Dead Man's Tale

by Don Pendleton

"Or deny," he agreed, nodding.

  "Oh, come now, Mr. Bolan! In my business," the other said, as an oil king might say to a movie tycoon, "in my business one is bound to come up against a mass of facts and figures concerning the Mafia. It would be unnatural if one didn't — like being in the car-racing game without having heard of Ferrari."

  "And just what is your business, Latta?"

  "We're both adults, Mr. Bolan. I see no point in elaborate fencing. It bores me and it achieves nothing. In any case, it must be obvious to you that I operate on the wrong side of the law."

  "The thought occurred to me."

  "But as to a precise description... What would you say, my dear?"

  "I would say you're in the transport business," Katrina said.

  Latta was delighted. "Exactly!" he exclaimed. "I'm in the transport business... the transportation of items of value, shall we say, from one locality to another."

  "That could cover safecracking, bank robbery, espionage, smuggling, drugs or the white-slave trade," Bolan replied.

  "So it could, Mr. Bolan. So it could. But you could say that I dabble in economics as well, you know. Talking of which, do you find that the Mafia keep abreast of the remarkable advance in communication techniques we see today? Would you allow that their telecommunications and computer setup, for instance, compares with that of Stony Man Farm?"

  Bolan set his wineglass carefully on the table. "A man of your intelligence can hardly expect a specific answer to that," he said. The guy would know about Brognola's safehouse, sure, because that was where they'd planned and successfully carried out the kidnapping. But how in hell did he know about Stony Man, the secret base in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains from which Bolan himself had once masterminded an antiterrorist campaign secretly funded by the American government?

  Before he could come up with an answer to that one, Latta had deftly channeled the subject in another direction, and the question of the Executioner's profession wasn't raised again until the following day. They had coffee and brandy, and talked about nuclear fuels for the generation of electricity. Then they went to bed, and in the morning Bolan was left to his own devices while Katrina played nine holes on a miniature golf course laid out in the grounds. Latta didn't appear until noon, but Bolan was never out of sight of one or more of the armed guards.

  The day was warm enough for lunch to be served beneath a striped parasol on the terrace. The subject of communications was raised almost at once. Katrina began, "In any operation, the initial advantage is always with the lawbreaker, the attacker's advantage of surprise. But once the law rows in all the software and hardware available, it's supposed to swing the balance the other way. Don't you think, though, that sophisticated computer techniques might in fact delay things, once operatives in the field start reporting?"

  "I don't see why," Bolan said.

  "Because any plan would have to be constantly amended. Every report would materially alter the global situation, and would have to be taken into account before the next stage of the plan evolved."

  "So?"

  "So although your computer decides quickly, in a fraction of a second, and comes up with an instant answer, the time taken to prepare it for that must surely cancel the advantage of its operating time. After all, top men can decide quickly, too. That's why they're top men. All they have to do is evaluate and deal with a telephone message, a written report, or something equally immediate."

  "Probably."

  "What I mean is I'm not at all sure they wouldn't be better off using those old-fashioned human error methods — at least as far as the time element is concerned."

  "Undercover strategy isn't as simple as that," Bolan said, wondering where this surprisingly naive line of reasoning was to lead. "Tactics, either." He decided to hold out a carrot. "You're forgetting the quality of the relative plans, human versus electronic," he said. "We live in a technical age. It's not always a case of an operative making a simple phone call, is it?"

  She took a bite of the carrot at once. "Ah, you mean the more sophisticated means of communication — microdot messages, scrambled radio transmissions, subvisual photography, coded frequencies that actuate telex machines. That kind of thing?"

  "That's right."

  "But surely those take just as much time to organize as the programming of a computer? Still, I guess high-powered antisocial groups like the Mafia or the 'Holy War' terrorists in the Middle East would have to keep abreast of the latest developments to stay in business, wouldn't they?"

  "Would they?"

  Latta smiled and joined the conversation for the first time. "Of course they would — and do. You know that as well as I do, Mr. Bolan. What do they use? What do you use yourself, when you want to get in touch with your headquarters?"

  "I don't have any headquarters," Bolan replied. "I work alone. If I want to make contact with anyone, I send a postcard."

  Katrina Holman laughed. "You probably do at that. Would you like another cup of coffee?"

  Pacing alone across the lawns later in the afternoon, the warrior analyzed the various conversations as minutely as he could.

  It was puzzling enough to have been grabbed between missions and taken to some country retreat apparently far from Washington, doubly puzzling to find himself wined and dined and indulged in intellectual conversation. But what fazed him most of all was the reaction of his captors — or the lack of it — to his evasion of the loaded questions carefully introduced into all this good living.

  They said they wanted to talk to him... and that was all. So far this seemed to be true. And the subject, disguise it as they would, was clearly communications — either Brognola's or the Mob's. Yet each time Bolan blocked or ignored the question, they dropped the subject with perfect good humor and never returned to it. Somehow, it didn't add up: it seemed a crazy approach for people who had gone to such trouble to get him there!

  As far as he could see, there was only one explanation for the facts he had. And if he was right, then he was in big trouble.

  First, though, he had to double-check. He would float out a decoy during dinner and see if it was taken.

