For the most part, Bolan blotted this out as he went about his business. There were preparations to be made, as the trial was presently only a day from commencement.
“Jack, is this a secure line?”
“Sarge, if this isn’t secured then I’m going to string Bear up by his chair from under Dragonslayer and take him for a little ride.”
“The Bear seal of approval, eh? I’ll take that one,” Bolan said. It was good to hear a friendly voice in this self-imposed prison. “Countdown is less than twenty-fours, and we need to arrange cover. I’m taking Grozny in, and I’ll need you to sort out transport. Did you arrange disposal?”
“Sarge, that vehicle was gone before you even had time to get the coffee brewing. No way it could be traced to your location. I can get you an olive-green Saab, key taped under the rear fender, at the same location by 07:45 tomorrow. Can’t tell you the plates as I haven’t had them replaced yet, but I can confirm that tonight.”
“That’s what I like to hear. I don’t know if they plan to hit us before we go in, or when we’re inside, but I’m accounting for both eventualities. I want you to have Dragonslayer ready to hit the air as soon as you hear from me. I might need the backup, or I might need an evac.”
“I’ll be ready for both. You heard anything from the big man?”
“Not yet. I think I’m going to have to call him myself...after I speak to Bear.”
“You speak to him you might not need the big man. If there’s anything to know.”
“I’m hoping there’ll be nothing and it’ll all go smoothly.”
“You don’t joke much, Sarge, but when you do...” Jack chuckled. “Let me get on to the vehicle for you, and I’ll be ready and waiting tomorrow.”
Bolan disconnected, and paused before calling Stony Man Farm. He could hear Al Jazeera in Arabic from the next room. Even with his rudimentary grasp of Arabic he could understand that it was a story about Grozny’s upcoming trial, and his seclusion. He could hear a representative of the Koninklijke explaining that the prisoner had been parceled to a safe house and was under surveillance for his own safety until the trial. His mouth quirked—how much would the Koninklijke like to run him out of the Netherlands? he wondered.
“Bear, speak to me,” he said as his speed dial was an immediate pickup.
“Striker, I wonder if by any chance that’s Al Jazeera I can pick up in the background?”
“That’s very good sound filtering you have there.”
“Ah, I thought so. Have you been able to catch what they’ve just been talking about?”
“Some of it. I would guess that, by the way they’re lying through their teeth, the locals have been briefed about what’s going down—at least on a need to know. And I’d also hazard a guess that they’re not too happy.”
“Correct on both counts. The big man has called in a few favors to exert a little pressure and stop them looking too hard and trampling all over any trails we might find. It’s just made them madder than they were. They’ve not been big fans of yours since the PIH breakout.”
“I can see why not, but I was just doing what I had to. What they should have been doing. But as long as they give me a clear path tomorrow... I’ve made arrangements with Jack and I’ll deliver the goods right to the courtroom myself. Once the trial begins, it’s up to them and their holding facilities. I figure the Serbs will make one last push.”
“You figure it’ll be that?” Kurtzman quizzed. “Reasons?”
“One—to make a push at that point will probably shoot their bolt. They must be a hell of a lot of men down, and even if they are being bankrolled by outside sources, once the trial begins their reason for paying goes out the window. Added to that, they want a martyr who has been hard done by—the crap that’s going to hit during that trial won’t help them in the long run.”
“So we get through tomorrow—rather, you get through tomorrow—and it’s mission accomplished.”
“Exactly. What would really help are schematics of the routes into the court building, and any underground access—sewers, tunneling, anything—that can clue me in to a possible ingress and also give me some escape routes.”
“I can scare that up for you in the next hour and send it through. Is there anything else I can do for you, Striker?”
“You heard anything from the big man? I’m short on local intel.”
“Nothing that’s come through us here,” Kurtzman mused. “Which means it’s either all quiet, or Hal needs to speak to you about it himself.”
“Then I guess he’s the next call on my list,” Bolan said. He was certain that the enemy would not miss this chance, and the lack of intel was worrying more than reassuring under those circumstances.
As Kurtzman disconnected, Bolan sat looking at his smart phone, wondering what the requested schematics would reveal. If it could give him the glimmer of any possible weak spots, then that would be an immeasurable help. But not as much as some solid intel.
The cell rang. He was momentarily surprised, all the more so when he noted that it was an unrecognized number. If this device had been traced or hacked, then...but Kurtzman’s software was as good as it gets. He elected to answer warily.
“Mr. Cooper? This is Gordon Clelland. I’ve been speaking to Mr. Brognola and he suggested I call you.”
“On an unscrambled line?” Bolan asked with incredulity.
“He made me install some kind of app he sent me first, so I’m guessing not,” Clelland replied with assurance. “I think he felt I should speak to you directly.”
“Then speak,” Bolan said simply.
