"I heard what that soldier was saying to you." Tanya climbed into the front seat, her thigh brushing against Bolan's shoulder. Once seated, she turned to face him with an intense expression of controlled anxiety. "It is never wise for me to come here, you understand that," she said.
Bolan shrugged. "Suit yourself, lady. I can take you out again right now, same way we came in. But this is where I keep my goodies stored and I ain't risking sneaking them all out of here on your maybe. If you want to buy them sight unseen, that's okay by me, too. But make up your mind."
Tanya's face twitched angrily. Bolan was out of the jeep before she could say anything. "This way," he whispered, motioning with his head. She stayed close to him in commando formation, creeping forward or flattening herself against a wall at the instant that he did. She was good, he realized, maybe too good to make this next part work. He shook the thought from his mind and continued forward. It had to work.
Everything depended on it.
"It's huge," she said at last, looking up at the massive metal building at the back of the army compound.
"It used to be an airplane hangar," Bolan told her, whispering in the darkness as she marvelled at the shadowy form that they approached. "But it was converted into a storage building about five years ago. I have my own private little corner in there that no one else even knows about. Come on." They jogged quickly across the paved street, Bolan in military uniform, Tanya in black jeans and sweater, then they crept toward the armed guard who stood semialert in front of the entrance. As the guard saw them he swung his rifle and took aim.
"Relax, Bendix, it's me."
"Sarge?"
"Who else?" Bolan looked around. "I heard the guards had been doubled, where's your shadow?"
Bendix pointed with his rifle. "Leadline's over there someplace taking a leak. Jeez, Sarge, I don't know, when Cottonwood offered a cut of this action, I had no idea what I was getting myself into."
Bolan took a step toward him, his Beretta gripped firmly at his side. "Now you know, wise guy. Any problems?"
Bendix swallowed hard and shook his head. "No problems, Sarge. None at all."
Bolan smiled menacingly at the stranger.
"I'm sure Cottonwood filled you in on the whole operation, right?"
"No, sir. He just told me I was to let you in."
Bolan lifted the Beretta and tapped the soldier on the chest. "Good. That was the right answer, son. You don't need to know anything more. Now let's get moving."
"Right, Sarge." PFC Bendix unlocked the small metal door inset into the main hangar doors and let Bolan and Tanya enter. He closed and locked the door behind them.
"Over here," Bolan said, aiming a small pocket flashlight, leading the way down huge aisles of stacked goods.
"My God," Tanya whispered, "this building must have everything. The things we could do with such equipment."
They came to a dark corner piled high with hundred-pound bags of what the powerful odor indicated to be fertilizer.
"Right here," said Mack Bolan.
"Here?" She surveyed the stacks of bags, piled to a height of fifteen feet on pallets.
She guessed there were at least ten wooden pallets up to the back wall.
""Watch." Bolan grabbed a hand-operated dolly, slipped the metal prongs into the slots of one of the pallets, then dragged the wooden platform back. Behind it was pitch blackness.
"Generally the smell keeps most people away," Bolan told her as he started into the entrance.
Inside was wooden bracing separating and supporting walls made up of hundreds of bags of fertilizer. The stench was staggering.
"It ain't much," Bolan said, "but I call it home."
She sighed wearily. "Can we get to business, Sergeant Grendal?"
Bolan handed the woman the flashlight, then hefted a crowbar and pried off the lid of a nearby crate. He reached in, pushed aside some packing material, pulled out a .45 MW submachine gun. He held it at chest level for a second, smiled, then tossed it across the space at her. She caught it with one hand, nearly dropped it, regained her grip with both hands and examined it.
"This is different than the ones we have," she said, fumbling with the flashlight.
Bolan shrugged. "You might have some of the old M3's. The MW is an upgraded version. It's a superior weapon."
She looked up from the gun and stared at Bolan in tire fragmented gloom. "How so?"
