8
A rifle butt thumped against the door.
"They are almost here," the voice croaked. Hermann saw the car. It is about a kilometer away."
"Danke," Thomas Morganslicht said, throwing off the blanket and staggering out of bed.
He pulled on a thick turtleneck sweater, jeans, hiking boots. The cabins were without any heat, except for the flickering fireplaces.
He tugged the red knit cap over his shiny black hair, pulling it back on his head to allow the sharp point of his widow's peak to show. He liked the way its dagger appearance seemed to startle his men, almost intimidated them. As their leader, he desired every advantage over them he could get. Morganslicht snatched up his gun and shoulder holster, shrugging into them as he walked out of the cabin. Several of his men stood around outside his door, their weapons in hand as they waited for the approaching Saab. The cool sun was peering over the tops of the snowcovered mountain peaks. The men kept moving, rocking back and forth, their breath steaming from mouths and nostrils.
"What time is it, Hermann?"
"Almost six-thirty."
"They must be very tired after their escape, and then driving all night." His voice was more amused than sympathetic. "And how are the prisoners doing?"
"Cold, but otherwise functioning normally," replied Herimann. "They no longer bother to complain."
Thomas grinned. "Good. I thought Rudi would convince them to accept their situation."
The giant called Rudi Blau turned his sixfoot bulk toward them and chuckled damply through massive yellowing teeth. Bundled up in a long black tilde coat and fur-lined hat, he looked like a mutant bear that had inadvertently stumbled into civilization. His eyes were small, too small even to determine their exact color, but his head was a huge round melon. In his right hand he carried a hunk of firewood. He used it to persuade the prisoners, to keep quiet.
If need be he would persuade them into unconsciousness.
Thomas Morganslicht and his guards watched the car puffing up the snow-covered road, its exhaust billowing around it like a pocket of fog.
Hans Regens, who had driven all the way to Frankfurt to pick them up, was still driving.
Tanya was next to him in the front seat. In the back seat, another figure presumably the big American sergeant she had told him about in her communication. The unusual man who had helped her escape. A most independent being, by all accounts, Frightening. Morganslicht frowned. He did not know this American, and he did not like him. It was perhaps necessary to have dealings with such people to get what the group needed, but they were dangerous and should eventually be eliminated. Especially men of such a scale and skills as this one. He had killed Klaus.
Of course, Klaus had not been a very stable person. During the torturing of the two agents, he had not in fact been able to stop. Then it had been up to Thomas to show the proper way to mutilate the enemy, to extend the sport with skill, not lust.
But Klaus was dead and they were without enough weapons.
So they would use this dumb American as much as possible, then kill him. But slowly, maybe more slowly even than with those two damned agents. For demonstration purposes.
The car braked to a halt and the two front car doors opened at once. The driver, Hans, climbed out first, rubbing his neck to shake off the drowsiness of seven straight hours of driving. "The car needs a tune-up," he said, and walked off to get some hot coffee. Tanya slid out next, offering a lingering look at her twin brother.
"Sergeant Grendal," Tanya called out, "we are here."
No response.
"Sergeant Grendal," the woman repeated loudly. Still no response.
She pulled open the back door and ducked into the car, shaking Bolan by the shoulders. He appeared to open his eyes with a start, looking at hir with a confused expression, then he yawned in her face. "Pardon me," he smiled brazenly.
"We are here, Sergeant," she said.
Thomas Morganslicht watched anxiously as the big man in army uniform leaned out of the car and unfolded to his full height. It was a disturbing sight. The man seemed on the surface to be indolent, perhaps doltish, a typical problem for the army: he was a maverick, obviously with some flaw within him, some indecisiveness of character no doubt.
And yet.
And yet behind that veneer of easy confidence and untroubled directness lurked another force altogether.
He could feel it on this chill mountain morning.
It was a darkness. It was something disarmingly strong.
It was a visible danger emanating from this big man. Morganslicht did not like it at all.
9
Jack Grimaldi dipped the small helicopter down for a closer look at what the commotion was about.
