Arctic Kill

by Don Pendleton

  The safe house—located in the Chisholm Trailer Park—was one of several Bolan had scattered over the state of Nevada. During his war against the Mafia, Bolan had been to Nevada more than once, hunting his prey through the neon jungles of Las Vegas and Reno. Bolan didn’t use this safe house much these days. It was registered under the name of Frank LaMancha, an old alias he used when posing as a Black Ace.

  The mobile home was a Spartan affair—a rumpled bed, an unplugged fridge and, of course, the armory. After closing the door and pulling the blinds, he carefully moved the bed aside, folded up the carpet and opened the hidden hatch built into the floor. Inside was his gear from an earlier operation. Fatigues, a second set of body armor, web gear, the UMP and spare ammunition, his combat knife and a backup pistol. He extracted the Desert Eagle and checked the magazine. He wasn’t happy about losing the Beretta, but the motel was likely already a crime scene. It would end up in an evidence locker somewhere, unclaimed and forgotten. He could get another easily enough, but like all craftsmen, Bolan hated to lose a proven tool.

  In truth, however, he preferred the Desert Eagle. For sheer stopping power, that particular gas-operated, semi-automatic pistol was hard to beat. It could quickly be converted to fire a wide range of ammunition, from .44 to .357 Magnum calibers.

  He put the pistol aside and set about peeling off his stinking clothes. He grimaced as he took off the light armored vest he’d been wearing beneath his thrift store secondhands. The material had been scraped from the metal and the vest looked like it had lost a fight with a bobcat. He tossed it into the hatch and went to take a shower. Bolan spent longer under the thin spray of lukewarm water than he’d intended. The water stung the abrasions that marked his body, making him wince. But the pain helped him to organize his thoughts. The Executioner’s ability to observe and recall, even without consciously intending to do so, was second to none.

  The kidnappers’ weapons had been store bought. That meant they weren’t working for the government, under contract or otherwise. Professionals picked up weapons wherever their target was, usually from a previously established contact. The clothes had been newly purchased, as well. They were off-the-rack—from a department store.

  Everything about the men he’d fought screamed disposable—their clothes, weapons and transportation; all of it was cheap and easy to replace. Even their lives. The German had willingly sacrificed himself so that the Nebraskan—Sparrow—could escape with Ackroyd. That spoke to either personal loyalty or fanaticism. What had the German yelled as he’d attacked? Vril-YA... What did that mean? The phrase was somehow familiar.

  He stepped out of the shower, dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. Then, sitting on the edge of his bed, he used his satellite phone to make contact with Stony Man Farm.

  Brognola answered after the first ring. Bolan smiled slightly, imagining the big Fed fretting near the phone. “Striker—what the hell happened?” Brognola asked. “It’s all over the local news—the shoot-out, the SUV, all of it.”

  “I got careless,” Bolan said and his smile faded. That wasn’t strictly true, but he saw little reason to sugarcoat the failure.

  Brognola snorted. “Bull. They just got lucky. It happens to the best of us, once in a while. What about Ackroyd?”

  “They got him. Well—he got him. There was only one kidnapper left. We went for a bit of a drive and then I went for a quick swim. I don’t think they’re planning to kill him, though. Not after what they went through to get him,” Bolan said. He bent and picked up the license tag. “I have something that might be of use.” He rattled off the plate number. “I got it off the SUV they were using. It’s probably a rental, or stolen, but I’m betting on the former. I’m also betting that address is wherever they’re forting up. If you can find an address...”

  “I can do better than that,” Brognola said. “I can pinpoint where they are and send backup. Lyons and Able Team—”

  “No time for that,” Bolan said. “Just get me that address. I’ll handle it from there.”

  “Striker—”

  “Address,” Bolan said, cutting him short. “You dealt me in, don’t complain about how I play my hand. If I need help, I’ll call. You know that.”

  “I know, Striker.” Brognola sounded tired. “Address in ten.”

  “While we’re waiting, let me talk to Aaron,” Bolan said. Aaron Kurtzman was Stony Man’s burly computer expert. Brognola did as Bolan requested.

