Terror Ballot

by Don Pendleton

  “So what’s the story?” Bolan asked. “I want the short version.”

  “Anton Lemaire now commands the ES,” Michel reported. “First he called to him all who were loyal to him. Those were his words. There was no sign of Levesque, and I dared not seem disloyal to Lemaire. So I rallied at the Paris safehouse, location Delta, our largest. There Lemaire told us Levesque was killed by foreign interlopers led by the American CIA.”

  “The ultimatum video?” Bayard prompted.

  “I was tasked with delivering Lemaire’s message to the city, to all of France,” Michel said. “He will bomb the city to ashes, attacking everything from polling places to hospitals, if Gaston takes power. He told us, privately, that the ES would now prepare for all-out war to carry out that message. We must fight Gaston’s government and its formation with everything we have, he told us. To prevent France from believing that the ES died with Levesque.”

  “How much time do we have?” Bolan asked.

  “He did not explain the timetable. Not to me. But preparations are being made even now. I believe he will attack swiftly.”

  Bayard and Bolan exchanged glances. Both men knew what that meant, although Bayard’s calculations were likely a bit less direct than Bolan’s. The French inspector was probably wondering if he could round up enough men and law enforcement backups to raid the ES facility. Bolan, however, was calculating the odds. As formidable as the Executioner was, he was one man. He could only be in a single place at once. Taking a facility as large as the estate Lemaire now used as his stronghold would require backup.

  Pursuing the proof of Leslie Deparmond’s guilt could wait. With the remnants of ES mobilizing, Bolan would have to come at them with everything he had to prevent more bloodshed among the public. One thing bothered him, though.

  How had Lemaire and those loyal to him known that Levesque was dead? How had they known to blame Bolan, a supposed CIA operative? Was it a coincidence? Or had Lemaire had some way of monitoring Levesque’s activities? How close had the two men been? Did Lemaire know of Levesque’s plans to take his own life, and was he now taking the organization in the direction he saw fit?

  None of that mattered. The soldier had long ago learned to shelve these concerns, to catalog them in his mind, to be revisited and analyzed later, as data and time allowed.

  For now it was time to fight. And for that, he needed...

  “Help,” Bolan said, as Bayard drove them to the DCRI headquarters.

  “What?” Bayard looked at him, confused.

  “We need to hit that location,” Bolan stated. “It’s going to take a considerable tactical team to cordon it off and secure it. Sweep for stragglers. Keep the terrorists boxed in while someone kicks in their door.”

  “And that someone doing the kicking would be you?”

  Bolan nodded. “Can you run interference for me with the DCRI? Get us the uniforms we need?”

  “That is asking a lot. I should not be here now assisting you.”

  “But you’re here,” Bolan countered.

  “I think you should let us handle this,” Bayard said. “It will take longer for official mechanisms to operate, yes, but—”

  “I see someone,” Michel cried from the backseat. “I think the men in that car—”

  Michel’s head exploded.

  Bolan felt warm, wet blood on the back of his neck. He swiveled and lowered himself in his seat on instinct. Bayard, behind the wheel, stomped the gas pedal and sent the Peugeot careening forward and into a sliding, rubber-burning, gear-grinding U-turn. Pebbles of safety glass from the shattered rear windshield scattered across the backseat, glittering diamonds dotting the informant’s corpse.

  Bolan had stowed his assault rifle in the trunk of the car; it might as well have been back in the United States. Bayard swore and tried to get below the level of the dash as the chase car shot past them. It was an old-model Mercedes, spotted with rust and patches of unpainted primer. There were four men inside, wearing camouflage fatigues and black ski masks.

  The snout of a Kalashnikov assault rifle protruded out the driver’s side rear window.

  They were close enough to see the muzzle flare from the assault rifle as the enemy gunner, sitting behind the driver, opened up with a long burst. Bullets walked up the flank of the Peugeot. A round narrowly missed Bolan’s face, punching daylight through the roof strut behind him.