He checked his map for bearings, decided he was about ten kilometers past Fussen, about ten from Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Bavarian Alps stood like Prussian guards between the German and Austrian borders, looming impassibly high in the distance. He hoped he could locate Striker's signal soon. He had little desire to fight the treacherous, twisting air currents that swirled around those mountains. Except that Jack Grimaldi would do anything for Mack Bolan, and death be damned.
The Bell dropped five hundred feet in seconds, the better for him to get a closer look at the two men fighting in an open field. One of the men stopped just as he was about to throw a punch into the face of the smaller man and looked up at the helicopter. The smaller man did not bother to look up. He took advantage of the distraction to dig a sharp blow into his opponent's hefty stomach. The bigger man doubled over, clutching his middle, allowing the other to club him across the face with both hands clasped together. Jack decided it was nothing but a personal matter, certainly nothing to do with the Sarge or his mission. Just as he was about to pull away, he saw the reason for the fight. A beautiful, buxom girl ran out from behind a bush and hugged the smaller man, covering his face with grateful kisses. As the bigger man writhed on the grass, the happy couple looked up at Jack and waved a thanks. He grinned and waved back, swinging the chopper back up into his surveillance pattern.
It was nice to see the good guys win sometimes, he grinned. Which was exactly why an ex-contract pilot for the Mafia was out combing the hills and valleys of southern Germany with a map and a radio receiver tuned to a highly refined frequency, sent out by a tiny transmitter designed and built by one Herman "Gadgets"" Schwarz, the resident Thomas Alva Edison of Stony Man Farm.
Grimaldi had been following the transmission since Bolan had activated it inside the Saab.
Jack had kept the chopper at its maximum distance of eight kilometers so as not to tip off Bolan's new buddies... But he had lost them somewhere here in the mountains. Apowerful jamming signal had cut him off completely. "Stay hard, Sarge," Grimaldi had said aloud. "But stay alive." Then a faint but distant beep-beep sounded in his headphones. He maneuvered the chopper until he found the strongest signal. The doctor finds the pulse, he thought happily. And so he manhandled the throttle for maximum speed.
10
Bolan did not move. Not an inch. Not a breath. He kept his hands in plain sight and studied Thomas Morganslicht's shouting, contorted face.
Nope, he'd never met this man before; a quick sortie through his photographic memory had revealed that much and no more.
So the big guy stayed cool, looked appropriately confused, waited for an explanation of why that 9mm Luger was waving menacingly in his face.
"Thomas!" Tanya snapped, stepping toward him. "Was ist loss hier?
"Yeah, buddy," Bolan asked. "What is the matter?"
Thomas Morganslicht looked at the two dozen or so of his faithful who had gathered around to investigate his hollering, and he could see the mixture of curiosity and doubt in their bovine expressions. He knew that the amount of their loyalty was based on the sum of their collective experiences of fear, and therefore he aimed to unsettle them all with a shrill threat or two in the direction of the American.
Thomas holstered his Luger and laughed. It
sounded like a stick scraping cement. "Just a little test of courage, Sergeant Grendal," he said, wiping the chill sweat from his forehead. "Like you have in your American universities. Fraternity, uh." He turned to his sister. "Wie heist das?"
"Initiation."
"Ja. Initiation."
He smiled.
Tanya looked at her brother with concern, but forced a hearty laugh. Several of the gathered group chuckled amiably and began to disperse. Rudi the bear did neither. He had been staring at Bolan with something more than contempt, perhaps even more than hate.
Occasionally one of his thick cracked lips would curl up into a half-snarl, displaying his repulsive teeth and gums. He tapped the hunk of wood methodically against his leg. Bolan glanced around the hardsite as if he were taking in some charming scenery.
By the time his eyes had swung back to the front porch of Thomas's cabin, he had estimated the personnel strength at about thirty, mostly armed with East German copies of the Soviet Makarov pistol. He had also determined that the hostages were being held in the locked garage a few cabins down, where two armed men stood guard. He had also noted the dried blood on the end of Rudi's log.
"Perhaps we should step inside?" Tanya urged her brother. "We have much to discuss."
