Rafu stood from his chair behind the metal desk, the lone pieces of furniture in the stuffy, windowless office. He snapped shut the briefcase.
"This is the last of what I will be taking with us, Lieutenant. All is in readiness?"
Hashem decided not to mention his premonition. He would be gone from this place within minutes, Allah willing. Perhaps, thought Hashem, I will see home again after all.
"The convoy is ready and awaits your order to leave, Colonel."
Rafu purred, a peculiarly feline sound from a man who looked like an ape.
"Very good. The cabinet of files, the tools of our dear plastic-surgeon friend, Dr. LeQueux... and what of... the subject?"
"He will travel in the second vehicle with two of my men for protection." Hashem wondered why Rafu queried him on matters already well discussed earlier, after the decision came to relocate. Colonel Raf u looked distinctly on edge, Hashem decided, the way Rashad felt. "You and I shall ride in the lead car with three of my men," he reminded the colonel. "A fourth vehicle with more of my soldiers will complete the convoy. Dr. LeQueux will ride with us. The facilities in Firuzkuh have been prepared. We should reach there before dawn."
Rafu purred again.
"You have done your job well, Lieutenant. Your..."
The colonel interrupted himself, something Hashem had never seen him do. Both men turned to a sliding-panel portion of the shabby office wall that whispered open to reveal a hidden entrance Hashem had not known about.
A man stood in the half-light just inside the hidden doorway and Hashem discerned an aura of pure evil emanating from the black-robed, blackturbaned figure. The wispy beard and pallid features of the gaunt ancient standing there reminded Rashad of a dead man. Hashem knew with a certainty that he had never encountered this being before during the months Rafu had operated this covert security operation.
Ayatollah Khomeini.
The real Khomeini, Hashem wondered.
His duties had not included a need to know concerning the detailed workings of Rafu's operation. Hashem only knew it involved a deception using elderly men with physical builds similar to the Ayatollah, their features altered by Dr. LeQueux to match Iran's spiritual and political ruler.
Hashem appreciated that such knowledge could get him killed and so had been most satisfied knowing only what Rafu considered pertinent to Hashem's providing security there at the headquarters of the operation.
Rafu, meanwhile, oversaw security on rare public appearances by the "Ayatollah" on government-controlled television and at religious ceremonial rallies, such as the one yesterday.
As he gazed upon the unforgettable presence in the shadows, Lieutenant Hashem found great comfort in knowing he had not been briefed on any of the events of the ' 'assassination" of the day before; he knew of it at all only because one of the Ayatollah's human duplicates disappeared unaccountably and Dr. LeQueux had put in another of his rare appearances at Lavizan.
Colonel Rafu had been particularly edgy ever since the double-agent informer, Mezhabi, told someone in Intel that Karim Aswadi's people had imported a man known as The Executioner, a "penetration specialist." Mezhabi subsequently leaked word that General Mahmoud, of the Ayatollah's supposedly loyal army, intended to strike these barracks this very night.
Hashem regained his lapsed sense of the moment; the statuelike figure, standing with arms crossed, commanding his attention.
Rafu cleared his throat.
"You may leave us now, Lieutenant. Have your drivers start their engines. We leave when I join up with you within a few minutes. That will be all."
"As you wish, my Colonel."
Hashem gladly withdrew, leaving Rafu alone with the man, the presence, in the secret doorway.
Hashem hurried through the dark, extended, echoing halls of the deserted barracks, imagining eyes watching from everywhere in the surrounding darkness, making him hurry to get to his men, the convoy; to be gone from there.
The lieutenant's premonition would not leave him, nor would uncertainties about Death stalking this treacherous Teheran night.
He would bestow copious thanks to Allah the minute the convoy arrived safely at the new headquarters for Colonel Rafu's operation in Firuzkuh. The town was not far from Teheran and suited Rafu and those few he served who knew of this operation.
