Terror Ballot

by Don Pendleton

  He smiled at the words even as he thought them.

  After throwing two more blades he turned again, now facing the target. He took his time, planting the other three knives around the first three, making sure the blades went exactly where he wished them.

  The key was not just the release. Releasing the knife had to be consistent, yes. The grip could not be too loose or too firm. The arm had to describe an almost lazy arc, throwing from the shoulder, not the elbow. The fluid throw was the fast throw. Rush it, force it, and the knife did not fly true.

  The ritual—as it always did—calmed him. Now he had to turn his thoughts to the business of the ES...and of this American agent, Cooper, who would doubtless report to his superiors that the back of the ES had been broken. Such a message could not be allowed to reach the public. Paris lived in fear of the ES. The momentum built during the election could not be allowed to evaporate.

  This presented a serious problem. Word would come out that Deparmond was a “criminal” in the eyes of the authorities. Lemaire scoffed at that. It was now “criminal” to fight the incursions of foreign trash who threatened to swamp his nation in a tide of dependence and scum. It was “criminal” to want to preserve his culture. It was “criminal” to see the decay created by those who did not belong on French soil, and long to do something to save the land of his birth.

  Such was progress, Lemaire supposed.

  To counter a message, he would send a message of his own. To battle the possibility that Gaston would suddenly find himself unopposed by viable opposition, Lemaire would make the public afraid to vote for him at all. With no one turning out to the polls, voices could be raised demanding a new election. A new candidate to defend France could be found.

  But first the message had to be sent.

  “Thomas!” he called out. “Michel!”

  “Yes?” came the reply from the bedroom across the hallway. Thomas, one of his lieutenants, was holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Its cover had been removed, and its bolt pulled. Thomas held a cleaning rag in his other hand.

  “Get the video camera,” Lemaire ordered. “And find Michel. We will want him to run the recording to the press when we are finished.” Michel was Lemaire’s courier. He had never particularly liked the man; Michel had a ratlike demeanor and always perspired too much. But he had been a reliable courier, recruited by Levesque years ago. His loyalty was unquestionable. Such proven servants had value and were not discarded casually.

  Still...Lemaire was in charge now. Levesque had always trusted Michel, but Michel had been loyal to Lemaire instead. And if Lemaire himself had misgivings, it might be wise to detail a group of men to keep an eye on Michel as he pursued his duties.

  “The banner?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes, the banner,” Lemaire said, nodding. “Set it up here, in my office. Over the target.”

  Thomas hurried to do as he was told. He disappeared again and returned with a tripod, hastily affixing this to the small video camera. Once all was in readiness, Lemaire positioned himself in front of the banner. “A Kalashnikov,” he said suddenly. “Bring me one.”

  Thomas nodded, returning once more with one of the assault rifles. He placed it in Lemaire’s hand. Lemaire balanced it in the crook of his arm, angling it so that its profile and magazine were visible in profile for the camera. These actions were not taken without thought. One had to always project the right menace when sending ultimatums to sheep.

  Fear. It was all about fear. Fear would keep the public in line. Fear coupled with the violence ES was about to bring about in the name of a pure, liberated France, unshackled by the chains of foreign lands and foreign people.

  “One more thing,” Lemaire said. “When Michel is dispatched with the recording, detail a group to keep an eye on him. If anything goes wrong, if he behaves suspiciously, he and anyone with him should be terminated.”

  “Yes, sir.” Thomas pushed a button on the recorder. “Ready,” he said.

  “I am Anton the Beast of the organization known as Suffering,” Lemaire said. “I am speaking to you from within Paris. That is correct. At this very moment I am within the perimeter of the city. The authorities, weaklings that they are, have no power to stop me.”

  Lemaire turned and indicated the banner of the ES. It was a simple thing. The letters ES were spray-painted in white against a bloodred field. The banner was a rough-and-ready thing, crude and handmade. It projected exactly the message Lemaire wanted. Suffering was a group of rough men willing to do violence to get what they wanted. They were willing to dirty and bloody their hands to those ends. That was the message. It would be sent as such.

  “Your protectors have failed you. Dirt, scum, the dregs of humanity, pour across the borders of a pacified France. Your police cannot even be safe in some parts of this city. They know it. You know it. We know it. Yet you do nothing. You vote for those who will continue the status quo. You vote for weakness. You give sanction to your own destruction! You are such fools you will never see the blade that lurks beneath the surface of your cowardice!”

  With that, Lemaire reached under the banner and, as if by magic, produced one of the bolo throwing knives. Without hesitation he drew the keen edge down the palm of his left hand. A crimson line welled, dripping with the terrorist’s blood.

  “We are the knife!” Lemaire shouted. “We are the blade that cuts deep and flies true!” Then he turned and hurled the weapon at the banner. It stuck between the letters E and S, quivering slightly, pinning the banner to the wall and nearly pulling it free from the tacks holding it up.

  Lemaire clapped his hands. Flecks of his blood splashed his face. He rubbed his palms together in slow circles.

  “We will not accept the election of Gaston,” he said. “Any man, any woman who puts Gaston in power is taking his life in his hands. We will kill you. We will kill your children. We will leave bloody hands on your walls to show that it was we who took everything from you, as you would take everything from France!”