"Yes, of course. But first, Rudi must search you, Sergeant Grendal. It is merely a, uh."
"Formality?" Bolan offered.
"Right. A formality."
"This better be a hell of a fraternity." Bolan leaned up against the wall of the cabin as Rudi frisked him roughly, occasionally using the wood club to prod.
Bolan endured the search for concealed weapons silently. He had planted Gadgets's transmitter within the Saab, rather than on his person.
He would need that transmitter. It was Grimaldi's means for locating the scene of action in order to pick up the hostages.
Rudi finished up his search and gave Bolan one last prod with his log. "Just this," he growled, tossing, the Beretta to Thomas.
"Clean of heart, pure of spirit," Bolan laughed, turning around. He smiled at Thomas and Tanya in turn, but let his smile rest on Rudi for a few extra seconds.
In those seconds, although his expression did not change, Bolan conveyed a silent message, a promise of things to come.
The driver, Hans, came out of one of the cabins, a mug of steaming coffee cupped in both hands. "Was noch?" he asked Thomas.
"Unload the weapon and drive the car to Munich. Wait there for further instructions."
Thomas then opened the cabin door and waved Bolan in. "'Shall we, Sergeant Grendal?"
Bolan entered the cabin without looking back at the car. Within a few minutes the transmitter would be on its way to Munich, with Jack Grimaldi following close behind, pursuing a signal and waiting for a coded message. Well, yeah, the Executioner had been alone before. Maybe he preferred it that way.
11
Jack Grimaldi flew the chopper with one eye on the sky and one on the maps spread out next to him. He had not eaten since yesterday afternoon, and was only now paying attention to the grumbling sounds of his stomach. "Easy does it," he said to his stomach. "Dr. Grimaldi has a nice big dose of sauerbraten waiting for you. Just a few more miles." He had followed the signal for almost thirty kilometers now, and there was no doubt where it was heading. The driving was slow and steady. Not like on the way down from Frankfurt, when the car had rocketed along the Autobahn at 150 kph. No, this driver was in no hurry, he had no major drive ahead.
Grimaldi nodded his head and smiled. In a few minutes he would be able to set his babying down and phone in the target area. Within an hour the hotspot would be pinpointed and surrounded with ground support.
Grimaldi would be at his receiver and waiting for the final countdown from Striker. Yeah, within an hour, all their forces would be concentrated on the car's destination.
Munich.
12
"Just what have you heard about us?" Thomas asked.
"That you're the slimiest group of killers on three continents," Bolan said.
Rudi lurched forward, gripping his log, but Thomas held him back with a laugh. "Ha, within the next two days we should improve upon that image, eh, Rudi? Tanya? Ha!"
Bolan yawned. "Everyone should have a goal, I guess."
"And what is your goal, Sergeant Grendal?" asked Thomas.
"Money," Tanya answered for him. There was contempt in her voice.
"You have no strong political loyalties. Ideologies?" persisted her brother.
"Just one," said Bolan. "Don't give credit." Just give blame, he might have said, in this world of terror where blame is hushed by fear.
"Admirable," Tanya sneered.
Thomas flopped back on his unmade cot and propped his head against the rough wooden wall.
Tanya sat on a large tree stump that served as a stool near the fireplace. Rudi leaned his three-hundred-plus against the front door like a thick slab of iron. Bolan went over to the canteen on the wooden table, unscrewed the cap, wiped the opening, took a long tug of water. Then he screwed the cap back on and said to Thomas. "Hope you don't mind?"
Thomas shook his head.
It was uncanny how much Tanya and Thomas looked alike. Sure, they had the same black hair that came to a dagger's point over their forehead.
But there was more to it than that. They moved alike, with the same graceful yet deadly intent, as if they were always sneaking up on something. But there were differences too, particularly in the eyes. Tanya's were calm and cold, with only a minimal sign of emotion.
She intellectualized everything, categorized it, dealt with it purely logically. Not so Thomas.
