Point Position

by Don Pendleton

  “Now then, I’d like you all to stand in the middle of the floor there, where we can see you all clearly,” Goldman said with a smile. He was relishing this, and Bolan had that uneasy feeling again. If they eventually traced the Chilean and the terrorists, Bolan had the feeling that he may have to spend more time worrying about Goldman than about the real enemy. But Bolan needed his help to find the sonic weapon, so he’d put up with his outrageous behavior for a little longer.

  Slowly, gathering themselves, the people moved out of the booths and onto the brightly lit dance floor, the livelier ones supporting those who were virtually unable to move under their own energy. The barman and security man joined them.

  Bolan looked at them, and had an uneasy feeling. He didn’t hold out much hope of getting anything approaching sense from these people. But that wasn’t what was prickling at him. There was something else. This was too simple. There was an angle that wasn’t being covered…

  From the corner of his eye, he had caught the faintest movement behind the bar. There was a door that led into a storeroom, or perhaps a staircase to the upper level. Wherever it led, it was occupied. Someone was concealed there, and now they were moving the door.

  Someone hiding wouldn’t want that door to budge. They would only be moving it if they were on the offensive.

  Bolan swung his arm and around and loosed off three rounds from the Desert Eagle. The roar of the .44 Magnum pistol in the quiet room was deafening, his finger squeezing the trigger smoothly and rapidly so that the three slugs seemed to run into one. The door splintered under the impact, the black-painted wood suddenly spangled with white wood stars from beneath the paint job. It was a light wood, and no obstacle to the heavy Magnum slugs.

  The door swung open under the deadweight it now concealed. A man, heavyset and in his late thirties, fell forward and hit the floor behind the bar. He was dead, three large holes in his chest and stomach testifying to how little the wood of the door had acted as a defense. He was still clutching a crudely sawed-off shotgun.

  As the echo of the Desert Eagle died away, Bolan was aware of the screams from some of the women—and some of the men—on the dance floor. He turned back to them.

  “Quiet!” he yelled. “You have nothing to fear as long as you cooperate.”

  The note of authority in his voice seemed to calm the crowd, and only a few were still looking over toward the bar. The rest of them were looking at either Bolan or Ross. They ignored Goldman, who had no gun in his hand, but they turned at the sound of his voice, having almost forgotten him.

  “Right, now, just looking over you lot of filth, I can see that the particular piece of scum that I’m after isn’t here. So maybe one of you would be kind enough to tell me where I can find Emil Herve.”

  There was a tight-lipped silence.

  “What did the man say? Nothing to fear as long as you cooperate. Only you’re not, are you? And that really is too bad. Because I’d say, looking at you, none of you have really got the balls to be quiet. So I reckon—”

  Bolan was getting tired of the way in which the redhead seemed to be getting off on the situation. “Jimmy, Errol, do you recognize any of these people?” he snapped, cutting off Goldman.

  “No. No Destiny’s Spear among them,” Ross replied calmly, eyes flitting from Goldman to Bolan and back again. He could sense the tension coming from the soldier, and also knew that his partner was oblivious to it.

  “Cooper, you really should let me handle these people my way,” Goldman said wearily. “We haven’t got time to piss about. This lot couldn’t be terrorists in a million years. They’ve gone, but I bet this group buy half their drugs off them, and don’t mind listening in to a few conversations they’re not supposed to. I bet they know exactly where Herve and his terrorist friends have gone.”

  While he was speaking, Goldman moved down from the DJ booth, across the dance floor to where the customers were gathered. Suddenly, he seized one of the bright-eyed, spaced-out young men and pulled him toward him, taking the Smith & Wesson pistol from his pocket and holding it to the man’s head. In the bright lights of the room, Bolan could see a dark patch spread on the front of the man’s tight black jeans where he urinated in fear. Goldman held the gun to his temple.

  “I bet a coked-up speed freak like you listens in, eh? I bet you could tell me where they’d gone, no problem.”