  “Striker, you’re missing one excellent pot of coffee today,” Kurtzman said, and the phone vibrated with the sound of his subsequent slurp. Bolan winced at the thought of Kurtzman’s particular concept of coffee. Swill was a more accurate term, in Bolan’s opinion. It was a gut check to even get past the first mouthful.

  “Sounds heavenly,” Bolan said. “Have you ever heard the phrase Vril-YA before?”

  “Vril-YA, huh,” Kurtzman said, sounding amused. “Bulwer-Lytton replaced Cervantes as your favorite wordslinger?”

  “Bulwer-Lytton,” Bolan said. Suddenly, it clicked. “Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I knew I’d heard that somewhere before.” An English author, Bulwer-Lytton had written a novel called The Coming Race, in 1871. The book was about a subterranean master race and their deadly energy weapon and had been one of the most badly written pieces of tripe Bolan had ever laid eyes on. “I need you to cross-reference that book with any sort of organization. Specifically ones that might want to kidnap a man like E. E. Ackroyd.”

  “Seriously?” Kurtzman asked, his tone edged with disbelief.

  “Have you ever known me not to be serious?” Bolan asked.

  Brognola came back on the line. It had taken him less than ten minutes to roust his contacts for the address tied to the license plate. As Bolan had suspected, it was a rental. “We’re back-tracing the credit card that was used to rent it,” Brognola said. “It’s probably a fraudulent account, but we’ll put a trace on it, just in case they use it again.” He gave Bolan the address and added, “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for backup? According to the Reno PD, your playmate used that SUV to bull through a barricade. He nearly ran down several officers and ditched it in a parking garage.”

  “Someone picked him up,” Bolan said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Which means it wasn’t just those three,” Brognola said. “You’re looking at multiple hostiles who’ve already shown they don’t particularly care about starting a public ruckus.”

  “Then the sooner they’re taken off the board, the better,” Bolan said firmly.

  Brognola sighed. “Be careful, Striker.”

  “Always am,” Bolan said and hung up.

  Satisfied, he tossed the phone onto the bed. Then, without hurry, he began to dress for the battle to come.

  Chapter 4

  Sparrow stared at the phone as if it were a snake preparing to strike. He gnawed his bottom lip. Mervin wasn’t going to like hearing that his meticulously crafted plans had fallen through. At least Kraft was safely in Anchorage with the psychotic little android and not anywhere close enough to wring Sparrow’s neck.

  To say that things had not gone well was an understatement. No one should have known about Ackroyd, save themselves. But someone had been there, and that someone had made quite an impression. Indeed, thanks to the nameless antagonist’s interference, Sparrow had almost been caught by the Reno police before he’d managed to abandon the SUV and meet with the others. He hoped that their unknown attacker—Ackroyd had sworn he didn’t recognize the man—was now just a greasy spot on the street.

  Luckily, the license tag for the SUV had vanished during the chase. That meant they had some time before the police tracked the vehicle to the rental agency and then traced the credit card they’d used. The card would lead the authorities back here—to the SunCo warehouse they were using as a base—and to the company itself, one of a dozen Society front
s in the greater United States.

  Mervin had assured Sparrow that even if the authorities discovered the credit card and the identities attached to it, they could always burn the warehouse. To Mervin’s way of thinking, most things could be solved by the proper application of bullets and/or gasoline. He was a straight-ahead thinker, Mervin.

  It was all about speed with him, a speed and precision that escaped most of the soldiers the Society employed. Mervin was inhuman, and so was Kraft, come to think of it, but those who followed Mervin’s orders were only too mortal, Sparrow reflected sourly, and he included himself in that estimation.

  Sparrow had joined the Society of Thylea as a young man. His father had been a member, and his father’s father. It was a tradition, and a good one, since the Society offered more than any church or political movement. It wasn’t just talk. The Society was determined to bring back the age of titans, free of the shackles imposed by lesser, weaker races.

  Sparrow deeply, desperately wanted to be a hero. And he would be, if they succeeded. He and the others would be the heroes of a new age, venerated and immortalized in song and film. He comforted himself with the thought of what was to come.

  “It’s not going to get better, the longer you hesitate,” Alexi said, leaning against the office door. “Just call him.”