Clelland outlined what had happened to him that morning, and what had occurred after his discussion with Brognola. From the digging put into operation by the big Fed, it seemed that the two cells involved could not easily be traced, and the chances of finding out what had been sent between them were slim to nothing.
“At least we know they’re planning something,” Bolan said at length. “As long as I can put provisional measures in place—”
“We may know more than that, Mr. Cooper,” Clelland cut in. “I’ve called in a few favors of my own. You don’t work here long before that kind of opportunity opens itself up to you. There are two things that might be important. One is that the traffic-signal system in the area surrounding the court has been scheduled for maintenance. This means it will be taken off its centralized database and locally controlled by mechanics. It’s only four months since the last routine inspection, and this is a mite quicker than usual. The second thing is that the roster system for the guards inside the court has had several changes over the last two days. Men calling in sick, or swapping duty days with colleagues. Now, I know this kind of thing happens, but when you analyze the trend, it’s forty percent up on a usual week. Take the two together, and I get kind of suspicious.”
“That sounds like a reasonable conclusion,” Bolan said quietly. “You’re a good man, Gordon, and when I’m through with this I owe you a latte, or something stronger. It’d be good to buy you that.”
“It would be my pleasure, Mr. Cooper.”
As they exchanged farewells and Bolan disconnected, his mind raced—the traffic signals could cause the kind of jam that would make Grozny a sitting target. The roster changes could bring in ringers or bought men. It gave Bolan something to plan against, but made it no clearer whether the attack would be from outside or within.
Either way, it was going to be one hell of a trip.
Chapter 7
“This time we shall not fail. We cannot. It is not just that we need this man, it is that we need the money that we are getting in order to fulfill our destiny.”
The heavyset Serb, leader of the cell by default as he was the most senior left alive, gathered his men around him. They were depleted in number, but as he looked across the eight f
aces that were arrayed before him, he felt a surge of pride and hope. There were three brothers and a cousin among the eight, and they were the children of men who had served under Grozny. They carried with them the zeal of their fathers, and he knew they would lay down their lives willingly. The other five ranged from twenty-two to fifty, and although the older men had less physical prowess than their younger compatriots, they had served their time in the war and had experience they could bring.
Maybe with a smaller, tighter force he could effect that which had proved beyond him before this. If nothing else, they had a tight arena of attack, and the cash of the Chinese to grease the wheels.
“I want you to look at this,” he said, bringing up the schematics of the road system around the court on the iPad that sat on the table around which they were clustered. He indicated the key areas as he spoke.
“We have the traffic-control system in our hands. Money is a wonderful tool, and almost as wonderful as this...” He picked up a cable-and-box system that held a keypad and readout. “These are the manual controls used to test the traffic-control points. Thanks to our friends, we have a scheduled maintenance run that takes the points off the central grid. We will tap into the system here, here and here,” he added, indicating a nexus of avenues that formed a triangle around the block housing the court building.
“We gridlock the existing traffic so that air is the only way in. But even then they will have to drop men down, and the buildings are clustered so tight that this will prove difficult. Any way you look at it, this buys us time.”
“Time is all very well,” one of the older men muttered, his lined and thin face reflecting his worn and weary years of experience, “but what do we do with this time?”
“First we make sure that Grozny and that fucker in the blacksuit are inside the catchment area. Then we mount attacks here and here,” he continued, indicating two separate points, one of which caused the older man to raise an eyebrow.
“There?”
The Serb leader grinned. “They won’t know what hit them. No way will they suspect this...”
* * *
BOLAN WAS AWAKE before the sun came up. There was preparation to be done before they set out, and he wanted to get as much of it done as possible before the aging warlord awoke and began one of his interminable monologues.
Ordnance for the day—Micro-Uzi and Desert Eagle, along with sufficient inventory for each. Some C-4 and detonators—offhand he couldn’t think of a situation where he might need them, but he wanted to cover even the eventualities he could not imagine. There was no way he would be caught out this close to the post.
Benchmade Stryker automatic knife with four-inch Tanto blade—this he sheathed in the small of his back. It could have a number of uses. A Benelli M-3T combat shotgun with a folding stock: auto and pump action, with a seven-rounds tube and one chambered, each holding double 0 buckshot at twenty-seven .33-calibre pellets per round. It was a destructive and indiscriminate weapon in a confined space, but one that may have its uses nonetheless.
Finally, he gathered concussion and CS grenades, plus a gas mask and a monocular night-vision headset with infrared and heat functions. This latter may prove unnecessary, but again he was trying to go outside the box and cover even those situations he could not imagine.
Almost as an afterthought, he packed a spare gas mask for Grozny. It wouldn’t do to have the warlord delivered to court with eyes streaming, coughing up parts of lung.
Standing back from the bed, where he had laid out the tools, he ran a weather eye over them. There was enough here to cover just about anything and still be mobile. He loaded up the blacksuit and put the rest into a duffel bag for ease of conveyance. There was only one more thing he needed to check. He took out his cell and called the unrecognized number stored from the previous day.
