Corporal Cleveland swung his rifle butt up and into the smooth face of the flying corporal. It caught the soldier squarely in the open mouth and jaw. The jaw broke with a crack like it was some cheap plastic toy. The whole anatomical mechanism twisted too far to the left and white splinters of bare bone poked through the cheek's skin. Several blood-drenched teeth had exploded from his mouth and the dumb corporal tumbled into a heap of convulsions against the folding metal chair. His coughing sprayed a pink mist of bloodied phlegm out from his face and onto his shirt.
Corporal Tandy, diligent of Bolan's command to take these creeps alive, was meanwhile attempting the same rifle butt technique on Sergeant Grendal. But Grendal was combat trained, and despite his bulk he easily sidestepped the inexperienced MP, deftly clubbing the younger man on the back of the head with the butt of his just-grabbed pistol. Then with brazen expertise, he swung around to face Bolan, and squeezed off several rounds from a two-fisted crouch position. But Bolan was not a sitting target.
From the moment he had plunged through the window he had kept moving, rolling across the wooden floor and its new carpet of glass shards to a better vantage for return fire. He heard the loud report of the .45 as he came out of his roll, saw dust and splinters kicked up from the floor before him as the sergeant's bullets dug in.
Bolan heard the third shot and felt a tug at his pant leg, enough to know it had been too damn close.
He twisted around, gaining enough leverage to dive behind the hotel's torn overstuffed chair near the corner. Halfway through the dive, he squeezed off two rounds of his own. The Beretta spat its smoldering chunks of brimstone into the fleshy neck of Sgt. Edsel Grendal. The hardguy's throat burst open like a water balloon, pouring forth crimson blood over his chest and fat stomach. Grendal reeled for a moment, desperately wrapping his hands around his throat like a tourniquet and choking out some rasping words of protest. But the blood merely pumped out between his sticky fingers as he collapsed face forward into the card table, knocking it over. The guns and ammo clips rattled across the floor.
It was not over yet. Bolan continued his roll out from the other side of the chair, beading the Beretta toward the last soldier. The wretched redhead stood in the far corner, his hands already raised high over his head. "Jesus," he was saying. "J-Jesus goddamn..."
Bolan rose slowly to his feet. There was no way anyone could mistake the shots from those M191IAIs as anything else but gunfire. However, it was doubtful that anyone would come snooping around. Especially the law. It was that kind of hotel, in that kind of neighborhood, it had been built in the 1600's to house the finest Dutch banking firm in the land, but time had changed and now all of this section of Frankfurt was frequented by anyone with a few bucks to spend on the dirtier pleasures. Especially bored young American soldiers killing time. The police avoided the area. There was no need to worry about the noise.
The Executioner had other things to worry about. He approached the redheaded kid. "You PFC Gary Cottonwood?"
"Yes, sir. Cottonwood. T-t-that's me."
Bolan poked the corporal aside with the barrel of the Beretta as he stepped toward the slumped Corporal Tandy, just now coming back to consciousness.
"How's the head, son?" Bolan asked.
Tandy rubbed the back of his neck, rolling his head slightly to bring himself to alertness. "Fine, Colonel. I'm fine."
"I want you to take your prisoner." Bolan pointed Belle at the face-wrecked corporal on the floor. "Comeback to the base and lock him up, and tell General Wilson what happened. He'll know what the hell I need."
"Yes, sir. What about him, sir?" Corporal Tandy asked Bolan, glancing over the body of Grendal toward PFC Gary Cottonwood.
"I'll be bringing him along myself. After I ask a few questions." At that, the doughy-faced victim on the floor tried to shout a threatening warning at the red-headed Cottonwood, but anything that came out through the mashed and mangled jaw was badly garbled. Two more teeth fell from his mouth and bounced across the floor.
"I hope you like oatmeal, Corporal," Bolan said. "Because you're gonna be eating it for a whole lot of months to come. Now get him out of here."
