She nodded, not relaxing, her right index knuckle white around the trigger of the pistol she aimed at him.
"I was planted in Soviet government service years ago. My father was American, my mother Russian. They met and married in West Germany. My mother died giving birth to me. My father brought me to America as an infant. The... Company approached me when I was in Harvard, asking if I would return to the Soviet Union posing as a dissident, hoping the KGB would try to recruit me, as they did."
"How did you get here from Aswadi's camp?"
"My Iranian contact in Teheran knew I would be in Aswadi's camp and waited far enough away so the sentries would not see him. I knew what was happening here, you see. I was with Major Kravak when Mezhabi informed to him and General Mahmoud."
More sirens joined the first, closing in on the tableau of man and woman in the ghostly corridor of the barracks building.
"So the KGB sends what they think is a novice agent to play wifey window dressing for Steranko," Bolan summarized tersely, "not knowing their 'Eliie Talbot' is a CIA mole monitoring the Soviet presence in Iran."
"And how did you guess this?"
"Your Tanya had her American act down too well. The mastery of colloquialism — 'the ball's in your court,' or just now, 'Mexican standoff — the KGB could program that into you, but when I handcuffed you to that tree in Aswadi's camp... you got mad enough to claw my eyes out and you swore in English. You were supposed to be Russian; you should have cussed me in Russian.
"That's not much, maybe, but it's my experience when people really swear from the soul, they lapse into their mother tongue. Grimaldi did it tonight in Italian when he got hit. I never heard Jack speak Italian in the years I've known him."
" Jack... is he..."
"I don't know. I want to get out of here to find out, so let's not stand here and shoot each other. You've done a good job of trying to string me along already."
"My orders from the Company were... to exploit your presence here," she said. "Karim Aswadi is a good man. His moderates would restabilize Iran, the whole Mideast."
"Strakhov was the bait to hold me in case Aswadi and I had a falling out."
She nodded.
"After I escaped from the camp and saw the gunships and witnessed the attack, I was afraid you might be delayed, that Rafu would get away. I've had commando training. I came here in the hopes of stopping them. They stopped me. I, ah, hoped you would be along. I knew the lie about Strakhov being in Teheran would do it. I am sorry about that, but when I learned of what Rafu had here, I knew I had to do something. I needed your help... more than I thought. Thanks, big guy," she said genuinely from behind her pistol.
"The Company has a Terminate On Sight order on me to all agents," he reminded her, watching closely the knuckle of her trigger finger.
He did not want to kill this blonde, whoever she was, but if she twitched that trigger finger in the slightest, Bolan would have no choice but to dodge and fire.
"Time's over, lady. We're starting to look like statues."
She lowered her pistol.
"You've done too much for the good guys this time, Mack. And you just might kill me."
The approaching sirens entered the neighborhood streets adjacent to the barracks, whining toward the main gate several buildings away.
"There's a truck outside," Bolan told her. "I'm taking it from the convoy. I'll pass those Teheran cops, wave Rafu's authorization and be gone before they find this. It'satruckload of Rafu's files that Aswadi will make good use of. I can get you out, too."
"I can get myself out. Where is my gun?"
"The Walther? With Grimaldi. Come with me and get it yourself. Your KGB bosses may suspect who you are. That could be why Kravak let Mahmoud attack Aswadi's camp when they knew you werethere."
"It's a chance I have to take," the iady told him. "There's too much at stake... the suffering I saw in the camp tonight, the human misery... I've got to feel I'm doing something about that."
She stepped forward and melded her body to Bolan's, feathery fingertips twining at the back of his neck to draw his face to hers for a kiss; a warm, vibrant living thing of need and promise, her body curving in all the right places, pressing against him. Then she broke the kiss and he let her go.
The sirens outside became louder as vehicles closed in on the Lavizan compound through the main gate.
She turned and darted back through the lighted doorway of Rafu's office.
Bolan reached the door after her in time to see her disappear beyond a sliding wall panel in the nearest partition of the windowless window.
The panel snapped shut, leaving not a trace of its presence and no indication of how it activated, though Bolan knew it would work only from the other side.
Inwardly he cursed headstrong blondes everywhere, especially million-dollar ones belonging to the wrong side who touched a warrior's soul just long enough to make the real pain come alive again; the truth that what a man needs to stay mentally and spiritually alive, a good woman to share and build and dream with, something that could never be his.
