Sudden Death

by Don Pendleton

  "What?" Bolan began. But she laid a finger across his lips. Footsteps approached over the hard earth beneath the grass. One of the thugs from the Mercedes had turned the corner of the building.

  Bolan lowered the iron trap until it was only open a crack. The man walked calmly past the bushes, scanned the automobiles in the lot and disappeared around the far corner of the block.

  "Okay…" it was Bolan's turn to whisper "…let me have the keys to the padlock and the bike. I'll start it up, ride over and pick you up. That way, we'll attract less attention than two going at once — and when we're up, we'll also have the advantage of speed and maneuverability."

  "Right," she murmured. "Except I will go myself. There is a knack to starting it. If you do not make it the first time, we will have the whole bunch around here."

  "Whatever you say," he agreed reluctantly. It made sense, but he didn't like it.

  He raised the trap and hoisted her out. The pliant, supple feel of her young body, the warm weight of her breasts on his hands, stirred a sudden pang of tenderness in him. He was struck by Fawzi's tawny beauty. At once his mind conjured up the image of the delicate satin friction of skins, the luxury of a bed…

  He put the thought out of his mind. There might be time for such indulgences later.

  If there was any later.

  If ever his private war let up for a week, a day, an hour.

  Maybe.

  Fawzi raced across the grass, crouched below the bushes, made the rail and silently unlocked the chain. The scooter started at the first kick, unexpectedly loud in the silence. She leaped into the saddle and careered toward the loading bay. Bolan was already outside the hatch, waiting.

  The rasp of the little scooter's exhaust was suddenly obliterated by an appalling clamor. Two machine pistols on full-auto, shockingly violent in the suburban evening, spat death from the direction in which the lone hardman had appeared. Muzzle-flashes flickered mauve and electric blue against the yellow sodium glare.

  The shooting was followed at once by three single shots fired from around the corner of the block by the first man.

  Fawzi Harari was literally lifted from the saddle by the impact of the death hail aimed at her. Sickeningly Bolan could hear the thwack of the heavy slugs as they ripped through her tender flesh.

  Blood spurted purple in the pitiless overhead light. Projected several feet by the stream of lead, the girl crashed onto her back on the asphalt with outflung arms and lay still.

  Mack Bolan was on his feet and running, a red mist of fury behind his eyes.

  The killers with the SMGs were half hidden by one of the play structures, but he could sight them through a cement tunnel that lay between the grass and that obstacle.

  The tunnel was about two feet in diameter and maybe ten feet long. The center of each man's body was momentarily visible as they emerged and began moving forward to check the result of their murderous work.

  Bolan fired the AutoMag four times.

  The big stainless-steel handgun bucked savagely in his two-handed grip. The skull-shattering 240-grain boattails streaked through the cement tube to zero in on the Executioner's targets, two for each man.

  Terrible in their destruction, the slugs ripped through flesh and bone and cartilage, dropping the terrorists like slaughtered beasts. They were dead before they hit the ground.

  For the second time that day Bolan lost his cool. He had fired from behind the bushes. Now he hurled himself out into the open, his face twisted into a mask of rage, until he stood over the fallen Honda like an avenging angel, eyes searching for the first man, the guy who had fired the single shots.

  For the gunman standing thirty feet away at the corner of the block Bolan was an angel of death.

  Completely unnerved at the sight of his quarry standing out in the open, totally without cover, he froze for one fatal instant with astonishment.

  That fiftieth of a second cost him his life.

  The shot, when it came, went wide, for Bolan had already fired. Smashed full in the face by the huge .44 caliber bullet, the killer was flung back against the wall of the building with his head almost torn from his shoulders. The body slumped to the ground, leaving a giant splash of blood fanned out over the concrete.

  Bolan ran to the girl. Lights went on all over the block, windows opened and voices sounded their irritation in the night air.

  There was nothing he could do for her.

  Fawzi's slender body was completely riddled. A spiderweb of blood, glistening horribly as it congealed in the sodium light, rayed out from beneath her in all directions.