  “Go,” Bolan shouted.

  Bayard grunted. The bullet-riddled Peugeot picked up speed. It was no race car, but the Mercedes was an old diesel model, heavy and slow. Bayard was able to stay ahead of the enemy as they weaved through traffic. More bullets found the rear of the Peugeot and struck buildings on either side of the street.

  “It must be the ES,” Bayard said. “He said they were watching him. They must have followed him.”

  “This is no good. We don’t want to endanger civilians.”

  “I am open to suggestions!” Bayard shouted. His knuckles were white.

  “There,” Bolan said, pointing. “That alley. Hard left!”

  The buildings on either side were tall, stone-facade structures. There were no windows facing the alley. It was the best location they were likely to find to screen passersby from gunfire. Bayard almost put the Peugeot on two wheels making the turn, but he managed it, goosing the parking break to bring the rear wheels around. It was nicely done. The inspector’s skills as a wheelman were considerable.

  “Brace yourself,” Bayard said. “I am going to put the trunk in their faces.”

  Bolan nodded and pulled on his seat belt. Bayard did the same. The inspector slammed his foot down on the brake as the Mercedes entered the alley.

  Even through the shattered rear windshield, the two men could see the Mercedes as it hurtled toward the Peugeot. Bayard slammed the gearshift into Reverse and tromped the accelerator again. Groaning, the Peugeot roared backward. Bolan tucked his chin in his chest.

  Metal screamed as the Mercedes rammed the Peugeot, ripping the bumper from the inspector’s car and crumpling the trunk. Bolan hit the seat belt release and went EVA. He could sense Bayard mirroring his motion on the driver’s side.

  The Desert Eagle filled Bolan’s hand.

  The heavy .44 Magnum hand cannon was just the weapon for punching through the Mercedes. As Bolan circled to the passenger side of the enemy vehicle, he let the triangular snout of the Desert Eagle do his talking for him, barking in hellhound fury as he fired a pair of hollowpoint rounds into the gunman in the front passenger seat. The man’s skull came apart under the onslaught, spraying his blood and brains across the stunned man in the driver’s seat.

  Bolan did not have time to study the men in the vehicle; the shooters in the backseat were still very much mobile. He did notice, in the briefest of flashes, that the driver was slumped over the wheel, moving slowly. Doubtless he had taken the steering wheel in the chest when the cars struck. The Mercedes was old enough or in sufficiently bad disrepair that its airbag had not deployed.

  Bayard pumped a pair of rounds from his snub-nosed .38 into the driver.

  “Hands!” Bolan bellowed in French. “Let me see your hands!”

  The gunmen were having none of it. They tried to pile out of the car on their respective sides.

  For whatever reason, possibly from the adrenaline dump and the shock of the sudden collision, the man on Bolan’s side did not try to bring his weapon to bear at first. Instead he swung the Kalashnikov like a club. The soldier ducked and the wooden stock sailed over his head.

  Bolan rammed the man in the gut with the sole of his combat boot, employing a pistonlike front kick that had most of his body’s power behind it. The gunman slammed against the car and then collapsed to the pavement in a sitting position. The barrel of the Kalashnikov scraped along the pavement as he tried to bring it around and up to point it at the s
oldier.

  The Executioner punched the gunman in the throat with a .44 bullet. The expression on the abruptly dead man’s face was one of horror.

  Bayard stepped in and kicked his man in the nose as the gunner stumbled, but it was not enough. The ES man on the driver’s side rear was bringing his Kalashnikov up to shoot the inspector when Bolan simply reached over the rooftop of the Mercedes with the Desert Eagle. He paused, not knowing if Bayard intended to take a prisoner. He had only fractions of seconds before he would be forced to—

  “Shoot!” Bayard spit.

  Bolan shot the gunman in the face. His Kalashnikov, too, hit the pavement.