  “N-n-n-no,” his captive stammered, the word barely escaping his lips.

  “Let him go,” Bolan said coldly, shifting his aim with the Desert Eagle so that it was focused on the redhead.

  “Aw, you’ve got to be kidding,” Goldman said, shifting so that his captive formed a shield.

  “I could blow your head off from here,” Bolan said quietly. “If these people aren’t connected to Destiny’s Spear, then we have no need to harm them.”

  “He says, after blowing away that geezer behind the door,” Goldman spit.

  “That was different,” Bolan said in a level tone. “He was a threat. They aren’t. Put the gun down. Now.”

  There was a moment where he thought he would have to fire. Goldman’s eyes fixed on his, and Bolan’s finger tightened on the trigger, squeezing gently.

  “Okay, okay, have it your way,” Goldman said, disgusted, as he stepped back, holding the gun muzzle upward and pushing the man back into the clustered group.

  “That’s better.’ Bolan turned his attention to the people and addressed them. “You know what we want, and you know that he’s barely in control. Next time I may not be able to stop him. So perhaps you’d better speak now, so we can leave.”

  He didn’t know if it would work. He was counting on their collective lack of nerve. It was a good call. An anorexically thin woman in a long black dress and white face makeup, who was comforting Goldman’s victim, looked up.

  “If I tell you something, you will go, yes?” Her French was halting, and Bolan pinned down her accent as Spanish.

  “If it is of use,” he said simply.

  “I know this man you seek,” she said in reply. “Yes, we buy from him. He is a slimy, boastful piece of shit, and he has a favorite woman who works here. A whore. Who else would have him?”

  She paused, as though expecting an answer. It struck the soldier as odd that a junkie would be so judgmental, but he held his tongue, waiting for her to continue.

  “You will not find her here now, as she went with him, but he was boasting to her about the mansion he would take her to in Provence, somewhere near Aix. He wanted it to be a surprise, but he couldn’t help letting that slip. He said it had extensive vineyards.”

  Bolan allowed himself a small smile. His guess about the type of location had been correct.

  “Anyone else hear anything?” he said. There were murmurs from the group, but nothing of any importance. Directing his attention to the Spanish woman, he asked, “Did you see them leave?”

  She shook her head, but added, “It cannot have been that long ago, less than an hour since he took the last of our money.”

  Bolan nodded. “Okay. That’s all we need to know. Now, my colleagues and I are going to leave. Slowly. I would suggest you wait there for five minutes and do nothing.”

  But from the look of the dejected group, there was nothing to cause concern. He waved the Desert Eagle at Goldman, who skirted the group and headed for the stairs. Bolan then began to withdraw, mindful of the fact that Goldman had the car keys, and the last thing he wanted was to be left holding the back-line while Ross and Goldman sped off. He backed past Ross, who looked momentarily confused, then automatically followed.

  As they left the building, in the early morning light, Bolan kept a watch even though he was sure they had nothing to fear.

  Goldman fired up the car and pulled away. “Well, I thought that went well,” the redhead said in a satisfied voice.

  His words astounded the Executioner, who was more than ever convinced Goldman was more of a threat than an asset.

  12

  “The thing i
s, just where exactly do we start?” Goldman asked as he piloted the Citroën out of the early-morning Marseilles traffic and onto the freeway. “I mean, we know it’s a big place near Aix, but that still covers a hell of a lot of ground, and we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “You know more about the stolen goods than I do. What’s your estimation?” Bolan asked, before adding, “and bear in mind that the Chilean’s customer is Mehmet Attaturk. His patience isn’t what you could call one of his virtues.”

  “You know this for sure?” Ross queried.

  Bolan nodded. “He was on the yacht, and nothing’s going to bring him out of even partial cover unless it’s important. This chip is.”

  Ross bit his lip and considered an answer before saying, “Look, they didn’t tell us that much, but this is pretty advanced engineering and programming that we’re talking about. In order to get it back to the engineer and get a viable result from taking the damn thing apart, we’ve got to be looking at a couple of days.”

