Executioner 059 - Crude Kill

by Pendleton, Don

  He was close. The Executioner stared at the gigantic ship. Most supertankers have a huge expanse of flat deck, only half covered with miles of loading/ unloading pipes to pump petroleum to the holds. The Contessa was one large maze of pipes.

  The specs he had read mentioned the masses of pipes, but they had been minimized. As he stared ahead through the soft mist, it looked as though the huge deck was almost entirely covered with a metal network. Down through the center of the ship lay a metal walkway that topped the distribution system, and directly under the walkway ran a foot-thick pipe filled with fire-fighting foam.

  Because of the size of the vessel, the holds had been built with a certain amount of give in them, and each had a separate hold cover. This resulted in gullies and ravines between the holds. They were four feet deep and about that wide, all well below the maze of pipes, ladders and walkways, and there were even a dozen crossover bridges that extended from side to side over all the piping.

  As Bolan sailed toward the tangle, he realized he had found a perfect sniper's lair. He could hide among those pipes and gullies for as long as he wanted.

  The darkened distance almost fooled him. He was still too high. Bolan flashed twice at the boat with his light and felt the slowdown. He dropped gently toward the deck. By that time he was over the deck and he flashed a continuous beam. The boat stopped. He sank down softly and touched an open space on deck. Bolan at once unhooked the quick release on the harness and slid out of it. He was down. The dark parasail, relieved of its burden, sprang back into the air and a moment later vanished into the sky.

  Bolan stood on a little island of decking, with large pipes on both sides and one of the gullies a dozen feet away. He ran lightly over the rough surface of the steel tank top and dropped silently into the four-foot deep valley.

  Bolan crouched and listened. Had anyone heard or seen him? He held his breath and heard the sound of footsteps. . . coming closer. Then a voice called softly in Italian. Bolan loosened the silenced Beretta and held it ready. With his left hand he drew the K-Bar fighting knife.

  He had reached over his right shoulder with his left hand and unsnapped a fastener on the K-Bar's scabbard and let the big blade ease out of the upside down leather. The inch-and-a-half-thick blade was five inches long and made of high-quality stainless steel tempered to a fine cutting edge with an inch Bowie double-cutting edge on the tip.

  The Executioner crouched in the depression between hold covers, and when the sentry came closer, the hellgrounder could see him plainly. Bolan waited. The guard walked toward him.

  The Executioner waited until the terrorist was almost upon him, then leaped up and thrust the big knife chest high. The sentry saw him at the last second and tried to lift his rifle; but by then the K-Bar had razored through a light shirt, grated off a rib and pierced tissue as it plunged through the lower half of the terrorist's heart, dispatching him with only a small gurgle of bloody froth. Bolan caught the body as it fell. He draped it over his shoulder and carried the dead terrorist toward the railing. Bolan heaved the body over the side.

  The hellgrounder pulled three frag grenades from his pack and clipped them to his combat webbing. With the Beretta firmly in hand, he headed toward a large splash of light up the long deck.

  Bolan moved at a combat-assault pace, watching carefully on both sides, keeping the Beretta ready. His rubber-soled boots made no noise on the deck.

  Twice he detoured to avoid puddles of light on the acres of the deck, piping and hold gullies.

  Near the third floodlight he saw the glow of a cigarette. Silently he worked around the yellow light and came up behind the sentry. There was no way he could get any closer without being seen. Bolan lifted the Beretta and it coughed out one kiss of doom. The slug slashed through bone, tissue and cells just over the sentry's left ear, and he toppled off his perch, dead before he hit the steel deck.

  The nightfighter had worked his way almost to the superstructure when a siren sounded. Then a voice from a nearby speaker sputtered in Italian. The Executioner's Italian was not perfect, but he caught the drift of the announcement. One of the sentries had not checked in on schedule, a three-man enforcement squad would investigate at once. Bolan's ice-blue eyes squinted. So far his attack was still soft.

  So far.

  9

  The Executioner moved like a shadow down the long deck, filtering through the random patches of darkness.

