Night's Reckoning

by Don Pendleton

  “Deliberate?”

  “Up the ladder...not the boys on the ground. They can only respond to what they’re given, and I just felt they were being constrained.”

  “Cover blown?”

  “As long as I don’t see any of these Koninklijke guys, then maybe I can keep it going a bit longer within the Hague. But I’m on the clock. It helps that it’s chaos here, and no one’s worrying about an IT consultant who didn’t show for work today. I did remember to call in sick,” Bolan added with a chuckle. Then, voice hardening, he said, “PIH is out of action for a while. There are repairs to the comms and surveillance systems, and some structural damage. They were thorough. The worst of it is that they cut down everyone who crossed their path. Which means that we can’t even find the inside man—and there must have been one—and follow the chain. They made sure of that. Maybe that’s why they killed any guard in sight.”

  “Word has it that they’ve got maximum-security spaces for all the inmates left behind.”

  “I’m so pleased,” Bolan replied heavily. “What about our man? He has half a detachment around him right now, but if there’s another cell out there waiting to make a move, I’d hate it if they had the chance to come down here.”

  “Not going to happen. Grozny is being moved to a safe house by the Hague, away from the other PIH inmates. A secured location.”

  “No such thing here, Hal. I’m going to have to shadow Grozny if he’s going to reach trial without anything else going down. I’m assuming that even though Kowalski is dead, the Chinese connection could still drag up a lot of things—”

  “—that the current administration wouldn’t like to have to account for. Right.”

  “I’ll deal with Kowalski first, then liaise with the contact,” Bolan said.

  “Keep it low-key, Striker.”

  “I’ll try, Hal. Just don’t watch CNN until the trial starts.”

  * * *

  THE MORGUE WAS almost deserted. Only the duty porter remained, under a single light, feet on the table and a Nintendo in his hand. Bolan was a little surprised that the bodies were not under guard to prevent tampering or snatching, but figured that manpower was stretched and it was unlikely that dead men were going anywhere.

  One of them was. The morgue attendant was too engrossed in his game, and Bolan was able to sidle up and disable him with a single movement.

  None of the drawers were name-tagged as there had been no ID, so the soldier had to swiftly go through them in order until he reached his man. Kowalski had been disfigured, but not so badly that Bolan did not recognize his face. Prints and dental would be too easy to trace. He could either obliterate them, which may take a little time in the case of dental work, or he could just take the body and dump it.

  No. Better to get the body out and then dispose of it himself. He secured a gurney and transferred the corpse before heading for the exit. He removed the porter’s uniform coat for disguise, and found progress was remarkably easy. Perhaps not. Who was concerned with a porter and a gurney going out rather than coming in, considering the situation three floors up?

  Out the back of the building, it was easy at this time to find an ambulance that had just discharged its cargo. The paramedics were both in Emergency. It was the work of a moment to stow the body—there was no need for finesse—and then hot-wire the vehicle. He was out of hospital grounds before the crew even realized their vehicle was gone.

  It was only when he was several blocks from the hospital that he took out his cell and hit speed dial.

  “Hey, Sarge, didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again today. See we made the lead on local TV?”

  “Yeah, funny, Jack, real funny.... I’ll get Hal to call you and tell you what he thinks of that. Are you busy?”

  “Well—”

  “Rhetorical question, Jack. I’ve got something I need you to help me dispose of safely. How long will it take you to get to me if I activate my GPS?”

  Chapter 4

  The following morning saw a red-eyed IT expert named Matt Cooper back on duty at his post at the Permanent Court of International Justice, from where he was outsourced to the adjuncted courts representing war crimes and human rights abuses that seemingly multiplied by the day, each bringing its own problems when it came to IT security.

  “Good to see you back, Matt,” Belinda Hagen murmured as she walked by his desk. “Where were you yesterday? The new Syria unit? I hear they need setup, and quick.”

  Bolan rubbed his eyes then shook his head as he looked up from his monitor. Ostensibly, he was trying to find a back door in a new security system to test its validity. Truth was that Kurtzman had sent him the procedure for cracking it and then patching the night before, ready for his day’s cover work, along with a lengthy diatribe about the slackness of UN security. Looking at how simple it would be, he could only agree, and wondered how he could make this look like a day’s work while in pursuit of his own agenda.

  Hagen was in her early thirties, a blond lawyer who was definitely career driven but had an air of loneliness about her. She’d been taking an interest in the dark stranger since he had arrived. Not that Bolan didn’t like her, but this was not the place. He had already wasted too much time trying to deflect her actions without arousing any animosity—and it looked as if he had to do it again.

  “I wish I had been over there yesterday, Bel. A clean new system is easier to work with than the bug-ridden crap they’ve landed you with here. But I was off sick. I hear it was all action round town while I had my head down the john after some seriously offensive seafood.”

  As a cover story, it was intended to explain absence, lack of contact and also put off anyone who wanted further detail. It didn’t take the amorous into account, however.

  “You poor thing...” Hagen took him by the chin, lifting his head and looking into his eyes, taking Bolan’s lack of rest for sickness. “You have to be careful where you eat, even in a high-maintenance city like this. You should let me be your guide—”

  “I’ll bear that in mind, but I don’t think I’ll be wanting seafood for some time yet.”

