Lethal Payload

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan stared.

  Three 1928 Thompson submachine guns stared back at him.

  Aretos shrugged. “They are former Paraguayan police issue. Reported stolen years ago. Untraceable.”

  Reno took up one of the ancient weapons and inserted a loaded 50-round drum. He gave Bolan his movie-star handsome grin. “Like The Untouchables, no?”

  Aretos picked up one of the submachine guns and loaded it. “Do you know which end is which?”

  Bolan took up the heavy wood-and-steel weapon. Fully loaded, it was twice as heavy as an M-16. The stock and foregrip were worn, and much of the finish was gone. He racked the action and noted its liquid smoothness. He inserted a drum and racked the action again to load a round. The weapon was well used but had been meticulously maintained. Bolan shook his head. Action Direct agents had a reputation for being cowboys. The reputation was well deserved.

  Bolan flipped on the safety. “I’m familiar with it,” he said.

  Aretos looked derisively at the doctor. “Here.” He threw back a blanket and revealed another dinosaur. “Here is your MAS-49.”

  Poulain took up the battered, old semiautomatic rifle and examined it. He picked up an ancient looking belt of rubberized canvas with six magazine pouches.

  Bolan checked the sights on his weapon. It was archaic, but, arguably, it would be harder to think of a better weapon for clearing rooms full of entranced, suicidal Javanese martial artists. Bolan picked up a battered looking gas mask bag that contained two more drums. “Anything else?”

  Reno yanked another blanket away to reveal a white plastic five-gallon bucket. It was full to the rim with the brutally knobbed shapes of U.S. military pineapple grenades.

  “Argentine army surplus.” Aretos began filling his pockets. “Take as many as you want.”

  ARETOS’S FIST crashed across the man’s jaw. “How many?”

  The French agent backhanded the Javanese gangster before he could speak, and the man collapsed to the muck of the alley. Reno yanked him up, and Aretos buried his fist into the gangster’s guts.

  “How many, Munap?” Aretos grinned as the man folded in half and dropped to the ground again. “And where?”

  Bolan had been on both ends of some very ugly interrogations. Either way it was a rotten experience. Aretos was enjoying the proceedings just a little too much.

  The Javanese quarter in Cayenne was small, and full of immigrants from neighboring Suriname who came to find work as fishermen and dockworkers. Like all immigrants, they brought their gangsters with them. Munap Hubudin had a nasty reputation as a leg breaker, which he backed up with his ancestral martial arts.

  A few thousand volts from Reno’s stun gun had taken the fight right out of him.

  Reno smiled unpleasantly at Bolan. “You want to hit him?”

  Bolan was unimpressed. “Hurry up.”

  “Americans,” Reno said. “All business.”

  Aretos put his foot in Hubudin’s crotch and leaned. “Where and how many?”

  The gangster winced in agony. His limbs still trembled and twitched from the voltage he’d taken. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice rose to a shriek as Aretos leaned harder.

  “Think,” Aretos prompted. “Think very hard. Someone has my boss. I think you know who. Last chance, and then I’m going to stop crushing your balls and I am going to start cutting them.”

  Reno made a show reloading a fresh pair of probe cartridges into the stun gun. “Maybe he just needs some more juice.”

  “Or maybe we should just give him to the American.” Aretos grinned at Hubudin. “He is all business.”

  Hubudin’s gaze met Bolan’s. The gangster’s eyes rolled away in terror. “I was told to keep a lookout on the street, and report anything I saw.”

  Aretos eased up a little bit. “Like what?”

  “Police searching the waterfront or asking questions.” He glanced at Bolan. “Or strangers.”

  “Who gave you these orders?” Aretos asked, pressing his foot down.

  “Naga!” Munap nearly screamed the name. “Naga!”

  Bolan gauged the fear in the man’s eyes and saw he was telling the truth. “Who’s Naga?” he asked.

  “Ngabehi Bagus,” Aretos said. “A drug dealer and a pimp. Scum.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped Hubudin’s blood from his fist. “He has an import-export business, which fronts Guianan marijuana into Europe and then imports heroin. If you want Asian girls, he brings them in from Suriname. He’s a small fish, but he rules his own little kingdom in the Javanese quarter. He pays protection to the French syndicates in Paris and pays off the local police regularly. As long as he keeps his crimes in the Javanese community and his dirty work in Suriname, no one bothers him.”