  “What if he’s just going to give him the damn thing and not bother about taking it apart?” Goldman interjected as he overtook a vehicle on the inside lane, leaving a protesting Volvo driver in his wake.

  “Slow down, Jimmy. We don’t even know exactly where we’re headed yet,” Ross yelled. “Keep it together, for God’s sake.”

  “Chavez-Smith would try to buy time to take it apart,” Bolan stated. “If he has that secret, then he has more money and power—more than he’s ever seen—in one little package. He’s not the type to turn that down.” The soldier shook his head. “No, I figure he can buy a little time by claiming he had to detour to shake us off, and that’ll be when his people get to work on the chip. The other thing is this, if he doesn’t have anything other than off-loading the chip on his mind, then why gather the rest of Destiny’s Spear?”

  “You figure he could be planning some kind of test?” Ross asked quietly.

  “Intel reports show that he has sympathies with their goals, and wasn’t merely using them as a cover or a private army,” Bolan replied. “Put their numbers together with a weapon like that, and the links they have with other neo-fascist organizations in Europe, the UK and Ireland, and in the States, and all of a sudden it looks a little different.”

  “You’re clouding the issue,” Goldman snapped. “Our job is to get the chip back. You shouldn’t even be here. Anything that Chilean has planned for his tin soldiers has nothing to do with us.”

  “It does,” Bolan said coldly, “because the people who hired you are still part of the U.S. military and administration, even if they are working contra to the Oval Office. You think they’d want their little secret getting disseminated like that? We’re coming from different places, but our aim has become the same.”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “How are you going to find Chavez-Smith quickly? There’s a very narrow window in which to achieve the objective, and you don’t know where to start. You’re going to be wandering blind—”

  “And you’re not?” Goldman sneered.

  “I have backup that can help identify possible targets. If we use that, we can find them. If not, we’ll probably miss that chance.”

  “You have ‘backup’? Who’ll shoot us down as soon as they see us, right?” Goldman asked, taking his eyes off the road as he passed a swerving, unsteady truck that looked as though it was many years past its roadworthiness.

  Bolan glanced at the surrounding scenery and the road sign that flashed past. He had to convince Goldman quickly, or they would be past the turnoff for the airfield.

  “I have a backup who responds to my orders. And I give you my word. You’re an irritating jackass, and I could have eliminated you at any time during the past few hours. But I didn’t, because we need each other’s knowledge right now, like it or not. It’s only by working together that we stand a chance of getting that chip back before the Chilean knows its secrets, and it’s sold to Attaturk. And with the situation as it is…”

  Ross spoke from the back seat. He had been silent for some time, considering Bolan’s words.

  “Jimmy, whatever you think about Cooper, he’s right. Cooper, you know there’ll come a point where we’ll have a conflict of interest, and then it’s going to get nasty. But right now we do need a marriage of convenience. You have my word—if you think it’s worth anything—that we’ll follow your lead on this.”

  Goldman was livid. “Errol, how stupid are you? We’re walking into a trap.”

  Ross shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not at this point. We still need each other too much. Besides, where was this backup when we were in the town?”

  “A communication breakdown. Which we need to get remedied, as well as picking up as much information as we can.”

  Goldman suddenly pulled the car onto a hard shoulder. “So can you two, if you’ve settled what the hell it is that we’re doing—not that my opinion counts for much, I know—tell me where the hell I’m supposed to be headed?”

  “Considering you’ve been driving blindly since we left the Nightmare, I thought you had some kind of supernatural insight,” Ross said with a bland sarcasm. “Now calm down, Jimmy. We need to be businesslike on this one.”

  Bolan allowed himself a smile. “I’m glad you see it that way. Jimmy, take the next turnoff and double back a couple of kilometers. There’s a turnoff for an airfield that we need to take. My backup is waiting there, and we can get cleaned up and refitted while we try to pin down the target location…and I mean all of us,” he emphasized.