  Bayard let out a long breath. He looked down at himself, then at Bolan. Both men were spattered with blood that was not their own. The inspector’s shoulders slumped, and he leaned against the enemy vehicle for support.

  “The gunfire will bring police,” Bayard said. “If you are still here, they will take you into custody, Agent Cooper.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am fine,” Bayard said. “We will need to make other arrangements for transportation. And we will...we will have to take poor Michel and see to it that his body is properly cared for.”

  “Yeah.” Bolan nodded, feeling the muscles of his jaw twitch again. It was a brutal, sudden death. He had seen it countless times, had administered it countless times. Michel had been a petty criminal, yes. He had been mixed up with terrorists, certainly. But he had given them vital information when they needed it. Michel had served up to them the next step in the Paris campaign for justice in the elections. Michel had been doing the work of good men by serving better men than him.

  “He did not deserve to die like that,” Bayard said. “No man does. I will not leave him in the back of a car like so much refuse.”

  “Understandable. Once we’ve seen to him, there’s a lot that needs to be put in motion.” Bolan looked to the trunk and realized his assault rifle was back there. When he checked it, he discovered that the weapon had survived the collision intact. He put it on the floor behind the front seats of the Peugeot.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Take me to my rental car. It’s not far from headquarters. You can arrange for the tactical teams, and I’ll meet you on the street. We can go from there.”

  “A simple plan,” the inspector replied, “but a workable one. I will do my best to keep you out of a cell until we can see this to the end. The ES must be stopped. They must be rooted out and destroyed.”

  “My feelings exactly.”

  “Do not mock me. I am not a juggernaut. I am not like you. I am a peaceful man trying to do a difficult job. That job sometimes requires violence. I am not born to it.”

  “No one is,” Bolan said. “It shapes you. It makes you what you are, based on your choices. Your reactions to it. We all do the best we can. And I wasn’t mocking you.”

  “Very well.” Bayard sighed. “I will see to it that you have the tactical teams you require.”

  Bolan climbed back into the car. Bayard, behind the wheel, took a moment to massage the bridge of his nose, his head bowed.

  “I do not know if I can live in your world, Cooper. I do not understand how you manage it.”

  “It doesn’t get easier,” Bolan said. “But you get better at it.”

  “Iron sharpens iron,” Bayard whispered. He looked down and then started the Peugeot. Metal shrieked again as the two vehicles separated.

  Bolan turned and looked at the dead man in the backseat. There would be justice for Michel, just as there would be justice for the people of Paris.

  The Executioner would make it happen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As the briefing from the Farm had described, and per the plan and grid Bolan’s smartphone displayed, the terrorist estate was a three-story stone building. It loomed over a commercial retail area and more traditional shops and side streets backed against rows of tenement-style structures.

  The residential district was a mixture of historic Paris and new structures, representing the slow creep of more modern architecture that some Parisians believed was destroying the character of their city. If Mack Bolan spared any thought for this at all, it was to think that Paris’s architecture and suburban sprawl issues paled in comparison to the threat of terror on French soil.

  Bayard found Bolan standing at the edge of the tactical teams’ cordon. The French operatives had erected a series of emergency barriers on the streets around the perimeter of the estate. Armored vehicles and men with automatic weapons dotted the perimeter. The French teams wore navy blue BDU-style uniforms and load-bearing gear as well as European Kevlar helmets. Their weapons were FAMAS assault rifles.

  “There are already questions,” Bayard said as he approached. “I have explained that you are a military adviser. That lie explains your weaponry—” Bayard nodded to the assault rifle Bolan once again wore on his single-point sling “—but as soon as you enter the estate, the illusion will be broken. I have not yet received authorization to send men in. My superiors at the DCRI are arguing over the advisability of a dynamic entry. I take it that is what you plan to do?”

  Bolan simply looked at Bayard.

  “Yes,” said the Frenchman, his tone dry. “How silly of me to ask.”