Corporal Tandy hesitated. "Sir?" he asked in a quiet voice.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I mean about not taking them all alive and everything. It was my fault, I know."
"Like hell it was," Bolan grunted. "Grendal knew he was facing a firing squad or worse. He was bound to take his shot, no matter how bad the odds. Had nothing to do with you. You understand?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"Now move out."
"Right, sir!"
Then they were gone, and Bolan turned a hard eye on the frightened private. Nudging aside Sergeant Grendal's corpse with his foot, he freed one of the overturned chairs. He set it in the middle of the room and sat down, his Beretta still aimed at PFC Cottonwood's chest. Cottonwood swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing tightly in his throat. "S-sir?"
"Yeah?"
"May I sit down please? Otherwise."
Bolan pointed his gun at the floor. "Sit." Cottonwood sat and waited silently.
"'Are you glad to be alive, Cottonwood?"
"Y-yes, sir."
"Well, don't be too glad, because it may be a very temporary situation."
"I see, sir."
"I'm going to give it to you straight, and then you're going to give it to me straight."
"Yessir."
Bolan stared icily into the boy's eyes.
"You're the one who passed on the report about this location and the meeting to the authorities. Right?"
"Yessir."
"Why? And don't waste my time with rationallations or excuses."
"No, sir, I won't." Cottonwood swallowed something thick in his throat. "I work the VT100 computer terminal for incoming shipments of everything from toilet paper to tanks. Sergeant Grendal approached me a couple months ago with his idea of how to program the computer so that it kicked out certain supply orders as duplicate shipments. Hell, CFU is the most common explanation for anything that goes wrong over here."
"CFU..."
"Computer foul up."
Bolan nodded.
"Whenever we showed a duplicate supply of something, we had orders to crate and store the supplies in the warehouse, because you never knew when the CFU would go the other way and short us. That was General Wilson's idea. Once you got something, never return it. He'd always say that. It was Billy Tomlin's and Sergeant Grendal's job to crate the stuff and store it. Except that they started to sell the stuff on the black market." Bolan leaned forward, his eyes boring into the nervous private like a laser beam through the neocortex.
"It was just small stuff at first... food mostly... then auto parts... then..."
"Weapons." Bolan-finished the halting sentence for him.
"Yeah," the private said, uselessly.
Bolan stood up, his gun still aimed at the kid's chest. "So what happened to you? Lose your guts and decided to fink out on your buddies? They weren't cutting you in for enough of the take? What's your story, kid?"
PFC Cottonwood looked up.
His voice was clear for the first time, his eyes even.
"I know this might be hard for you to believe, sir. Especially now. At first I was in it for the money.... You know the horror stories about how hard it is to live over here on what we're paid. Especially if you're married, like I was planning on doing this summer... so the money looked good in the beginning. But then I didn't like it anymore. I didn't. Like I said, you, probably won't believe me, but so what."
Bolan glared at the soldier who was fast becoming defiant as he unburdened himself of his confession. He thight make a good soldier yet.
"Your report said the meeting with the Zwilling Horde was set for tonight."
"Yes, sir." PFC Cottonwood looked at his watch. "They're supposed to show up here in another three hours, at 04.30."
"Aren't you guys a little early for the meet?"
Cottonwood nodded. "The
sarge had never met these people face-up before, so he was a little anxious." The young soldier shivered involuntarily amid the unscheduled wreckage that surrounded him. "Besides, the sarge didn't trust us out of his sight. He was afraid Billy would go off and get drunk or laid and not show up."
"Come on, guy," Bolan said, waving him to his feet.
"Where to, sir?"
"In less than three hours, killers in the butcher class, some of the most bestial in modem history, true man-eaters are going to be coming through that door. And I am going to be ready for them." Bolan's lips twisted into something less than a smile. PFC Cottonwood was simply very glad that he would no longer be numbered among those about to be on the wrong side of this man. No way could he stand it. The sprung tension that emanated from the blacksuit was like all of America's destiny coiled within one single individual.
