Hooker tried to get up, but the angle of the man's left leg told Bolan the assassin wouldn't be able to stand even if he could get up. The man's features went pale when the leg grated at the attempt with a sickening sound that reached even Bolan's ears.
Breathing heavily in response to his body's demand for oxygen, Bolan reached under his black leather jacket and pulled the Beretta out where Hooker could see it. He motioned with the barrel. "Hands where I can see them," he commanded. "You know the moves."
"I should have killed you last night," Hooker snarled. "I told them you looked like trouble." His eyes were feverish with pain.
"Who are you working for?" Bolan asked as he walked closer to the man.
"It's not 'who, " Hooker said. "It's 'what, and it's something greater than the lives of a few people. Righting an injustice always is."
"What are you talking about?" Images of the gunner blowing himself up at the arcade tumbled through his mind.
"I'm talking about the future, Belasko," Hooker replied. "Your future, if you live that long, and the future of this country. It looks bleak. You're going to see a wolf's winter before the week is out."
Bolan identified the fanatical gleam in the man's eyes and felt himself tense as he brought the Beretta's trigger pull down to half a pound.
The shrill keening of sirens sliced through the morning stillness.
When he saw Hooker's jaw work suddenly, then clench as he bit into something, Bolan cursed silently and rushed forward. He tucked the 93-R into the shoulder holster and wrapped a hand around the big man's chin as he tried to work Hooker's mouth open. The assassin struggled under him, laughing maniacally.
"You're too late, Belasko," the man said triumphantly. His breath was tainted with the odor of bitter almonds. "I'll be waiting for you in hell."
Bolan felt the man's body jerk in sudden convulsions and watched as the eyes rolled upward until only the whites showed. The light rain fell on the sightless eyes and they stared without blinking.
Moving off the body, Bolan sat on the wet ground, feeling the tiredness and the killing soak into him with the rain, wondering what the hell it was Hooker had been protecting that would cause the man to give up his life so freely. He rolled the man's left sleeve back to examine the tattoo. The same stylized bird hung there in endless flight, maintaining the same secret it had held for however long it had been in existence.
When the first uniformed cop appeared around the corner, Bolan put his hands on his head as he was instructed.
* * *
"Promise me, boy!"
"I promise, Father."
"You're lying."
"No, Father, I swear it. I promise."
"There is no commitment in your eyes, boy."
"It is in my heart."
"Only because I put it there. I put it there but you have to keep it."
"I will. Father."
"Blood, boy. A promise like this demands blood."
"No, Father, please."
"Don't cry, damn you."
"I'm not crying."
"I never cried, boy. Not once in my life."
"I'm not crying, Father."
"Never let me see you cry. Let me have your arm."
"Will it hurt. Father?"
"Has it hurt before?"
"Yes."
"And did the pain go away?"
"Yes, Father."
"Just as it will this time."
* * *
The voices whispered through the memories locked in Ris's mind as he sat in the quietness of the room. He kept his eyes closed tightly, at home in the darkness. It had been years since he had actually heard his father's voice, had experienced the chill that knotted up his stomach every time he had been forced to make the promise. His arms still showed the scars of the wounds that had been inflicted. It was true that the pain did go away, and it was true that he could never actually remember it even the next day. There had been matching scars on his father's arms. They had sat cross-legged on the floor of this very room, even as he was now, with only the knife and the lighted candle between them. Even old Kettwig had never been invited to their ceremony, never been asked to join their promise. It had belonged to his father and him. Their secret. Their promise.
Hesitantly he reached out a hand without opening his eyes, taking up the SIG-Sauer P-226 from its place on the stone floor. The tactile contact with the cold, heavy pistol reminded him of the last promise. His hands had been covered with blood. He had been covered with blood. Had tasted it on his lips.
He didn't understand the implications of everything his father had told him, nor of what Kettwig seemed to stay constantly involved in. But he knew he was an important person. His father had told him that his whole life. Even the other old men Kettwig sometimes introduced him to seemed to be impressed with his abilities.
Ris knew how to act when he met people like that, just as he knew how to give the speeches Kettwig wrote for him from time to time to present to the officers. His father had drilled him to perfection in those abilities just as he had made sure Ris knew how to handle himself with gun, knife and fist.
Raising the pistol, Ris kept his eyes shut. He felt the coolness of the muzzle push into his temple. For a moment he considered pulling the trigger. For seven years he had lived without his father, continuing the training that had become part of his life. He taught what he knew to hand-picked units, growing into an uneasy manhood as he saw people learn to use what he had given to them. He took training from others, learning the different martial arts of the Orientals his father had never allowed, touching the different thought processes of the teachers he had hired to train him until he learned enough to kill them and send whatever secrets they had learned of the underground complex to the grave with them. None of them had ever lasted longer than two years at the most. His father had created the perfect pupil, a being who burned with the need to learn quickly and just as quickly faulted the teacher once everything had been taught.
For the seven years his father had been dead, Ris had spent most of them empty and alone. Until he rediscovered Helene when the girl had followed the trail that reached back to the complex.