  Dramatically Lemaire placed his hands on the banner, letting the Kalashnikov fall from the crook of his arm onto the floor with a clatter. He pressed his palms against the fabric and took them away to reveal two matching bloody prints. Then he charged the camera, causing Thomas to jump back. Lemaire grabbed the camera from the terrified man’s hands and brought the lens to his face.

  “Do not go to the polls. Do not vote for Gaston. Do not make the mistake of supporting the enemies of France. Suffering will stop you. We will make you pay. Right now our men are planting bombs all over the city. Some will be at polling places. Some will be in hospitals. Some will be in schools. Perhaps some will be in your shops and your libraries and your museums and your parks. They could be anywhere. If Gaston wins the election, these explosives will rock Paris. They will shake the city to its knees.”

  There were no explosives set. But there would be. Before the video was sent by courier to the press, Lemaire would have it played on the big screen television downstairs for all of his troops. It would rally them. Give them purpose. Then he would send his bomb makers to the basement of the safehouse, where they would begin assembling the charges. Then he could have the weapons distributed throughout the city. The explosions could be timed to coincide with any number of street attacks, on targets of high or low value.

  Paris would never know what had hit it. The power of the ES, the power of an organization built by men of true faith in the ideal of French purity, would eclipse any betrayal committed by Levesque.

  “This is your only warning,” Lemaire said into the lens of the camera. “Do as you are told. Remember the lessons of violence taught you during past periods of political unrest. There is nowhere we cannot reach you. You could be at home. You could be sitting in an office. You could be riding a train or a bus. When the explosions and the bullets come, you will not know it until you are already dead. Do not let yo
ur last thoughts be of betrayal to France.

  “I am Anton Lemaire. I am the new true leader of Suffering. I have always been the power behind the throne. I am the man who chooses who will live and who will die. Any government Gaston manages to form will be smashed from within before it can take a breath. We will strangle you in your beds. Gaston’s government is stillborn. Remember that. And remember my face. If you make the wrong choice, if you put your vote with Gaston, my face will be the last thing you see.”

  He switched off the camera and tossed it to Thomas. The device was covered in blood.

  “Get me a towel,” Lemaire said. “And have the men assemble downstairs. We will play them the recording.”

  “Yes,” Thomas said, nodding.

  Michel stood in the doorway, his eyes wide. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to Lemaire. The terror group leader mopped the blood from his palm, made a face and threw the bloody handkerchief in the corner of the room.

  “I am sending you to the press,” Lemaire told Michel. “See that you are not followed back here. It wouldn’t do to have anyone discover the location of our last sanctuary. Not when there is so much work to do.” With that Lemaire left the room, calling over his shoulder, “Hurry. We have much ahead of us.”

  Michel nodded, though no one remained to see him do it.

  He paused just long enough to snatch up the bloody handkerchief.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Downtown Paris

  “There he is,” Bayard said, pointing through the open driver’s window of the Peugeot.

  “I see him,” Bolan replied.

  The Frenchman was understandably surprised when Bolan phoned DCRI headquarters to collect his unofficial liaison. Bayard had also seemed reluctant to set out with “Agent Cooper” once more, given Bolan’s now very gray status with the French government, but that changed quickly when the inspector learned from Bolan that Agent Cooper’s superiors and the DCRI’s intelligence network had produced the same piece of data: the ES was on the move—and issuing an ultimatum to the people of Paris.

  This information had come to Bolan shortly after his departure from Levesque’s hideout, by way of the Farm. The Farm’s information was, in turn, a data intercept from the DCRI intelligence network...something Bayard’s superiors were, according to the Frenchman, none too pleased about. The French inspector had done nothing but complain about that fact during the drive to the mixed residential and commercial district downtown.

  Bolan did not rise to the bait, however. There was nothing he could say that would make the French authorities feel better about the fact that some unnamed agency had free rein over their bandwidth. He supposed he could blame it all on the CIA, the agency for which everyone seemed to think he was working...but Brognola probably wouldn’t appreciate the international inquiries and angry transatlantic phone calls that would generate.

  The upshot of the intelligence from the Farm was that the DCRI had an informant in the ranks of the ES. Apparently that informant had been less than reliable; Bayard had indicated as much during the drive but would not elaborate. Bolan saw no point in idle speculation about it.

  They would learn as much as they would learn, and he would act on that. Years in combat had taught him to be flexible. The old adage “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” was remembered by so many for a reason.

  Bayard had insisted on driving his own car. Bolan’s was stashed a few blocks from the DCRI. The soldier hoped this was not a mistake, but Bayard knew the area much better than Bolan did. It was why using Bayard had been a good idea in the first place.

  The informant was a slight man wearing camouflage pants and a black T-shirt. The pattern of the pants matched the ES men’s preferred dress. Not very subtle, showing up in partial uniform. Bolan frowned.

  “I think this informant is not very bright,” Bayard said, echoing the soldier’s thoughts. Bolan shot him a bemused look. Bayard shrugged. “As I said. Unreliable.”