  Sparrow looked at Alexi and frowned. The big Russian was a bottle blond, with a face like a mattock and shoulders like a stretched coat hanger. There was more Eurasian in him than the Society normally liked, but between the hair dye and his ability to recite the Volsunga Saga, people made allowances. He’d been a member of some Moscow-based Neo-Nazi group before he’d joined the Society, and the tattoos that covered his arms told a story as brutal as any old Aryan saga.

  Behind Alexi, out in the warehouse proper, Sparrow could see the others. They were packing up their gear and preparing for the exodus to come. Counting Alexi and himself, there were only eight men. There had been ten, but their mysterious attacker had seen to Horst and Bridges. Sparrow felt a flicker of guilt for abandoning Horst. The big German had been right, of course. The mission was the only important thing. Their lives meant nothing next to the resurrection of Thylea. Still, it nagged at him. He’d left a fellow paladin—a fellow servant of the holy cause—to die by an assassin’s hand. No man blamed him, but Sparrow still felt slightly sick thinking of it.

  “Maybe you should call him,” Sparrow said acidly.

  Alexi made shooing motions with his big, scarred hands. “Oh, no, you are in charge, my friend. Man in charge calls the Tick-Tock Man. Those are the rules.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Sparrow said.

  “Why? He isn’t here. He wouldn’t care even if he was.” Alexi shrugged. “He is—ah—‘tick tock,’ yes? Crazy,” he said.

  Sparrow couldn’t argue. Mervin was crazy. Not crazy violent or crazy fanatical, but crazy all the same. At some point, Saul Mervin’s clockwork had sprung its track and now he bobbed along like a crippled toy. He wasn’t a person anymore, but a machine. An abacus with a two-pack-a-day habit.

  Nonetheless, the Sun-Koh—ruling body of the Society of Thylea—had entrusted many of their operations to Mervin. It was through Mervin that their will was directed and accomplished. The Tick-Tock Man, as Alexi called him, was the Sword of Thylea, and his word was law. It was through him that the Coming World would be revealed. That was why they had come to Reno, in pursuit of the old man. That was why they had been searching for any word of HYPERBOREA, which Sparrow had been half convinced was just a myth concocted by conspiracy theorists.

  But Mervin had believed. And now they had found it—the spear they would thrust into the belly of the fallen world, to spill an ocean of blood from which a new, stronger world would be born.

  Nonetheless, Mervin was, as Alexi had so eloquently stated, crazy.

  “Yes, Alexi, he’s crazy. Hence my hesitation,” Sparrow grunted. He expelled a shaky breath. Someone had to make a status report. And unfortunately, that someone was him. “Fine, give me the office.”

  Alexi nodded and stepped out, closing the door behind him. Sparrow cursed softly and picked up the phone. Mervin answered on the first ring. Sparrow shivered, imagining Mervin’s pale eyes staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. It really was like waiting for a snake to strike. “We got him,” he said.

  “You’re late,” Mervin replied. His voice was a hollow chirp, high-pitched and mechanical, but not amusing. It stung Sparrow’s ears and pride.

  “There was interference.”

  “Inconsequential,” Mervin said.

  “Decidedly not,” Sparrow answered. “Horst and Bridges are dead. Someone was watching Ackroyd—a bodyguard, maybe. Or someone’s rumbled us.”

  “Inconceivable,” Mervin said. Then, “Describe them.”

  “Him,” Sparrow corrected. “Just one man. He was lethal, fast, effective. Dressed like a bum, but moved like—well, like Kraft.”

  “Identity?” Mervin asked. That was how he spoke to everyone who wasn’t Kraft—terse, wasting no words. With Kraft, he was practically loquacious. Sometimes Sparrow pitied Kraft.

  “No clue—he didn’t identify himself. He just did his level best to kill us.”

  Mervin was silent for a long moment. Then, “But you have Ackroyd?”

  “I do.”

  “Satisfactory. I wish to speak to him.”

  Sparrow let out a slow breath. He put the phone down and called out, “Alexi? Send the old man in.”

