Point Position

by Don Pendleton

  Goldman kicked back the door so that it slammed against the wall with a resounding crash that cut through the low hum of conversation and the slightly louder jukebox, although to call the CD player and collection of disks by Ari’s side a jukebox was dignifying it beyond need. The Greek’s hand snaked beneath the counter, hovering over his choice of weapons.

  “Easy, Ari, it was an accident,” Goldman said, holding his hands up in a gesture of apology. “You know I’m heavy-handed, right? Remember me?”

  “Yeah, the stupid bastard who knocked over one of my tables and annoyed my customers ’cause he can’t hold his drink,” the Greek growled in heavily accented French, remembering Ross and Goldman’s previous visit, in search of Signella.

  “That’s me.” Goldman shrugged. He walked up to the bar and reached out, faux-drunk, to embrace the Greek. “I’m sorry, mate,” he sobbed, putting his arms around the bar owner.

  The Greek was too startled to react, and so his hands stayed away from the weapons under the counter.

  Guessing what was going down, Bolan hung back by the door, casually locking the toe of his boot around the timber, ready to close it. There was no stopping the redhead, so he might as well make sure the situation was secured.

  The moment his arms were around the Greek, Goldman dropped the pretense, and slammed the startled barman onto the counter. It was a light wood, and Ari’s face crashed into it. He screamed as splinters stuck in his nose and cheeks, before screwing up his eyes to try to protect them.

  Bolan flicked the door with his foot, stepping away from the swing to allow it to slam shut. In the same motion he took the Beretta from its holster and arced it around the bar, making sure that the customers nearest the door had second thoughts about making an early exit. No one moved in the face of the 9 mm weapon.

  Goldman let Ari go, and the Greek rose from the shattered surface of the bar with a snarl on his face. Before he had a chance to react, Goldman hit him, just once, but squarely between the eyes. The large silver ring that the redhead wore on the middle finger of his left hand ripped open the skin between the Greek’s eyes, blood pouring down, obscuring his vision. He clattered backward into the shelves that stood to his rear, the few glasses and bottles falling into shards around his feet, and then his torso as he slumped down to join them. Goldman vaulted the bar and collected the weapons from underneath, slamming them on the top and picking up the M-4000. He racked a shell into the chamber.

  “Y’know, sometimes I love my job.” He smiled beatifically.

  “Great, Jimmy. Now can we get on with the matter in hand?” Ross asked, his own Beretta drawn to cover the front of the bar.

  Bolan looked around the room. There were sixteen patrons, clustered around three tables. One group of four—two men and two women. One of three—all men. The final table had eleven—five men and six women, probably the night’s entertainment for the men, arranged around the long table that took up almost the whole left side of the room. He directed the Beretta and his first question to them.

  “You heard about what happened earlier?”

  “A lot of things happened earlier,” one of the men stated. His hand was under the table, and Bolan saw the muscles in his forearm twitch.

  One tap, and a line of 9 mm slugs bit into the table.

  “Hands in plain sight. That goes for all of you,” Bolan ordered.

  The entire room placed their hands where they could be seen.

  “I like it. They’ve got sense,” Ross murmured.

  “Exactly,” Bolan returned. The emphasis had switched from Goldman to Bolan, and he had no intention of letting it slip. He wanted answers, quickly. “Let’s cut the crap, people. You know what happened earlier. And now we want the rest of Destiny’s Spear.” Bolan scanned the faces. There were no terrorists that he could see, just a bunch of petty thieves and whores. “You may know where they are. There’s still a lot of them out there.”

  “Why should we tell you?” questioned one of the women. “If we talk, then they will come and kill us. Perhaps worse.”

  “Lady, there’s nothing worse that they could do to you,” Goldman said with a sneer. “And if you don’t talk, who says you’ll get out of here alive anyway?” To emphasize his point, he fired a round into the ceiling of the bar with an explosive roar. Plaster rained down on them in the shocked silence that followed.

