Nightmare Army

by Don Pendleton

  “Well, you got it—too bad you had to shoot him,” Bellamy replied. “He would have been an excellent source of information on what he saw during his time in the Congo.”

  “You’ve got Lieutenant Briggs’s and my interviews on that, not to mention Richter himself—it should be more than enough,” Bolan said. “By the way, how’s working with him going?”

  Bellamy adjusted his glasses. “Amazingly well, actually. He’s been classified as a high-functioning sociopath, but he’s really been quite easy to work with—” he frowned slightly “—that is, as long as you’re addressing his favorite subject, scientific research on the human body. Any attempt to change the subject induces an unresponsive state. I’m bringing in the best psychologist from the U.S. to consult. We’ll be studying him for years.”

  “And the virus?”

  “The pure samples Lieutenant Briggs brought back have been a godsend in creating a vaccine for this particular strain,” Bellamy said. “All of European law enforcement and hospitals are on the lookout for outbreaks matching the symptoms we’ve described, just in case. We’re calling it variant of the rabies virus that should be quarantined immediately if found.”

  “Of course,” Bolan said.

  “The lieutenant has been working on learning everything about the virus almost nonstop since she arrived here,” the doctor continued. “She’s immersed in researching why it had little effect on her, and she thinks it heralds a major medical breakthrough for transmitting beneficial material to targeted genotypes. No doubt she will want a good quantity of your blood to investigate why the virus had little effect on you after the second injection.”

  “I’ll give her what she needs. What about the others?”

  “The two medical students are heading back to London with letters of recommendation from the ECDPC for their bravery, as well as official invitations to return to for a paid internship next summer. It is my hope that we will be able to hire one or both of them after graduating. The little boy has been put in foster care, but his social worker tells us she’s already connected with a potential adoptive family. As for the young lady, we are getting her settled in Stockholm, and she has already expressed an interest in medicine. I’m working with her on evaluation of her intelligence and education to see how best we can help her.” He cleared his throat. “After everything she’s done for you and Europe, I think it’s the least we can do.”

  “Damn right. I think your boys have this well in hand.” Bolan turned to leave.

  “So, you’re heading back to the States, then?” Bellamy asked as he fell into step beside him. “After all, since Stengrave doesn’t know he’s been compromised, the Stockholm police will be moving to arrest him tomorrow.”

  “I know,” Bolan replied. Which was why he intended to pay him a visit this night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Twelve hours later Bolan stood in the open side entrance of the Dragonslayer as Jack Grimaldi maneuvered into a place high above a very Gothic, medieval-looking castle at the head of a narrow inlet of water that joined with the Gulf of Bothnia two kilometers away. The night was overcast, with hardly any wind, and the black helicopter was just another shadow hovering at 3,000 meters over the white, stone building.

  “You sure you want to do this alone, Striker?” Grimaldi asked. “Just say the word and I can soften up the defenses with a couple passes first.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a better chance of catching him off guard if I go solo,” Bolan replied. “How’s that roof grid hack coming?”

  “Ready when you are, Striker,” Kurtzman’s voice said in his ear.

  “All right.” Grimaldi made a few adjustments to the controls, placing the combat chopper right where he wanted it. “We’re at the drop zone. You are green for insertion—now. Good luck.”

  “Beginning insertion on my mark. Three, two, one, mark,” Bolan said as he stepped out into the cold night air. Although he was more than a mile above ground, his increasing velocity ensured that he would hit the ground about thirty seconds after he started falling.

  The main hall of the castle, a large, cube-shaped structure, quickly loomed large in his night-vision goggles. Bolan maintained the classic skydiving free-fall position—arms outspread, legs bent at the knees—as he rushed toward it. After twelve seconds, he pulled the ripcord on his parachute. The square ram-air chute opened above him with a jerk, slowing his speed from more than one hundred miles an hour to just over fifteen.