  Bolan nodded. “Let’s go bother him.”

  Aretos yanked Hubudin to his feet. He shoved his face into the gangster’s and grinned like a wolf. “Time to go report, soldier.”

  12

  “Not much on the outside.” Aretos stared out the rain-spattered windshield at the corrugated iron wall with a single door. “They say the inside is a veritable pleasure dome.” The French agent’s face grew ugly as he thought of his boss. “They say the cellars below are a tomb of horrors.”

  Bolan had seen many such places. Far too many. “What does Naga look like?”

  “Short, fat, head like a bullet. Scars under and over his left eye, gold teeth, tattoos. If you see someone who looks like a cartoon character of an Asian gangster, it is Naga.”

  Bolan had seen far too many of that type, as well. “Let’s do it.”

  Aretos turned to Hubudin and unlocked his handcuffs. “Okay, you’re going to go knock on the door. We’re going to be right here across the street.” He patted the ancient Thompson between his knees. “You screw up, the three of us cut you in two. After we move in, you are allowed to run for your life, and keep running. All the way back to Suriname. Understand?”

  The man glanced warily at Bolan. He had met the Executioner’s gaze for only a moment, and what he had seen there had left his insides like ice water. He gazed out unhappily at the rain and nodded.

  “Good boy.” Aretos prodded him with the muzzle of the Thompson. “Now, go.”

  Hubudin stepped out of the SUV and walked through the rain like a man going to his own funeral. Bolan flicked off the safety of his Thompson and kept the muzzle trained on Hubudin’s back. The gangster went up to the door and pressed the button on the intercom. He spoke into it. The rain lashed down against the windshield as they waited.

  The door cracked open.

  Aretos stomped the accelerator to the floor. The vehicle’s tires screamed for traction on the wet cobblestones and then bit down. The SUV tore around in a tight arc and forward for the front door. Hubudin turned and had but a split second to widen his eyes in betrayal and horror as his flesh and bone crumpled under the impact of the grille. The windshield cracked as he went flying over the hood.

  Dr. Poulain shouted in alarm as the windshield cracked. The SUV kept going forward. The man who answered the door was smashed back as the frame ripped out of the doorway. Corrugated iron ripped and tore all around the SUV.

  The interior of the warehouse was done up like a pasha’s palace. Opulent batik prints stretched across the cavernous interior from the ceiling to the floor. The floors were covered with expensive Persian rugs. Carvings of gold, ebony, ivory and jade were everywhere. Potted trees rose to the skylights amid fountains. Bolan had no time to admire the decor. Roland stepped on the brakes. Bolan bolted out of the SUV with his Thompson leveled.

  Two Javanese men reclined on cushions smoking a hookah. Half-naked Asian women sat at their feet. The stems of the gangsters’ water pipes dangled in their hands. Too late, they reached for the AK-74 rifles by their knees.

  A door flung open at the far end of the pleasure dome.

  A bald, gold-toothed, scar-faced man who could only be Naga stared slack-jawed at the intruders in his parlor.

  Bolan
’s Thompson roared into life. He hammered both men with 5-round bursts to the chest.

  Poulain’s rifle cracked twice, but the men were already fallen.

  Naga flung the door closed again.

  The women screamed and cowered on the ground.

  Reno and Aretos held their triggers down, streaming .45-caliber rounds through the door in continuous fire after Naga. Two men with rifles appeared on the balcony above the private room. Bolan raised his aim. He hosed both down before either man got off a shot.

  Inside the room, Naga was screaming.

  Bolan moved to the door. He stepped to one side and put in a fresh drum as pistols barked from inside the room. The soldier racked his bolt on a fresh round and took a grenade out of his pocket. He nodded at the room as he pulled the pin, and Aretos and Reno began pumping fresh bursts through the walls. The cotter lever pinged away as Bolan opened his hand and then closed it to make a fist around the grenade.

  Bolan turned to the door and drove his fist through it.

  He opened his hand and dropped the grenade on the floor within. Someone inside screamed in alarm. There was a crash of furniture within. Bolan drew out his arm and moved away from the door as several bullets smashed outward. He heard the sound of overturning furniture as the grenade detonated with a crack. Bolan turned back and kicked the door in.