  Bolan wasn’t happy with the redhead’s action. If anything, it would make these people clam up even more. And the M-4000 was not the most subtle of weapons. The noise alone was enough to alert outsiders to their presence.

  “Excuse my colleague. He’s a little rash,” Ross said with a sidelong glance at Goldman. “But nonetheless, the point remains. You have to balance the possibility of surviving scum-bags coming after you, against the very real threat of not getting out of here in one piece. So which, I wonder, is the option you will choose? The clock is ticking.”

  Bolan looked around the room. It was the men who looked the most nervous, either because they had nothing to tell and were afraid this would condemn them, or because they had a lot to tell and couldn’t balance the odds. There was one in particular who seemed to be sweating. Bolan decided to go in for the kill.

  “You,” he snapped at the man, directing the barrel of the Beretta toward him. “Stand up.”

  The man did as he was told. He was about five foot six, skinny, with track marks down his arms, past the sleeves of his T-shirt, which hung off his emaciated frame. His sunken cheeks accentuated his bug eyes, which were staring nervously at the Beretta pointed in his direction. He ran a trembling hand through a shock of greasy, jet black hair.

  “What do you know?” the Executioner asked softly. So softly, in fact, that it was far more menacing than if he had shouted the question.

  “Nothing. What makes you think I do?” the man answered defensively. He looked around at the other inhabitants of the room defiantly, as though proving to them that he wouldn’t succumb.

  But this resolve was crumbled when Ari groaned and rose groggily from his position on the floor behind the bar. He was halfway to his feet when, without looking, Goldman swung back with the stock of the M-4000, taking the Greek full in the face. His screams were muted by his own blood and broken teeth filling his mouth, and the back of his head cracked loudly against the wall. He sunk down again, unconscious.

  This was enough for the nervous junkie.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where we can find the rest of Destiny’s Spear. That’s all,” Bolan said calmly.

  “Well, I’ll tell you this much, you won’t find them in Marseilles. Eh, maybe a couple, I dunno…”

  “Talk sense,” Bolan interjected.

  The junkie paused. He appeared to be collecting his thoughts, and Bolan gave him a moment. Finally, he spoke.

  “Okay, there’s this guy Emil Herve, right? I buy junk from him sometimes. Anyway, I saw him tonight, only a couple of hours back, and I wanted to talk, but he told me he was in a hurry. Then I saw him go up to a couple of guys I know are Destiny Spear members. I’m not supposed to know, but I do, ’cause you hear things, right? I never figured him for one of them, but it was like he was giving out orders. And as soon as he left, they left. Like they were headed somewhere.”

  “And you happen to know where?” Bolan prompted.

  The junkie shook his head. “No, I don’t…and I’ll swear to that, you can do what you want, but I don’t. I do know where you can find Emil, though.”

  “That’s more like it,” Bolan said. “You tell me, and we’ll leave everyone alone.”

  It still took the junkie a few seconds to muster the courage to give this last piece of information.

  “A place called Nightmare, up at the eastern end of town. He buys his junk there when he has a need, and by the look of him tonight, I figure he’s gonna have a need. I heard him say something to one of the others about it when they were leaving. I was gonna go there and hit on him for some, later.”

  �
��Forget that idea,” Bolan told him.

  “You know the place?” he asked Ross and Goldman. Ross nodded. “Okay then, one more thing to do before we go. Jimmy, rip that phone out and find something you can fill with water,” he ordered.

  Goldman nodded and pulled the phone wire by the side of the counter out of the wall. He then found a battered ice bucket that he filled from a single cold tap by the filthy sink at the same side of the counter as the disconnected phone wire. He placed the full bucket on the counter and looked at the Executioner with a puzzled frown.

  “Cell phones, people. Out on the tables with them, slowly. You are being covered,” he reminded the patrons as they reached into pockets or purses to pull out phones.

  When they were all on the tables, Bolan continued, “Errol, would you be so kind as to make sure no one can make any calls to warn anyone we’re on our way?”