  “Once I get things rolling,” Bolan told him, checking the contents of the canvas war bag slung over his shoulder, “you should have all the probable cause you need to enter.”

  “That is a delightful euphemism for what I am sure will be wholesale destruction. Do not get killed or there will be more embarrassing paperwork for me to fill out after I am brought up on charges for assisting you.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Inspector,” Bolan said. “Your positive attitude.”

  The Executioner left the barricades, crossed the short strip of property spanning the distance between the street and the estate, and skirted the corner of the building. There were two entrances he could try; one was an ornate, columned affair. The other was a service entrance. He made for the latter, more from long habit than tactical considerations. He was walking directly into an ES stronghold. He was bringing the fight to the enemy, which meant the initiative was his. He simply had to keep it.

  The terrorists opened up on him before he got halfway there.

  The windows flanking the side entrance were broken out by the muzzle blasts. The hollow, metallic chatter was the old familiar song of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, the most copied and prolific select-fire military weapon in the industrialized world. As Bolan lay prone, lining up the shot with his assault rifle, the enemy gunners tore up the ground before him. They were walking their shots in. He would be dead in seconds.

  He did not need that long.

  The 40 mm grenade he fired blew the door in and scattered the remaining glass in the windows. Bolan pushed to his feet and ran for the opening. He had to cover the distance before someone could draw a bead on him.

  The plan was so simple it was almost no plan, but the ES were expecting French tactical operatives if they were expecting anything at all. They were not prepared to have open warfare dropped on their doorstep.

  Open warfare was what Mack Bolan did best.

  There were two guards just inside the doorway, stunned and bloody from the grenade. They were trying to find their weapons on the debris-strewn floor. Bolan paused long enough to fire a burst into each one of them. Shell casings rattled on the floor.

  The soldier stood in a hallway that appeared to run the length of the estate’s ground floor. There were other corridors leading from it and several alcoves. A spiral staircase at the midpoint of the hallway led to the second floor. He glimpsed a wooden door in one of the alcoves that he assumed led to a lower or basement level.

  There was a beat in which nothing moved, like the pressure wave of a storm about to hit. Bolan
’s sixth sense for combat tickled the back of his brain, and he threw himself to the floor.

  The doors of the corridor flew open, almost in unison. Men in the camouflage BDUs of the ES—armed with a collection of assault rifles, pistols, submachine guns and shotguns—opened fire. Only the door saved him. Bolan scrambled for it as the wall of flying lead struck all around him. Plaster and wood cut him like shrapnel, raising bloody welts on the skin of his scalp and neck, and tearing into his left bicep, but he made it through the opening and fell roughly down a short flight of stairs.

  He barreled into a terrorist and knocked him to the floor.

  The man who broke Bolan’s fall roared in anger as the Executioner’s big frame crushed him. Bolan rolled, attempting to bring up his rifle, but when he pulled the trigger of the weapon, it did not fire. He dropped the M16 on its sling and yanked the combat dagger from its sheath on his shoulder harness.

  The blade slid into the man’s abdomen easily. Bolan wrapped the fingers of his left hand around the terrorist’s neck and pumped the knife in and out, finally twisting and pulling as he gutted the man. He felt the strength leave his opponent’s hands as the terrorist loosed his grip on Bolan’s web gear and collapsed to the floor in a quiet death.

  Bolan stood in a small chamber lit by a single bulb set in the wall.

  Above him, against the ground floor that was the ceiling of this lower chamber, he could hear the rattle of thunder that was dozens of automatic weapons going off at once. A single bullet penetrated the door, which he had pulled shut as he fell. A second bullet followed the first. Then a third struck very near Bolan’s knee.

  Through a nearby closed and very heavy wooden door, Bolan heard a man tell someone that the building was under attack.

  Bolan fired a kick into the door, smashing it open, shattering the jamb and the lock mechanism with the force of the blow. He lowered his shoulder and pushed through the doorway, planting the blade of the knife in the face of the ES terrorist on the other side.