He had a feeling she damn well knew the difference, was just testing him out. "First you'll notice the larger ejection port here. The old retracting handle's been eliminated. Also, this piece has got a finger hole for cocking and a larger oil can inside the grip. It's got a stronger cover spring, a guard added for the magazine catch, a stock plate and magazine filler added to the stock. She weighs eight pounds but can fire three-fifty to four-fifty rounds permin was ute at approximately nine hundred and twenty feet per second. Quite a handful. In the right hands."
"It's nice," she said simply, laying the gun aside on top of a crate."
"Nice? You have a flair for understatement, lady."
"What else do you have?"
"Pretty much what I told you before. Two crates of these M3Als, a couple of the M1911AI.45 pistols. I can get you grenade launchers within the week and probably some 7.62mm NATO machine guns by the end of the month."
She shook her head impatiently.
"Let's just talk about what you have right now, Sergeant. Here and now."
"Well, I do have one particular item you might like." He disappeared behind two monolithic crate's and came up with what looked like a laser gun out of some science fiction epic.
She gasped.
"Yeah, I knew you'd feel that way," he nodded, stroking the weapon. "It's a Heckler and Koch G-11 Caseless assault gun. This smooth exterior is a very tough plastic with the one scope mount an integral part of the receiving molding. That makes the scope available as a carrying handle. And this little switch here allows you to go automatic to semiautomatic to single-shot."
"It looks like something out of the future."
"Yes, it does. But don't let its streamfined looks fool you. This baby can deliver. Its magazine holds fifty in-line caseless cartridges, mounted right here in a horizontal bar along the barrel, extending all the way back to the receiver. There's no recoil and no bullet casings flying all over the place. Its caliber is four-point-seven times twenty-one millimeters and, in full automatic, it fires around one thousand rounds per minute."
"Nice," commented Tanya distantly.
"The ammunition has a muzzle velocity approximately three thousand one hundred feet per second. And its ammunition uses a propellant whose cook-off point is one hundred degrees higher than the standard nitrocellulose powders which."
She waved a dismissing hand. "Yes, yes, Sergeant. I am convinced of its usefulness. You may stop your sales pitch."
"The base has a consignment of one dozen of these, but this is the only one that's gotten 'lost" so far..."
Tanya Morganslicht glanced at Bolan with a special curiosity. "You look and sound like a man who understands killing well," she said. Then her voice became hard again. "We'll take it, plus the rest. How much?"
All talk of prices was interrupted by the clatter of heavy combat boots, echoing under the metal roof. The shout of military commands fissured the still air.
"This is Major Thompson, Grendal," a deep voice hollered. "We know you're in here and we know what you've been up to. I have Cottonwood in my custody."
"Son of a bitch," Bolan muttered, extinguishing the small flashlight. Lights beyond their hiding place flashed all over the interior of the big building.
"What's happening?" Tanya whispered, her voice and features almost psychopathically calm.
"Oh, nothing, just that they know about us and what we're doing here and they're going to arrest us. You'll probably get thirty years in prison and I'll be shot sometime next week while trying to escape. That clarify the situation for you?"
"I must not be
caught," she said urgently.
"Hey, I'm with you, lady. Now tell it to those bozos. They get all mushy inside when they hear a sad story." Bolan poked his head through the doorway, saw the men taking positions, ducked back in. "There's only one way out of this." He went back to the crates and picked up the Heckler and Koch G-11. He slapped in a magazine, then grabbed four square magazines'and stuffed them into his pockets. "Here," he said, handing Tanya his Beretta pistol. "You use this."
"Why not give me one of the submachine guns? I can give better cover with one of them."
"Because I'm the one giving cover. You're the one running. The only chance we have is to blast a hole through them just big enough for us to make a break. Now let's go!"
The major's voice boomed again. "We know you're in that shithole. So come out here with your hands up. Now, soldier!"
Bolan stuck his head through the doorway again, the H and K clutched to his chest, the setting on full automatic.
