Betrayed

by Don Pendleton

  “What do we do?”

  “If Mahoud is out of Afghanistan we need to find where he and his family have been moved to. Mahoud will want to regain possession of his data. The man is nothing if not determined. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say he will go back to Paris. That was his base, where his friend Jamal Mehet remained when Mahoud left France. We know he was keeping watch in the city. That was where we got our hands on him. I suspect Mehet was looking out for more than just our people. When we had him, our priority was getting him to tell us where Mahoud was hiding. In retrospect I can see we should have been asking him where this information had been hidden,” Asadi said.

  “I understood you were not concerned about that.”

  “Not for the reasons Hartman and Homani have. They want it so they can claim it. That is where I understand Hartman. He sees the power in such data. If he gains control of it, I suspect he will use it himself to buy loyalties and force people to do what he wants. And that could include us.”

  “We would be well rid of him then.”

  “When the time is right. For now we can allow Hartman to play his game. One of the virtues of our faith is patience. Let these others run around and make their moves. Our prime aim is the death of Mahoud and his family. If we achieve that, the myth will be destroyed as his soul descends into hell. The conference will founder. Alive, Mahoud binds the meeting together. Without him there will be nothing,” Asadi stated.

  “Until we know where Mahoud is, we can’t do very much.”

  “I will have that location for you very soon. Be assured.”

  The location was telephoned to Asadi a couple of hours later. The call was brief. Simply the name of the house and location where Sharif Mahoud and his family were. Château Fontaine.

  The moment his caller had gone off the line Asadi made his own, passing on the information.

  MOHAN BOUVIER TAPPED his fingers against the telephone casing as he considered his next move. There would be no problems getting the men he needed. As many as he wanted. On reflection he decided to go for a small number. There would be less attention paid to a compact group. First, though, he needed to confirm numbers.

  He called one of his recon experts, relayed the details about Château Fontaine.

  “Is this urgent?”

  “Yes. I need the intel quickly.”

  “I will get back to you.”

  BOUVIER HAD his update by noon of the following morning.

  “Guests number five. Security is provided by a four-man team. All armed. They have two men patrolling the grounds around the château. They swap every four hours. Two vehicles. Is that enough?”

  “Perfect. The usual fee will be paid into your account by this evening.”

  Bouvier finalized his teams.

  Four to make the assault on the château. There would also be two other teams, each consisting of driver and shooter. These would be in vehicles waiting to follow anyone leaving the château. Every team member had photo identification of Sharif Mahoud and his family.

  “We know this. Mahoud is in France. There are only days left before the conference,” Bouvier told his people. “He needs to move soon if he is going to collect his evidence. That means he will leave the château. A good time to deal with him if he does. If that happens, the second team will move in and eliminate his family. This is not negotiable. They must all die. Is this understood?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Château Fontaine, France

  The house was over three hundred years old. Gray stone with leaded windows that reached ceiling height. It was a relic of past glories, now reduced to having only a few of its many rooms utilized. Even the grounds on which it stood were untended, the gardens overgrown, an ornamental fountain long without water. The house had running water but no installed electricity. Power came from a diesel generator standing behind the main building inside a stone enclosure.

  Bolan, Mahoud and Leila were in one of the spacious drawing rooms. The two girls were in a nearby room under the protective eye of a Stony Man blacksuit.

  “There are likely to be other safehouses,” Bolan explained, “but they have connections to main agencies. This place has only ever been used by the group I operate through. We have no affiliation with recognized U.S. security organizations, so I’m not expecting leaks from that source.”

  “You can be sure of that?” Leila asked. “One hundred percent sure?”

  “Leila,” Mahoud admonished his wife for her forthright manner.

  “She’s right to question that statement,” Bolan said. “In her place I’d ask the same. Let’s face it, too much has happened over the past days to make even me wary.”

  Mahoud slumped back in the armchair, favoring his injured arm.

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  Bolan crossed the high-ceilinged room and helped himself to more coffee from the thermos jug.

  “Absolute security? The four men you’ve met are from my group. We operate covertly. As far out of the agency community as possible. It’s as good as it gets, Leila.”

  The four blacksuits from Stony Man, flown into France on Brognola’s orders and the President’s approval, were known to Bolan. Château Fontaine had been used on a couple of previous occasions to provide secure bolt holes on Sensitive Operations Group missions. Security had never been breached during the earlier excursions.

  “Then I suppose we must hope that is enough,” Leila said, smiling at Bolan. “I did not mean to be rude, Matt, but after Afghanistan, and what has happened with Rafiq…”

  “I understand,” Bolan said.

  “How do you think we should proceed?” Mahoud asked. “We only have days before the conference starts. But I need to recover my information first.”

  “Is it close?” Bolan asked.

  “We will need a day.”

  Bolan knew about Mahoud’s data, but lacked detail. The subject hadn’t come up apart from references during the Afghanistan episode, and Bolan had let the matter stay in the background until Mahoud was ready to discuss it himself.

  “Do you want to tell me about it, Reef?”

