.
    "If you please, effendi. I will remain down here and keep watch. Zoraya knows the signal in the event of... unexpected company." Bolan acknowledged this but did not drop his wariness of the man. He climbed onto the table and up those steps.
    He emerged into the secret attic space ready to blast back at any trap waiting for him.
    No trap.
    Zoraya waited for him.
    She had been sitting on a low bed, which, with a chair and overturned orange crate for a table, were the only pieces of furniture in the slant-roofed little place. A high window in one end of the attic wall let in sunlight marred by rising clouds of battle from a neighborhood nearby.
    Zoraya stood and approached Bolan with a small sound of relief and happiness.
    Bolan emerged fully into the attic. The hidden entrance to the room closed up after him.
    He holstered the Beretta and took Zoraya in his arms. They hugged each other like dear friends who had parted and never expected to see each other again. There was nothing sexual, but no way could Bolan the man not be aware of the physical charms of this darkhaired Arab beauty.
    She did not stop hugging him for long moments.
    "I... thought I had lost you," she whispered, "as I lost Chaim! Soldiers came after you left me with Selim at Biskinta ... a force of Syrians, Russian advisors with them.... You made me promise to let nothing happen to the little one.... I wanted to stay, but... they were searching the area. They fired on us as we drove away."
    "You did right," he told her. "The man downstairs. Can he be trusted?" She nodded against his shoulder.
    "He is my uncle. He loved my brothers dearly and now he hates the Druse militia for what they did... for the murder of Adli and Aziz. He hides and protects me here... There is as much rape as killing now." Bolan remembered the action he'd halted in the alley before arriving here.
    "I'm glad you're safe. Where's Selim?"
    Zoraya sat back down on the bed.
    "There is the good news. The government has an agency for exactly such situations: children separated from their parents and the like. I took Selim there first thing this morning when they opened and did not leave until I had their assurance that they would ascertain the whereabouts of the little one's parents. They were displaced during the fighting." Bolan felt a weight of responsibility lift from his shoulders. He straddled the wooden chair next to the bed and faced Zoraya.
    "I'm glad to hear that. And I appreciate your getting word to me the way you did through Chaim's uncle."
    "I had to tell Chaim's control officer about General Strakhov at Zahle and the Disciples of Allah in case you did not return. And... Chaim's partner told me more about you,