A single shot echoed through the building and a bag of fertilizer two feet from Bolan tore open and spilled its contents onto the floor.
Bolan ducked back in, took a deep breath, then ran through the doorway, his finger squeezing the trigger. The H and K sent forth a thunderous symphony of explosions as it chewed up wooden crates and popped fluorescent lights.
Tanya Morganslicht did not have to be told what to do. She hunched low and dashed down the narrow alley of stacked crates. Bolan followed ten feet behind, spraying an arc of bullets to cut their way through.
A burst from a submachine gun kicked up wood and dust in their trail, but nothing came too close to them.
Until the exit door. Two guards stood side by side with .45's blasting at Tanya and Bolan. Tanya dropped to the ground, rolled once, and fired the Beretta twice. The soldier on the left threw up his rifle and sprawled forward onto his face. Tanya fired twice again from her prone position and the other soldier spun around and tumbled over a small hand truck. Bolan dragged her to her feet as he ran by her. They came through the door, guns ready, but no one was waiting.
"This way." Bolan bolted across the street to the three parked jeeps that had brought the soldiers. Over his shoulder he heard men at the door of the building. Bolan swung around and blasted ten rounds at the doorway. There were cries of pain.
"Start it up," he commanded as the woman terrorist clambered into the lead jeep. Bolan fired more rounds at the door. He jumped into the jeep as it roared to life and lurched down the road toward the checkpoint booth.
He reached over and grabbed his Beretta from Tanya. "We'll need the silencer for this next part."
"Isn't it a bit late for stealth now, Sergeant?" she gasped in desperation. It took the squealing jeep less than a minute to make it back to the checkpoint, the tires smoking the whole way.
The two men inside the booth jumped out at the sound of the tires, one with a .45 drawn and the other with his M3A1 at the ready position. They both took aim at the approaching jeep as it screamed to a halt twenty feet in front of them, the jeep's headlights shining in their eyes.
"Listen here, you men," Bolan shouted. "We're after two terrorists, two live ones. This is for real. One's a woman, the other's a man in a sergeant's uniform."
"Yes, sir!" one of them shouted back, his hand shielding his eyes from the lights. "We got the call."
"Okay, so watch it," Bolan said.
The two guards lowered their weapons. Bolan's Beretta hissed. He squeezed the trigger four times. Both guards collapsed on the road. Bolan jumped from the jeep and ran into the booth, raised the metal gate, and leaped back into the jeep as it sped by. "Just keep following this road," he told Tanya. "We're about to steal home base."
6
General Wilson leaned across his desk and spoke into the intercom. "Buzz me as soon as you get through to that number. Immediately!" He clicked it off without waiting for a reply. He swiveled his massive leather chair around to face the two majors standing next to his desk. "Is everyone accounted for?"
"Yes, sir," Major Thompson said.
"Injuries?"
Major Felder cleared his throat as if embarrassed. "Well, sir, two. Corporal Donner's trick knee went out when he was climbing the crates, and Private Simms skinned his elbow when he fell on the macadam."
"That's it?"
"Yes, sir."
General Wilson leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Well, that's not too bad then. Not too bad at all." The telephone buzzed and he snatched up the receiver. "General Wilson here. I'm calling in reference to Colonel Phoenix. That's quite all right... I understand the need for security. In fact, your Colonel Phoenix has taught me a whole new lesson on that subject... Yes, we followed his plan all the way.... Just a few minor injuries.... No, I used my best marksmen, or markspersons, I guess, since two of them are women. They kicked up some splinters, but never came close enough to harm your man or his pigeon... Oh, he was a perfect gentleman. We're going to have to replace some lighting fixtures and doors, but otherwise he kept the live bullets a comfortable distance away. The woman's gun had the blanks, so he let her do the actual killing.... Personally, I thought my men overacted a bit, but I'm assured they were quite convincing in fact.... Yes, I understand. No problem. Just one other thing I'd like to say. That's a hell of a soldier you've got there. A hell of a soldier... No, I want to thank you. And him. If I hear any more I'll be in touch. Goodbye." The general replaced the receiver and leaned back into his chair. "A hell of a soldier," he repeated.