  Mahoud glanced across at his wife. Her head moved in a gentle, approving nod.

  “Tell him,” she said.

  “When I began to gather my information, it was in the form of notes, all cataloged with names, dates, times and places. My suspicions had grown for some time that outside influences were directing events in trouble spots. The more I looked into it, the stronger my convictions became. I realized there were so many people working in the background I needed to bring it all together in a coherent form. It took me many months to compile my data. I used everyone and everything I could to gather details. I called in favors. Persuaded individuals to pass me any small snippets of information. It was not easy. Like-minded people who were also seeing these interwoven happenings brought me material. I even had photographic evidence. Some recording of clandestine meetings.”

  “The amount of incriminating material became a flood,” Leila said. “By the time Sharif realized he had enough to accuse the guilty, the mass of data was enormous. We had to compress it and commit it to a computer, along with the images and sound bites.”

  “It was about this time I received word that knowledge of the data had been leaked. Two of my trusted friends, who had helped pass me information, were found dead. Both had been tortured. The trail would eventually lead back to me, so I placed the data onto flash drives. I made a number of copies. I placed these in secure locations without telling Leila. Only I know where the data is located.”

  “Matt,” Leila said, “this information must be shown at the conference as part of Sharif’s presentation. It will reveal to those with moderate views how they have been tricked themselves. How they are manipulated. Their views distorted and misrepresented. When they see the guilty faces and hear the recorded betrayals, they will realize how much of the distrust has been created by the real traitors.”

  “I can understand why there’s
so much resistance to Mahoud attending the conference,” Bolan said. “If this data is as explosive as it sounds, you could blow the meeting apart.”

  “Modesty prevents me from agreeing,” Mahoud said.

  “Throw modesty out the window,” Bolan said. “If you’re ready to collect this data, we’ll do it tomorrow. Leila, you and the girls stay here. Agreed?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Maybe we can get through this and give Reef his day,” Bolan stated.

  “We should go and sit with the girls,” Mahoud said. “I’m sure Matt has things he needs to be doing.”

  Bolan waited until he was alone before he activated his sat phone and contacted Stony Man.

  Barbara Price spoke to him first. She was having a hard time concealing the concern she was feeling at Carl Lyons’s missing status.

  “At least you climbed back on the grid,” she said. “We can’t get any kind of fix on Carl and Rafiq Mahoud.”

  “He’s a resourceful guy,” Bolan said. “This isn’t the first time Carl has been on his own. He’ll show up.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Price queried.

  “I know enough not to give up on the man.”

  “I guess.”

  “Has Hal decided to bring in local help?” Bolan asked.

  “Enough time has elapsed, so he’s contacted the police and they’re going to check things out. As soon as we get any feedback, I’ll update you.”

  “Anything on the kidnappers?”

  “Oh, yes. We’ve pinned down Marino’s associates. He seems to work with the same people. Todd Grover. Jake Harper. They were both in the military with him. A third guy called Cujo. Only name we have for him. He’s full-blooded Chiricahua Apache and has been in trouble most of his life. And you know Kate Murchison. The guys came up with a further link in the chain. Came from Marino’s phone records. Roger Dane. He’s second in command to one Daniel Hartman. Hartman is a powerful man who heads a large conglomerate. He has connections within government, military, and makes his billions through contracting weapons and ordnance. Oil. Minerals. Check out anything that smells of power and influence and Hartman’s name will be somewhere on the list. Where Middle East politics are concerned you’ll also find Hartman involved,” Price stated.

  “Hartman’s name show up anywhere else?”

  “Oh yes. The transceiver you picked up gave us a solid lead. Aaron traced it through the serial number. One of a batch sold to a contractor supposedly handling ordnance for a Middle East regime. Turns out the consignment went missing en route. This deal has more twists than a corkscrew. When the cyberteam went right inside the background they turned up a connection with Hartman. One of the companies handling equipment sales is under Hartman’s umbrella. It’s a small outfit and easy to overlook. Seems Hartman is in business with Mahoud’s enemies deeper than we thought.”

  “Connections to Homani?”

  “Not easily apparent until Aaron’s team went excavating. On the surface Hartman is just a businessman but pull some of his acquaintances out of the shadows and the pattern starts to show. Aaron’s sneaky peek at agency databases have Hartman and Homani linked. For reasons known to themselves, the agency data has been held back.”

  “Not the first time that’s happened,” Bolan observed.

  “And Hartman isn’t a happy camper where Mahoud is concerned. Scuttlebutt has it Hartman wouldn’t be sending flowers to Mahoud’s funeral.”

  “Connections and consequences,” Bolan said. “Thanks for all that. Just keep me in the frame about Carl.”

  “Will do. Hey, you need anything else over there?”

  “You filled my order to the letter.”

  “We aim to please,” Price said.

