“They’re leaving today,” Ferguson said. “Tonight, actually.”
Bolan nodded. He’d known that already. The Executioner had spent the past thirty-six hours prowling Vienna, hunting down any lead he could find on the Society. He’d used the Beretta 93R that was currently holstered under his shirt more than once. The Society was readying itself to bug out, and they were sweeping any evidence of their existence under the rug. Bolan had traded shots with several of the group’s soldiers in a hotel in the Innere Stadt and had put at least one in the morgue. Interpol had scooped the others up, by way of the police. Those agencies, in turn, had added to what he already knew. The Society was pulling up its wheels and preparing to go underground for a while, and Bolan intended to see that it was permanent.
“They’re leaving from a private airfield near Vienna International Airport in Schwechat. The airfield’s quiet—they’ve owned it since the Second World War—so you shouldn’t have to worry about collateral damage.” Ferguson handed Bolan a padded envelope. “There are directions in here and some other goodies,” he said. “Photos and such.”
“Where are they going?” Bolan asked.
“Who knows?” Ferguson said with a shrug. “They expended a lot of blood and treasure in this scheme of theirs and from what we can tell they’re pulling out to regroup somewhere quiet. They own a few properties scattered about the continent—there’s a castle in the Balkans, a villa on the Riviera and a few other spots. I figured you weren’t planning on letting them get into the air. Or if you were...”
Chantecoq picked up the thread. “That you were planning on blowing them out of it, oui?” He made a fluttering gesture for emphasis, and Ferguson frowned. Bolan smiled grimly.
“Something close to that,” he said.
“You don’t have long. Once they’re in the air, that’s it. They’ll scatter, and given the median age, most of them will be dead before we could bring any evidence against them,” Ferguson said. “These guys are ancient.”
“Old snakes still have fangs,” Bolan said.
“Which is why theirs must be pulled, and quickly. They are reeling. Now is the time to put paid to several decades’ worth of ghosts,” Chantecoq said. He held out his hand to Bolan. “Bonne chance, Cooper.”
Bolan shook his hand and nodded. He looked at Ferguson. The FBI man held out his hand, as well. As they shook, Bolan said, “What about Ackroyd?”
“Who’s Ackroyd?” Ferguson said, turning away. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name.” Bolan watched them go until he’d lost sight of them in the crowd, and then he made his way quickly to the nearest S-Bahn stop. There was no sense in waiting.
On the ride out, Bolan thought about what had occurred after Blackjack had pulled him from the water. The pilot hadn’t gotten her keys back, but she’d been happy enough with the reward she’d gotten for “assisting a law-enforcement agent in the course of his duties.” It had been enough for a new hangar, at least. The Feds had taken over as soon as they’d arrived, arranging for the unfortunate campers to be debriefed and sign nondisclosure forms. From what he’d overheard, they were planning to make sure that no trace of the base or the manmade lake it had sat in was left. Explosives had been mentioned and significant geological renovation. They were following Ackroyd’s suggestion, albeit several decades too late.
All that was left were the men who’d set everything into motion. He pulled the photos and directions out of the envelope Ferguson had given him. The men were all of a type. These were the sorts of men who employed people like Kraft and Mervin so they could keep their hands clean. They didn’t look like men who wanted to burn down the world and stir the ashes, but Bolan knew that looks could be deceiving when it came to madness.
When he arrived, the private airfield was deserted, save for a single plane on the small section of tarmac. It was obviously awaiting the arrival of its passengers. The lights and noise from the nearby international airport lit up the night, but the airfield was quiet. Bolan pulled on a pair of gloves and vaulted the security fence. He stalked through the empty field toward the tarmac, the Beretta in his hand. He wasn’t worried about security. They weren’t expecting any trouble. The Sun-Koh—the inner circle of the Society of Thylea—were so insulated from the workings of their servants that they had grown careless and arrogant. In many ways, they reminded him of the Mafia, who’d become so used to being invulnerable they’d forgotten what fear was. The Executioner intended to remind them.
There were two men on guard, besides the pilot. Both stood away from the plane, one near the boarding stairs and the other making a slow circuit of the tarmac, his eyes sweeping the area. Bolan shot him first, striding out of the darkness and putting a round from the silenced Beretta directly between his eyes. He was approaching the plane even as the guard fell, the Beretta bucking once, twice, three times, as the second guard stared at him in shock.
He fell, and Bolan stepped over him, boarding the plane. The pilot was leaving the control cabin as Bolan got on, and he froze as the Beretta twitched in his direction. “Guten abend,” Bolan said quietly. “Sprechen sie Englisch?”
“J-ja, ah, y-yes,” the pilot said.
“Good. Please step outside the plane.”
The pilot did as Bolan asked, hands held over his head. Bolan had no way of knowing whether the man was a member of the Society or just hired help. “You have one chance at making it through tonight,” he said as they made their way down the stairs. “If you do exactly what I say, you won’t get what they got,” he continued, indicating the dead guards.
“What do you want me to do?” the pilot asked.
“First, drag those bodies off the tarmac and into the grass,” Bolan said. He plucked the pistols from the shoulder holster each man wore as the pilot did so, keeping one and disassembling the other and tossing the pieces out into the grass. When the bodies had been disposed of, Bolan pointed to the fuel drums that lined the wall of the nearby hangar. “Grab one of those and roll it over here,” he said.
The pilot hastened to obey, and under Bolan’s watchful eye, he rolled three drums out around the plane and opened them, allowing the fuel to splash across the tarmac. Bolan gave one a kick, causing it to vomit fuel in a wide circle. When the immediate area around the plane had been saturated, Bolan and the pilot rolled the drums back to their previous position and set them upright.
Then Bolan gestured toward the way he’d come. “Go,” he said to the sweating pilot. The man looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. Bolan gestured with the pistol. “Go, and thank your lucky stars that I’m not like your bosses. Otherwise, I’d plant you out there with your buddies. Get out of here.”
The man took off running. Bolan waited, watching him vanish into the darkness. There was a chance, though slight, he might try and warn his employers. But Bolan doubted it would occur to the pilot until far too late.
Bolan knew the Sun-Koh would be arriving in two cars. There were five of them, with at least a few guards.
He heard the growl of engines as he trotted across the tarmac and into the grass to wait. The plan was crude, but appropriate, he thought. It would have been too difficult to get explosives, and Interpol would have been reluctant to provide any more help than they already had. That meant he had to improvise. Luckily, he’d had a lot of practice.
The cars arrived right on schedule, pulling through the fuel and parking near the plane. The guards got out to open the doors for their employers. Bolan stood and took aim. The Beretta gave a loud hiss and the closest guard spun away, trailing red. The second clawed for his weapon, trapped beneath a buttoned coat. He never reached it. Bolan, much as he had earlier, stepped forward and fired, sending the man sliding across the hood of his car.
Bolan would mete out justice to these withered old men. It wouldn’t be the kind of death they deserved, but Bolan wasn’t a vengeful man. He fired a round at
the tarmac, the bullet striking at just the right angle to elicit a spark. Flames reared up and began to crawl across the ground, heading for the vehicles.
The soldier waited patiently, ready to pick off the Society leadership as they emerged from the vehicle, seeking a place of safety. They had deserved worse, he knew. The deaths of those evil old men wouldn’t erase the damage they had caused, or return the lives that had been lost because of their mad machinations, but no more innocents would suffer because of them.
For the Executioner, that would have to be enough.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460337196
First edition August 2014
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Joshua Reynolds for his contribution to this work.
ARCTIC KILL
Copyright © 2014 by Worldwide Library
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