  Coming up on the roof of the building, Bolan pulled on his toggles both to slow down and correct his course. Unlike the start of his misadventure in Armenia, this insertion was going off without a hitch so far. Right about now, Kurtzman would be circumventing the rooftop laser-grid motion detector system by turning it off and running a dummy program that would make the security system seem still operational to any observer. All of the roof cameras had also been hacked and fed a broadcast loop that made it look as though the surface was empty, as well.

  Bolan hit the graveled roof without a problem and pulled the chute around him to minimize being seen.

  The castle was oddly quiet and dark around him. Even the floodlights on the lawn, normally illuminating certain architectural features, were off. However, Stony Man’s intelligence said that Kristian Stengrave had arrived twenty hours ago and had not left since. Bolan intended to go through as many guards as necessary to find the man.

  “I’m onsite. No guards detected,” he whispered into his throat mike. “Unusual.”

  “Roger that, Striker,” Kurtzman said. “Be advised that we are not picking up any guard activity on the grounds. Maybe target has pulled them all around him for additional security.”

  “Maybe. I’m going in to find out. Striker out.” Stepping out of his harness and pack, Bolan stashed his parachute in the bag and stowed it around the corner from the doorway into the castle.

  The access door was a stout steel model, set into a correspondingly tough metal frame. The soldier scanned it for an electronic signature that would indicate any sort of contact alarm that would go off the moment the door was opened. But he didn’t pick up anything. Setting to work with his pick gun, he forced the tumblers into place and had the door open in under a minute. Standing to one side, silenced HK MP-7 at the ready, he opened the door.

  Nothing. No lights burst on to blind him, no one charged out to attack him, no bullets flew up at him. The stairway was as silent as a tomb.

  Still, Bolan ducked his head in to get a quick visual on the space before beginning his infiltration. The night vision turned the landing and staircase into lambent green day, highlighting the lack of opposition. He took the stairs one step at a time, every sense alert for a trap, but reached the bottom with no difficulty. “Stony Man, this is Striker,” he whispered. “Have reached main level. Still no opposition. Heading to main hall.”

  “Roger that, Striker. Still no alarms sounded and still no guard activity detected. Maybe he somehow found out you were coming and offed himself?” Kurtzman suggested in a moment of levity.

  “We could only be that lucky,” Bolan replied. “Will be in touch.”

  “We’re with you.”

  According to the building plans, the roof access opened to an upper maintenance hallway running the entire length of the main hall. The door at the bottom of the stairs did indeed open into a bare hallway. Bolan advanced carefully, finger on the trigger, ready for the door at the far end to burst open with each step. He reached it, and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. Before opening it, he scanned this one for any e-signature, as well, but it wasn’t wired. Slowly, carefully, he turned the knob and slipped through.

  The next room was small, with a closed trapdoor in the middle. Bolan knew it would lead to a walkway that ringed the main hall—exactly where he wanted to be. A scan of the hatch revealed that it was also unwired. Standing to one side, Bola
n pulled it open.

  This time he could hear faint noises from the other side—what sounded like a crackling fire. Bolan paused for a minute, straining to pick up anything else. Then he pulled a camera unit similar to the one Grimaldi had used in the Congo, and stuck the fiber-optic end down to get a look inside.

  The hall was cavernous, about the size of a small gymnasium. It was decorated in an odd combination of medieval ornamentation—pennants and woven tapestries on the stone walls, full suits of armor lined up in two rows down the middle, mounted animal heads above all that—and smooth, angular Swedish furniture. What really caught Bolan’s attention was the slumped figure sitting in front of a fireplace at least as tall as he was on the far side of the hall. The man sat perpendicular to the roaring blaze, the long, distorted shadow of his body flickering in the bright red-orange light.

  “Have visual on target. Going in.” Stowing the camera, Bolan slung his weapon before switching off his goggles and pushing them up on his head. Then he silently descended the ladder and stepped out onto the walkway ringing the hall.