The misguided but well-meaning private was enacting a surrender he had had in his mind as soon as the night-garbed apparition had come hurtling through the window. He knew instantly he was in the wrong league. The explosion of the window still sounded in his mind behind the sharper reports of the killing that followed it.
This big stranger clearly embodied more than the vast majority of men could hope to enact in a lifetime — he seemed to represent in his presence, his manners, his dark and profound look, the manifest destiny that no longer could be spared on the frontiers of the American West but which was a gift to the Old World now, to tame and to teach the primitives of a new generation who should know already that the lessons of American history are written in blood.
PFC Cottonwood was only too happy to give in to that history and be accountable, at least, for his own blood. He would watch this stranger with manifest awe.
And he would serve him if he could.
2
April Rose hovered over the Diablo 1650 printer as it spat out information, printwheel clattering across the paper like a machine gun. She read each line twice, then shook her head grimly. She reached over and picked up a stack of the according paper and let it unfold to her feet as she scanned quickly for something encouraging. But all she could do was shake her head again. It was getting worse and worse.
Someone unfamiliar with operations at Stony Man Farm might take one look at her and wonder if some fancy glamour magazine was shooting a special fashion layout. Maybe a Hollywood film crew was shooting a scene for a high-class thriller? Why else would such a beautiful young woman be isolated out here in Shenandoah Country with her finger on the pulse of international terrorism.
But April Rose had her finger on a pulse much more important to her personally. The pulse of Mack Bolan.
At the other end of the communications room a door was flung open and Hal Brognola marched in.
"Any word yet from Striker?" April shook her head, continued reading.
"Damn," Brognola muttered. He patted his jacket for a cigar and finding none, looked over April's shoulder at the TeleCom data. The big fed laid a gentle hand on April's shoulder. "Don't worry, he'll call in."
She forced a smile. "He'd better. He absolutely needs this new information before he proceeds. The whole plan will have to be changed."
"The whole thing stinks," Brognola decided gruffly. He looked at his watch and felt a thin layer of sweat spreading across his forehead.
It was already ten minutes past Striker's contact time. There were a lot of reasons for Colonel John Phoenix to be late, including the one that neither of them would mention but both of them feared.
Brognola took a deep breath and patted his pockets again for a cigar, still coming up empty.
No, nothing could have happened to the big guy. Not now. Especially not now, after what they had just discovered about the Zwilling Horde. As the White House liaison on this project, Brognola had already been in touch with the president. Even the Man was worried, insisting that the ex-fed handle the situation as promptly as possible and as quietly as possible.
So Mack Bolan had better damn well be all right. Most of all because Brognola and Bolan were friends. One ex-FBI agent in a three-piece suit who looked like the vice-president of IBM, and one black-clad warrior reeking of sweat, cordite, combat. An uneasy friendship, sure, but powerful and deeply committed.
An electronic buzz sounded. Half a dozen bright colored lights flashed across the telephone console. April ran over, clamped the headset over her cars, began flipping switches. These feed lines were the same as used in the White House; once the caller connected with the console, the conversation could not be tapped through the lines. She gestured at the spare headset which Brognola donned immediately. "Striker?" Brognola growled.
"You copy?" Bolan's voice was clear. "You know, that's just what my high school teacher asked me when I got an on my history exam".
April Rose sighed with relief. "Where are you calling from, Mack?"
"General Wilson's office. This place has been swept for bugs every day for the past five years, so the line should be secure".
Brognola forced the issue. "What happened with Sergeant Grendal, Stony Man?"
"Out of business. Permanently. So too his partner, Corporal William Tomlin. Our informant is on ice."
"You... okay?" April asked quietly.
"Fine. Snagged my pants on a sharp bullet, that's all."
"I'll mend it for you," she offered.
"I didn't know you gals did that kind of work anymore," Bolan responded warmly.
"On special occasions. For special people."
"Knock it off, you two," Btognola growled. "I have to advise you, Striker, that the situation is a lot different than we first envisioned."
"Different how?"