  IN HIS ROOM Bolan went through a checklist of the equipment Stony Man had supplied at his request. Civilian clothing for himself and the Mahouds. Credentials and cash. Driver’s license, passports—the passports stamped with an entry visa that even the keenest-eyed French official would not have been able to fault. The credentials were there as backup if there came a need for them. Stony Man had provided identical backup for Mahoud and his family. It had all been delivered by the blacksuit team and carried with them on their flight from the U.S. aboard a United States Air Force flight to a NATO airfield in France. The four-man team had loaded their baggage into a plain SUV, with French registration, and had left the base for the drive to the safehouse.

  As well as the personal luggage, there was a locked aluminum case for Bolan’s attention. He had opened the case in his room and checked over the ordnance inside: a Beretta 93-R, complete with a shoulder rig and a 9 mm Uzi. Extra ammunition for both weapons. A knife to replace the one he’d lost in Afghanistan. Bolan had no idea what or who he might find himself up against in France. He did acknowledge there would be little goodwill involved.

  Bolan extracted a pair of high-spec cell phones with full triband and satellite facilities. The cell’s batteries had been charged, giving them long usage. Bolan took out the charging units and connected them to the room’s power sockets to ensure full power. He was in no mood to have the cells run down once he and Mahoud left the château.

  Sitting at the bedroom’s writing bureau Bolan spread out a small towel from the bathroom and field-stripped the Beretta and Uzi, checking each weapon thoroughly, then reassembled them. He knew that John “Cowboy” Kissinger, the Stony Man armorer, would have checked the weapons before sending them off, and his own examination wasn’t because he doubted Kissinger’s skills. Bolan’s life might depend on the ordnance working perfectly at any given moment. If the weapons failed to perform, the responsibility rested on Bolan and no one else. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He had learned the simple, but important, lesson drilled into every combat soldier from day one: his weapons were his lifeline, the difference between life or death; if he failed to maintain his weapons and they let him down through neglect, there was no one to blame except himself. The mantra was repeated continuously throughout the training period and it became as natural as breathing; there were those who followed it and others who let it slide: Bolan still remained faithful to the creed.

  With his weapons loaded and placed back inside the aluminum case the Executioner crossed to gaze out the bedroom window. Despite the remoteness of the house, he still possessed a sense of unease about security. He realized it was most likely an echo of his time in Afghanistan, where every move seemed to have been monitored. Where he began to imagine there was an enemy under every rock, behind every bush. Mack Bolan wasn’t paranoid. He wasn’t the type to believe he was being spied on at every turn, though from the Afghan episode he couldn’t have been criticized to have taken such thoughts on board.

  Hal Brognola had told Bolan the agreement between the U.S. President and Sharif Mahoud was strictly need to know. He had accepted the statement with his usual reservations. Thinking back to his earlier conversation with Mahoud and Leila, Bolan smiled at Leila’s quiet observation on the concept of total security.

  “You can be sure of that?” Leila asked. “One hundred percent sure?”

  After Brognola’s assurance that only the President and Mahoud were aware of what was happening, Bolan had kept his feelings close. The concept of total security was a comforting premise, but never one Bolan felt entirely comfortable with. He understood the world and its complexities, and the belief in secrets kept was, as far as he was concerned, an unplayable rule. It had to do with the fallibility of people to keep those secrets. And the reasons they often failed.

  Coercion.

  Bribery.

  Individual loyalties.

  The faith in one person’s beliefs held against others. There were too many variables. The weakness of faith, the belief that something worked against policy was justified.

  So, Mack Bolan had accepted the mission, aware he was placing his own faith in the words, no matter how genuine in their exposition, of good men. The problem came when those good men expected those around them to ke
ep secrets. It was never going to happen. Secrets had a habit of becoming known to others. Maybe as a whisper, but one able to be picked up by hostile ears. The whisper became a catalyst and the reaction offered the opposition something on which they could act.

  Bolan understood the complex scenario attached to Sharif Mahoud’s problems. The man had multiple enemies, and those enemies had their sources. Not simply the means provided by those whose sympathies were confined to religious-political opposition to Mahoud’s intentions. His data gathering made Mahoud a target.

  The soldier watched as one of the Stony Man blacksuits walked the château grounds. The team maintained a steady rota of security patrols. Good practice, Bolan understood, but a dedicated strike force wouldn’t be deterred by such a show of force.

  Bolan turned from the window as he picked up a sound coming from the hall outside his room. He crossed to the door and opened it, saw the retreating figure of Raika Mahoud as she moved down the corridor. He watched her until she vanished from sight around the corner.

  He remained at the door, aware that her room was at the far side of the house. To reach the stairs leading to the ground floor all she had to do was walk from the other side of the landing. Bolan’s room wouldn’t have been anywhere near her line of travel. To walk to his room would have been a deliberate act.

  Had she been listening at his door?

  If so, what had she been expecting to hear?

  The young woman was a puzzle Bolan wasn’t sure he wanted to solve. Her actions aroused his curiosity. Her attitude toward him was also an oddity. Since he had first met her in the outpost in Afghanistan, Raika seemed hostile to him. Bolan failed to understand why. He didn’t dwell on it for too long. All he could do was keep her under observation until such times as her agenda revealed itself.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The following morning Bolan and Mahoud took one of the SUVs and left the château, Paris their destination.