Terror Ballot

by Don Pendleton

  “Flagel gave his life so that I could escape,” Bayard said. “The DCRI knew where you were, just as the gangs knew. Vigneau rightly assumed that I would try to help you when I learned of his plans to have you, as you would say, ‘taken out.’ He sent DCRI agents loyal to him, men who I assume are being paid by him, to intercept us on the way to you. Musson was killed outright. He did not believe Vigneau or our fellow agents could be capable of this. And Flagel was a better man than I knew him to be. He stood between the DCRI and me. That is why I am here.”

  “And the taxi?”

  “I stole it off the street,” Bayard said. “I could not bring myself to acquire a private car. The taxicab is at least a fleet vehicle, insured for theft. It seemed the least of the possible evils.”

  “You’re all heart, Inspector.”

  “So what is your plan?”

  “What makes you think I have one?”

  “If you do not, then we die.”

  “I need weapons,” Bolan told him. “The AR back there might do, but we have no ammunition for it.”

  “I have my revolver.”

  “A single .38 Special won’t get us very far. I was here looking to shop for some heavy artillery.”

  Bayard nodded. “I see. You are looking for an arms dealer. And he can be found in a place much like this but at the other end of the enclave.”

  “You know who I’m looking for?”

  “I do,” Bayard said. “He is called Levi on the street. A very ugly fellow.”

  “Tough customer, eh?”

  “That, too. But I mean this as I said it. He is quite horribly ugly. Disfigured by some childhood ailment. His face is deeply pocked and scarred, and he is blind in one eye from it. But Levi can get anything you require.”

  “Then let’s move,” Bolan suggested. “I don’t want to be a static target if we can help it.”

  They drove in silence for a time. Bayard, who knew the enclave well, guided them skillfully along poorly maintained streets and through the narrowest of alleys. He explained as he went that he was avoiding those thoroughfares most likely to have Red Spiders gunmen stationed on them. This task was complicated by the fact that the new gang was not following all the old patterns of the two gangs that had been absorbed to create it.

  “These Red Spiders,” Bolan said. “Who’s leading them? What’s the new head of the snake?”

  “You think you will chop this off and all will be well, yes?” Bayard asked. “How do you think the new gang came to be so quickly? The Red Spiders movement has been here for a long time. ‘Red’ in this case does not come from the Red Death. They are Communists, true believers in the paths of Marxism and government by all.”

  “A Communist movement from within the gangs?”

  “Yes. When you dealt your damage to their power structure, it allowed the movement behind the scenes to come out, to seize power. There were Red Spiders sympathizers in both gangs. Killing those villains brought this about. It is neither better nor worse. It is not as if you have done harm.

  “There are no central leaders in the Red Spiders. Each component of the gang is like an independent terrorist cell. They have limited information of each other except for the couriers and prepaid cell phones they use to communicate among the gang members. This is why they identify themselves by symbol and color publicly. It is as much for their fellow members as for any other—”

  “Stop the car,” Bolan ordered.

  Bolan stepped out of the taxicab.

  “Where are you going?” Bayard asked.

  “Hang on.” Bolan entered the small market, not unlike a bodega back in the States, and found what he was looking for. When he returned to the car, he was carrying a pair of red bandannas and a can of red spray paint.

  “Put this on,” he said to Bayard, handing the inspector one of the squares of cloth. Bayard leaned out his open window as Bolan began hastily spray-painting the door. It was a messy job, but at a distance, it would make the taxi look like one of the Red Spiders vehicles. The taxi sign wouldn’t give them away from a certain distance.

  “Let us hope we do not run into a gang task force,” Bayard said with a straight face.

  Bolan looked at him through the open driver’s window. “Seriously?”

  Bayard’s mouth split in a toothy grin. “Aha. I had you fooled, Cooper. I did not think you were so gullible.”

  “Being a fugitive agrees with you, Inspector.”