  Goldman grunted and swung the car onto the freeway again. His silence was the most eloquent thing to come from him for some time. The soldier breathed a sigh of relief. If Ross could keep Goldman under control, and Grimaldi could locate the château or farm where the Chilean had retreated, then it was possible they could clear up this mess.

  “SIR, THE CITROËN with Colonel Stone has just entered the airfield perimeter.”

  Jack Grimaldi snapped out of the reverie into which he had sunk. Since the news and police band reports on the events in the catacombs under Marseilles had abated, there had been reports of two separate incidents in drinking clubs that had ended with one man dead and several injuries. Each time three men had been involved.

  One of the descriptions sounded like Bolan, all right, but what worried Grimaldi was that the other two had fitted the descriptions of Ross and Goldman. The pilot felt uneasy about any alliances that Bolan had formed with these guys. He had more information on them now that Kurtzman had managed to get past the fire walls that had prevented him getting full file access, and the team at Stony Man had hacked into places that weren’t even supposed to exist.

  After so many missions together Grimaldi knew Bolan probably better than just about anyone else, and if he was allying himself with these guys, there was a good reason. If only the mike on the blacksuit hadn’t been damaged along the way, he’d have been able to keep contact.

  “Sir, did you catch that?” Walters asked hesitantly when Grimaldi didn’t immediately respond.

  “Yeah. Thanks, Walters. Is he on his own?”

  “No, sir, the sentry I posted reports two other men. Colonel Stone is not driving. They match…” He indicated the printouts Grimaldi had in front of him.

  “Yeah, I kind of figured they would. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to give them a cautious but friendly welcome. We can assume that the Colonel is allied with them, but we keep a few incentives on hand in case it gets rough, okay?”

  “Understood, sir,” Walters said. He unholstered his Walther P-38 and checked it. “I haven’t had to fire one of these for a few years, sir, so I may be a little rusty.”

  “Anyone who can tell me that probably won’t be,” Grimaldi said with a grin as he checked his H&K MP-5 before concealing it beneath the flight jacket he was still wearing. “Let’s go for it.”

  The two men walked out into the morning air to greet the vehicle as it approached the control tower and the su
rrounding bunkers. The light breeze brought a crispness to the air that wakened Grimaldi totally, so that every little thing around seemed sharpened. The early-morning sun was still low, and caught on the windshield of the car so that he was unable to see clearly inside. He and Walters walked a few paces across the grass and then waited, the USAF officer moving away from Grimaldi to make a cluster shot from the car impossible. It was a precaution—one Grimaldi hoped they wouldn’t need.

  The car rolled to a halt. The normal traffic of the airfield had already begun, and although it was quiet, there were planes preparing to take off, with a few engineers and pilots wandering the airfield. No other cars had taken this route, sticking to the roads leading to the parking lot and the hangars. If ever they wanted to be noticed, this was the way to do it, which would make a confrontation awkward. As with all of Bolan’s missions, it was important to keep as much of a low profile as possible.

  Three doors opened on the car simultaneously, and all three occupants exited the vehicle. Grimaldi was able to identify Ross and Goldman immediately. They stood away, their hands free.

  Bolan took a step forward. “It’s okay, Jack. We’ve got a major problem on our hands, too much to worry about petty divisions right now.”

  Grimaldi breathed a sigh of relief but still didn’t relax. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Walters was still poised.

  Bolan reached under the torn shirt and produced the package containing the chemical weapons, which he held out to the USAF officer.

  “Mission accomplished. At least, the official one. These are the stolen flasks containing chemical weapons, Walters. Take them and get them shipped back to your base.”

  Walters came forward and took the package gingerly. “I’ll get on it right away, Colonel.”

  “You do that,” Bolan said, turning back to Grimaldi. He indicated the two mercenaries standing behind him. “We’ve lost Chavez-Smith and the sonic weapon they’re after. I’m going after it with them. We need to get cleaned up, reequipped, and I need to know if you have maps and references for theAix area.”