  “Oh, I can be your guide for anything,” she said in what she hoped was a seductive voice.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Bolan said hurriedly. He wanted to get rid of her, but then his attention was taken by the pile of newsprint she was carrying, the top sheets of which were English rather than Dutch. “I’ve got some catching up to do...looks like you have, too?”

  She sighed, placing the papers before him. “You picked a good day to be sick, if that can be said. All hell broke loose yesterday, and in the department for the former Yugoslavia, too. That’s hardly a current situation.”

  “I heard whispers this morning, but there was nothing public I caught,” Bolan said carefully.

  “That’s because our people tried to keep it under wraps, but how can you do that when some bunch of crazies try to blow up a prison building and our own military act like they’re in the Middle East? It was like a war zone out there, and they thought they could keep it quiet.”

  “Seemed to work. Nothing I saw. Haven’t heard too much since I’ve been in, either.”

  Hagen laughed. Her smile was momentarily distracting, although Bolan was concerned to know how much of his own anonymous involvement may have made the media. His cover was already on tenuous ground.

  “Honey, you wouldn’t believe it. First an air attack on the PIH with multiple fatalities, followed by what looks like a car chase out of Mi4. It all went a bit Hollywood, and ended up with some kind of shootout on an industrial park. I know our boys had to bring it to a swift end, but they could have been a bit more subtle.”

  “What was it about?” Bolan probed as he tried to rapidly scan the international papers without seeming too interested. The local press had been curt, and he hadn’t had a c
hance to scan the Net as yet. But this didn’t look good.

  Hagen shook her head. “I don’t get it, really. They took this guy Grozny, who’s minor, as far as these old Balkan guys go. Our national intelligence sat on the material released to the press here, but couldn’t stop it leaking out across the border.”

  Satisfied that the Koninklijke had been more than happy to take any credit going and so had inadvertently given himself and Grimaldi the screen they needed, Bolan had moved on down the pages to note that the cell effecting the breakout had been keen to release a triumphant press release about the restoration of Grozny to his rightful place at the head of a Serb revolutionary council.

  Once the old man had been settled into his safe house before his trial, Bolan would be glad to ask him a few questions about this revolutionary council. If his own intel had been correct, the old man had been made a figurehead with minimal involvement on his part.

  The big questions—why, and who?

  He would have to seek some intel from his own source in the Hague—the only one he was sure he could trust.

  “You know, they’re going to have their hands full getting that house back in order over there. Looks like it took out their systems as well as their men. I have a nasty feeling they’re going to be calling on me, which means I’m going to have to get this back door fixed before I leave you. I really must—”

  He indicated his terminal, and handed the newsprint pile back to the blond lawyer. She looked at him a little crestfallen.

  “Oh...well, don’t forget my offer,” she said weakly.

  “I won’t,” he said, deliberately fixing his attention on the screen. “I might be a little busy, though...” He glanced up as she moved away, and not without a little regret, considering the way she moved across the room.

  Somehow, though, he figured things were not about to let up enough for anything enjoyable.

  * * *

  “YOU ARE LATE,” the Chinese man murmured mildly, yet with enough rebuke in his tone to make his companion wince.

  “It was not my intent to cause you offense. You know that we value your continued support of our cause, and would not wish to imply any disrespect toward you or your government.”

  Xiao Li took off his spectacles and sighed as he polished them before placing them back on the bridge of his nose. He took in the heavyset man who stood before him.

  “Your mealymouthed platitudes mean little to me. Or, it must be said, to those I am answerable to. You did not do a good job yesterday. In truth, it was lamentable.”

  “That is a little unfair. We had factored in the military and the police forces that we would encounter. We dealt with their threat well enough and got our man away from them. We can hardly be blamed for what happened.”

  “And just what did happen?” Xiao asked in mild tones. “It would appear to all intents and purposes that you allowed one man, acting seemingly independent of the military, to not only neutralize your men but also recapture the target.”

  “There was no way we could factor in whoever the hell that was,” the heavyset man returned heatedly. “We—”

  “You do not know who he was?” Xiao interjected. “That is most illuminating. Perhaps we should be looking for better avenues—those who are more productive—in which to invest our time and capital.”

  “Capital—I like that. Your people have adapted well to the language of the West,” the heavyset man sneered.

  “Adaptability and the willingness to bend with the winds rather than snap are not values that should be overlooked. You would do well to learn that if you are to have a second chance,” Xiao counseled. “Walk with me.”

  Slowly, and in silence, he began to pace around the room. The men were standing among tourists and students in the Panorama Mesdag building, housing a cyclorama of 15 yards in height and a diameter of about 47 yards, which made for a circumference of 120 yards. Painted by Hendrik Mesdag at the beginning of the 1880s, the cyclorama gave the viewer the impression that they were standing on dunes above sea level, looking down at the sea, the beach and the buildings of Scheveningen. There was a false bottom to the painting that landscaped into the floor of the building, enhancing the illusion. Xiao had wanted to see this place since arriving in Holland, and it served its purpose well. To all intent, it seemed as though he was just a minor diplomat on an afternoon off, taking in some local culture, who happened to be talking to one of several people he had exchanged pleasantries with on this trip. He had been careful to arrive before the allotted time and so establish this before his contact arrived.