  As they pulled away, Bayard began nodding. “You are right. I hate to admit it, but I have not felt this young in a long time. Up close, even at a distance, we will never pass for members of the gang, you know.”

  “That’s not the point,” Bolan replied. “The point is to prevent them from unloading on us the moment they see us. This camouflage job may help us do that. Get us across the enclave and to your very ugly arms dealer.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I’m taking the fight to Gaston,” Bolan explained.

  Bayard looked aghast. “But you cannot mean to harm a national—”

  “It’s not what you think,” Bolan said, interrupting. “It’s actually worse.” He removed the hard drive from his jacket. “I need to get this out of the country. It contains proof that Gaston, not Deparmond, is in league with ES. The video evidence implicating Deparmond is a hoax. And it was the ES, led by Levesque, who murdered Deparmond.”

  As they drove, Bolan filled Bayard in on the details. It took a while. They saw two Red Spiders–tagged vehicles but were not stopped or harassed. Either the camouflage was working or they were lucky. The travel was slow going, as roads in the enclave were poorly maintained and often blocked by debris or other vehicles.

  When those vehicles were still mobile they were double-and triple-parked, blocking off entire sections of the town. Within the impromptu squares thus delineated, everything from hanging laundry to sleeping babies in improvised cribs were visible.

  The sight of children reminded Bolan just how many innocent lives were at stake. He could not rid Paris of crimes or gangs or corruption. That was simply impossible, as the population naturally and inexorably produced predators with each generation. What he could do, however, was smash the power structures that propped up those predators, as he had done with Roelle, and as he was planning to do now.

  Brognola wouldn’t like it. Once Bolan had a chance to explain the situation, to get the data out of the country, to see to it that Gaston’s reputation was ruined, the fact that Bolan had removed Gaston from the picture would be something Brognola and the Man could live with.

  After all, the goal of sending Bolan in was to help ensure a French government that was agreeable to domestic interests and was not run by a xenophobic, terrorist-sympathetic madman. But in the past, Bolan had figured in the collapse of more than one foreign power. He knew that it made Wonderland nervous. This wasn’t just because of the stability issues that were always created when one dictator or another fell out of power.

  No. Deep down, no politician no matter how good his intentions was entirely comfortable with the idea of an armed insurrection destroying the status quo. It was just a little too close to the mark, and Bolan could respect that.

  Not that he would hesitate to wipe Gaston off the map of France.

  “Merde,” Bayard said.

  “What is it?” Bolan asked. Then he, too, saw what Bayard had noticed, far up ahead. Police vehicles blocking the road.

  “We can’t face them down,” Bolan told him. “I’m not going to draw on French police.”

  “I would lose all faith in you if you did. But those sedans there, parked next to the police vehicles. Those are DCRI, I would bet my life. Unmarked, but I recognize them. We have few enough vehicles at our disposal.”

  “Better take a side street,” Bolan directed. “Try to move casually.”
>
  “Too late.” Bayard pointed to the rearview mirror. Bolan looked back. Two more dark sedans, which the soldier assumed were also DCRI in pursuit, were coming up from behind. As if to verify his suspicions, the drivers of the rear cars placed magnetic lights on their roofs. The colored lights came to life.

  “They mean to arrest us,” Bayard stated.

  “We can’t let them.”

  “No, we cannot, Agent Cooper,” Bayard said, stomping the accelerator.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The taxicab plunged straight for the barricades. It took the police and the DCRI men—who Bolan assumed were either unaware of the facts or bought and paid for by Vigneau—a moment to react. When they did, their weapons came out.

  “Down!” Bolan ordered.

  They managed to crouch behind the dash as bullets perforated the windshields fore and aft. They were now caught in a cross fire between the barricade at the front and the DCRI men behind them...and they could not shoot back, not without killing law enforcement officers.