  A man lay screaming on the floor clutching the ruins of his face. Another bloody, human ruin lay unmoving on the blood-spattered carpets. A huge mahogany desk lay overturned in the corner. There was clearly a man crouching behind it.

  Bolan kept his sights on the center of the overturned table. “Come out, Naga.”

  The gangster rose slowly from behind the table. His left arm hung bloody and useless by his side. He dropped a Colt .45 pistol to the floor and raised his good hand pleadingly as he spoke rapidly in French.

  Naga screamed and collapsed as a burst from Reno’s gun cut him down at the knees.

  Bolan turned. The Frenchmen’s weapons were not quite pointing at him. Reno smiled in challenge. His smile was tinged with the sadism Bolan had detected before. He spit in Naga’s direction and shrugged. “He’s a dead man, anyway. No one fucks with Action Direct, and this starts the interrogation on the right foot.”

  Dr. Poulain scowled in revulsion as he guarded the door. Bolan went over to where Naga moaned and clutched his legs.

  “Tell me where she is, and I won’t let them torture you,” the Executioner said.

  Aretos and Reno lost their smiles.

  Dr. Poulain no longer guarded the door. The muzzle of his rifle was now pointing inside the room. Aretos shook his head slowly, but his eyes stayed locked with Bolan as he spoke.

  “Poulain…I am going to shove that rifle up your ass.”

  The scientist brought his rifle to his shoulder and aimed at Aretos. “Try it.”

  The French agents exchanged a quick glance. Bolan knew they were considering killing him, and possibly the doctor, as well.

  Bolan spoke to Naga with grim finality. “Last chance. Before this gets ugly.”

  “Downstairs! She is alive! Downstairs!”

  “Anyone with her?”

  “One guard! One guard!” Naga screamed it like a mantra. “One guard!”

  Aretos broke eye contact with Bolan. He strode forward and glared at Naga. “You are sure?”

  “One guard!”

  “Good.” Aretos dropped the muzzle of his Thompson onto Naga’s chest and squeezed the trigger.

  “For God’s sake!” Poulain was livid.

  Aretos took his time clicking a fresh drum into his weapon, daring Bolan to do something about it. The soldier was not going to buy into the power trip. Yet. He filed the Frenchman away as unfinished business and arranged a smile on his face. “So where’s downstairs?”

  Aretos glanced around the room. Bolan took over. “Poulain, you stick with me. We’ll take the front. Roland, you and Alain take the back. We search every square inch of the place.”

  The agents began yanking down tapestries and ripping up rugs. Poulain looked thoughtfully at the walls. Bolan mentally did some math. The building was a converted warehouse. It was a box. The cellar would most likely be new construction. If there were a hidden door rather than a floor hatch there would be an inconsistency in the interior—

  “There.” Bolan walked across the office. The room was slightly smaller on the inside than it should have been. The carpet was slightly worn in front of one wall section, but there was no visual reason for foot traffic in front of an empty wall. Bolan tapped on the section of wall with his knuckles. He stepped back and put his foot through it.

  The panel smashed inward off of its track to reveal a narrow stairwell. Reno pushed forward. He flicked on the light at the top of the stairs and shouted. “Throw down your weapon! Come out! You will not be harmed!”

  There was a pause, then an AK-74 rifle clattered at the foot of the stairwell. A man shouted, “Don’t shoot!”

  A Javanese came up the stairs slowly. He was a big man, but he wasn’t Ki. The guard glanced fearfully from muzzle to muzzle of the weapons covering him. Reno drove the barrel of his Thompson into the man’s gut as he reached the top and then shoved him to the floor of the office. Aretos patted him down. He tossed the man’s knife in a corner. “Poulain, cover him.”

  Poulain turned his rifle on the man.

  “Jolie!” Reno descended the stairs. “Jolie!”

  A muffled, though definitely feminine voice came back in answer.

  “Jolie!” Reno turned the corner.