  The Peugeot was parked on one side of the street, opposite what Bolan thought looked like a quaint old-fashioned record store and a much more modern electronics retail shop. The electronics place was all glittering white with bright overhead lighting.

  It was an American firm, now spread worldwide. Bolan had seen them before, and always they were blinding. The soldier could not imagine what was so important about tablet computers and MP3 players that they should be bright enough to burn out a man’s retinas.

  The informant, on the other hand, was standing at a pay telephone kiosk, probably trying to be inconspicuous and succeeding in being the opposite. The telephone looked ancient. It reminded Bolan that one did not see many public telephones at all, anymore—not when every man, woman and child carried a phone in his or her pocket. Bolan’s own field operations had been greatly enhanced by the state-of-the-art technology the Farm issued him.

  “What is he doing?” Bolan asked. They were waiting to make sure they did not blow the man’s cover if he had been followed. There were several cars on the street, but there was enough traffic and enough pedestrians passing by, that it would be hard to spot any tail that was not grossly obvious.

  “And what does ‘unreliable’ mean, exactly?” Bolan asked the inspector.

  “His name is Jules Michel,” Bayard said. “He is a creature of opportunity. No known political leanings beyond what is touted by whichever group he joins. No particular loyalties. A few debts, some to organized, unlicensed lenders here in Paris.”

  “Loan sharks,” Bolan said.

  “Indeed. He is, for all intents and purposes, a common street criminal. Quite unremarkable. Pickpocket, sometimes burglar. The occasional assault for purposes of robbery, although not too much of that. The sort of trash one regularly recruits with money and promises of leniency. We turned him years ago.”

  “And?”

  “When the ES was in its infancy, long before they began actively staging terror attacks, he was helpful somewhat. He gave us a little here, a little there. Enough to bring in an arrest now and again. But never did he give us a real feel for the true scope of the group’s operations. A few weeks before things heated up around the elections, he dropped out of sight. This is the first we have heard of him on the streets since then. A traffic camera caught him and facial recognition software flagged him, although to his credit he did also call in.”

  “So why did he agree to spill now?”

  “Technically he didn’t.” Bayard said. “Not specifically. He may just be hoping for extraction. We did promise him that eventually, although we were vague about the time line.”

  “Go on.”

  “Standard operating procedure, to prevent him being overheard or his communications traced, has been for him to find the nearest public telephone and place a call to an exchange that reports his location. He is then picked up by one of our agents, either in a civilian automobile or by a livery service. And that’s really it. I’m afraid you know as much as I do at this point.”

  “Stop pouting,” Bolan finally said.

  “What?” Bayard looked incredulous.

  “You heard me,” Bolan said. “Intelligence is often porous. It happens at every level. Stop pouting about it.”

  Bayard actually laughed. It was the sound of a man who didn’t find much funny and didn’t allow himself more than a bark or two when he did.

  “You have a point.” He paused. “Although I wish I knew if I was going to walk into an arrest of my own when I return to the office. I’m not supposed to be here with you, Cooper.”

  “Tell them you were worried I’d run amok without your supervision,” Bolan suggested.

  “You did run amok without my supervision,” Bayard said. “And I am worried you will do it with my supervision. Amok should be your middle name, Cooper. To be honest I only agreed to come because I have been thin
king about your results. About the good you have managed to do. I still cannot agree with your methods. But the outcome was a positive one.”

  “I won’t argue that,” Bolan said.

  “You wouldn’t.” Bayard sighed. “How long do you suppose we should make him wait?”

  Bolan looked up the street, then down it. Something didn’t feel right. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think we’d better just shake the tree and see what falls out of it.”

  “You and your trees,” Bayard grumbled.

  The inspector started the Peugeot and put it in gear. He waited for a break in the traffic, pulled out, swung across the street and pulled up alongside Michel. The informant looked more nervous than surprised. He had obviously been waiting to be picked up.

  “Get in,” Bayard said.

  Michel slipped into the back of the car. Bolan swiveled in his seat to hook one arm over the headrest. He fixed Michel with his most businesslike glare.

  “Bayard,” the inspector over his shoulder said. “DCRI.”

  “Cooper,” Bolan added. “United States Justice Department. I want whatever you’ve got on the ES. Where are they based now?”

  Michel rattled off an address, looking to Bayard with wide eyes. Bolan, meanwhile, checked the files on his smartphone. The address corresponded with what the Farm believed was one of the last of the facilities in the ES network. It was also one of the largest ones, a converted estate sitting astride residential and commercial neighborhoods in the middle of Paris.

  “You have much explaining to do, Michel,” Bayard stated.

  “But I said on the telephone,” Michel whined. “When I called for help. I already delivered the ultimatum video to the press!”

  “Video?” Bayard repeated.

  “What video?” Bolan demanded.

  “I know I have not done my job well,” Michel said. “They’ve had people watching me for weeks. I had the trust of Levesque, yes. But his second-in-command, this Lemaire...the Beast, they call him. He does not like me. Always he was watching. I had to wait for them to send me on a courier mission, and even then, I had to complete the mission to avoid raising their suspicions to the point that they dealt with me. I have been living in fear for weeks.”