  Bayard cut it close. He slammed on the brakes so hard that Bolan thought the discs would crack. The taxicab laid down so much rubber that the cloying, burning smell was thick inside the vehicle. The nose of the taxi stopped short of the barricade, scattering the men gathered there. They dived to the ground on either side in anticipation of the spectacular collision that never occurred.

  “Back now, back, back,” Bolan urged. Bayard was well ahead of him. With one arm hooked over the seats, looking over his shoulder and again flooring the car, he swung the wheel wide as he pushed the taxi in Reverse. Something in the front wheel on the passenger side began scraping loudly against the wheel well. At this rate their ride wasn’t going to last them for long, Bolan thought.

  The vehicle rolled back and around, side-swiping the grilles of the DCRI vehicles, drawing more fire from the men stationed there. Bayard simply kept his foot on the gas, causing the taxi to leap and buck. Something heavy and metallic began to bang against the undercarriage of the car. Bolan assumed it was something important that had broken loose in all the collisions.

  “Brace yourself, Cooper,” Bayard said.

  The taxicab, now pointing in the opposite direction, smashed between the DCRI cars in a shriek of metal, glass and tortured plastic. Bolan risked a look back through what was left of the taxi’s rear windshield and saw several side-mounted rearview mirrors lying in the street in a pool of broken safety glass. The scene rapidly diminished as Bayard urged the battered taxi down the road. He began taking side streets and other random turns in order to lose any pursuit that might be mounted from the roadblock.

  “We will need to work our way around,” Bayard said. “Like a sailboat tacking into the wind. The DCRI has taken the rare step of mounting roadblocks in the enclave, probably with permission and bribe money spread around to and from the Red Spiders. I could not tell you in which direction the money goes, but possibly Vigneau is again using the promise of a reward to gain the Red Spiders’ cooperation in hunting us down.”

  “Is there any chance they’re still tracking us?”

  “I have my wireless,” Bayard said. “I had better discard it.”

  “Not a bad idea.” Bolan took the phone from Bayard, pulled the battery and tossed both phone and battery out the window.

  They went a few more blocks. Bayard turned seemingly at random but insisted that he knew precisely where he was going. Bolan saw no reason not to believe him. Eventually they came to a section of street where another Red Spiders vehicle was parked. This one was a Toyota Camry. Bayard parked behind it.

  “A step down from some of the cars we’ve seen so far,” Bolan commented.

  “We all make do in these difficult times,” Bayard said. Bolan shot him a look. He wasn’t certain if Bayard was making a joke or simply offering a deadpan observation.

  The structure in front of which the car was parked looked like a three-level block of flats. Club-style music pumped from it, causing the panes in the windows to vibrate. Bolan glanced at his watch. It was a little early in the morning for that sort of thing, unless the partyers inside had been at it all night. If that was the case, it was a little late.

  “Feel like crashing a party?” Bolan asked. He looked at the Toyota and then back at their taxicab. “I think I’d feel better traveling the enclave in their car over ours. Wouldn’t you?”

  “We have only my .38,” Bayard pointed out. “Do we dare beard them in their den?”

  “There’s an old saying. ‘If you’ve got a knife, you can get a pistol. If you can get a pistol, you can get a rifle.’” Bolan climbed out of the car. “Pop the trunk.”

  “The switch is broken.”

  Bolan tapped at the trunk experimentally. He tried pulling at it with his fingers. Finally he chose a spot and hammered it with his fist.

  The trunk popped open.

  Bayard opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and took out his revolver to check its loads. Bolan, meanwhile, took a tire iron from the trunk of the car.

  “Let’s do this,” the soldier said.

  “Let us do this,” Bayard agreed. The two men took up positions on either side of the door to the flat.

  “I’ll make an outlaw of you yet, Inspector,” Bolan said.

  “As if you have not already.” Bayard held his revolver low, in a two-handed grip, ready to breach the door. It was only in the movies and on television that men prepared to breach doorways with their guns held by their ears.

  Bolan rapped on the door with his tire iron.

  “Who is it?” a voice called in French. “What do you want?”