  He saw two, three-man search parties, but froze in deep shadows under the pipes as the men hurried by. All carried guns; some carried the worried, unsure expressions of newcomers to violent death. It was here that all the rhetoric, bravado and billowing emotions of a terrorist cause coalesced into the sudden violent action that makes death a constant, leering companion.

  The big guy avoided the terrorists as he moved toward the towering mass of the superstructure perched at the far end of the long vessel. Across the final stretch, his approach had to change. He would be in the open, and he would either have to bluff his way across or kill whoever challenged him.

  Bolan's primary mission remained the same—to find Lutfi and relieve him of the electronic detonator, and to do it without setting off the bombs he was sure the terrorist had planted. But as Bolan closed in on his target he knew the madman might also turn on the pumps and dump crude into the Mediterranean. There was no reason to doubt that Lutfi would do this—if he thought it would help his cause. Preventing such a spill was Bolan's second mission once the electronic detonator was captured or destroyed. Beyond that, he played his priorities by ear.

  Bolan jumped back into the deep shadows as two men hurried by and raced through a door that led into the first level of the superstructure. It had been built at the stern of the ship, with a narrow open deck on each side. Stairs or elevators evidently led to the upper floors. When the two men were long past, Bolan lifted the Beretta machine pistol, walked across the open twenty yards to the door and stepped inside.

  He found stairs stretching upward.

  The Executioner went up the steps two at a time, opened a door marked #2 and eased into a hallway. The hallway ran the width of the superstructure, with several doors leading off it. Bolan knew from his diagram study that the bridge was on the top—the seventh—floor, along with the communications rooms and the officers' quarters.

  Ten feet ahead a door opened. The man who came out called to someone in the room, looking back at the person he was speaking to. When the man turned, Bolan pressed the Beretta's muzzle against his heart.

  "Aiutate," the man screamed. The Beretta jumped twice as the two 9mm slugs tore through bone and heart. Bolan caught the dead man as he fell and pushed him back into the room and onto a carpeted floor. The terrorist's cry for help had alerted two men in the small room. One bare-chested young man reached for a .45 automatic on his bunk. The other man, larger and older, simply lifted both hands skyward out of respect for the machine pistol.

  Bolan ice-eyed the first man off the .45, then motioned for both to sit on the floor in the middle of the room. "Sedete," he said. Bolan tied up the young man, then pulled the older one to a standing position.

  "Capisci?" Bolan asked, nudging the man toward the door. There was no response. "Lutfi?" the night-fighter asked, and the older terrorist nodded. Bolan frisked him quickly, found a short-barreled .38 fully loaded. He pushed it into his combat pack. The hallway was empty. They went out the door; Bolan stayed directly behind the terrorist who knew where he was going. They walked to the stairwell that Bolan had just left and climbed. The terrorist's head was down; he would not meet Bolan's stare. They went up the stairs to the fourth floor. On the landing of the fifth floor, the Italian exploded to life, slamming Bolan halfway over the railing—with nothing but a five-story drop below him.

  The big Italian had the advantage of surprise and position, but the Executioner knew more hand-to-hand fighting tricks. Bolan grabbed an arm, bent it backward, spun the Italian around and forced him half over the rail. At the same time he looped the Beret
ta's lanyard around the terrorist's soft neck and pulled. The terrorist choked off a scream, then struggled, kicking, flailing his arms, gasping for breath. Bolan jammed his knee into the man's back and increased the pressure on the tough nylon cord.

  Gradually the thrashing arms and legs weakened and slowed. At last they sagged and went limp.

  The Executioner tilted the body over the railing, unlooped the Beretta cord and let the corpse fall.

  A scream billowed from below as the corpse splattered on the deck. Sirens seemed to go off over the whole ship. Quickly Bolan stripped a grenade off his webbing, pulled the pin and dropped the bomb down the center of the stairwell. It would create a distraction, help hold any pursuers in the stairs. Bolan trusted the ship's builders were balanced thinkers and had put stairways on both sides. . .

