Somebody signaled from the front seat of the Plymouth and opened the rear door.
Swiftly the ill-assorted quartet ferried Bolan across the flagstones and shoved him through the open door feet first. The blonde leaned inside the sedan and pulled a lever. The seat back hinged forward to reveal a dark cavity. There was a concerted heave, and Bolan disappeared from view.
As the seat swung into position again, the blonde and the man from the store climbed into the car and closed the door. The businessman and his companion unhurriedly crossed the road and mingled with the few pedestrians on the far side. Equally unhurried, the Plymouth nosed out into the traffic and drove away.
The figures on the clock above the newsstand flashed off and on again: 10:17. The snatch had taken fifty-seven seconds.
Passersby who had noticed what had transpired were still staring as the Plymouth drove through the intersection. And by the time the receptionist in Brognola's villa had come to her senses and stabbed the alarm button, the getaway car had vanished in the swirl of midmorning city traffic.
2
Hal Brognola threw an unlit Willem II onto the stack of reports in the center of his desk. "Why?" he exploded, spreading his arms wide in exasperation. "I just can't understand why someone would grab Bolan at this point in time."
The cigar teetered on the edge of a buff folder, tipped over and rolled across the polished wood to come to rest precisely opposite its reflection. Frank O'Reilly, the fifty-year-old ex-FBI agent responsible for internal security, stared out the window at the sunlight dappling an acacia tree. "You say he wasn't involved in a mission?" he queried.
"Bolan's not on the team," the Fed snapped irritably. "You know that, Frank. Strictly speaking, he never is on a mission, not from us. As far as I know, he wasn't following up on any of his own interests. We were going backpacking, for God's sake!"
O'Reilly sighed. "Then if there's no lead, motivewise, all we can do is collect everything we can on the kidnapping itself, however insignificant, and work from there."
"Nothing is insignificant where Striker's concerned," Brognola growled. "You can have as many men as you want. Any help you need from the FBI, the Company, Interpol, the local police department. Just ask." The big man was shaken by the drama. "Grabbed on our own doorstep?" he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. "It's almost indecent."
"You didn't actually give me the kidnappers' MO yet," O'Reilly reminded him gently.
"What happened? Somebody tricked the kid who handles Alexiou's deliveries into going to an uptown apartment block with a load of groceries. Of course it was a decoy call. Nobody at that address had ordered anything. While the kid was away, they came to the store, abducted the old man and put in a ringer, someone sufficiently like him to fool Bolan from the shadows in back of the store. There was a girl, too. A blonde in white coveralls."
The security man frowned. "None of our own people coming in and out noticed anything?"
"According to the reports, it was brilliantly timed." Brognola picked out a paper from the top folder. "Yeah... Zimmerman went out at 9:49. Alexiou and the kid were both there then, definitely. He talked with them. Montefiori came in at 10:02, and he's fairly sure the old man was there, though he didn't notice the assistant. In any case, the sliding door in the booth must have been working because he used it. Yet by the time Bolan arrived fourteen minutes later, at 10:16, the substitution had been made and the trap set. They must have moved the moment Montefiori was through."
"How did they actually fix it, sir?"
"They were smart enough. A small gas canister lodged beneath the lens of the monitor camera. The door controls were cut. When Bolan dialed, he pulled a wire tripping a plunger that pierced the nozzle of the cylinder and released the stuff. End of story."
"End of...? You don't mean..."
"No, no. According to our lab technicians, it was a nerve gas that would only knock him out for a couple of hours, that's all."
"So they must want him for some specific purpose." O'Reilly looked relieved. "There's something that bugs me, just the same. Even if the canister was out of TV range, why didn't the receptionist see them fixing it? They must have been in camera range the whole time."
"That's something we're looking into right now," the Fed replied grimly. He pressed a button and spoke into an intercom. "Send in Miss Haslett and the lieutenant."
The shortsighted receptionist was accompanied by a thickset man with a crew cut. "Lieutenant Benito," the Fed announced.