She reminded him of April.
And he did not know her name.
He hustled from the office with the appropriated briefcase, heading down the stairs toward the truck in the convoy, knowing he would make it to the truck, to rejoin Aswadi for withdrawal from Teheran to the secret camp where the mujahedeen guerrillas awaited them.
The soundless black shadows shifted. The left door of the truck cab opened.
Bolan withdrew a chemically treated tissue from a slit pocket of his nightsuit and wiped his face clean of the black cosmetic.
He started the truck, pulling away from the litter of sprawled bodies and oily pools of blood spreading out across the tarmac in the moonlight like fattening spiders.
He wheeled around the nearest corner, driving fast with lights off, before any of the local police cars appeared this far into the maze of barracks.
He would make it.
The Executioner had to make it.
There was still Jack...
20
Grimaldi, strapped to the stretcher attached to the frame of the chopper, wore a beatific smile of sedated unconsciousness, totally oblivious to everything happening around him.
Bolan turned from final inspection of his buddy's protective lacings. He gave the high sign to the pilot to prepare for lift-off.
The pilot in the cockpit of the helicopter increased the rotor speed. The engine overhead rumbled out of idle.
Bolan knelt at the door of the chopper for parting words with Karim.
The chopper had arrived at the refugee camp in their absence, a mujahedeen pilot risking his life to fly in medical supplies after receiving word that Aswadi's group had fallen under attack, exhausting their medical supplies.
The pilot offered to brave further risk by ferrying Bolan and Jack across the frontier battlefront into Iraq and hospitalization in time to save Jack's life.
Aswadi extended his hands.
The two men gripped in a firm two-handed affirmation of mutual respect.
"Live large, Karim. I've done all I can here."
"You gave us victory in the briefcase and files from the operation at Lavizan," Aswadi replied over the rumble of the chopper. "We now know the ones who have kept the presence of Khomeini alive to enslave our people long after the Ayatollah had returned to Satan."
"I'll watch the news," Bolan said, gripping the frame of the chopper for the lift-off. "They could say this is another false report of the old goat's death or maybe we'll hear now the Ayatollah suddenly passed away."
"The truth will destroy them," Aswadi asserted. "Mahmoud is dead, his conspiracy collapsed. The mechanism for propagating the myth of Khomeini's presence is finished. We are stronger than ever, thanks to you."
"Ah, one last thing, Karim. Keep a watch for our blond-haired lady."
"If she is CIA, she is the mujahedeen's friend."
"I've got a feeling she's the one who called in t
his pilot after she got away from the camp tonight," said Bolan. "She'll be around to help you."
"She remains your enemy," Aswadi reminded him. "And yet Allah tells me you will encounter the woman again, Executioner. Your fates are destined to intertwine."
"Goodbye, Karim. Your people will win, tomorrow or soon. You fight the good fight. Stay hard."
And the chopper rose, banking away from the refugee camp, Karim Aswadi growing smaller beneath Bolan until the predawn dark swallowed man and camp.
The rotoring chopper slid gently into the desert sky.
Bolan braced himself against the inside of the open door. He sat there, letting the night wind feel good, cleansing away some of the thoughts from earlier, after he lost a blond beauty who somehow stayed with him like a dream you can't shake.
Maybe he would meet her again like Karim guessed, maybe not.
Bolan told himself he did not give a damn.
The Executioner had to make it alone on this last mile of Hellground Alley. It was Bolan's destiny.
He had been without the true love of a woman since April, and that fine woman would be alive today if she had not loved a soldier fated to War Everlasting.
Blood Alley could only be marched by a loner.
War Everlasting was this nightfighter's mistress, and Bolan would never be free of her.
He felt a sense of hard-earned satisfaction supplanting the weariness as he sat in the doorway of the chopper buzzing low beneath the radar grid across the desert.
They would make it in time for Jack.
And Bolan had faith in Aswadi, who represented the best Iran had to offer: strong, spiritual leadership for a ravaged land that could, would, be great again.
The Executioner had helped that along, a reward to gratify a fighting soldier who risked it all for the things that mattered.
And yeah, it had been nice knowing a nameless million-dollar blonde, however briefly, for the one warm human touch between man and woman to recharge, reaffirm for Mack Bolan the truth that some of the good things worth fighting for are very nice indeed.
For a man who lives large, the good fight would always be worth it.
Teheran Wipeout Page 12