"Bigger".
"I'm listening."
"Much bigger. All of this has all been hush-hush for the past two weeks, even from me, till the intelligence boys got the clue as to what was going on."
"What the hell's up, Hal? Spit it out."
"Kidnappings. All over Europe."
"Who's been snatched?"
"Well, that's the kooky part."
"Athletes," April said. "Professionals from all different countries. Babette Pavlovski..."
"The gymnast who defected from Czechoslovakia two years ago?" asked Bolan, his voice strong, direct.
"That's the one. She's been touring Europe coach with the American gymnastics team. It's not yet known by the press, but she disappeared one night two weeks ago."
"Retaliation maybe. Those guys don't much care for defectors. Bad public relations".
Brognola negated that. "She's not an isolated case, Stony Man. The Olympic skier Udo Ganz didn't show up last Tuesday at his job with a Munich insurance office. Hasn't been seen since. Mako Samata, a martial arts champion with a chain of studios across France, taught an akido class at his Paris studio two weeks ago, then disappeared without locking up. Clifford Barnes-Fenwick, a top archer from Wales, was supposed to meet last week with his estranged wife to discuss their impending divorce. He never showed up. When she went to his apartment, she found it torn apart."
"Keep spilling," Bolan's voice commanded.
"You're not going to like it," Brognola said.
"We've had two identifications. Witnesses positively identified from photographs a man seen at two of the kidnapping sites. Thomas Morganslicht."
There was three thousand miles of longdistance silence. Then Bolan spoke. Quietly. His mind was already locked onto the problem. "Thomas Morganslicht, number one creep of the Zwilling Horde. The same group coming tonight to buy our army's stolen weapons."
"The same."
"Don't forget his twin sister, Tanya," April cut in. "Zwilling is German for gemini, twins, right? She's as much the leader as he is. And just as deadly. Some say deadlier."
"The assignment has changed," Bolan said simply.
"I guess," confirmed Hal Brognola. "Originally we expected you only to stop the arms sale, thus crippling the Zwilling Horde as much as we were able to at the time. But now the ante has gone up. We have to find out wh
y they, kidnapped those sports people so many days ago, and we must free them if at all possible. But whether that is possible or not, you have to stop whatever the Zwilling Horde is planning. Stop them for good, Striker."
"There's only one way to get that far," he said casually.
"I know."
"Means I'll be out of contact for a while. Don't know how long."
"Am aware," muttered Brognola.
"I'll have to get going," Bolan concluded in a low voice. "Company's coming in a couple hours.
"Anything you need, guy?"
"Just your good wishes, Hal."
"All the way to hell," Brognola growled.
Bolan laughed softly, then broke the connection.
"Good wishes," April Rose whispered into the empty line. Brognola nodded silently. The hellrains were due to fall once more, in Europe, tortured continent of oppression and endless centuries of war. Mack was in the pits of the earth again, back where hell reigned triumphant over failed politics and broken economies and badly divided societies. Back to where hell was real-daily, and endlessly. Back to where fie had to be, if the torrential terrors of our modern times were to be stemmed before the murky tide drowned reason again, as it had over there in the two big ones this century already.
Back to where things were supposedly so civilized.
Like hell.
Sophisticated weapons were being stolen from the U.S. Army in Germany. Some of these weapons were in the hands of terrorists. And now kidnappers. Evil creatures out to make an international reputation for themselves at the expense of thousands of lives, and at the expense of the reputation of the United States Army stationed overseas. Bolan would trace this rampaging wrong to its wretched source. And then there would truly be hell to pay.
In the shape of the Executioner.
3
Mack Bolan sat hunched over the scarred folding table, his eyes closed, his lips puffing loosely in a half-snore. The .44 AutoMag lay flung on the table with its clip empty and removed, the 240-gram bullets scattered across the tabletop like toppled toy soldiers. Next to his resting forehead was a cluster of empty brown bottles of Grolsch Dunkel Bier. A floorboard creaked outside his hotel door.
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