Ice Wolf

by Don Pendleton

  The Executioner removed a matchbook from a jacket pocket, lit the entire book at once and watched as the sheets of paper he held in one hand caught fire with agonizing slowness. Then he tossed them into the bin and fanned the flames into roaring life.

  He wheeled the garbage container into position, fisted the Desert Eagle and opened the door. Scanning his companion's faces, he noted the determination lining their jaws.

  Bolan lashed out with his foot, and the container resembled a large, barrel-shaped torch as it sped across the darkened foyer. The fire caught greedily, spreading quickly. Then the bin capsized, spilling the flaming contents across the tiled floor and sending unsteady shadows scattering over the walls and ceiling.

  Autofire drummed into the receptacle, which seemed to assume a mystical life as the rounds thudded into it, jerking indecisively over the tiles.

  Three men were revealed in the uncertain glow from the scattered flames in a strobe effect, centered by the muzzle-flashes of their assault rifles.

  Bolan stepped into the doorway of the fire escape and tracked the .44 into target acquisition. He triggered two shots into the chest of the gunner to his left, not waiting to see the corpse fall, knowing the bullets had taken the man in the throat or face. Sweeping on to the second man, he delivered a trio of rounds that punched gaping holes in the guy's torso.

  The warrior dived to the floor and rolled under the sudden blast of tumblers that ate away at the wall behind him. A burning paper singed his left cheek as he sighted down the length of the Desert Eagle and squeezed off a round that took off the top of the last gunner's head. The assault rifle clattered to the floor.

  Howell and Turrin were on his heels as he scooped the rifle up, identifying it by feel and balance as an AK-47. He freed the clip and found that twelve rounds were left. Two more full clips were on the dead man's web belt, and he helped himself.

  Bolan halted again at the entranceway, breathing quickly with the past exertion. A dead security guard slumped over the main desk, a dark stain running down the front of his uniform.

  "Son of a bitch," Howell said softly as he stared at the carnage. "Why would they try this hard to get to me?"

  Bolan shook his head. He didn't know, either, but he figured he was damn sure going to try to find out. A dozen innocent lives had been snuffed out by killers like the ones whose corpses he'd left behind. Against the sophisticated weaponry those men had carried, and against their fanaticism, the victims had never had a chance. There would be a reckoning, he promised himself.

  The street was deserted except for the occasional passing car, but Bolan was aware of the havoc one well-placed sniper could wreak. He looked at Howell and Turrin. "When we get outside, stick close to the building. It will make it harder for someone to pick us off without exposing himself."

  Both men nodded their understanding, lifting their weapons as they readied themselves for an all-or-nothing effort.

  Bolan pushed the double glass doors open and stepped through, aware of a fleeting movement to his right. Bullets smashed into the building's brick exterior, creating an uneven scar as they searched for Bolan with 5.56 mm talons.

  The Executioner whirled back within the safety of the entranceway as the sustained burst chopped through the thin panes of the glass door.

  "Shit," Turrin muttered as he forced himself into position by Bolan.

  The keening whine of police sirens reached Bolan's ears. Then the dull roar of helicopter rotors settled toward the street from above. Cars approaching from both ends of the street braked to screeching halts as they saw the chopper hovering less than ten feet above the pavement. Automatic rifles blatted to life and caused the drivers to slam their vehicles into reverse.

  Bolan noted the rope ladder swinging free beneath the helicopter's chassis and figured the aircraft was making a last pickup run before fleeing the area. A handful of silhouettes filled the cargo bay of the chopper, and the Executioner guessed the team on the upper floors had already made their escape.

  Bringing the AK-47 to bear, Bolan emptied the clip, sending the assassins scrambling for cover. When the helicopter powered up and rose away from street level, he turned his attention to the man remaining behind. "Cover me," Bolan shouted as he fed a new clip into the rifle and handed it to Turrin.

  "Watch your ass, Mack."

  "I want this guy alive, Leo," Bolan said as he reloaded the Desert Eagle. "Maybe he can give us an angle on this operation."