  Ross grinned as the reason for the bucket full of water became clear. He turned and picked it off the bar, walking the length of the room and taking the phones, dropping them into the ice bucket so that they became saturated, excess water slopping onto the floor. When he had finished, he walked back and placed the full bucket on the bar.

  “Right, move out. I’ll cover you,” Bolan said, opening the door and keeping the Beretta trained on the seated patrons while Ross and Goldman left, clattering up the iron stairs. Bolan followed, keeping the Beretta steady as he backed up the staircase to the sidewalk.

  “Let’s get after this Emil guy before it’s too late. I figure you know what he looks like?”

  “Yeah, we’ve seen him—and know all about him,” Goldman replied. “This is going to be a pleasure.”

  11

  The first gray light of dawn was beginning to creep into the sky above the neon haze of Marseilles as the three men made their way toward the docks. Goldman had complained when Bolan insisted that they return to the harbor to collect his car before driving to the outskirts of town to the Nightmare club where they hoped to pick up the trail of Destiny’s Spear. But although the town wasn’t large, the trail was almost cold, and they needed to get to the club quickly. This was why the volatile Goldman had objected to them returning to the harbor, in the opposite direction. But if they had the car, then the journey would be cut by half, and less dangerous in terms of being spotted. As morning broke, Bolan was aware that the streets would be teeming with gendarmerie looking for anyone as obviously ragged as they were. To keep some kind of cover was an imperative.

  Ross and Bolan waited once more in an alley while Goldman walked down to the harbor area with Bolan’s car keys. Still the least conspicuous, it was up to him to retrieve the Citroën.

  There was another reason that the Executioner wanted the car. In the trunk he still had his combat bag, with enough hardware to start a small war. He didn’t want that to fall into the hands of a car thief, or the gendarmerie. If the latter found it, then the Sûreté would become involved, the weapons could possibly be traced to the U.S. Air Force, and things could get out of hand. Better to retrieve it now.

  It was still an anxious wait until Goldman appeared at the wheel of the car, a few minutes later. Bolan hadn’t told either of the mercenaries about the hardware stowed in the trunk, and had no intention of doing so unless it was either relevant or necessary. The less they knew about that, the better.

  “Well, I’ve got your car, so can we get going now?” Goldman asked impatiently as he pulled up at the mouth of the alley.

  “You drive,” Bolan said as he slid into the passenger seat, Ross taking the rear. “Believe me, Jimmy, this will be quicker in the long run. And it means we have transport if we draw another blank and have to chase leads.”

  “I suppose,” Goldman grumbled. He ground the gears in anger and set off toward the outskirts of town. It was obvious that he knew where he was headed, so Bolan didn’t bother to question him. Instead, the Executioner pondered a few thoughts of his own.

  If Chavez-Smith was laying a false trail with his yacht and was headed inland, where would he be going? It would be somewhere secluded, probably outside of a small village or town rather than inside. And it would have to be a fairly large spread if he intended to gather the remaining terrorists to him. Just to house them would entail a large house or outbuilding. Good security was another must. Someone with the Chilean’s experience wouldn’t skimp on this.

  So the kind of place they were looking for was easy to guess, not so easy was the location. It could be anywhere. If they couldn’t pick up any of the terrorists who were straggling, then he hoped that they could at least pick up an overheard clue.

  Bolan’s other problem was the faulty mike on the black-suit. Contact with Grimaldi had been vital to his game plan. Having the pilot as backup, and ready for evac, was integral to the success of his operation. This was going to be too big to go into alone. He had the mercs with him, but theirs was an uneasy alliance, and could fall apart when the microchip was in their grasp. Grimaldi would know that Bolan had been busy, as he would have switched to monitoring local news and police broadcasts. It wouldn’t take much for the pilot to guess who was behind the war in the catacombs. But Bolan needed to check in with Grimaldi and brief him, and also to get a replacement mike. Anything else would be exposing himself to unnecessary risks—and they were the ones he would always try to avoid.