  Keeping his eyes on the figure in the chair, he took out a 60-foot length of climbing rope, tied it off at the ladder, then at the railing, and slowly, quietly, climbed over. The figure in the chair didn’t stir. Bolan descended hand-over-hand to the floor, dividing his attention between the man in the chair and the huge double doors at the other end of the room. The figure didn’t move. Unslinging his submachine gun, Bolan crept behind the left row of armored figures and moved in on the man at the fireplace.

  Something was wrong. While Bolan knew he made little noise, the man should have heard something. He moved forward quickly. From several yards away he could make out the blank expression of a mannequin. “I must confess I am a bit surprised that someone so skilled could be fooled so easily.” The toneless voice came from several small speakers mounted around the room, slightly echoing throughout the large space. Bolan looked all around, but there was still no movement anywhere in the room.

  “Kristian Stengrave,” Bolan said loudly. “You know I’m here about the virus.”

  A deep chuckle was the only reply for a few moments and then the unseen speaker fell silent. “You are here to defeat me. That is what I know.”

  Bolan stepped away from the mannequin and the chair, heading for the center of the room. “Yeah, I’m here to defeat you.”

  “Splendid!” Now the voice was positively cheerful. “I knew it from the moment I saw you moving in the observation room. You are a true warrior, come to test my own abilities—”

  “I’m here to take down a cowardly psychopath who tries to destroy what he fears most,” Bolan said.

  “Think what you will of my methods, they were the only way to save my country, our way of life—”

  “By killing tens of thousands of innocent people?” Bolan asked. “That’s genocide.”

  “It is righteous if performed for the correct reason!” Stengrave replied. “The saving of one’s culture, one’s race, so it doesn’t become lost to history, washed away by a flood of refugees who just take and take, and do not give, do not add anything to their new home, their new country. It cannot—it must not be tolerated any longer!”

  “That’s not up to you to decide,” Bolan said. “And it doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve failed in your mission, Stengrave, so you might as well give yourself up. If I have to come and find you, I won’t be happy about it.”

  “Oh, I am closer than you think. In fact, I am right here in this very room.”

  Bolan’s brow furrowed as he looked around. There weren’t many places to hide...or were there? He walked to the beginning of the double rows of armor and spotted a rack of weapons in the middle of the aisle.

  “You’re in one of these suits?”

  “Very good. Your challenge is to identify which one. If you choose correctly, I will surrender. But if you choose incorrectly, then we will fight, and may the better man win.”

  “I don’t play games.”

  “On the contrary, I would think the warrior in you would revel in it,” Stengrave replied. “Too long have I been denied the pleasure of pitting myself against a worthy foe. Now, however, it would seem that my wish has been granted.”

  “Well, prepare yourself for disappointment.” Bolan turned to the nearest armor, an intricately engraved suit of black steel. “I’m doing this my way.” He raised his MP-7 and sent a single bullet into the helmet of the suit. The 4.6 mm copper-plated, steel-cored bullet lanced through the front and back of the metal, knocking the helmet off and revealing a holed mannequin head underneath.

  “What are you doing?” Stengrave asked as Bolan turned and shot the suit of armor across from him. This one, too, had a dummy inside.

  “What does it look like?” Bolan asked. “I’m going to put a bullet into each of these suits until I find the one that bleeds. Then I can leave.”

  “You can’t! That is not the tactic of an honorable warrior.”

  “You destroyed any semblance of honor you ever had by making undeclared war on women and children!” Bolan said as he shot two more suits of armor, going back and forth down the row. “Honor? You don’t even deserve to say the word, Stengrave!”

  “No!” The protest was a deafening shriek. Bolan kept at his task, taking out two more dummy suits of armor. He was turning around shoot another when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Whirling, he brought the submachine gun around as a full suit of armor flew at him.