  It had another purpose, one that may not have been obvious to the man walking beside him.

  “You must be aware that the way in which things appear to the world may not necessarily be the way they are,” he said carefully. “Consider this room, for example. We know that we are not seeing an actual world before our eyes, only a representation of one. One, nonetheless, that is designed to make us believe that we are in another place.”

  The heavyset man looked at him blankly. “I don’t...” he said slowly.

  Xiao sighed. “You desire a leader. We have been more than happy to help you in procuring that leader. A man who, in the past, was an ally of ours, much as you are now. But now, as then, we acted because it best suited us, not necessarily because we would wish to be associated with the aims and ideals of that man or those he represented. In the same way, we would wish to stay in the background now.”

  “This I understand. I still don’t see—”

  “Of course, your plan to make your aims known to the world by way of your announcement was shortsighted. It took some assistance and some trouble for us to increase the spread of your manifesto beyond your stunted efforts. And I would wish you to consider the equally stunted efforts you may make in attempting to take once more your target.”

  “Are you saying that we should not make another attempt?”

  Xiao stopped before a section of cyclorama that presented a calm seascape. “I am fond of this section. Changing yet unchanging. Like all of us.... No, I do not say that. What I wish you to consider is this. Your aims would assist us in changing the political landscape in a delicate area. Your erstwhile leadership figure is a man whose reputation we helped to forge. However, you would do well to consider that I knew him, and thus know of his own instinct for self-preservation. You should perhaps question why, of all the people in that building, he came out unscathed while all your men died. Interesting that he managed to avoid any kind of crossfire. Not, if you know your history, the first time this has happened to him.

  “Consider this, if you will. An idol with feet of clay can bog down the path to a revolution. A martyr on a pedestal stands as a shining beacon to light the way.”

  The heavyset man pursed his lips and scrutinized Xiao carefully. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

  A faint smile crossed Xiao’s lips. “I make only remarks upon the nature of heroic figureheads. Their best purpose is up to you. And if that purpose is best, then it will have our full support. Now...is it not wonderful the way that sea appears to follow you around the room?”

  The heavyset Serb assented, realizing that his audience had just been brought to a conclusion.

  * * *

  “YOU KNOW THE problem with this place? Unless there’s a real, serious world conflagration, then no one is actually going to give a shit about who lives and who dies. You can have millions scattered across the globe dying every day in a battle of some kind, but unless it gets to really big numbers concentrated in one region, then it’s not going to show up on the balance sheet and screw up someone’s budget. It’s only when that happens that we’ll get some kind of action. Until then, it’s guys like you who have to do the firefighting, and that’s all it is, man. No one actually gives a crap about solutions.”

  “That’s an interesting point of
view,” Bolan said mildly. “And I should imagine it would make you very unpopular if you voiced it too loudly in these parts,” he added.

  The young man facing him took a long pull on the Starbucks latte in front of him, and sucked in hard.

  “Globalization my ass—it doesn’t taste like it does back home.” He shook his head sadly. “Sorry, Mr.

  Cooper, rant over. It just really pisses me off some days.”

  “Don’t be,” Bolan said quietly. “I agree with you. I’ve been fighting all my life and I’d like nothing better than to hang up the spurs. But it still goes on. Sure, part of it is just human nature and cussedness. But part of it is greed, and that’s the same thing that you’re talking about, only from a different perspective. Budgets, assets...everyone wants a slice of the pie. And while they’re arguing about it, innocent people are dying.”

  Gordon Clelland sat back in his seat and nodded. “You know, sir, when I signed up for all this straight out of college I figured that with it being the Agency, there was a chance of really doing some good. Of course, it’s the Homeland that’s my number-one priority, but seeing as part of that is the Constitution and the idea of freedom, I can’t see that as a problem. Soon found out I was wrong there.”

  “I guess that’s why Hal scoped you out and got you onside.”

  “I’d like to think so. Mr. Brognola trusts me and I like to reciprocate. See, the idea of the Agency and what we’re supposed to be doing here is fine and good, but it never works out that way. Too much territorial pissing and that leaves gaps where the bad guys can sneak in. I guess I like to think of myself as just watching those gaps. I get plenty of opportunity.”

  They were seated in a Starbucks a few blocks from the main Hague offices of the NC3A, the agency responsible for the procurement and development of C3 capabilities to a number of NATO bodies including Allied Command Transformations and Allied Command Operations, as well as a number of smaller divisions with the NATO model. With its emphasis on prototyping and spiral-growth models, it was about equipping the areas of NATO with the best systems in hardware, software and management to ensure the smooth running of the engine for global peacekeeping. Five hundred operatives worked in the Hague, with another three hundred based in Brussels. They came from many countries, and yet for the most part their true allegiances were departmental, with each determined to fight their own corner without looking at the whole.