  The little Fed grimaced. "If he comes too close, I'm taking him out and you can bitch at me all you want."

  Bolan nodded and sprinted for the street, intending to draw the assassin's fire, while Turrin set himself up to drive the guy back under cover.

  Bullets bounced and spun from the street, still yards from their target.

  Bolan heard Turrin squeeze his own weapon into life as he dived behind the parked Trans Am. Turrin emptied the clip while the Executioner slid into the sports car and hit the ignition. The engine caught smoothly. Holding the .44 in one hand, he stabbed the transmission into low gear and popped the clutch. The back end of the Pontiac powerhouse fishtailed as the tires screamed for traction, cutting a tight one-eighty as Bolan guided the vehicle toward the man hugging the exterior of the office building. A quick glance up showed him the retreating lights of the helicopter.

  Bolan hit the brake and double-clutched, swinging the Trans Am in a sideways skid that presented the passenger side of the sports car to the gunner. A burst of 5.56 mm stingers smacked into the side of the car, emptying the windows of safety glass as Bolan dived out the driver's side. He rolled toward the front of the vehicle, gripping the .44 in his right hand as he came up beside the front fender.

  Hand, arm and eye cleared the hood of the Trans Am at the same moment. Target acquisition was sought, found.

  With the sights hovered on the gunner's right shoulder, Bolan squeezed. He watched the man spin wildly, dropping the AK-47. Remarkably the assassin regained his feet faster than Bolan expected, breaking into a run even as the Executioner slid across the hood of his vehicle. The man's right arm dangled uselessly at his side as he fled.

  "Stop," Bolan ordered as he reached the sidewalk and dropped into target stance. The fleeing man's head and shoulders wavered over the top of the Desert Eagle's open sights, but he never missed a staggering step.

  Cursing, Bolan fell into cadence behind the man, holding the .44 loose at his side as he ran. He tried to keep the gun close to his body, not wanting to panic any citizens who'd be gathering to find out what was going on.

  Pushing himself, Bolan tried to narrow the thirty-yard lead the man maintained on him, surprised at the guy's reserves. It was an adrenaline rush, Bolan told himself as he sucked in fresh oxygen through his nose, exhaling it through his mouth. It had to give out in moments.

  Without warning, the man cut to his left, crossing the street, angling for the doorway of a video game arcade where a small crowd of teenagers stood staring. They parted before the fleeing man, staring at the bloodstained fingers that clutched his injured shoulder.

  Bolan read hate in their eyes as he charged toward the youths, knowing they assumed he was a cop. He had to turn sideways to wedge through them, listening to the rise of the crowd's antagonistic murmur. A kid in his twenties reached for Bolan's gun hand.

  Without breaking stride, the warrior raised an elbow and slammed it into the young man's chin, knocking him back into the crowd.

  "Fuckin' pig!" someone yelled.

  There was more screaming as other voices joined the first, but Bolan ignored it. He ran through the noisy and flashing video games like a fullback working a busted play.

  He found the assassin clawing at the back door, leaving bloody fingerprints on its dirty white surface. The onlookers creating a corridor between the Executioner and his quarry fell back to new perimeters when Bolan lifted the stainless-steel Magnum to arm's length.

  "Put your hands on top of your head," Bolan ordered in an icy voice.

  The as
sassin froze, arms outstretched from his body. Then he started to turn.

  "You're not going to shoot him down like a goddamn dog, mister," a girl snarled as she stepped between Bolan and the assassin. Clad in patched blue jeans and wearing a jacket of the same material with the name of a street gang stitched across the back, the girl looked twentyish but Bolan doubted she had seen sixteen yet.

  The look in the assassin's eyes was feral. His good hand clawed for something at his belt. Bolan lunged, snaring one of the girl's wrists in his hand and pulling her away as he squeezed the .44's trigger. Then the world exploded in a sudden rush of heat, sweeping Bolan's senses away.