  The door opened and Ackroyd stumbled through, thanks to a none-too-gentle shove from the Russian. Ackroyd cursed and turned, but Sparrow caught him by the scruff of the neck and shoved him toward a chair. “Someone wants to talk to you, Doctor. Give him all due attention, if you value your fingers,” he snapped, switching the phone to speaker. Ackroyd was proving to be a less-than-docile victim. In fact, the old man had a mouth like a sailor and was steadily, if slowly, tap-dancing on Sparrow’s last nerve.

  Ackroyd gave Sparrow a rheumy glare.

  “Dr. Ackroyd,” Mervin said. Ackroyd’s glare transferred to the phone.

  “I know who I am. Who the blazes are you?”

  “I am no one, Dr. Ackroyd. I am a cog in a machine, even as you are.” Mervin rattled off an address. It meant nothing to Sparrow, but Ackroyd’s eyes widened. The old man slumped back in his chair, his face suddenly pale. For a moment, Sparrow feared he might be having a heart attack. “Do you recognize that address, Dr. Ackroyd?” Mervin asked.

  “Yes,” Ackroyd said, closing his eyes. He rubbed his face with his hands.

  “What is that address, Dr. Ackroyd?”

  “How did you get it?” Ackroyd countered.

  “Inconsequential. What is that address, Dr. Ackroyd?”

  Ackroyd licked his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he convulsively swallowed. “My granddaughter,” he said softly.

  “Correct. It is the address of your granddaughter and her family, including your great-grandchildren. They do not know who you are. But you, via your remaining governmental contacts, know who they are. You watch them. You protect them by pretending to be dead. Now you will protect them by telling me what I want to know.”

  “HYPERBOREA,” Ackroyd croaked.

  “You have anticipated me, yes. HYPERBOREA, Dr. Ackroyd. I require your expertise regarding that installation and what it contains.” Sparrow thought Mervin sounded almost cheerful.

  “If you know about it, you already know what it is,” Ackroyd said. Something in his voice gave Sparrow a slight chill. Ackroyd had the look of a man hang-gliding over hell.

  “Yes,” Mervin said.

  “You know it can’t be used for anything.”

  “Incorrect,” Mervin said. “Its use is manifold. Especially for the organization we represent. In any event, your opinions are superfluous. All we require from
you is your presence. You will help us enter HYPERBOREA, Dr. Ackroyd.”

  “Why me?” Ackroyd asked.

  “You are the only member of the project still breathing,” Mervin replied. “The others have passed on through a variety of ailments, accidents and simple age-related entropy. You are the last man standing, Dr. Ackroyd.”

  “Just my luck,” Ackroyd muttered.

  “Luck is hokum. Luck is for the weak-minded. You will help us, Dr. Ackroyd. You will play ball, or your family will be butchered in their beds.”

  “And after I help you?”

  “You will die. But your family will live, unaware and unharmed.” Mervin’s voice was flat.

  Ackroyd stared at the phone. In that moment, Sparrow almost felt sorry for him. The old man had probably suspected he was living on borrowed time. In his place, Sparrow certainly would have. But to hear it stated so flatly, so baldly, was like a kick to the gut. Idly, he wondered whether Mervin did it on purpose. Maybe the abacus had a sadistic streak beneath the logic.

  “Fine,” Ackroyd said.

  “Good. You may leave. I wish to talk to Mr. Sparrow now.”

  Sparrow gestured and Alexi stepped in, hooked the old man’s arm and jerked him to his feet. Once Sparrow had watched them go he said, “He’s gone.”

  “You have the tickets?”

  Annoyed, Sparrow bit back a retort. “Yes,” he said. “What’ll I do about Horst and Bridges? Their bodies...”

  “They are dead and in no position to complain. Forget them. All that matters is getting Ackroyd to Anchorage on schedule. Can you do that, Mr. Sparrow?”

  “Of course,” Sparrow said, harsher than he’d intended.

  “Good. I would hate to see you meet the same fate as Horst and Bridges.”

  Sparrow licked his lips, suddenly nervous, and asked, “What—ah—what about the interference?”

  “What about him? If he tries again, kill him. If not, then it does not matter. All that matters is getting Ackroyd to Anchorage, Mr. Sparrow. That is all you should be concerned with.” There was a click. Sparrow stared at the phone for a moment.