Dead Man's Tale

by Don Pendleton

  "Oh, very well. Lieutenant, take it at my desk."

  As the policeman picked up the receiver, Brognola rose to his feet and moved over to join O'Reilly. "All this drama," he growled. "Has Zulowski reported?"

  "Has he ever!" The security chief was suddenly enthusiastic. "He's come up with something better than we hoped for. He got the list!"

  "You're kidding!" Brognola's rumpled features revealed his incredulity. "I never thought he'd pull it off. Are you, uh, you're certain the list's authentic?"

  "No doubt at all. He got it from Mr. Big's safe in Cologne."

  "They know we have it, of course?"

  "Sure they do. Know we had it, that is. After he cracked the safe, they were on to him before he made it back across the frontier into Belgium. They repossessed it too, stole it from his hotel room in Brussels. But he'd already photographed each page and forwarded the negs to us."

  "Great. When do we get the pictures?"

  "I'll know tonight when he makes his routine report. His daily transmission was fading, and died before he could tell me."

  "We'll probably receive them through the usual channels tomorrow or the day after. Microdot, I guess."

  "Not this time. Zulowski was using a new technique. He told me that he was..."

  O'Reilly's voice tailed off as Benito replaced the receiver. The policeman's face was white.

  "That was my captain," he said tightly. "The people we're dealing with are ruthless, all right. Our female witness... she was having a cup of coffee with the boys in the squad room, and they got her. In there."

  "My God!" Brognola's face blanched. "How?"

  "A sniper on the roof of an apartment building right across the street. He drilled her through the head. She died instantly."

  There was a short silence. "So," Brognola said at last, "since Whetnall and Alexiou are dead, and the delivery kid can't tell us anything, we're back to square one. Without a single lead to follow."

  "Not quite," Benito ventured. "The getaway car, or one just like it, has been traced. A pale gray Plymouth has been found abandoned on the perimeter of a private airfield fifteen miles south of Alexandria. The forensic boys are still working on it, but they already found a special compartment between the rear seat and the trunk where they think your man must have been hidden while he was driven up there."

  "And the flights out of that field since this morning?"

  "Rookie pilots doing circuits and bumps, a couple of club members on dual with their instructors, some big wheel from GM on his way to Detroit..." Benito paused for effect "...and a Cessna executive jet that took off at a quarter to twelve without permission from the tower or the area controller, and without filing a flight plan."

  "That's our man!" Brognola cried. "And the plane? What have they..."

  "Rented from an agency at Moorestown field, in Burlington County, Philadelphia," the policeman cut in, "by a guy with all the right papers, professional jet pilot, cash on the nail. We have the names of course, but with an operation this professional they're bound to be phony."

  Brognola was plucking at his lower lip. "Professional is right. And jet transport spells a big deal to me, and a long-term one. With enemies this well organized, well enough informed to plan the kidnap from our own base and eliminate witnesses the way they did, I'd say they knew Bolan was between missions."

  He shuffled the papers on the desk for a moment, patting the edges to line them up in a neat pile, then he added, "And in view of the other deductions we've made, that leaves us with one inescapable conclusion. Bolan has been abducted at this particular time precisely because he's not involved in a mission. And you can make of that just what you like."

  "Just a minute!"

  Benito had been pacing, but stopped abruptly. "The description of the guy who rented the Cessna tallies with that of the ringer who sat in for Alexiou. And we do have a witness who saw him."

  O'Reilly dived for the intercom, stabbing the button down. "Monica? Has Miss Hasiett left the building?"

  "Yes, Mr. O'Reilly, you just missed her," the woman replied. "She left a couple minutes ago. She, well, she seemed kind of upset."

  The security chief was out the door and down the stairs in a flash. He ran out into the villa's front yard. A gate in a white picket fence stood open at the far end of the stone pathway. A tall hedge screened the yard from the street.

  O'Reilly saw the thick-lensed glasses first. They lay on the path just inside the gateway. He swung around toward the hedge. Dentures grinned up at him from the trampled earth beneath a laurel, and beyond them he saw leaves from a broken branch and a single high-heeled shoe.