  3

  Bringing the sand-stained BMW to a halt, the big blond-haired man surveyed the crowd that was starting to fill the Khan al-Khalili bazaar. He knew the narrow and winding streets of the area wouldn't allow the car to pass through easily, even if those streets were empty of all the pedestrians now moving about freely. He saw an occasional motorbike thread cautiously through the groups of families and friends taking in the noisy sights the bazaar had to offer.

  For a moment the man let his mind drift, recalling the first time old Kettwig had taken him into the trading place. With his father's permission, of course. He'd been eight then, and had clung to Kettwig's hand the whole time. Surprisingly his father's valet had allowed the hand-holding and had said nothing. Even after that one day, it had been hard for Ris to see the valet as the grim soldier he had been while his father was alive. Even harder now that he was grown, straight and tall, while old Kettwig had bent and shriveled with age.

  Reluctantly he shook away the memories. He had business there, he reminded himself, and tried to pretend that it was only business and that he didn't feel the loss Helene's escape had filled him with.

  Weakness, he chided himself. In his mind, though, it was his father's clipped voice that reproved him and not his own.

  He switched off the air-conditioning and let the engine idle for a moment, replacing the drain the unit had exacted from the battery. While he waited, he rolled his window down and let the sounds of the bazaar flood the interior of the vehicle.

  Ris removed a SIG-Sauer P-226 from the glove compartment and clipped it to the back of his belt, under the jacket he wore. He tested it, satisfied it would pull free easily when he found the man he was looking for. Then he raised the window again and thumbed the electronic door lock as he got out.

  Glancing around, he spotted a teenager lounging against a leather shop, watching the BMW with glittering black eyes.

  "Boy," Ris called in Arabic, the syllables rolling easily from his tongue.

  "Yes?"

  The big man motioned the youth over, then gave him an easy smile and reached into his inside jacket pocket. "Would you like to make some money this morning?"

  "Of course, but how may I serve you?" The youth's eyes kept darting to the BMW, and curiosity about the plush secrets it held inside showed on his face.

  "I have something to do in the bazaar," the big man said as an image of golden-haired Helene filled his mind, "and I need someone to watch my car."

  The youth cupped his chin in his hand and looked at the sand-covered pavement between his bare feet. "That is a very important job, maybe even a very dangerous one. This car is worth much money and the bazaar is filled with dangerous men."

  Ris let a mirthless grin cover his face as he thumbed the crisp Egyptian pound notes in his hand. He recognized the beginning of the haggling process and fell into it automatically. He had grown up around Cairo and had done a lot of the buying for the movement himself since his father died.

  He put the money away and nodded. "Perhaps you are right," he told the youth. "Maybe I should find someone older and stronger. Someone more experienced." He started to turn away.

  "Wait." The boy smiled sheepishly. "Youth and speed are very good defenses, too, and my father's shop is only across the street. In effect, when you hire me, you are hiring my father as well."

  "How much would you say your protection is worth?"

  The youth held out a handful of fingers. "Five pounds."

  The big man popped a crisp bill between his hands. "One pound."

  "This is a very expensive car. Three pounds."

  "I won't be gone that long. Two pounds." The big man took another bill from his pocket.

  "Done," the youth said as he extended his hand.

  "Done," the man agreed as he put his two pound notes away. "And you'll be paid when I return." Haggling wasn't the only art a man had to learn in Cairo, but it should always be one of the first. And the service should never be paid for until it had been provided. Otherwise the provider could insist many «unforeseen» complications had arisen that cost more.

  The youth gave him a pained expression but nodded curtly. "What's your name?"

  "Ris."

  The youth bowed his head. "I will remain with your car, Ris, awaiting your return."

  Nodding, Ris stepped into the flow of the human traffic winding through the gritty streets. For a moment claustrophobia played with the outer edges of his sanity. He had grown up in the desert, on sand hills under unfettered blue skies. Even the underground headquarters, carved from the hardened rock around the Nile hadn't seemed to press on him the same way. One step at a time, he told himself as he moved through the crowd.