The move suited the security officer assigned to protect the colonel's operation. Lieutenant Hashem had advised relocating much earlier, stating the difficulties inherent in protecting the sprawling Lavizan complex while maintaining absolute secrecy so as not to draw attention to Rafu's operation, but Rafu had remained adamant that his operation be based in the nation's capital. It had taken warning of a possible attack by Mahmoud's rebel army force to persuade Rafu to move at this last minute to Firuzkuh.
Last minute, Lieutenant Hashem thought worriedly.
He hurried toward a doorway that led out of the barracks building to the waiting convoy. He felt the sense of foreboding, a sense of doom, stronger than before. The lieutenant told himself that if he never saw his home again, it would be because of whatever happened to him within the next few short minutes before they left there.
It all depended — and all, Hashem knew, meant his own life, his very existence — on whether or not one or both man killers chose to attack the Lavizan barracks tonight; two enemies who would have no qualms whatever about defacing these barracks with glistening, dripping blood again.
16
The Executioner crouched in deep shadow thirty yards from the convoy of four unmarked vehicles. They were parked in readiness to depart this sector of the dark Lavizan barracks.
Bolan had donned his night combat blacksuit.
A black cosmetic smeared on his face completed the nighttime effect, making the Executioner just another shadow in the postmidnight quiet of sleeping Teheran.
The Beretta 93-R nestled in its elongated holster under his left arm. Big Thunder rode in quick-draw leather strapped Old West gunfighter style to his right hip. He carried extra clips for both weapons on a combat harness, along with strangulation gear, grenades, a Fairbairon-Sykes knife and a new head weapon for his quiet penetration of the Lavizan barracks. The nightstalker knew the "quiet" hit could go "loud" within seconds if Karim Aswadi and his men opened on the numbers, at which point Bolan anticipated ample use of the combat weapon borrowed from one of Aswadi's guerrillas: a 9mm Uzi submachine gun, a nasty room-broom favorite of the warring factions in the Mideast and most other parts of the world.
Boasting two 32-round magazines welded together at right angles, the diminutive SMG could fire six hundred parabellum flesh eaters per minute. The scaled-down stutter gun could empty a magazine in three seconds. Bolan carried extra magazines in his battle harness.
The barracks' atmosphere of solitude belied the secretive activity Bolan observed.
He sensed apprehension underpinning this waiting convoy bathed in the light of a crisp silver moon.
He counted and placed what men he could see, knowing there would be more in one of the looming, supposedly deserted buildings that reminded him of his old basic-training stomping grounds at Fort Benning. But first he would have to deal with these human targets in and around the vehicles; deal as in kill, and it would be no cakewalk even for a specialist in this dirty business.
He counted thirteen rifle-toting Iranian soldiers; six in and around the last vehicle in the line; three at the first vehicle where another man stood, not a soldier, impatiently smoking a cigarette; two in the cab of a truck and, most interesting to Bolan, two especially alert soldiers scanning the night from either side of a limousine with tinted windows.
Bolan frowned. The commander and his security officer would ride in the lead vehicle, a limo with tinted windows. Bolan wondered about the limo and the civilian waiting by the lead car.
He focused particular attention on the guy while he digested the rest of it, formulating the strike.
The civilian waiting near the officer's car at the front of t
he convoy had classically chiseled Gallic features, eccentrically coiffed silver hair, worn long. He looked like a glossy magazine ad for an exclusive Paris tailor.
Bolan placed him: Gerard LeQueux, the best plastic surgeon on the Continent.
Bolan recalled the bad doctor's dossier from his Mafia files.
LeQueux sold his services to only the highest bidders and right here, right now, in Teheran, that could only mean Khomeini.
Bolan glanced at the luminous dials of his wrist-watch.
Twenty seconds and the killing would begin.
Twenty seconds and Karim Aswadi's mujahedeen fighters would attack General Mahmoud's forces, deployed by the rebel army officer and his GRU advisor across rooftops and in alleys of the lower-class residential structures adjacent to the southeast corner of the Lavizan complex. Bolan had judged the alleys to be farthest from any of the thoroughfares near the compound's storm-fence perimeter.