  Susan Haslett lay five yards away. A blackened tongue protruded from her drawn-back lips, and her lifeless eyes bulged grotesquely. The looped wire of the garrote was buried almost out of sight in the swollen, empurpled flesh of her neck.

  4

  Yeah, it was the only possible answer, Mack Bolan thought. He must have been snatched because he was not on a mission. But why? What were his captors hoping to get out of it? He wasn't familiar with the long-range plans for Brognola's teams and he had no connection with anyone at Langley. So what was the point?

  For the hundredth time he shook his head in puzzlement. His reasoning had followed exactly the same lines as Brognola's, and he had arrived at the same conclusion. The Executioner, however, had more impressions, more facts to go on — even though they didn't take him any nearer the solution of the mystery.

  He remembered vividly his surprise when he heard the hiss of escaping gas, recalled his fury when his drugged muscles refused to obey the commands of his brain. After that there was a timeless blank broken only by sensations of movement. Once he had a confused idea that he'd been awakened from a deep sleep. He sensed pressure on his eardrum, a roaring all around him. Then cold fingers had pinched a fold of flesh on his arm and there had been a stinging sensation before he fell asleep again. He could see the marks of the hypodermic now, just in the bend of the elbow. There were three punctures, and the joint was still painful. After that he remembered nothing at all until he came to in bed.

  But there were plenty of impressions to mull over since that initial return to consciousness. He had sat up then in the unfamiliar room, hearing nothing but the slow pounding of blood through his own veins. He was wearing pajamas, and there were silk sheets on the bed. The room was wallpapered with crimson damask. His clothes, neatly pressed, were laid out on one of the petit point chairs. It looked like the bridal suite of a very expensive nineteenth-century hotel, or the guest room of an oilman's Park Avenue house.

  Bolan swung his feet to the floor and stood. Other than a slight dizziness, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him.

  Experimentally he walked across the Aubusson carpet to the window. A tug at the broad, tasseled cord hanging to one side soundlessly drew back the heavy velvet draperies. Outside it was daylight, with bright sunshine splashing the shadows of poplar trees across a lawn below.

  He tried the bedroom door. Astonishingly it was unlocked. A wide corridor hung with modernistic paintings led to a gallery that encircled a huge entrance hall.

  Hastily drawing on his clothes, Bolan softfooted out and down the shallow staircase to the ground floor. Once he had walked a few paces, the lightheadedness vanished. Through double glass doors at the far end of the hallway he could glimpse formal gardens that stretched away to a stand of trees.

  He'd seen nobody and heard nothing. Feeling like a man in a dream, he walked out the doors onto a flagged terrace bordered by scarlet geraniums in urns.

  The place was enormous — a rambling two-story house covered with vines; stables and a coach house; a servants' wing with kitchen gardens attached; rose gardens, sunken gardens, a topiary around an Olympic-size pool. Beyond a lawn fringed with cedars he came to a sweep of parkland. At the far side of this, a high wall marked the boundary of the property.

  And ten yards inside this wall was a six-foot chain-link fence beaded at intervals with green glass
insulators.

  The ground between the fence and the wall had been cleared, and two large Doberman pinschers halted their patrol to stare coldly at him with baleful brown eyes.

  Fifty yards farther, Bolan came suddenly on a man in a brown suit and pointed, two-tone shoes who was leaning against the trunk of a tree. There was a matchstick between his teeth, and cradled negligently in his arms was an Ingram submachine gun fitted with a MAC suppressor.

  "Hi," Bolan said, affecting innocent friendliness. "It seems I'm a prisoner here. Do you know why?"

  The eyes in the gunman's sallow face were hidden by shades. He shifted the weapon to a more comfortable position in the crook of his arm, removed the match with his other hand and spit. He neither looked at the Executioner nor replied to his question.

  The warrior shrugged nonchalantly and turned back toward the house. He reckoned the property covered thirty acres. As he walked the perimeter, he saw several more pairs of dogs between the wire and the wall. And enough guards to make sure there wasn't a single yard that wasn't covered by at least one of them.