  The opportunity came halfway through the meal. Latta had adroitly led the conversation from the population explosion, through the approaching world food shortage and modern dietetics, to famine and natural catastrophe in general. And from there it was a short stop to measures designed to combat such dramas.

  Which of course involved communications.

  "In such universal cases," Bolan said, "where there's no question of lawbreaking of people on the run, what's wrong with the radio or a satellite link?"

  "Oh, but my dear fellow, just think!" Latta protested. "What about an outbreak of bubonic plague, lethal fallout, the news that a country's water supply had been contaminated, anything that could cause panic? Surely news of that kind must be transmitted in a way that hides its meaning from the casual eye? When a leak could lead to riots?"

  "As you were saying yesterday, there are codes, microfilms..."

  "Yes, yes. But suppose, for example, you discovered an unknown virus was threatening the rice crop in India, and a neighboring country was aiming to exploit that. You'd want to transmit all the details to the FAO, maybe the Security Council. You'd have to furnish the data and let them decide for themselves if your theory was correct. And yet nobody must see the material you send in case you are wrong — or in case it provides panic in the population."

  "Yeah, well, the first thing would be..."

  "You'd have to send graphs, tables, maybe photos of the affected plants, all kinds of stuff to support your written report. How would you do it?"

  "I see what you mean," Katrina said, as though the dialogue hadn't been rehearsed. "Pictures by radio and wire can be intercepted, microfilms can be developed, and documents can be photocopied. If there were other people equally interested in seeing your report, and you must at all costs prevent them, what would you do?" She looked at the Executioner.

  "Yes," Latta echoed
, "what would you do, Mr. Bolan? Use one of the communications satellites, make a hologram, scramble them with lasers? Do give us a professional view."

  It was the perfect opportunity for Bolan to push out his decoy. "If there were other people after the intel, people who knew I had it," he said, "I'd be much more worried about them finding out the details from me than from any messages I sent. Hell, the advances in the field of stupefiants, subliminal narcotics and so-called truth drugs, even in the past five years, have been literally mind-blowing."

  Latta killed the subject stone dead. Interrupting Bolan with a brusque apology, he summoned the servant and made a vicious complaint about a strawberry shortcake that was entirely blameless. And then, as soon as the man removed it and went to fetch something else, he dived straight into an analysis of "the servant problem" before Bolan could pick up the threads of his argument. But the warrior didn't give a damn: the change of subject had told him exactly what he wanted to know. By inference at least, his deductions were confirmed.

  He knew now why he'd been kidnapped between missions — and why his captors didn't give a good goddamn whether he answered their questions or not.

  * * *

  Undercover intelligence operatives, penetration agents, various kinds of spooks in the field and their shadow executives, when they possess highly sensitive information, will probably undergo a type of subliminal conditioning designed to resist brainwashing.

  The treatment, which involves deep hypnosis and is still highly classified, ensures that the operative will come across with certain prepared replies under the influence of truth drugs, hostile hypnosis or torture. It is given immediately after the operative has been briefed.

  In principle it implants into the subconscious a succession of conditioned reflexes to any questions concerning the mission when the conscious mind is withdrawn. Like all good lies, it steers as near the truth as possible, for it can never be calculated how much a hostile interrogator already knows, and if he finds the subject confirms facts already in his possession, he will be all the readier to believe the fantasy that follows.

  The conditioning provides a valid reason for all an agent's actions that, despite the fact that it fits the facts, is very far from the true one.

  It's almost impossible to successfully pump an agent treated in this way: even if, in the extremities of torture, the guy wants to talk, the conditioning will impose on him the false rather than the true line.

  Between missions, of course, agents aren't subjected to the treatment.

  And Mack Bolan was between missions...

  In fact, apart from one or two extra-delicate missions for the government that had taken him behind the iron curtain, Bolan had never as a loner been conditioned in this way.

  Evidently his kidnappers were unaware of this. Still, there was a mass of secret, high-tech and organizational intel locked in his mind. And he was vulnerable to any ultramodern system of drugs — whether secretly administered in his food and drink or pumped into him openly and forcibly — that his captors chose to use.

  Now he realized why it didn't matter if he answered their questions or not. They were simply to put certain subjects, communications, for instance, and the Mafia, in the forefront of his mind. The real questions would come later when his subconscious mind, unconditioned to resist, would be at the mercy of whatever treatment they had in store for him.

  Whoever they were — and it was patently clear, despite their apparently outside interest, they were themselves connected with the Mafia — it was obvious that they badly needed some particular information they figured he had to have.

  And they couldn't afford to allow the subject of drugs to come up in the conversation in case he tumbled to the connection and it tipped him off.

  Now that he had tumbled, he had just one priority.

  Get the hell out. Fast.

  Speculation on what it was they wanted to pry out of him could wait. Right now he had to find a way of getting past the guards, the dogs and the electric fence.

  5

  He would have to escape.

  The moon would be full, and the guards would certainly be at their most alert after dark. But Bolan was a past master in the use of ground cover, and the shadows would give him a good chance of reaching the boundary fence unseen.