When Bolan, Aswadi and the five fighters of the mujahedeen guerrilla unit arrived in the vicinity of the barracks, the compound had appeared as forlorn as a supposedly unused military facility possibly could.
Bolan had first taken advantage of Aswadi's relinquishing command of the operation by guiding the guerrillas on an ultrasoft reconnaissance of the slumbering neighborhood.
With no sign of Mahmoud's rebels within the perimeter of the barracks, Bolan figured either the notion of Mahmoud striking there tonight had been off base, or the idea of a Khomeini "double" operation based in these barracks had been erroneous, or both.
Or the plotting Mahmoud and his GRU backup had arrived, aware an Executioner strike on these same barracks to be likely, and Mahmoud had chosen to bide his time; to wait until Bolan and the mujahedeen showed before snapping the trap to wipe out Aswadi and the Khomeini deal in one hard punch.
Karim's guerrillas needed no pointers in soundless prowling, years of waging guerrilla warfare serving them well, but to a man they looked to the imported American specialist when they found what they were looking for.
Mahmoud had been sharp enough to spot the same weak point in the barracks perimeter and had deployed fifteen of his men among the shadows of a block of one-level adobe residences.
Bolan and the Iranian freedom fighters crouched on a roof, a two-level commercial structure closed at this hour. Their position allowed the Executioner's team to discern soldiers armed with AK-47s, keenly eyeballing the compound across an open stretch of dusty ground, waiting silent and ready for the appearance of Bolan and company to strike the barracks; waiting for Mahmoud to give the order to close the trap.
Bolan was sure that none of Mahmoud's force realized they were outflanked, their trap ready to spring the wrong way, back on them.
Aswadi quietly pointed out Mahmoud, who stood back from his men.
"The man with him beside the car is Major Kravak," Aswadi whispered to Bolan. "GRU."
Bolan frowned.
No sign of Strakhov.
The Executioner parted company with Aswadi and the commandos after indicating the best deployment for engaging Mahmoud's force.
Bolan soft-probed the barracks' perimeter. He and the mujahedeen synchronized watches before the nightstalker in blacksuit disappeared into the early-morning gloom.
Aswadi and his men split up to prepare their part of the attack.
Bolan penetrated the complex easily enough, practically under the noses of Mahmoud's watching, waiting rebel infantrymen, none of whom detected the subtle shift of night when the darkclad nightfighter melded as one with the elements and negotiated the chain link fence. It was child's play after some of the joints Bolan had busted into, though he did not ignore the lack of visible evidence of sentries and the impression of little or no security about this place.
He continued deeper into the maze of two-level barracks buildings, probing around the elongated structures that were separated by walkways and parking areas, cloaked in isolation.
He moved silently and with economy of motion, clutching the Uzi in close, doing his best to digest the layout, ever mindful of the passing seconds, the falling numbers.
He hoped Karim and his fighters met no interference in the delicate maneuver of outflanking Mahmoud's small force.
Bolan had sectored off half the barracks area in less than the time allotted, after which the mujahedeen could launch their ambush outside the perimeter.
He continued deeper into the labyrinth of barracks.
Bolan found himself considering the probability of the real target, Khomeini's operation, not being there at all or already gone, Mahmoud and his GRU man intending to salvage what they could and take out the mujahedeen and Bolan.
Especially Bolan, if King Cannibal Strakhov was on deck.
Bolan suspected the KGB chief would give his life to take out The Executioner.
Bolan found the convoy in front of a barracks building blocked from view of any point beyond the perimeter.
Bolan spent part of the remaining minute before Aswadi's scheduled opening fire, eyeing the building behind the convoy.
The structure looked dark and forlorn as the rest.
Bolan disregarded this impression, knowing he would find the commander of the operation inside the building.
The convoy appeared ready to pull out, waiting for some final business transacted by the officers inside the seemingly uninhabited barracks.
Another glance at his watch.
Five seconds.