  When upstairs in the bedroom again, he reviewed the situation mentally. He'd been grabbed in a fast, well-planned raid. He'd been brought to this place, and clearly the kidnappers meant to keep him here. For he was under no illusions — despite the unlocked bedroom door, the relaxed atmosphere of monied ease and the lack of direct surveillance, any attempt to escape would mean his death as surely as if he had stepped in front of a firing squad.

  The fence, the dogs, the silent gunners all proved that. They proved too that whoever had masterminded the grab was a big time operator indeed...

  So why should such a person want him here? No doubt he would find out soon enough, when the crunch came. For this was a prison, even though the bars weren't always visible. Meanwhile... where was he?

  Once again he looked out the window. The sun was sinking. Beyond the wall, lush silvery meadows stretched into a distance barred at intervals with hedges and trees. Here and there in the hollows he could see patches of dogwood, and there were two farms — low buildings in mellow, rose-colored brick surrounded by poplars. Far away, a range of hills smudged an uneven line against the pale sky. No urban development could be seen on either side of the house.

  It was a scene familiar and yet in some way entirely alien.

  Where could they have brought him? Presumably, if they had really flown, it must be some distance from Washington. Could it Vermont? Southern Ohio? Wisconsin?

  He shook his head. It could have been, but somehow he was sure it wasn't. Yet it certainly wasn't a landscape from anywhere near the Coast or even the South. He gazed out over the pastoral scene, seeking some clue among the fields and woods drowsing in the dusk.

  "Do you prefer places to people, Mr. Bolan?" a voice asked softly behind him.

  He swung around. The young woman was leaning against the wall, just inside the bedroom door. She wore riding breeches and a blazing yellow shirt. Beneath jet-black hair, the even tan of her face glowed against the damask wall. Her lips were full and sensuous, and the breasts swelling from below the open neck of her shirt were lush and ripe.

  Bolan smiled. "Should I know you?"

  "Holman. Katrina Holman," she replied. There was a Latin huskiness to her voice, but he couldn't place the accent. "I hope you're comfortable. Please consider yourself perfectly free to come and go as you like within the house and grounds — though perhaps I should add that there are reasons why a guest shouldn't stray beyond the boundaries of our... hospitality."

  "I've seen the dogs, the fence and the hired killers."

  "So. You have already been outside? That's good. You will perhaps then..."

  "What I want to know is why I'm here," Bolan cut in brusquely.

  Katrina Holman was carrying a braided leather riding crop. She tapped it impatiently against the booted curve of one calf. "All in good time, Mr. Bolan," she said. "For the moment, I'm sure you must agree that our confinement is hardly oppressive. As far as motives and reasons go, Mr. Latta will enlighten you in due course."

  "Mr. Latta?"

  "Your host. He'll be back later. Unfortunately he had to go into the city."

  "What city?"

  The young woman smiled. "The nearest city. Perhaps Mr. Latta will be able to explain more than I can. But I know he would want me to emphasize that the main reason you're here is because we want to enjoy your company and your conversation."

  "With or without electrodes?" Bolan queried.

  The girl laughed. "It should be a stimulating evening for all three of us."

  "What's your angle? Are you a stimulator too? Or do you just look after the prisoners?"

  "A bit of both perhaps. But in the latter role, I have to warn you that you'll find things all over the house that could be used as weapons — cutlery, golf clubs, tire irons, billiard cues, wrenches, even African spears. They've been freely left around, however, simply because Mr. Latta is certain, and I do mean certain, that there would be no point in anyone trying to use them. The guards are everywhere, and they never miss."

  "I see," Bolan said. "I'm more interested in knowing where I am and why I'm here."

  Katrina Holman merely smiled. "Dinner is at eight-thirty. We usually have a cocktail at eight in the library, and we'd be happy if you would join us. You'll find the door at the end of the entrance hall, below the gallery. If there's anything you need before then, just ring."

  She raised the riding crop in a mock salute and left him.

