Final Resort. Don Pendleton

he had no illusions as to what was waiting for him, if and when he made his way inside Bahia Matanzas. The eight hostage takers were desperate men, religious fanatics with nothing to lose but their lives—and those lives, Bolan guessed, were already written off as lost in their own minds. The whole bizarre event, from Gitmo to the latest series of impossible demands, smelled like a kamikaze mission from the start.

      That understanding altered Bolan’s mission from a hostage rescue to search-and-destroy. Taking for granted that the terrorists were bent on killing their roughly twelve hundred prisoners, once they had managed to insult America as much as possible on international TV, he had to find a way inside and neutralize the enemy before they carried out their plan.

      For some at Bahia Matanzas, Bolan guessed, he might already be too late. They had a deadline coming up, and Bolan might not be there to distract the terrorists from making good on their specific threats. If they were operating on the same half-hour deadlines as the group aboard the Tropic Princess, then hostages would die before he reached the scene. More yet, if the police and soldiers ringing Bahia Matanzas slowed him down.

      But he would find a way inside. And those he couldn’t save, he would avenge.

      Bolan made that a solemn promise to himself.

      After fieldstripping and reassembling the Beretta, Bolan relaxed on the short bunk as best he could. Combat experience had taught him to sleep virtually anywhere, if someone wasn’t shooting at him, and the tiny cabin of a submarine felt like the Ritz compared to some of Bolan’s other bivouacs. Running submerged, it had no pitch and roll like surface ships, only a steady thrumming from the mighty engines that propelled it through the depths.