  “Housekeeping,” Bolan said. He motioned for Bayard to back away slightly from the door. With one hand he made an exploding gesture.

  “Boom,” he mouthed to Bayard.

  The oh-so-predictable burst of automatic gunfire that ripped through the door almost made Bolan smile. He did not stand in front of doorways after knocking on them. It was good to know that some habits paid off.

  “You knew that was going to happen,” Bayard said. “Tell me you did not.”

  “It’s kind of a running joke,” Bolan said, over the sound of the rounds ripping through the door. “Wait for it...”

  Bayard nodded.

  The lull, when it came, was spaced correctly to be the emptying of a magazine. Bolan knew there was a calculated risk involved, but everything they were doing now was fraught with risk. They would have to be bold if they were going to carry the day. He kicked in the splintered door and dived low with his tire iron, allowing Bayard to go in high.

  The .38 barked once, then again, dropping a man who was struggling to reload a cut-down Kalashnikov with a folding stock. Bolan had time to move to the adjoining doorway, which connected to a small kitchen area and a hallway, before another man holding a 1911-pattern pistol came rushing through.

  Bolan rapped him in the face with the tire iron, dropping him in his tracks.

  There was screaming from a room at the end of the corridor past the kitchen. That would be the living area, and it was from here that the party music was loudest.

  “Do you hear that?” Bayard asked.

  Bolan made a face. “Yeah, I do, oddly enough. ‘Soul Finger,’ by the Bar-Kays. There’s no accounting for taste.”

  “Not the music, smart guy. A whirring, mechanical sound.”

  The soldier turned to look back the way they’d come. A device mounted above the door caught his eye. It was connected to a mechanism of moving gears, all of this connected to a trigger cord of some kind that had been wired to the door.

  “Down!” Bolan shouted. He threw himself across the room and tackled Bayard.

  The explosion that followed shook dust from the ceiling and set off a series of alarms from outside, probably car and security systems on a
djacent blocks. The explosive package above the doorway had apparently been a shaped charge. The wall, and even the doorway itself, was largely untouched.

  The entryway room, by contrast, had been shredded.

  The explosive was an improvised device packed with nails and screws. Bolan rose slowly, helping Bayard to his feet, and looked around, assessing the danger and searching for new targets. Bayard still had his revolver in his hand, but he was looking closely at the wall near him. Embedded in its surface were hundreds of wood screws and roofing nails.

  “A vicious device,” he said finally.

  “That door charge was on a delay,” Bolan stated. “That’s what the gearing mechanism was for. It’s totally mechanical, independent of any power source. Probably had a mechanical trigger, too. Maybe something as simple as the strike wheel from a butane lighter. Something flammable to touch off the main charge.”

  “The police break down the door,” Bayard said. “And after they do, naturally they assess the situation, perhaps cuff suspects. And then this explodes and kills them.”

  “Or leaves them maimed for life.” Bolan reached down and picked up a twisted piece of metal shaped like a cooking pot. “This was a pressure container. The Boston bombers in the United States used something similar. Only the lowest sort of scum use sharp shrapnel like this. They load up the bombs with anything they can find that fits the description, knowing these pieces of hardware will rip through the air and tear up anybody who stands in the way.”

  “Do you think there is a link to terrorism here?” Bayard asked.

  “No. Just like minds. Predators are predators, and they don’t care who gets killed.” He gestured. The man with the 1911, whom Bolan had laid out with the tire iron, had apparently come to and stood just about the time Bolan was tackling Bayard. That man was riddled with shrapnel. Half a dozen wood screws jutted from his forehead. Blood was everywhere, and with it the coppery smell of death.

  In the far corner of the room, the man Bayard had shot was slumped over, his corpse desecrated by the bomb. Bayard tucked his revolver in his waistband and picked up the Krinkov-style AK-47 assault rifle the gang member had used. He found an extra magazine on the dead man and swapped out the one already in the gun, which was nearly empty.