  The Executioner's pockets had been emptied, but in the bathroom adjoining his own room he found shaving gear laid out, and a white silk shirt with a selection of ties on his bed. A dark suit that fitted him quite well was hanging in the closet. He shaved, showered and dressed. At ten minutes past eight o'clock, when the clatter of pots, pans and dishes was audible someplace below his window, he went downstairs.

  The library was immense: three walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves filled with books, the fourth wall covered by carved paneling that surrounded a hooded chimney over a log fire. The books looked as though they'd all been read.

  Katrina was standing at a rosewood table beneath the central chandelier. Glass in hand, the wide, bulky man beside her, who topped Bolan's six feet three inches, looked like a young Orson Welles on an off day. "Mr. Bolan!" he exclaimed, moving forward with a surprisingly catlike tread. "One does so apologize for the, ah, unconventional form of your invitation. But it is good to see you perpendicular at last."

  " 'Praise while you can the vertical man,' " Bolan misquoted with a crooked smile, "'so soon to become the horizontal one'?"

  "Now you mustn't feel like that," Latta reproached. "One admits a certain theatricality about the means employed to get you here, about the machinery of ensuring that you stay. But then that's inseparable from the presence of a guest who might wish to leave before one was oneself tired of his company, don't you agree?" The voice was firm and yet mellifluous, a graceful complement to the way the big man moved.

  "Look, Latta, if that's your name, the only thing we're likely to agree on is an explanation. Like the reason for my presence here."

  "We simply wanted to talk to you, Mr. Bolan. That's all. Really."

  Katrina, standing between them, was wearing a low-necked dress in plum-colored velvet. The overhead light sculpted the soft flesh of her shoulders and hollowed with shadow the slopes of her breasts. "What will you have, Mr. Bolan? A dry Martini? A whiskey? Bourbon?"

  "Scotch."

  She moved across to the wall, dark nylons gleaming, and tugged at an old-fashioned bellpull. A moment later, a saturnine servant appeared in the doorway. Behind him, Bolan saw the shape of one of the gunmen in the shadows beneath the staircase. "Scotch for our guest," the woman said, "and two more whiskey sours for Mr. Latta and me."

  While they waited for dinner, both Latta and Katrina kept the conversation general. They talked about New York theater, West Coast jazz, European sports cars, Muslim fundamentalism in the
Middle East. Bolan didn't understand what the hell was going on, but it suited him to play a waiting game, and since neither of his "hosts" made a reference to the fact that he was a prisoner, he was content to leave everything at this artificial level until the servant reappeared to announce that dinner was served.

  Katrina took his arm and led the way to the dining room. Feeling self-conscious and slightly out of place, like the guy who opens the wrong door and finds himself on stage in the second act of a drawing room comedy, the Executioner moved with her.

  The meal was excellent, and both Latta and the woman were well-read, well-informed, even charming. Bolan had to keep reminding himself of his predicament. Even so, he found himself actually involved in a discussion on the alternatives open to a security chief faced with the demands of skyjackers holding a planeload of hostages. It wasn't until the servant circulated with the cheese board that the first loaded question was insinuated.

  "In your own work, Mr. Bolan," Latta said casually, "I suppose more than half your assignments concern some villainy or other perpetrated by the Mafia. You don't find that this, uh, specialization blunts your concentration for other missions?"

  The question took the warrior by surprise, but his face betrayed no change of expression.

  It was an awkward query just the same. It would be stupid, in the circumstances, to pretend he didn't know what the guy was talking about. It was clear, too, that his captor must be familiar with his longtime vendetta against the Mob, and that Bolan was involved in certain "missions." Yet not knowing who or what the big man was, he was unwilling to give a straight answer. He decided to stall.

  "Any kind of undercover operative," he said, "whether he's a cop, a spook, an Army intelligence agent or whatever, learns to regard every mission as though it were his first. Each one is a whole new deal. And I don't know where you get your figures, not to mention your intel, but I could hardly confirm your fifty-percent-plus estimate."

  Latta was smiling. "Or deny?"