  The roar of the shotgun was like a stick of dynamite detonating in the confined space. Most of Reno’s head was torn away in a hailstorm of lead, brain and bone and splattered the concrete wall behind him. Poulain shouted in alarm and his rifle fired once. Bolan snapped a glance backward. The gangster on the office floor had bounced up like a jumping jack. He had taken one bullet and then kicked the rifle out of Poulain’s hands. In the blink of an eye, the Javanese delivered three martial arts hand strikes that drove Poulain to the floor.

  Feet pounded in the cellar below.

  Bolan dropped his submachine gun and pulled a grenade from his pocket. If the cellar was one room, the woman would be within the lethal fragmentation radius of the grenade. He would have to cut it close. He stepped away from the stairwell as he pulled the pin and waited for the sound of feet hitting the wooden stairs. The wooden stairs groaned, and the cotter lever pinged away as Bolan tossed the grenade and drew his Beretta.

  Aretos brought his Thompson to bear as the big Javanese lunged at him. The submachine gun snarled as the grenade down the stairwell detonated. Two bullets smashed into the guard’s chest. The weapon fell silent as the man’s kick smashed off the Thompson’s foregrip and broke Aretos’s wrist. The kick continued and bent back the drum at a horrible angle that jammed the feed. The guard’s fist pistonned into Aretos’s throat, and the French agent fell gagging to the floor.

  The gangster spun for Bolan.

  The Beretta 93-R drilled a 3-round burst into his chest. Bolan touched off a second and a third burst. Even in a trance, the killer could no longer ignore the damage to his heart and lungs. He stared down stupidly at the bleeding holes in his chest as Bolan raised his aim and finished him with a burst to the head. Bolan whirled on the stairwell as the killer fell.

  Ki Gunung flew up out of the stairwell like winged vengeance.

  He vaulted the bodies of his two men who had taken the majority of the shrapnel on the narrow stairs. Blood streaked his chest and face, and his empty hands were torn where he had not entirely avoided the flying fragments. Bolan got off one burst as Ki’s kick hit him square in the chest. Bolan staggered back. Froth flecked the corners of Ki’s mouth, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he spun. The edge of his foot came around in a blinding arc and chopped the 93-R out of Bolan’s hand. The Executioner put up his hands to block and the next kick flew in beneath his guard and thundered into his gut. His blocking arm went numb as Ki’s n
ext kick tried to crush his skull.

  Ki was a martial artist nearly from birth, and he was deep in his trance. Bolan knew he stood no chance in hand-to-hand combat, but he fought on. He stabbed his fingers for Ki’s eyes and was rewarded by a deadly kick that missed by inches. Bolan tried to cover as Ki’s blows fell like rain. Only the soldier’s body armor prevented his ribs from staving in. His arms turned to aching lead as they absorbed the blows meant for his brain.

  Ki leaped into the air with a scream. The flying kick took Bolan off his feet and bounced him off the far wall of the office. He forced his brutalized body to move. Ki bent and picked up the dagger on the floor.

  Ki stood between the Executioner and the firearms.

  Aretos pushed himself up from the floor. His face was a mask of agony as he held his broken wrist up to his throat. His right hand clutched his stun gun. He glared at Ki as the ruby beam of the laser sight whined into life.

  Ki turned.

  The stun gun chuffed once and then twice as Aretos fired both probes. The barbed darts buried themselves in Ki’s chest, and Aretos pumped voltage into Ki’s body.

  Ki shuddered and jerked as Aretos held down the trigger and drained the battery pack into him. Ki shrieked as he seized the wires and ripped the probes from his body. He closed the gap between himself and Aretos in two strides. Bolan pulled his last grenade from his pocket as he lunged after Ki. Aretos tried to bring up his hands as Ki attacked. Ki’s foot smashed the agent’s arms back into his face, and the wall cracked behind his head with brutal force as he bounced against it.

  Ki whirled as he sensed Bolan behind him. The two men’s attacks spun into each other. The entranced Javanese made no attempt to block. His foot scythed for Bolan’s head. The big American held the pineapple grenade in his open right fist. His blow swung around in a brutal arc like a ball and chain. The crenellated steel sphere of the fragmentation grenade crunched into Ki’s temple. Ki’s kick struck Bolan’s blocking arm a split second later and staggered him halfway across the room.

  Bolan kept his feet. He steadied himself and staggered back to the fray with the bloody grenade in his hand.