Though his eyes were the same pale blue as his sister's, the whites were different. Little thin veins like jagged red lightning bolts shot from the corners of them toward the pupils. Bloodshot, like an alcoholic's. Although he seemed to maintain a cool exterior, something ominous was bubbling beneath his surface: and just barely beneath.
"So let's quit doing the goosestep and get down to business," Bolan suggested.
Thomas Morganslicht smiled, without humor in his eyes. "The point, Sergeant Grendal, is that my friends and I had a tightly knit organization until you came along and disposed of Klaus."
Rudi's lips curled into a snarl.
"Oh, don't mind Rudi here," said Thomas. "Hi and Klaus were friends and Rudi does not make friends easily."
"He doesn't look like he could make his bed easily."
"I'm afraid Rudi does not much like you," advised Tanya.
"I'm crushed."
"You might be," Tanya added, "if Rudi ever got his hands on you."
"Look," Bolan said, "I'd like to help you guys out. I could use the business. So give me a thousand marks for that H and K that I brought here and I'll be on my way. A ride would be appreciated."
Thomas held up his hand. "Tanya also tells me you are an expert with weapons."
"I know my business."
Thomas pulled out his Luger and pointed it at Bolan. "What do you know about this?"
"Just three things. It's a 9mm Luger. It's one of the newer versions that the Mauser Jagdwafig factory began producing in 1971. And I'm getting real tired of looking down its barrel."
Bolan turned for the door. Things were clearly not going well. He still did not know why they had kidnapped the athletes. Rudi leered unpleasantly as Bolan approached him.
Suddenly Bolan asked: "How much?"
Tanya looked up surprised. "How much what?"
"How much is my percentage if I arrange for all of the weapons you want?"
"I thought you..."
"I have a source, okay? It's not a straight buy, you're going to have to take them, but they're the best you can get. Galil SAR short automatic rifles, effective up to five hundred meters with caliber five point five-six millimeters NATO. The Israelis make them with wire cutters in the bipods and bottle openers on the butt. They also have a new shipment of nine millimeter Parabellum Mini Uzis with twelvefifty rpms."
&nb
sp; Thomas sat up off the cot. "How many?" he said coolly.
"Enough to outfit this little group."
"Where are they?" he said. "Who do we take them from?"
"Well, now," Bolan said with a grin.
"That's the part you aren't going to like."
No, they were not going to like it one bit.
But the Executioner was counting on their need. If he counted wrong, then there was no hope for the hostages.
"You must be insane!" Bolan smiled. "That depends on how badly you want those weapons."
"You're suggesting we steal them from our own people."
"Black Sunday is not your own people. Even Arafat has disassociated himself from them. In fact, word is that the faction of Black Sunday headed by Abu Sata is out to overthrow Arafat."
Bolan sat confidently on the edge of the wooden table, hunched slightly, taking another swig from the canteen. "I have some poker buddies at military intelligence who told me that a whole new shipment of these weapons was delivered last month to the Black Sunday faction in Mannheim."
"And what does your military intelligence plan to do about it?"
"What they always do," Bolan shrugged. "Nothing. Strictly wait-and-see. But you and your outfit here, you're different..."
"But they are our own people," Thomas persisted.
"Politically', philosophically we are aligned, despite petty internal squabbles." Bolan smiled. "Like I said, it all depends on how badly you need the guns. You come crying to me for guns and I come up with a reasonable solution. Now either go for it or cut bait and kiss this big-dea-I mission of yours goodbye."
Thomas Morganslicht paced beside his cot, nibbling on his thumbnail. When he spoke his voice was soft and distant, as if he were speaking only to himself. "Visibility, that's the key. Achieved only through reputation and recognition. Why is that so important?" He looked up suddenly, stared at Bolan and smiled. "Tell me, Sergeant Grendal, why is recognition so important for us? Is it to convey our ideals? Huh? Let me tell you about reputation, Sergeant, and its purposes." Thomas started pacing again, chewing harder on his fingernails. "Let me fill you in on the practicalities of running an underground liberation effort. We need money for food, lodging, clothing. Believe it or not, we purchase socks and underwear from time to time. Also medical services. As well as weapons."
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