  More importantly, the time element was vital. He'd already been allowed forty-eight hours of good living to soften him up for the drug-aided interrogation they must have planned. Yet their need for whatever intel Bolan possessed had to be urgent: the crack organization of the kidnapping proved that. Phase two had to be imminent.

  Yeah, maybe that crack about drugs had been ill-advised after all.

  There were very few preparations he could make. He'd decided to leave the house via the roof. Doors and windows would be monitored by alarms that would sound whichever way the threshold was crossed. And he'd observed a trapdoor above the stairwell. To cross the electrified fence he'd need a rope, and he hoped to find one in the garages. Finally there were the dogs... and he figured he could deal with these, literally, out of his own head.

  A crown covering one of his molars unscrewed to reveal a tiny cavity. On ultrasensitive operations he normally hid two tiny pellets of a quick-acting knockout drug inside.

  He had managed to slip two slices of duck into his pocket during the diversionary dispute over the strawberry shortcake. Bolan took the napkin containing the meat from a bureau drawer, removed the pellets from the hollow tooth and then ground them to a fine powder with the handle of his razor. He smeared the white dust over the meat.

  The warrior dressed himself in the clothes he'd been wearing when he was kidnapped and settled down to wait.

  Latta and Katrina slept at opposite ends of the long upper hallway. The servant had a small suite of rooms off the kitchen, and the guards, who worked in relays, were billeted in the servants' wing.

  It was after midnight before the sounds of activity ceased and the household settled down to sleep, but Bolan waited another full hour before he stirred.

  At two-fifteen, water gushed from a tap for thirty seconds or so somewhere downstairs. Thirty minutes later, a dog barked and then was silent. Bolan eased open his door as three o'clock struck from the clock tower above the stables. When he heard the single chime that signaled the half hour, he began to make his way silently along the hallway toward the stairs.

  The sky was clear, and the foyer below was barred with pale swathes of moonlight falling in through deep windows over the front door.

  The trap was clearly visible in the gloom. But first Bolan had to make a trip downstairs. Placing his weight with infinite care on the outside of each tread, he stole down to the ground floor and trod softly through the drawing room and on into the gunroom. He had memorized the positions of the furniture, but the draperies were still drawn and the journey was difficult. Once he came within an inch of stumbling over a coffee table laden with cups and saucers that must have been moved after he'd gone to bed. But at last he was standing in pitch darkness by the billiard table in the gunroom, listening to the silence.

  He picked up the long-handled cue rest, with its X-shaped brass end, and started back the way he'd come.

  Bolan had just left the coffee-and-cigar-smelling closeness of the drawing room when he froze, then backed into the shadows below the stairs. Through the French windows leading to the terrace, he saw the shadow of a man fall across the flagstones as one of the guards crossed the corner of the moonlit lawn. The outline of his submachine gun was clearly visible.

  When it became clear that the guy wasn't returning immediately, Bolan regained the upper hallway. He picked up his shoes and slung them around his neck by the laces. Outside Latta's door he could hear a steady snoring. Katrina's was ajar, and he paused several minutes before he was satisfied that the faint sounds of breathing were deep and regular enough to mean that she slept. At last he was ready. It was time to act.

  Climbing onto the carved wood newel post at the top of the st
airs, the Executioner poised himself carefully and extended the cue rest, lodging the brass head against the trapdoor. He extended his arms and pushed.

  The trap was counterbalanced to remain open once it was pushed upward, rather than fall backward with a bang onto the floor of the loft. As long as it was working the way it should.

  He shoved a little harder. With the smallest of creaks, the door freed itself from the frame and swung back into the darkness.

  Straining, Bolan pushed harder with the cue rest. The opening yawned wider, the door rose higher and higher. When it was almost completely vertical, presenting the minimum face to his thrust, the metal X slipped on the painted wood with a slight scraping noise.

  The warrior froze, senses on full alert. Latta gave an extra loud snore and turned over in his sleep... and a moment later the door fell away from the cue rest to rest in the open position against the pressure of its hydraulic stop.

  Bolan released his breath in a sigh of relief. He lowered the cue rest gingerly to the floor and leaned it against the wall. Then he prepared to jump.

  Perched on the post with one foot on either side of the wooden ball decorating it, he was in a poor position for an upward swing. But it was the only way to go.

  The trap was a couple feet above the tips of his fingers as he balanced there with outstretched arms. Tensing the muscles of his toes, he flexed his knees and leaped.

  The sole of one foot slipped slightly on the polished wood as he took off, so that only the fingers of his left hand hit the frame of the trapdoor, clenched, and frenziedly held on. For a timeless moment he hung over the stairwell, his whole weight swinging on those fingers.

  It he couldn't hold on, he'd drop to the entrance hall below. And such a fall — even if it didn't break his back — would bring the entire household on him before he could blink an eye.

  Bolan scrabbled for a hold with his right hand, found it and began the muscle-racking task of hoisting his body up and through the gap.

  By the time he was out of the moonlit dusk of the landing and free to flop down in the musty darkness of the loft, sweat was trickling between his shoulder blades. For two minutes he lay there listening, then he rose cautiously to his knees and lowered the trapdoor into place again.