O'Reilly nodded. The policeman, who had high security clearance, was from the local police station. He turned his glowering regard on the woman, who had obviously been crying. "I can't imagine," he said furiously, "how you failed to give the alarm earlier."
Brognola looked expectantly at the receptionist.
"I didn't know," Miss Haslett burst out. "I was watching the monitor. I saw Mr. Bolan come in and start to dial. Then he seemed to... well, sort of stagger. I thought he'd been taken ill suddenly. Then Mr. Alexiou ran to help him — at least, I thought it was Mr. Alexiou — with a woman in white coveralls."
"Well?"
Miss Haslett hesitated, staring at the edge of Brognola's desk. "I figured it was a nurse. I would have reported it later, of course, but I never thought of sounding the alarm. They took him back into the store, and then it hit me that nurses aren't already there when a person falls ill. You have to send for them. So I sounded the alarm, but of course by then it was too late. I feel so foolish." The woman was weeping again, the tears coursing down her face and streaking her cheeks with mascara.
"That is possibly understandable — if not forgivable in an employee holding a position of trust," Brognola said sternly. "What we want to know about is the previous foul-up."
"The previous...?"
"Miss Haslett!" He glared. "A device was rigged in that booth. It was intended to render Bolan unconscious, and it succeeded. But it must have taken several minutes to set up. During that time the persons engaged in the operation must have been in full view of the monitor camera, which you, supposedly, were watching. Would you mind explaining how you failed to see that?"
The receptionist swallowed. "I guess it must have been just a little while before?"
"It was," Brognola rasped. "Between 10:03 and 10:15."
"Yes, sir. Well, I saw Mr. Alexiou — the man I thought was Mr. Alexiou — come into the booth. I was aware that he was doing something there. I could see him out of the corner of my eye..."
"Out of the corner of your eye!" O'Reilly shouted. "You're employed to watch those fucking monitors."
"I know, sir. But there was this other commotion that I was watching on number three."
"Commotion?" Brognola echoed. "What commotion?"
"Some guy tried to force his way in through the personnel entrance behind the carport," O'Reilly told him. "When they wouldn't let him by, he got violent and tried to start a fight. I went there myself to sort it out."
Brognola sighed. "Classic diversionary tactic on the opposite flank. There's been some planning-here. Why wasn't I told of this before?"
"It's all in the reports, sir. On your desk."
"Reports, reports!" Brognola stirred the papers with a contemptuous forefinger. "What I want is action. The man who staged this decoy routine — you let him go, I suppose?"
"I'm afraid so, sir. Threatened to arrest him for trespassing and threw him out. It's standard procedure. Of course, if we'd known..."
Brognola growled something unintelligible, then shot the woman from Reception a sudden glance from under his eyebrows. "You know what this means?" he said gruffly.
She nodded her head. "I understand, sir," she replied in a low voice. "And I'm sorry."
"So am I, Miss Haslett, so am I. You better go wait outside in case Mr. O'Reilly or the lieutenant have any more questions."
"What do you think?" the policeman asked when the sobbing woman had left. "You know your staff. Was she in on the deal? Did someone get to her, persuade her to take
a bribe, look the wrong way for five minutes?"
"Search me," Brognola replied. "I'm inclined to think not. The screening here is tough. But we have to let her go. That's standard procedure, too. We can't afford to take chances. And even if we had time to check it out, you can never be a hundred percent sure of anyone after a thing like that. Not one hundred percent. What leads do you have, Lieutenant?"
The cop looked at the floor. "Not too many, to tell you the truth. Four people carried your man to the car, according to an eyewitness. Must have been a second couple hanging around outside the store, I'd say."
"How many eyewitnesses?"
"Just the one — as far as the actual snatch is concerned. A middle-aged woman on her way to the supermarket. At least, she's the only one to come forward. There must have been others, a sunny morning like this, but we haven't located them yet."
"She got a good view of the kidnappers?"