  Only her face, impassive in death, the large eyes staring sightlessly upward, was untouched.

  Gently Bolan pressed the lids shut.

  With murder in his own heart, he ran to the other corner of the block.

  The black Mercedes was already moving away. Max was sitting beside the driver. In the reflected light from the instruments, Bolan could see that he was lighting another cigarette.

  He emptied the AutoMag's magazine at the sedan, but the big car was too far away for him to score.

  Sickened at the useless waste of a young life, the Executioner went back to the scooter, picked it up, restarted the engine and rode out of there.

  12

  Four men sat watching a scene being played out on a television set. On the screen a tall, powerfully built man stood firing two guns at once. One of them, a silver-colored weapon, looked awesome. The other appeared to be some kind of submachine gun. The slugs slammed into the chest of an olive-skinned man seated at a table. The impact lifted him out of the chair and drove him against the wall.

  A third man, who wore a mustache and whose face appeared pitted, stood from the table and walked to the window. "Perhaps, Mr. Bolan, your questions are answered now?" he said. "Like who ordered the ambush from which you escaped." There was a reply from the man with the guns, then the guy with the pockmarked face spoke again. "This man was what you Americans term a gun for hire, a professional murderer." And then later: "But wasn't one of us. To find out his reasons, you would have to ask his employers."

  Max Nasruddin, the man with the pockmarked face on the TV set, switched it off and slid the videocassette out of its slot. "I think that should be enough to convince you gentlemen," he said. "The remainder of the meeting, which ended as planned with Bolan's escape, is not relevant."

  The four men who had been watching the clip nodded their approval. It was the tall, spare American with shell-rimmed glasses and silver hair crimped close to his skull who acted as spokesman for the others.

  "Admirable," he said. "I think we must all agree that Mr. Nasruddin has organized this particular part of the scheme in a way that should please everybody."

  "Sure, it's what we wanted," the youngest of the four said. He wore a lightweight charcoal suit from Savile Row with a single rosebud in the buttonhole, but his English was heavily accented. "The traitor, Sadegh Rafsanjani, has paid for his betrayal of the jihad with his life, and that is as it should be. The fact that the supreme punishment was at the hands of an infidel will please Hussein Montazeri in Teheran."

  The third man was a petrodollar millionaire many times over. He came from one of the Gulf states, but he was to be seen more often in New York or Paris or Tokyo than he was in his tiny home country. "What about the girl?" he asked. "Did that too work out as planned?"

  "The problem has been… taken care of," Nasruddin said. "Unfortunately, for technical reasons, there is no videotape of this operation. I can assure you, however, that the solution was…" he smiled bleakly "…final."

  "No problems?" the American queried.

  "We lost three men," Nasruddin said. "But they were expendable. They have already been replaced."

  The fourth man had a sullen face with bushy eyebrows. His name was Shell Pettifer, and he was director-general of a multinational consortium that marketed electronic hardware and software ranging from the simplest of home computers to the directional equipment in the nos
e cones of space rockets.

  He spoke now for the first time, a gravel-voiced monotone that was nevertheless vibrating with suppressed power. "Let's get this straight," he said. "Graziano, Rafsanjani, whatever you want to call him, had to be eliminated because he knew too much and because once he himself was known, through Bolan, to the Israeli authorities, he could have compromised our master plan. The fact that his death can be presented to the Iranian revolutionaries as some kind of retribution for betrayal of their cause may be of help to our friend Farid Gamal Mokhaddem…" he nodded toward the man with the rose in his buttonhole "…but the real aim of this operation, successful I agree, was to load Bolan with a murder charge."

  He looked around the room — they were sitting in a tiny viewing theater off the computer complex in the old Maginot fortress — and then continued, "So far, so good. The assassinations have been well organized, and the fact that no organization claims credit for them helps to maintain a generalized climate of fear. The blast in the rue de Rivoli entrusted to Graziano was an excellent impromptu idea. It triggered Bolan's rage, and it added one more element to the destabilization of society that we're aiming for. But what of the long-range plans? These elite assassins, how are they shaping up? In particular, how is the Baraka operation progressing?"