  When they had some intel, he would have to take the mercs with him to the airfield. Although he was loathe to let them know the strength of his resources, it was possible that the knowledge could make them think twice about double-crossing him.

  All told, the situation was more of a snafu than usual. But the time to really worry about this would be later. First, they had to deal with finding Emil Herve. Bolan knew nothing else about him, whereas Ross and Goldman knew who he was. As they drew up outside the club Nightmare, Bolan wished they would share some information with him. But his questions had been met with noncommittal answers. They wanted to assert themselves. Let them, for now, Bolan thought.

  “Lovely looking little shit house, this, isn’t it?” Goldman said as they crossed the street to a three-story building with blacked-out windows. A small sign, lit in red and blue neon, named the club, and there was no sound from within.

  “I could have put it with more finesse,” Ross commented, “but the point remains, I guess.”

  “It looks closed,” Bolan pointed out, ignoring them.

  “Looks being the operative word,” Ross answered, taking note of the Executioner for the first time since they had regained the car. “It always looks like this, and it’s a 24/7 kind of place. If Emil Herve isn’t here, then there’s going to be someone who knows where he’s gone.”

  Goldman strode up to the front door that stood beneath the neon sign. He pressed the intercom buzzer and waited for a tinny voice to answer: “Oui?”

  “Tell Jojo the boys are back in town,” Goldman said in his appalling French.

  The door clicked and Goldman pushed it open. “Very exclusive,” he said over his shoulder as he entered. “They change the password every three days, and we were screwed if this was day four.”

  There was something in the redhead’s tone that told the soldier this was going to be messy, so he brought out the Desert Eagle, inserting a fresh clip. He wasn’t planning on doing a lot of shooting at this stage, and knew that the hand cannon was a good deterrent to potential enemies just by sight alone.

  “Good idea,” Ross murmured, unleathering his Beretta.

  Goldman was taking the stairs to the first floor two at a time, and Bolan hung back a couple of steps. If the redhead ran straight into trouble, the soldier wanted a few feet of space in which to move.

  “Ground floor?” Bolan whispered over his shoulder.

  “Not in use. All of the action is up these stairs,” Ross replied, grasping the reasoning.

  At the top of the stairs was another closed door. The distant sounds of music could be heard, and the low hum of some conversation, but it was the slowed-down, la
zy sound of early-morning wind-downs. Chances were that the staff and customers were too drunk or stoned to react.

  Goldman reached the top of the stairs and kicked open the door leading into the club room. It cannoned back into the wall and he marched across to where the DJ was still spinning a few tunes. Felling him with one sharp jab to his gaping and surprised jaw, Goldman then shut off the music. The low hum died out in astonishment.

  “Heads up, people, I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask all of you.”

  “Police?” asked the tattooed man behind the bar, his hand sliding out of sight.

  “No, which is why I’ll have no hesitation in blowing you away if you don’t put your hands back on the counter,” Bolan replied as he entered the room. The Desert Eagle was enough for the barman to put his hands back.

  “And we’ll have a little light, please,” Goldman snapped. “I know you think daylight is your enemy, but I want to see what you’re all doing.”

  “And that’ll be about now, thank you,” Ross said to the security man, who’d had a sudden change of career in mind after seeing Bolan’s Desert Eagle, and was about to make a run for the stairs when Ross appeared in the doorway to block his flight.

  Hands lifted in a gesture of surrender, the security man backed away to a small black box mounted on the wall. Carefully—his eyes fixed on the Beretta—he flipped open the box and turned up the lighting until it was painfully bright in the club.

  Looking around, Bolan felt that the Nightmare was aptly named. The room was small, with a well-stocked bar. There were booths around the dance floor, which was littered with broken glass and the detritus of a heavy evening. Obviously, at one point the place had been busy, but now there were only the last stragglers, about twenty people, half and half male and female. Some were almost comatose, some were still awake and others were bright-eyed and overly twitchy in a way that suggested just a little too much coke or speed. The barman and the security man made twenty-two in all. The DJ didn’t count, as he was still unconscious.