Reprisal (33 page)

Hasan jumped Dartley and knocked him on his back. He tried to straddle him and choke him—but suddenly released his fingers
from the American’s throat. Hasan screamed in pain and his eyes rolled in his head. He staggered slowly to his feet off the
downed American, who looked up at him with a crimson-dripping blade in his hand. Hasan clutched his stomach with both hands
and half-ran, half-stumbled across the courtyard to the street entranceway.

Hasan tottered out onto the sidewalk, then weakened, and his hands dropped away from his stomach. His belly was slit from
hip to hip, and the contents of his body cavity spilled out on the sidewalk at his feet.

Hasan wavered and fell face forward onto his own throbbing, glistening entrails.

The Light of Islam mullahs put their militias in the streets and the Cairo mobs fought them with American weapons and ammo
which suddenly turned up in plentiful supply all over the city. The soldiers fought the police, and each side racked up impressive
body counts. Fighting lasted into the early morning hours and did not start again at dawn.

When President Mubarak’s motorcade left the American Embassy, he was greeted by joyous multitudes. There didn’t seem to be
a person left in Cairo who wanted to recall the bad old Light of Islam days.

Abdel Ibrahim insisted that Dartley attend the reception for the new president. Pritchett sent word from the embassy that
he’d love to meet him. Dartley took a stroll and didn’t come back.

The ticket agent at Cairo International Airport couldn’t understand why Dartley was willing to wait six hours for an AirEgypt
flight to New York via London, when for the same price he would only have to wait an hour for an Air France flight via Paris.

A shroud of doom descends over the world when a fanatical religious faction, headed k.y Ahmed Hasan, takes over the Egyptian
government. With nuclear technology within his grasp, Hasan poses a deadly threat to an area already at the brink of war.
Only one man can stop the mad Egyptian: Richard Dartley, the world’s most expert and expensive professional assassin, whose
fee is one million dollars.

A cold killing machine, Dartley works with ruthless efficiency–which is why he gets the job. But Cairo is infested with spies
and fanatics that include the treacherous Light of Islam faction. A target and enemy of all, the Crime Minister now must dodge
both bullets and booby traps to destroy the president willing to plunge the planet into the nightmare of nuclear war.