"Yeah, but the descriptions aren't worth a damn. Blond girl in white coveralls, a silver-haired guy in his shirt-sleeves, a city gentleman dressed to kill and a bum. Could be thousands answering those descriptions in this one precinct."
Brognola compressed his lips. The lines on his tired face seemed to have etched themselves in more deeply. "Guess you're right. What about the car? She notice that?"
"Not really. She thought there were two guys — two other guys, that is — in the front seat. But that's all she could say. The boys are having her go over it all again down at the station. We do have another witness, though, to the car itself — from the other side of the street."
"Who? They see the snatch as well as the car?"
Benito pulled a notebook from his breast pocket, opened it, and flicked his eyes over the penciled notes. "Whetnall, Randy Whetnall. He's about fifty, fifty-five, and runs the newsstand right across the street. He didn't see anything of the kidnapping, but he noticed the car, because it was hovering there as if the driver was trying to make up his mind whether to park by a fire hydrant, and he knew the policeman was due any minute."
"The patrolman notice the car?"
"Yes, sir, he did. And his description tallies with Whetnall's — as far as it goes. But he was too far away to see much. He was hurrying to slap a ticket on them when they pulled away."
"And the car?"
The lieutenant spread his arms helplessly and shrugged. "One of the family heaps you don't notice. Eighty-six Plymouth Sundance. Or it might have been a Dodge. A pale color — light blue, gray, tan. Maybe a silver that had gotten very dusty, Whetnall thought. But what's the point? With that kind of car, you lose it the moment it's past the first intersection. Not a chance. We'll try, of course, but..." He shrugged again as his voice tailed away..
"I'm leaving the outside angle to you, Lieutenant," Brognola cut in. "You're better equipped for it than we are. But since you don't hold out much hope of identifying the vehicle, which might have been stolen anyway, I imagine the best lead has to come from the snatch itself. We'll take care of things inside the building — the Reception affair, checking on who knew Bolan was coming, the diversion in back, and so on. O'Reilly here is in charge of the operation. I suggest you keep an open line between his office and the squad room."
"Okay," the lieutenant agreed. "But what do you say we talk again with Whetnall for starters? We let him stay at his stand instead of taking him downtown. There's nobody to cover for him, and he can't afford to lose the business."
The security chief nodded. "We're on our way," he told Brognola.
Outside the grocery store, O'Reilly and the lieutenant stood at the edge of the sidewalk waiting for a gap in the lunchtime traffic so that they could cross the street. Benito waved cheerily to the news vendor. Whetnall, two hundred and forty pounds of blue-chinned geniality sweating in the sun, shouted back some ribald reply as he flourished a bottle he had produced from under the counter.
"He's a character," Benito said with a crooked smile. "We can make it now... No! Hold it! Those goddamn cabdrivers!"
"This time," O'Reilly urged. "Before that truck — Christ! Lookout!"
Automobiles, cabs, trucks, buildings whirled abruptly as the cop spun to the pavement, propelled by a violent push between his shoulder blades. The concussive force of an explosion had thrown him to the ground.
O'Reilly levered himself to his knees and the palms of his hands, shaking his head to clear his vision. "Too late," he panted. "Too late, dammit, by the width of a street!" Scowling, he stared after the car from which the bomb had been thrown — a pale-colored nondescript sedan hurtling toward the lights at the intersection.
As the lights flashed from green to red, the sedan swerved out from behind a truck, pulled over to the left-hand side of the street and roared past the line of slowing cars to make the junction across the surge of oncoming traffic. They heard the squeal of its tires as it lurched into a side street beyond the lights.
The lieutenant was staring at the opposite sidewalk. "As far as we're concerned," he said shakily, "I'd say it was too early by the width of a street!"
Through the dust, the splintered remains of the newsstand pierced the air like the spars of a sinking ship. Above the glass that littered the flagstones, thousands of pinups from Whetnall's girlie magazines, ripped by the explosion, were fluttering down through the spring sunshine like the leaves of some unseasonal autumn. There was a great deal of blood.