  "As scheduled," Nasruddin replied. "I'll call in the doctors, and you can question them yourself. They can give you a more comprehensive analysis than I can."

  "Is Baraka here now?"

  Nasruddin nodded. "The indoctrination will be a success," he said. "But perhaps you should ask the medics themselves to report. They can explain just how far it has gone, and give you visual proof, if you want."

  "I think that would be a sound idea," Pettifer said, "in view of the time and money involved."

  The doctors were brisk and businesslike in their starched white jackets.

  The older one removed his pince-nez and polished the lenses with a silk handkerchief. "It is a little difficult to explain the technicalities," he said, "but the programming is, as you might say, 'taking.' Slowly but very surely."

  "Can't you speed it up?" the petrodollar millionaire asked. "Time is money."

  The younger doctor, still inscrutable behind his wraparound shades, replied. "It is the first time the drugs — or this combination of them — have been used in this way. The calculation of the doses, often quite extraordinarily small, and their exact relation to one another, require great care. And at each stage the effect of their administration, short-term and long-term, must be minutely noted. And the program, if necessary, equally minutely adjusted. Hasty action could be fatal."

  "You must remember, too," the older man said, "that however clever and ingenious Monsieur Nasruddin's manipulations and maneuvers are, the subject is only sporadically available to us. And even when he is here, the visits are necessarily short."

  The younger doctor spoke again. "If ever there was a breakthrough — a connection in the subject's mind — between the old imprintation and the new, the entire project would be ruined. And it could be very dangerous for all of us. Considering the strength involved."

  "We can at least demonstrate to these gentlemen that there has been no weakening whatever in acquired skill during the transfer," the doctor with pince-nez suggested. He turned to a stocky character at the back of the room. "Willi, fetch the tapes and run us the recordings of the Doberman scene, Baraka's fight with Mazarin and the shooting gallery test."

  "Impressive," the American commented when the tapes were through. "Now what about the others? What news on the three German kids, the Hispanic and his buddy, the Corsican, the two Irishmen and the Marksman?"

  "Just a difference in degree," the young doctor said. "There's no question there of reimprinting. They're all disillusioned fanatics who decided to settle for money. But there's a certain amount of conditioning to be done, a necessity to remove or suppress various prejudices, so-called moral stands and preconceived ideas that might affect or even hinder their work on our behalf. This is not necessary in the case of the Marksman. He's an artisan, schooled in the most efficient methods of destruction, and proud as hell of his expertise."

  "See how mad he was when Baraka did better than he did in the shooting gallery!" the doctor with pincenez said, chuckling.

  His companion nodded. "With the others," he said, "the conditioning is to render them into the state of semiautomata, what the popular press would call zombies. They carry out their orders without question. The Marksman doesn't ask questions, not even of himself. He does the job and pockets the money. Period. Reasons don't exist for him."

  "Understood," Pettifer said. "Maybe we could see the system at work now? I have to be at a meeting with the Eurocrats in Strasbourg before dark."

  "Of course," Max Nasruddin agreed. "Doctor, if you wouldn't mind leading the way to the conditioning section?"

  They trooped through the computer complex — staffed now by a girl and three young men in white coveralls, all intent on taking notes from the flickering green rows of text unscrolling, pausing and vanishing from the racked VDT screens in front of them. An elevator took them one stage higher in the interior warren of the fortress, and from there a moving walkway carried them several hundred feet laterally to a glass-paneled viewing room that looked over a space resembling an army briefing unit or a university lecture theater.

  Exploded diagrams showing the working parts of handguns, rifles, SMGs and even artillery pieces had been pulled down from wall hangers on one side of the big room. The bullet-headed German, Klaus, who acted as chauffeur to the two doctors, was standing by a table on a raised platform opposite the viewing window. A projector on the table was throwing the image of a town plan onto a screen that stood on a tripod nearby. The network of streets and squares and avenues was itself crisscrossed by a web of waterways. Klaus was talking, tapping sections of the plan from time to time with a wooden pointer.