  Bolan triggered a burst instinctively, but the bullets didn’t stop the thirty-five-kilogram metal missile. One arm fell off as it sailed through the air, but the torso and legs smashed into Bolan before he could move. Although he was braced for impact, the suit slammed into him, forcing him backward, into another steel-clad mannequin. Caught off guard, he went down, dropping his weapon in an effort to break his fall as the armor landed on top of him.

  “You do not tell me what a warrior is!” Stengrave tore off his helmet and shouted as he stalked forward, barely pausing to grab two broadswords from the rack and pull them both out as he passed.

  Shaken by the fall, Bolan shoved the breastplate off him. Standing, he reached for the SIG-Sauer in the holster on his leg. He drew it just as Stengrave lunged forward and swung his blade.

  “No!”

  Bolan was sure he had pulled the trigger, but Stengrave had managed to swat the weapon out of his hand with the flat of the sword. His hand stung, and he thought the blow might have broken at least one finger. Stengrave tossed the other broadsword at his feet. “Pick it up.”

  Bolan looked around for his gun, but it was out of reach.

  Stengrave stepped closer and pointed the tip of his blade at Bolan. “Pick it up. I will not tell you again.”

  Bolan reached for the sword, which was definitely not a practice weapon as its edge looked razor-sharp. Testing its heft and balance, he found it to be excellently crafted. “An armored warrior doesn’t give himself an advantage by facing an unarmored foe.”

  “Shut up and fight,” Stengrave said as he began circling his opponent. Bolan began moving, too, trying to gain every second he could to evaluate his foe. Stengrave was tall—a few inches taller than Bolan’s six-three—and in tremendous physical shape, as he didn’t even seem to be bothered by the clanking, creaking armor he wore. He held the sword loosely in one hand, as easily as a child might wield a wooden sword, and Bolan wasn’t about to underestimate him. He could tell by the way Stengrave moved that he knew how to use it.

  Bolan tried a feint at his head, but the larger man didn’t fall for it. His counterattack came immediately, a swift overhead chop at Bolan’s forehead, which he barely got his sword up to block. The impact rang both blades and sent tremors up Bolan’s arms, making his injured hand go completely numb.

  Stengrave followed up with a swing from the shoulder that would h
ave cleaved through Bolan’s skull if it had connected. He ducked that one and retreated down the hall, trying to ward off the relentless powerful blows of the white-haired warrior. Although he was able to parry most of them, each clash of blades took more out of him. By the time he reached the end of the hall, the sword felt as though it weighed a hundred pounds in his aching hands.

  Stengrave stopped before Bolan hit the back wall and regarded him with a slow shake of his head. “You are no warrior. You are a soft, weak pathetic thing, relying on your guns and technology to save you.” He stepped back and spread his arms wide. “Come at me.”

  Bolan raising his sword, trying to figure out where he could strike the tall man that would count and thinking, He’ll expect me to go for the head.

  “Come at me in the next three seconds or I’ll gut you where you stand,” Stengrave commanded.

  Bolan sucked in a breath and charged, ready for the man to bring his sword around to try to stab him. At the last second he spun to the side and hacked down on the man’s left arm with all of his strength. The heavy blade smashed on the steel vambrace with a loud clank. Bolan heard the stifled grunt of pain as he pushed past.

  “Ha! You have some surprises left in you yet!” Stengrave said.

  Bolan turned to face him, sword out, and saw his opponent draw his left arm in to his side and hold it there.

  While his left hand dipped into the pocket on his fatigue pants, Bolan raised his sword. “Let’s finish this.”

  “With pleasure,” Stengrave said, stalking forward.

  Finding what he was looking for in his pocket, Bolan withdrew his hand as he charged at the other man again, his main goal to ensure that Stengrave didn’t chop him in two. He kept his sword out and up across his body, trying to protect as much of himself as he could.

  Steel rang on steel. Stengrave attacked Bolan’s blade first, beating it out of the way with a ferocious cross-body sweep. But as his blade was hit, Bolan let it go. Already committed to the maneuver, Stengrave overbalanced for just a moment. He began to recover, but not quickly enough.