What would his father think of him if he pulled the trigger?
"Coward." The word whipped out of the nowhereness of the dark bedroom. There was no mistaking the voice.
Ris blinked his eyes open. "Father?" His voice sounded strange in his ears, and he knew he had never physically heard the other voice. It had been a gust of memory sailing across his subconscious.
A light tap sounded at the door.
Uncoiling, Ris stood and padded barefoot to the door, still holding the SIG-Sauer at his side. An aide rolled a service tray into the room when he opened the door. He knew Kettwig had sent the food up and didn't bother to speak to the aide. Once the table leaves were locked into place, the man left, executing a snappy salute.
Ris ignored the silver-covered dishes and climbed onto the massive bed. Food was the farthest thing from his mind. Didn't Kettwig know Helene was missing? Didn't the man know how much she meant to him? How she made him feel?
He tucked the pistol under his pillow and turned his mind loose, dropping into troubled dreams where he kept searching for Helene behind locked doors and kept finding his father instead.
"A final pact," his father told him in the dream when Ris could no longer escape.
"No." Ris felt panic rise in him in the dream. The candle burned brightly between them. He felt the weight of the gun pressed into his hands.
His father's voice was hoarse and harsh. "Yes, boy. A final pact between us."
"No."
"A promise, boy."
"No, Father."
"Take the gun, boy. Hold it here, under my chin. Tightly, damn it. Tighter, boy. You don't want to miss."
"No blood, no blood."
"Put your finger on the trigger with mine."
"Please…"
"You've got to be strong."
"I will, Father."
"Promise me you'll do what we have talked about."
"I promise."
"Kettwig will help you. I've instructed him."
"I know."
"I love you, boy."
"I love you, Father."
"Pull the trigger."
The remembered explosion rocked Ris into a deeper blackness where the dreams and memories couldn't get at him, submerged him in nothingness where he felt safe.
9
From his airborne position, Bolan watched the line of black limousines thread through the Washington streets. The helicopter he rode in swept back and forth across the vehicles and the surrounding buildings as the pilot, Jack Grimaldi, shadowed the motorcade's movements.
So far everything had gone exactly as planned. The Russian jet had landed at the airport seven minutes ahead of schedule, and the security teams waited until the proper time before leaving the airfield. The Russian guards had understood the reason for waiting and seemed to be at ease with the delay.
Shifting in the seat, Bolan brought his binoculars to his eyes again, scanning the horizon, then focusing on the streets below. Static squeaked in his ear as the security teams involved in the transportation effort ticked off their numbers. Gorbachev was in the fourth car back. The second car was manned entirely by an American security team and flew the diplomatic flags from the fenders. Hopefully, if any action was taken on the streets, the attackers would concentrate their efforts on it.
"How does it look?" Grimaldi asked over the intercom.
Bolan consulted his watch. It was just after ten o'clock. "Timewise we're doing fine. The problem is we can't be sure how far our security has been penetrated. For all we know, even our little cadre has become suspect."
"Trust the other guy only as long as you can see him."
Bolan nodded. "Something like that. And Mike Belasko has got a lot of markers against him. The tension this morning was so thick you could cut it with a knife."
Grimaldi made a slight adjustment on the control stick, and Bolan felt the helicopter yaw to the left.
"They're playing you as the odd man out?"
"Yeah. Normally it's the role I enjoy most when dealing with the government, but now it puts me out of reach of the operation's nerve center. Anything I can do is going to be pure reaction."
"How much do the Russians know?"
"Everything. The President insisted on it. So did Hal."
"And they still want the meeting?"
"Hell, Jack, they don't have a choice. Russia has been making a lot of overtures with its glasnost. Gorbachev is having to back members of his own cabinet to make this meet possible. A lot of them are saying the United States can't control the factions within its own government. Others are saying the situation has been manufactured so that no blame can be placed on the United States if something happens to Gorbachev."
"Has Aaron had any luck identifying that tattoo?"
Bolan shook his head. "Not yet. There's nothing in our files at all that relate to terrorist activity or a mercenary group. There have been some oblique references to it over the years in police files when guys have been arrested, but even those are doubtful because there are no pictures. So maybe the tattoo has a history that has touched the authorities before and maybe it hasn't."
"It doesn't seem likely that something this big would choose now to check into reality."
"No. There's a purpose for this. Jack. We just haven't found it yet." Bolan blinked his eyes, feeling them burn as he forced himself to stay awake. There had been no time for sleep when he had returned to Stony Man after everything had been straightened out with the Fairfax PD. Hal Brognola was concerned over the sanctity of the security operation and with good reason. Publicity had been impossible to avoid. Bolan's recent activities with the Witness hits and with Dwight Hooker had pushed the Belasko name up into the glitz of the morning papers. The Washington Post had run front-page space on "Belasko," using the information provided in the file Bolan and Kurtzman had engineered. His presence, though requested from the Man, had become something of a liability on the project.