  "They are organizing a contingency operation for the elimination of Jaap van Leeuward, the Dutch information minister, in Amsterdam," Nasruddin explained. "The class will terminate in a few minutes, and then you can watch Mazarin schooling the younger ones in unarmed combat — all of them except Baraka, in fact."

  "Why not Baraka?" Mokhaddem asked, glancing at the small group of men and the single girl at their desks.

  Nasruddin smiled. "Baraka could teach Mazarin," he said.

  "And he has absolutely no recollection?" The American was staring curiously at the star killer-to-be, towering over the others as he concentrated on the screen.

  "None whatever," the older doctor said firmly. "You will see later in the gallery, if you have time. We offer a series of pop-up targets for him to shoot at, all of them portraits of eminent people — actors, sportsmen, diplomats, industrialists. He is to fire only at his enemies. You will be surprised at those he chooses."

  "I see there is a certain amount of…shall we say… subliminal persuasion on hand anyway," the petrodollar tycoon commented, indicating a series of posters and placards displayed on walls all around the lecture hall.

  It was an odd collection. All of them were World War II propaganda publications, some French, some German, and even a British one warning that Careless Talk Costs Lives. But they had one thing in common.

  They included such slogans as The Enemy Is Listening, The Warmonger Who Threatens Your Future, This Soldier Is Your Foe, Join the Fight against Tyranny and — from the odious and infamous "anti-Jew" exhibition in occupied Paris — These Are the Bloodsuckers Responsible.

  But whether the figure on the poster was a Nazi soldier, a fifth columnist, Stalin, a French general or Winston Churchill, each one had been doctored, with the original face replaced by that of a prominent present-day diplomat or statesman.

  The largest poster, and the most prominently displayed, had depicted a ranting and raving Hitler tearing the map of Europe to pieces and feeding the shreds into his mouth — with the slogan beneath: Whatever the Cost, This Man Must Be Stopped!

  Fa
ked and reprinted, the features above the swastika armbands were now those of the President of the United States.

  Nasruddin was smiling again. "We don't actually go the whole way," he said, "making them believe they actually are operating as secret agents in World War II. But they are all people who have been conditioned to serve a cause. And here, in this militaristic atmosphere — no matter that the 'enemy' uniforms are from both sides — we give them one. They serve and obey."

  Farid Gamal Mokhaddem turned up the lapel of his immaculate suit and sniffed appreciatively at the rosebud. "If only they knew!" he said.

  13

  Clinic was the key word. Even so, Bolan had to spend a whole morning in the reference section of the Bibliotheque Nationale — France's equivalent of the Library of Congress — before he finally located the source of Wally Boardman's phrase, "the old triple-F."

  "Of course," Fawzi Harari had said when he'd remembered to ask. "It's a logo. A trademark if you like. What the French call the sigle, of a clinic…"

  There had been an everybody-knows-that quality in her smiling reply that had to mean this clinic, whatever it was and wherever it was, had some close connection with the girl or with her ex-associates. Which meant in turn that it could be vital to the Executioner. But before he could ask where the clinic could be found, death had sealed the girl's lips forever.

  Death in the form of Nasruddin's assassins.

  They had paid already for that brutal and despicable act; the account with the guy who had ordered the killing would be settled later.

  In full.

  Right now, identification of the clinic took priority.

  The medical directory that at last surrendered the secret told Bolan that it was in the Val de Ruz, near Neuchatel, in the western sector of Switzerland.

  The clinic was called the Friedrich Friedekinde Foundation.

  The description in the directory was succinct.

  The place had been founded in 1936 by Friedrich Friedekinde, an Austrian pupil of Freud and Jung, as a study center for research into the behavior patterns of psychotics and patients who suffered from schizophrenia and personality disorders. Inheritor of a fortune from his rich industrialist family in Vienna, Friedekinde had endowed the clinic before his death in the 1950s with enough funds to continue research independently of the huge fees contributed by the small number of rich patients sent there.