"Yes, sir," the majors chorused.
7
"Take that road," Bolan pointed.
"That's not a road," Tanya complained. "It's matted grass."
"Take it." She did. "Where are we going?"
"It's your country," he grinned. "I thought you'd know."
"I'm not familiar with this area."
"Me neither, but I know this is the right way."
"How do you know?"
"Because it's taking us away from them."
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
Tanya didn't smile. "That was a remarkable escape we made"
"Nothing that a dozen trained soldiers couldn't have done," he muttered. "You people still interested in this space gun here?"
She shrugged. "We might be for a few hundred deutsche marks. But what will you do now?"
Mack Bolan was of the opinion that the playacting that she was an ignorant party to should be played for real, real soon, with her as target. But that would be too hasty. The charade must continue, at the risk of being discovered, or even, at any moment, of one of those soldier boys, civilians too, falling for it enough to shoot to kill. Until then, roles must be played out.
"Oh, hell, don't worry about ole Edsel Grendal. I've been taking care of myself for a long time," he said. "I'll be back in business within a couple of weeks."
"How? Now that you are out of the army, your supply line has disappeared."
"You think I'm the only one in this army who's been boosting goods? I know at least three others, including a colonel over in Wurtzberg. After the smoke clears, I'll be back again as a middle man between the sellers and the buyers. Taking my cut from both. Less work, less risk."
"What will you do in the meantime?"
"Well, first thing we do is ditch this jeep. If you have a couple of hundred marks cash, you can take this gun with you right now. Or we can meet sometime next week. Either way we have to split up now. They're looking for a couple, remember."
"True. But one phone call to my comrades and I will be underground within the hour."
"Congratulations."
"I can arrange transportation for you also, if you wish."
Bolan hesitated, as if thinking it over. "I don't know," he said. "I appreciate your offer, but there are more people looking for you guys than there are looking for me."
"You must make up your own mind. However, I should tell you that our people are in need of a weapons expert, and you have demonstrated your worthiness in that area. You are al
so available, I would guess, considering recent events... You are an outlaw, like I am. And you are an extraordinary fighting man. I think we would be able to hide you out until how did you put it? the smoke blows up."
"Smoke clears," he corrected her. "And what do you want in exchange? This H and K?"
She smiled thinly. "For now, Sergeant. For now."
"You've got yourself a deal, I guess. Nothing to lose." The big man leaned back in the seat.
Nothing to lose.
Except life.
The kidnapped athletes awaited rescue.
Life was more precious by the minute. He would surely not lose it to a hotheaded girl terrorist in the cobblestoned theater of Europe's current crisis. It was a crisis based on a very simple problem. If modern terrorism is not fought and fought hard people in the dwindling democratic and non-communist world will not have to wait for The Bomb.
They will be blasted and ripped into submission on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. The problem being how to make the punishment fit that crime.
The premise is agreed some murders are so horrendous that the most practical solution is to execute the perpetrators. Such murders are murders of perversion involving torture, sex slayings, contract killings, terrorist killings.
Why keep such people alive and in a cage for the rest of their lives or, worse, to be released when a mere two-thirds of their sentence is done? But the difficulty arises when it is felt, especially in the older cultures, that the means of execution are barbaric. Hanging is horrible and unpleasant for those who have to do it, order it, witness it. The answer, for Europe, is The Executioner. The Executioner will not miss his shot to give a lady terrorist a better chance in the courts, to keep his hands clean of death. He could never fear death so much that he would sacrifice the possibiliy of a stronger, truer life. No, he would value life, every minute of it, even as his Sergeant Grendal character tipped the play deeper toward death, finally to slip totally into hell and bring all the other evil parts sliding down with him to the darkest depth.
The role was his key to life. And death. The Morganslicht death.
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