Bolan adjusted the harness webbing him into the seat of the helicopter. He'd removed his jacket when he climbed in, and unstrapped his weapons belt. The black turtleneck he wore felt scratchy against his neck. A modified Galil married to an M-203 grenade launcher occupied space at his feet. With Grimaldi at the controls of the helicopter, he felt sure he could react with speed and thunder if it was required. If anything came at them from the air, a contingent of Navy top gun pilots were waiting only minutes away. As well, the helicopter Grimaldi piloted wasn't totally defenseless. Chain guns and a four-pod rocket launcher were hidden from the eye by false hulls.
The consequences of a successful assassination of either the US. President or the Soviet leader had paraded through Bolan's mind the whole morning. No matter which country lost the head of its government, the feeling of camaraderie that had begun to develop between the United States and Russia during the past few years would cease to exist.
There would be an attack. Bolan was sure of it. He could only hope that the security teams would be able to keep whoever was stalking the leaders off balance, even if they didn't believe in the threat as strongly as Bolan did.
* * *
Bolan stood in the glass elevator, forcing himself to relax. He looked down through the twelve-floor atrium as the elevator dropped almost fast enough to make him weightless. For a moment it seemed as if the cage would plunge into the pool of water on the bottom floor, then all motion ceased and the doors whispered open.
The main hotel lobby was packed with people taking a break from convention proceedings, and Bolan made his way through the crowd with a polite smile and a firm hand.
He recognized one member of the Justice Department's security team standing near the entrance and nodded slightly to let the man know nothing was happening on the upper floors. The ruse to switch Gorbachev and his party from Blair-Lee house on Pennsylvania Avenue had been an early idea of his, and they had stuck with it. Now, lodged at one of the finer hotels in the Washington, D.C., area, the Russians were logged as a group of Hollywood moguls looking for a place to shoot a new movie. The Russian president had seemed to enjoy the disguise despite the reason for the subterfuge.
Bolan sauntered to a bank of pay phones and placed a long-distance call to Johnny Tallin in New York. He'd left a message earlier for the Mafia security chief to be there when he called back. That had been a little over two hours ago, after the Russians had been installed in the top floor of the hotel. The penthouse suite was empty except for Russian and American security teams. Bolan had designed it as a deadly no-man's-land in case the helicopter attack that had been used to hit Kirby Howell was used again.
The warrior checked his watch: 1:05. A security meeting had been set up for two. According to Gorbachev's agenda, dinner at the White House was planned for this evening. Bolan wasn't looking forward to it.
The phone rang in his ear twice before Tallin picked it up.
"Johnny?"
"Yeah."
"What have you got on those dead guys?"
Tallin sighed tiredly, and Bolan guessed the younger man hadn't made it back to bed, either. "Let's just say that if everything I came up with turned to piss, you wouldn't have enough to float a toothpick."
"Let me hear what you have. Maybe it'll fit in with some of the things I've turned up."
Paper rustled. "Okay. I got names on all three guys from a cop contact we keep on the payroll."
Bolan pushed away the momentary feeling of anger. He had known when he requisitioned Tallin that he was going to learn more than just details about the dead man. As long as there were crooks, there were going to be crooked cops. Once he was through with current business, he intended to look into Patrizio Madrano's affairs himself. Tap into a little intel on the streets Executioner-style until something gave. Leo and Hal could pick up the pieces.
"Does it matter which one was which?"
"No."
"James Harvey was an electrician licensed through the state of New York and had lived there for the past eight years. Robert McGinty was an accountant working for the IRS in a New York City branch. Wayne Hermann was a security guard working for Spraggue Industries in Fairfax, Virginia."
"You're sure about the last guy?" Bolan asked.
"Yeah. Mr. Madrano has a Family guy down in D.C. who owes him a favor. He checked it out at Mr. Madrano's request."
"Hermann was currently employed by Spraggue Industries?"
"Yes."
"In what capacity?"
"Just a guard, I guess. The guy didn't check into it too closely. You sound like this is something hot."
"Maybe," Bolan said, making sure none of the enthusiasm he felt made its way into the icy voice he was using. "Where did Hermann live?"
"In an apartment complex in Fairfax."
"You got a name on the complex?"
Tallin gave it and Bolan wasn't surprised to learn it was the same as Dwight Hooker's.
Bolan said, "Why would a guy from Virginia be there with two guys from New York?"
Apparently Tallin didn't take the question as rhetoric and figured he needed to answer. "I'm assuming he was heading up the operation on this end."
"Why?"
"This guy was carrying the bankroll, Omega. In a money belt around his waist."
"What did the Spraggue Industries people say about Hermann's death?"
"They don't know he's dead yet. I'm setting up an 'accident' so the bodies can be discovered later. The guy in D.C. acted as if he was a loan officer at a bank and Hermann had applied for a loan on a new car. He told me he had the impression the secretary he talked to didn't believe him about the loan. He couldn't figure it. Borrowing money is the American way."
"Did you get a social security number on these guys?" Bolan took a pad and pen from inside his jacket and wrote them down as Tallin read them off.
"I'm going to keep checking on a few other things on this end," Tallin said, "but first I'm going to catch up on a few winks."
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