"The Disciples? This... there is no such group," Masudi gasped, working to get his breath back. "It is a temporary name. Nothing more than a loose band. Shiites and Druse. I have only heard of them. They carry out raids, yes, suicide fighters... but the Disciples of Allah is but a name to give the impression of greater numbers, you understand?" Abdel eyed the Russian.

Kleb nodded.

The Syrian knelt across Masudi's chest and grabbed the Iranian's right hand.

Bolan, from his perch outside the window on the ledge, clearly heard something snap above Masudi's bleat as the Syrian broke another finger.

"He screams like a woman, this one," Abdel snickered, standing again.

"He will scream the truth."

"We know when you lie, you see, General Masudi," Kleb said, chuckling. "We know of the plot to assassinate the Lebanese president. We know of the Disciples part in this. We know of your role — that of sponsor and protector to these madmen. Now I want you to tell me the rest of it. All of it." Masudi forced himself to his knees. He looked utterly defeated, but Bolan discerned a fierce determination on the man's features.

"But I... I do not understand. The government befriends Israel and the devil nation, America... surely we fight on the same side, Muslim brothers... the Disciples strike for us!"

"You will be tortured until you tell us what we wish to know," Kleb continued in his monotone. "General Abdel, commence, and do not stop until he talks."

"With pleasure, Major." The Syrian bent to his task.

The bloodied Masudi got a new glint in his painclouded eyes and somehow, despite the oddly protruding broken digits of his right hand, he no longer looked defeated at all.

"You shall never stop us!" he screamed and rocketed to his feet before Abdel could reach him. "There are others. We are Shiites! We die for Islam! Allah be praised!" Abdel rushed forward, grabbing for Masudi.

The Iranian twisted away from the outstretched hands while his uninjured hand darted down inside his left boot.

The GRU man at the door lost all his cool then and dived for concealed hardware. But it all happened too fast.

The Syrian generai twisted around almost as fast as Masudi and clamped both hamlike hands around the Iranian's neck.

Abdel grunted a curse in Arabic and yanked the smaller man around.

The Iranian allowed himself to be swung. He used the momentum to plunge a stiletto to the hilt under Abdel's breastbone, into the heart.

Abdel froze, a surprised look on his face. Then his hands dropped and a fountain of blood burbled from his mouth. The Syrian commander fell, dead.

The Iranian whirled again and with a shriek charged the Russian major, who had his pistol only half way out of its shoulder holster.

Kleb's eyes widened with panic.

The Shiite attacked him with the flashing blade.

From his perch position on the ledge outside the window Bolan witnessed and reacted instantly to the eruption of violence.

But the most vital question remained unanswered.

Where the hell was Strakhov?

Greb Strakhov grasped the door handle, about to step into General Abdel's office, when shouts and scuffling noises from within made him halt. He had been to the communications room downstairs, coding his report to the Soviet Embassy in Beirut for immediate transmission to Moscow.

His recent tenure behind a desk had not dulled reflexes earned during twenty years of KGB fieldwork.

The spy master tugged out his pistol.

Something heavy thumped into the corridor wall alongside the door inside that office.

Strakhov opened that door and burst in fast, cautious, just in time.

He took it in at a glance: Abdel dead on the floor across the office like a gutted fish. The impact Strakhov heard on the wall had been General Masudi throwing himself at Kleb. They piled into the wall before tumbling to the carpeted floor, locked in combat. The Iranian was on top, one fist in an iron grip on the Russian officer's gun wrist, preventing Kleb from completing his draw. Masudi was trying to force a bloodied stiletto down into Kleb's heart. The GRU man only barely fended him off with a straight-armed grip around Masudi's wrist.

The closed window across the office showed the first glow of dawn. No one came in that way to help Masudi, thought Strakhov as he rushed to Kleb's aid. Masudi had hidden the dagger before they brought him into the room.

The Syrians had not searched him properly.

Strakhov detested all Arabs.

He hurried over and brought the butt of his pistol down hard behind Masudi's right ear, but not hard enough to kill.

The blade dropped from the Iranian's hand.

Masudi collapsed sideways.

Kleb pushed him away and scrambled to his feet, yanking his gun out the rest of the way, too fast for Strakhov to stop him.

"Kleb! No!" Strakhov shouted.

The blast from Kleb's Walther PPK drowned out the command and brought death to Ib Masudi, the projectiles devouring the Iranian general's throat and part of his face.

Strakhov reached Kleb and angrily smashed the pistol from Kleb's fingers with his own Walther.

"You fool!" Strakhov snarled, lapsing into Russian.

"He... he was about to kill me," gasped Kleb.

"You were in no danger — you panicked. Now we will learn nothing from Masudi. I had the communications room monitor your interrogation in my absence. He said there are other plotters. He could have told us so much."

"I'm sorry, comrade Major General." The GRU man backed down. "I... I overreacted. But, if I may ask, after tomorrow... and dawn is only a few minutes from now... will the president's fate be of any concern to us?"

"I would not expect your peasant mind to grasp the finer points of my mission, Major," Strakhov snapped. "Do you think, if things go as we plan, that the Disciples of Allah and the other groups like them will simply disband and disappear? Or the Iranians? We must gain control of these factions now, while the power base is fluid. The ruling government in Beirut must not be slaughtered. We can only accomplish our goals away from world attention."

"I... I understand, comrade Major General."

Strakhov holstered his pistol.

"Retrieve your weapon then. What has been done cannot be undone." Kleb obeyed meekly.

"Thank you, comrade."

"I will be taking over General Abdel's office for my stay in this pit," Strakhov growled, striding briskly with barely a glance at the dead Syrian to a chair behind the desk. "He won't be needing it." He glared daggers at Kleb. "Contact ranking officers of the Druse, Syrian, PLO and Iranian forces in the area. Schedule an emergency briefing. Here, at noon today. "

"That, uh, may be difficult, comrade Major General, considering..."

"Tell them they will be here," Strakhov barked. "They will understand. And they will understand what I tell them at the briefing. Or they shall be replaced."

"I shall see to it immediately."

"Also see to this," Strakhov instructed. He handed Kleb a scrap of paper. "We have traced the license number of a car seen leaving the Iranian compound at Biskinta two hours prior to our attack this morning. It was an unmarked vehicle of the Lebanese government." Kleb registered a puzzled frown.

"The government?"

"Apparently there are things happening in Beirut at this moment that we do not know. A situation I find untenable."

"I shall... pursue the matter vigorously," Kleb promised.

"See that you do, Major, and perhaps I shall have reason to be more generous in my report concerning you to Moscow than I have thus far had reason to be. And see that these, or, things..." Strakhov indicated with disdain the two corpses "...comare removed. The sight of them alive turned my stomach. Now they're worse. Tie the Iranian's neck with rope to the back of a vehicle and have him dragged through the countryside. He will be a lesson. I suppose we must be more subdued with General Abdel. Return the body to his family."