  He opened the door to the fifth floor and sprinted across the corridor toward the far side. There were rooms on both sides. As stealthily as possible the Executioner moved downward. He needed to relocate and do some planning, now that the probe had turned hard. Would Lutfi blow up the Contessa? Bolan's reasoning remained: the terrorist would not push the button until he got exactly what he wanted.

  The Executioner made it to the second floor before he heard anyone on the stairs. The footsteps were above him. He continued down the steps and opened the door on the deck level.

  No one was outside. Where were they? Moving the prisoners? They knew he was on board, but they were not swarming after him.

  Bolan darted to a series of low maintenance sheds near the superstructure and hid in the shadows. For a moment he picked up some intel. The search seemed concentrated on the second floor. He saw two armed men run forward. Bolan moved that way as quietly as he could. He was only fifty feet from the superstructure when he noticed a change in the deck pattern. It was flat and had no pipes. Near the far side, almost attached to the seven-floor area, he saw a two-story building, twenty by thirty feet. The front had a rolling door and as he watched, it lifted.

  Two men stood in the area staring into the darkness. Both wore heavy lead-lined suits—radiation proof gear, including helmets, boots and gloves.

  Bolan remembered one line about the Contessa from the material he had read on her. She was atomic powered, with her own reactor and her own nuclear plant that could supply enough energy to run a dozen ships this size.

  Bolan groaned in frustration. He had not concerned himself before with the propulsion system, because he had no tactical interest in it. Now he knew better. Lutfi was not trying to get 400 million dollars worth of gold. He was not trying to free political prisoners. Both of those demands were nothing more than clever smoke screens, ploys to buy the time he needed.

  What Lutfi really wanted were the nuclear fuel rods used to power the atomic plant deep in the bowels of the ship. The rods contained enriched uranium, enough 238 that could be used as the most vital ingredient of a crude but effective atomic bomb. Lutfi was out to capture sufficient enriched uranium to build himself a small arsenal of atomic weapons, which he could use or threaten to use. Bolan knew his enemy—knew all his enemies—because of his own dire experience as America's leading independent counterterrorist. Therefore he could anticipate his enemies in a way that was unique amongst his countrymen. He could smell his enemies' intentions. And Lutfi, by controlling the awesome power that he sought, could take over one Third World country after another, building his power base as he plowed through Africa and the Middle East. The prospect stank. With ten atomic bombs, and the knowledge that he would use them, there would be no way to stop Lutfi without trading atomic punches.

  Transport?

  Like any military tactician, Bolan thought of Lutfi's next move. How did the terrorist plan to move the atomic fuel rods? The submarine had never been in the transport picture for the rods. It was too small, no loading access, too restrictive, too slow, too easy to find and kill.

  The Contessa herself? Use her as a floating empire? She was stocked for a year. Her atomic fuel would last for at least two years. Lutfi could construct his atomic-bomb-plant workshops on board, use the housing, bring in specialists, cruise into warm waters. But Bolan was doubtful.

  Perhaps another ship would meet them and offload the bulky lead coffins that held the fuel rods. Possibly.

  Bolan heard footsteps coming toward him. The two radiation-protected men had vanished into the building that looked like a large freight elevator. It was large enough to take in and discharge the fuel rods, even when they were encased in their lead coffins.

  The footsteps came closer. Bolan risked a glance around the corner of the small building.

  Bolan brought up the silenced Beretta and pushed it around the corner. The charging terrorist could not see the machine pistol in the darkness.

  "Hey," Bolan called. The guncock looked up in time to take one sizzling 9mm whizzer through his mouth. As it exited, the slug carried away a cross section of the terrorist's skull.

  Two more terrorists were moving toward the elevator. Bolan knew they were coming as protective security, not because they knew the nightfighter was there.

  Meanwhile Bolan recalled the coldness, the disdain that Lutfi showed when he killed the crewman hours earlier. In the same way he had killed the crewman, Lutfi could drop an atomic bomb and detonate it over a city. It would be his way to serve notice that the only way to stop him would be to beat him in an atomic war.