He shifted his attention and the Uzi back to the four vehicles, the thirteen infantrymen and especially the limo with the tinted windows.
In the clarity of ascending combat consciousness he ticked off the final numbers into the attack, disciplining into his subconscious the troubles threatening to distract him from the dirty work he had to do.
Grimaldi.
Bolan would not consider the unthinkable, that his hellground pal could already be dead in that secret refugee camp.
The Executioner had to stay alive and wind up this Teheran wipeout, then maybe Grimaldi had a chance if Bolan could get them out of Iran to a hospital in time...
Tanya.
Where the hell is she? Who and what the hell was this woman he cared about?
He could not get the tough, yet somehow vulnerable, beautiful blonde out of his mind, and he knew this could be his deadliest mistake.
Mahmoud.
A power-grabbing savage with too much blood on his hands, ready to take a bath in the stuff tonight if it got him control.
And Strakhov.
Target number one.
Would Bolan find the boss KGB mobster in Teheran this night of blood?
The numbers ticked to zero.
The crack of rifle fire punctured the night from outside the perimeter of the barracks.
And on the moonlit tarmac where Bolan and his Uzi had bided their time, the Executioner went to work.
17
The gunfire had the intended effect. Bolan had held his fire on the convoy, counting on Aswadi's mujahedeen fighters to engage Mahmoud's rebel strike force and divert the attention of the Iranian combat troopers assigned to protect the four vehicles on the tarmac.
The riflemen in the rear vehicle of the convoy scrambled to join the two already positioned to either side of the unmarked limousine with the tinted windows.
The eight soldiers crouched, rifles ready, backs to the limo in tight defensive posture around it.
Two soldiers next to the truck in front of the limo briskly fanned out with the three riflemen near the lead car, the five heading in the direction of the nearby gunfire to investigate, leaving plastic surgeon LeQueux decidedly distressed by these unexpected events.
The automatic weapons' fire from beyond the perimeter intensified.
The Executioner triggered the Uzi, dousing the five soldiers in front with a prolonged figure-eight stitching, toppling the five under a blazing sheet of 9mm death.
He reloaded on the run, his movement an almost indiscernible shifting of the night, nothing more. H
e ran as fast as he could to the other side of the limo, skirting the corpse-strewed ground near the front, where fresh corpses were still twitching in the moonlight.
The troops maintained a close-in defense around the limo. They opened a thundering AK-47 salvo at the spot where Bolan's Uzi had flashed.
Bolan pelted past the front limo where LeQueux cowered like a confused rat, not knowing which way to bolt.
Bolan shifted the Uzi to his left fist and unholstered the Beretta 93-R. Without slowing he pegged off a parabellum tab to a cannibal more dangerous than those he served because scum like LeQueux kept to the background and took their cut when the killing had finished.
Until now.
LeQueux never saw his Executioner. The Rembrandt of plastic surgery spray-painted the car behind him with a ghastly mural of blood and brains when the Beretta's slug cored the Frenchman's left eye and burst away the back of his skull, the impact pasting LeQueux to the limo; legs buckled and he slid to the ground, into hell.
The soldiers around the other limo continued pouring deafening autofire at the spot where the Uzi's flashes had knifed seconds ago.
The Executioner closed in on them undetected, the 93-R reholstered, the Beretta equipped with a sound suppressor and flash hider for night firing.
He passed the truck between the lead car and the next limo, priming a grenade on his run that took him several feet within the hard guys' position.
Bolan fast-balled the grenade, covering as much distance as he could, hotfooting away from the limo.
He propelled himself into a dive, hugging the ground.
The sharp detonation of the grenade banged behind him.
He twisted onto his back in time to see three of the riflemen nearest him pitch forward, tossed by the force of the blast, the soldier in the middle missing most of his head, the other two dazed.
Bolan canceled the two with a lethal stutter from the Uzi and the dazed became dead.
The nightstriker moved low in double time, away from these Uzi flashes. He charged around the blocking hulk of the rear vehicle, picking out more targets as he moved.
Teheran Wipeout Page 10