But of the man with the bottle, the witness who might have been able to furnish some more definite intel on the car in which the Executioner had been abducted, nothing recognizable remained.
A patrolman ran up and helped Benito to his feet. "Message from Laforge at the station, Lieutenant," he gasped. "They found the body of a man stuffed into a trash can in an alley two blocks from here. He'd been garroted with a length of piano wire — a Greek storekeeper by the name of Alexiou."
3
The atmosphere in the safehouse was gloomy. O'Reilly and Lieutenant Benito sat on one side of Brognola's big desk while the Fed paced up and down on the other.
"A kidnapping and two murders in one morning!" he barked. "Nothing personal, Frank, but after a three-strike situation of that kind you begin to doubt the efficiency of the whole damned organization. This is just too much!"
After an uncomfortable silence Benito cleared his throat. "Still no word from the other side?" he queried. "No threatening calls, no ransom notes, no attempts to bargain?"
"None. And there won't be now. In my book," Brognola said, "kidnappers who want to use the hostage as a bargaining tool usually make their play almost at once, while relatives or associates are still in a state of shock."
"So why grab him?" O'Reilly objected. "If nobody is asking for money or some kind of favor against his safe return, what could be the point?"
Brognola looked at Benito. "Lieutenant, you don't know Bolan, how about giving us an objective rundown."
"Abductions," Benito said, "and the hostage situations that follow, customarily arise for one of five reasons." He ticked them off on his fingers. "One, to make the victim talk; two, to stop him talking; three, to make him do something or stop him doing something; four, to prevent someone who values him doing something; and five, to persuade someone to do something they wouldn't normally do — hand over money, release prisoners or whatever."
Brognola slumped into his swivel chair. "And so?"
"Since your Mr. Bolan isn't on assignment, I guess we can discount the second, third and fourth. So we are left with the supposition that his capture is to act as a lever, as a means to blackmail you into some course of action..."
"No way," Brognola interrupted, shaking his head decisively. "I told you he's not part of the team. He's a loner. He's also a friend, but nothing that happened to him could in the slightest way affect the policy of the group."
"Or," Benito continued, "they snatched him because they want the opportunity to make him talk."
"Bolan?" O'Reilly interjected. "About what?"
The policeman shrugged. "You tell me
. Details of the antiterrorist or crime-busting techniques being developed by organizations he's in contact with. Maybe something like that."
"It's possible," the Fed conceded.
Benito said, "Coming back, sir, to the mechanics of the kidnapping. There are a couple more questions I'd like answered."
"I'm listening, Lieutenant."
"Okay. Now, as far as exits and entrances go, the kidnappers must have been familiar with your security setup."
"Intimately."
"And doesn't that suggest an inside accomplice to you?"
"Not necessarily. You're thinking of Susan Haslett, of course. Although we keep a low profile here, we do have visitors, you know. Army officers. Police officials from several countries. Operatives sometimes from the FBI, the CIA, Britain's Ml-6 or even the French DGSE intelligence service. Any of them could piece together enough to plan the kidnapping and the diversion preceding it, once they'd been here a few times. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that one of the less reputable intelligence agencies could kidnap a man like Bolan if they figured he had intel that could help them best an adversary."
"Hell," O'Reilly put in, "all they needed to know was the fact that contacts entered through Alexiou's store, that there was another entrance in back of the villa and that a single person monitored the closed circuit TV covering the whole complex. They could have learned details of how the door in the phone booth worked by becoming customers — once they knew there was something to look for."
"That's true," Brognola agreed. "After all, they didn't know, or need to know, the access code. Their aim was to stop the door from opening." He paused as the buzzer on the intercom sounded. "Yes? What is it? I particularly asked not to be disturbed."
"I'm very sorry to interrupt, Mr. Brognola," a woman's voice, "but the police station is calling Lieutenant Benito. They said it was urgent."
Dead Man's Tale Page 2