  True, Lutfi would lose such a battle. But he would take 100 million innocent people along with him. Lutfi was gambling that a rational world, and conservative world leaders, would never permit such an atomic war to start. They would appease him and he would kick dirt in their faces.

  Lutfi had to be stopped before he could steal any fuel rods from the Contessa .

  The work was easy to spell out. Now how the hell could the job get done?

  10

  Bolan watched the pair of terrorists who were still working toward the elevator. They split up before they came to the body of their comrade, angling toward the far corners of the building.

  He was in an ideal spot—any action had to come through here if Lutfi hoped to get the fuel rods off the ship. Now there was no contest when it came to picking priorities. A full load of crude oil splattered along a thousand miles of beaches would not balance out against 100 million human lives snuffed out in an atomic war. He must watch the fuel-rod exit zone and deny it to the enemy force. Later there would be time to find Lutfi and get his little red box.

  The problem of transporting the lead coffins again entered Bolan's thoughts. The solution came to mind with the speed of a death slug. From the data he had studied, he knew the Contessa had three chopper landing pads marked on the deck. They were built solidly enough to accept fully loaded military helicopters. Big choppers could haul in or take out atomic fuel rods as needed. Bolan stared at the semi-illuminated deck of the big ship and saw a landing pad fifty feet from the elevator that led to the atomic-fuel-rod storage area. The Contessa's inclusion of chopper pads might have played right into the hijacker's hands.

  One of the guards from the far side of the elevator strolled toward Bolan's hiding spot and called softly. "Vencensz!"

  "Si." Bolan hissed.

  The other guard came forward, waving as he passed through the spills of light.

  "Sigaretta?"

  "Si."

  The terrorists walked closer. Bolan spat silent fire at them. Two smoking Beretta rounds pulverized foreheads, kicking scum into hell in the blink of an eyelash.

  Bolan ran forward, found the third guard and splattered his chest with two rounds from the machine pistol. He checked the front of the elevator. The door was closed. On a panel he saw a series of numbered and lettered buttons for opening the door; the panel was electronically coded to report security infractions. The Executioner pulled two cubes of C-4 from his pack and pushed them against the side of the door. He fused them with a timer-detonator, set it for thirty seconds and activated it.

  He dashed around the far end o
f the elevator building until he was thirty yards from the charge. He ducked.

  The blast jolted the whole elevator structure, punched the building forward an inch, then let it settle back.

  Now his mission was hard. Rock hard. More sirens went off in the distance. He heard a dozen men running toward the blast site. There was no chance he could get to the front to see what damage he had done, but he knew that a half pound of C-4 should put the whole elevator system out of action.

  He faded into the inky pools of unlit deck and hatch covers and moved toward the center of the huge tanker. There was far less activity there.

  Searchlights bathed the elevator area. More floodlights snapped on until the whole scene was lit up like daytime. Loudspeakers chattered with a steady stream of commands in Italian.

  The Executioner tossed aside a used magazine from the Beretta, slid in another 20-rounder and charged the weapon. As he watched the activity boiling around the elevator, he knew he'd figured correctly about the real prize of this hijacking. He decided to check out the bridge.

  It took him nearly twenty minutes to work his way back through the center of the ship's dark areas and pipe maze until he arrived at a spot where he could make a dash across open deck to the stairwell on the starboard side of the superstructure. There should be, fewer people up there now.

  He took the steps three at a time as he charged to the top floor, meeting no one coming down. Bolan pulled a frag grenade from his webbing, left the pin in and cracked open a seventh-floor door. Through a sliver view, he saw a carpeted lounge area with living room-type furniture and a curved window that overlooked the front quarter mile of the ship and the sea ahead. A door with a porthole of shaded glass led off the lounge. No one was in sight.

  The Executioner left the stairwell and ran across the lounge to the inner door. He looked through the porthole, but the smoked glass was too dark for him to see anything. No use coming all this way to the party if he was not going to dance.