When Clelland answered he sounded like someone roused from sleep—looking at his watch, Bolan realized this was probably the case.
“Gordon, it’s Cooper. I need you to check something for me.”
“Mr. Cooper, sir... Give me one second.” Clelland’s voice betrayed his struggle to snap out of sleep. Bolan waited. He could hear something that sounded like splashing, and then Clelland came back on line, clearer. “Sorry, sir, you caught me out. What can I do for you?”
“I need to know if the guard will be expecting me to deliver to the tradesman’s entrance as per all prisoners, and at what time. If I turn up and I’m not expected, then it could cause problems.”
“It could cause problems, anyway, Mr. Cooper, if some of those roster changes have been bought.”
“I realize that, but that I can deal with if it arises. What I don’t want is a breakdown of communication to get honest men—or me, come to that—in the firing line unnecessarily.”
“Understood. I know the signal went out as I tracked that for Mr. Brognola. I don’t know if it has reached the right level untainted, but I can make some calls and find out. I will have the answer for you in fifteen, if you can wait.”
“That would be fine, Gordon. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
After disconnecting the call, Bolan could hear that Grozny was awake. The warlord coughed heavily and hawked before muttering to himself. The soldier could hear him make his ablutions as he finished his own preparations, and by the time he was in the living room, placing the duffel bag on one of the easy chairs, the warlord was in the kitchen, brewing up coffee.
“You want some? Get some caffeine into your system. Like amphetamines but without the bad health effects. Unless you’re my doctor, in which case you tell me that it is bad for the heart. Pity no one told him that I do not have a heart, eh?”
“Pity is something you know a lot about, right? Especially when it concerns yourself,” Bolan replied.
“Easy for you to say,” Grozny snapped. “You are not about to go to court and have your character assassinated by some group of idiot lawyers who have no idea about warfare.”
“Better for you if it’s just your character that’s assassinated, and not the rest of you,” Bolan said shortly.
“It is a shame that you feel this way,” Grozny said sadly. “I felt that we had some affinity.”
Bolan could still not believe what he was hearing. Grozny had been a good soldier in some respects, but had overstepped so many marks that he had long ago forgotten where lines should be drawn. Bolan had lines in the sand the like of which Grozny would not even realize he was trampling over.
“You were wrong,” Bolan said simply. There was not the time to explain, and he doubted Grozny would even understand. He was spared the need to elaborate when his cell went off.
“Mr. Cooper, it’s Clelland...” The young man’s voice was strong this time, alert and clear. “I called in a few favors and reminded people why they owe me. The order of the day has been passed along, and the ground staff at court are aware that it isn’t the Koninklijke who will be handling this transfer. They know it will be a private vehicle, though they don’t know the make. They have ID for the prisoner and will eyeball him. I can’t vouch for what they do then, but if they’re straight, then they will be ready for you.”
“Thanks, Gordon, that’s all I needed to know. It’s better if they don’t have a vehicle ID at this stage. If I need you again—”
“I carry this cell at all times, Mr. Cooper. I’d wish you luck, but I figure you rely on more than that.”
After the line went dead, Bolan mused that Brognola had struck lucky with Gordon Clelland. A few more like him, and like Jack Grimaldi, and this wouldn’t be such a skin-of-the-teeth operation.
Speaking of which, time was pressing and he knew that Grimaldi would have the Saab in place.
“Time to go,” he said simply.
They left the apartment with Bolan at point. It was early morning, and there were few signs of life on the block, j
ust the odd shift worker and some mothers dropping their children off at school before heading off to work themselves.
Just as the Executioner was heading off to work.
Bolan was sure that they had not been followed or scoped out in the past couple of days, but still he was alert and on edge as they made their way down to the street, the Micro-Uzi concealed but still to hand. Oddly, the thought that Grozny may try to make a run for it did not cross his mind—the warlord had made it clear by his actions that he did not trust those who sought to release him, and to try to run would play into their hands with nothing in his locker for backup. Despite his complaints, his only hope of staying alive was to go to trial.
Bolan led the warlord along the street to where they had left their previous vehicle a couple of nights prior. Presently, standing in the same spot, was the Saab that Grimaldi had promised. Moving to the rear of the vehicle, he groped for the keys under the rear fender. They were taped there as promised, and he ripped them off before hitting the central locking.
Grozny slid into the passenger seat, and as Bolan settled behind the wheel, the warlord said, “You can trust me with a gun. If I shoot anyone in the head, it won’t be you. I might even be useful.”
Bolan hesitated for a moment—in a sense it went against the grain, but he knew in his gut that Grozny was being truthful. He slipped the Benelli from the duffel bag and handed it to Grozny, who laid it across his lap and covered it with his jacket.
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