  A flash of long gold hair attracted his attention to a woman standing before a shop filled with alabaster carvings.

  Helene. The name ripped through him like a hawk's bill.

  For a moment Ris stood frozen as people moved around him. His heartbeat increased as feelings of anger, betrayal and loss soared through him, inseparable, painful.

  Helene.

  His weakness.

  Then he saw that the woman wasn't Helene when she continued haggling with the merchant over a small, inlaid chessboard. He forced the breath from his lungs and moved on. The woman couldn't have been Helene, he thought angrily. The long blond tresses he had loved so much had been left on the floor of her room, victims of her rage.

  The weight of the 9 mm pistol felt good to him as he took another left, working his way to his destination. Early this morning one of his agents had brought him information of the man he sought. Ris had left the complex without waking Kettwig, knowing the old man would advise against his seeking out Helene at this time, saying everything he did now would be crucial to the movement. There would never be a better time, Kettwig had told him only yesterday.

  But the old man could only advise. Ris was still the leader, still the man who would carry them all into their vision of the world. He still made his own decisions. He just wished he could get his father out of his mind. Even now, if he closed his eyes for just a moment, he could recall every detail of his father's black uniform and the red band against his right arm, could see the stern look in his father's eyes as the man forced him through some new phase of his training. More than anything else, he could remember his father's bitterness, an almost palpable presence, that he wouldn't be the one to usher in the new world he'd worked so hard to help create.

  The café loomed before Ris. Would the man he searched for know him? Ris wondered as he surveyed the front of the building. His agent had provided a photograph, taken with a small Kodak that developed instantly. Ris had given the agent bonus leave from his duty because taking any picture in Cairo without being noticed was almost an incredible feat. Would Helene still be with the man? With conscious effort, he kept his hand from the SIG-Sauer and walked toward the doors.

  What if the man was no longer there? Suppose he had checked out of his room over the café and vanished with Helene? The sense of loss created a frenzy within Ris, giving rise to a sour taste at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and stepped into the café.

  The sluggish morning air was stirred about by the four ceiling fans in the corners of the small room. Their whirring noise helped block some of the bazaar conversations and haggling, lending the establishment some privacy.

  R
is walked to the scarred wooden counter, scanning the morning's clientele, looking for Helene and the man. None of the eight men in the café was the one he was looking for. Two were white, and Ris watched these men with interest. Maybe they were friends of the man he was after.

  The proprietor, an old man wearing a frayed turban and a stained djellaba, watched him with hooded eyes as his hands stayed busy toweling glasses dry. Leaning on the counter, Ris placed the photograph of the man Helene had been seen with between two wet spots. The proprietor feigned disinterest. Ris produced a five-pound note and placed it on top of the photo.

  The proprietor finished the glass he was working on and tossed his towel across a bony shoulder as he bent for a closer look. Without replying, the man leaned back, took out an evil-smelling Egyptian cigarette, then patted his pockets in search of a light.

  Ris took the diamond-studded lighter he carried from his jacket pocket and thumbed a yellow flame into wavering life. An involuntary flicker of the proprietor's eyelids signaled his sudden interest.

  "Who are you?" the man asked in English.

  "A man," Ris replied in Arabic. He was counting on the two men seated behind him not to speak the language in case they were with the man he was looking for. He kept watch on them by glancing over the proprietor's shoulder at the time-stained mirror behind the counter. "A man willing to pay for whatever knowledge you have of this man."

  The proprietor touched the edges of the photograph without lifting it from the counter as if he were stroking a talisman. "How much would such knowledge be worth?"

  "We can discuss it."

  The proprietor nodded, turning his gaze back to the photograph. "I have seen this man."

  "I know." Ris let the words carry an unspoken threat the man wouldn't miss.

  "Would a hundred pounds be too much to ask for this information?"

  "Fifty."

  "Seventy-five."

  "Agreed." Ris could tell by the look of displeasure on the man's face that the proprietor knew he could have easily gotten the initial asking price and that the man was trying to think of a way to renegotiate.