Anvil of Hell

by Don Pendleton

  He spun the wheel and swerved to the right, firing twice at Habibi as the physicist slid into sight from behind the crates.

  Both shots missed.

  Slugs screamed around him as the unwielding truck lumbered for the shooters. Wood splinters stung Bolan's cheek.

  The forklift snaked right, then left again. Bolan was on top of the crates. From that unexpected angle, on the wrong tack, he aimed once more at Habibi. The Python roared, bucking in his hand.

  The Libyan staggered, clutching his shoulder.

  But it took a fourth shot to flatten him against the cab of a half-track with a scarlet stream pumping through the rent in his robes at belly level. By the time he hit the floor, the forklift was in reverse again, whining back toward the wall beneath the control room.

  But it was a no-win situation for the Executioner. Killers were creeping forward on all sides, dodging behind the cooling tubes, sheltered by crates, ducking under steel girders waiting to be placed. In a moment he would be vulnerable from the right as well as the left.

  Someone stood up behind a nest of scaffolding and shouted, "Drop the gun. You don't have a chance! Give in and we'll make it quick and easy."

  The words ended in a shrill scream, drowned by a thunderous single report that echoed around the cavern. Immediately afterward there was a deafening rattle of automatic fire, a chorus of curses, yells and moans, and a series of ragged volleys from the killers' Ingrams and pistols. Flat on his face beneath the truck, Bolan realized with astonishment that none of it was coming his way.

  When at last there was silence in the cave, he cautiously raised his head. There wasn't a torpedo or a technician left alive.

  When the heat from the arcs had cleared away the gun smoke he recognized three figures standing on the ramp: Hans Voigt and Jochen Kraul, each toting one of the mini-Uzis he had seen in their Range Rover and Trudi Finnemann, belt, boots and blond head shining, with a Mannlicher Express in her hands.

  "The blockhouse was deserted, so we figured we'd come down and see if we could help," she called.

  Bolan was hard-pressed to hide a grin. True to tradition, the good ole U.S. Cavalry had arrived in the nick of time... only this time it was wearing German uniforms!

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "Not actually German," Trudi Finnemann informed Bolan. "I'm afraid I, too, must confess to a certain disregard for the truth. We are not, in fact, a geological team but an investigative unit from the Mossad."

  "You're Israelis? What was your particular interest in this?"

  "Surrounded by hostile countries, my government is always anxious — vitally concerned — at any hint of a change in the balance of Middle East power. The threat of any nuclear activity in our theater makes us very nervous indeed. So when the whispers of such hints and threats reached us, we were sent at once to check them out."

  "There were rumors of a threat to Khartoum," Voigt said. "And suspicions that the menace might reach much further."

  Jochen Kraul, as usual, remained silent.

  "But how did you know the threat was that serious?" Bolan asked. "That it was nuclear?"

  "We knew about the uranium isotope thefts," Trudi told him. "We can run a computer trace as well as anyone. Then we have an arrangement with an offbeat character, a merchant of intel, I guess you could call him, in Marseilles. He told us..."

  "Not the Moroccan-Irishman?" Bolan cut in. "Mustapha Tufik?"

  She smiled, the network of fine wrinkles around her eyes showing white against the tan. 'That's the one. A very useful man."

  Bolan nodded. "I get it. And you didn't get wise to my real purpose here when we met in the forest because he never tells one client about another. And that's why he didn't tip me off that you were following the same trail."

  "I guess so. He alerted us through Le Brocquet, the Marseilles police chief, that someone was curious, but he gave no details."

  Bolan sighed. 'Too bad these bastards got him in the end."

  "Oh, but they didn't," Trudi said. "The place was wrecked and most of the personnel killed, but Tufik and Hassan — the thin man who acts as his bodyguard — both had miraculous escapes. Mark my words, we shall be hearing of Monsieur Tufik again!"

  "I'm glad to hear that," Bolan said, and meant it. "But talking of miracle escapes, how's my friend Mettner?"

  "He'll be all right," she said. "He was creased above the left ear. A slug plowed a small furrow there and knocked him out, but the skull isn't damaged and he didn't lose too much blood. I'd guess he'll have a bad headache a few days, and that's all."

  They were sitting in the Range Rover at the foot of the ramp leading to the underground base. The redoubt had been searched from the top to bottom, but there had been no sign of Giovanni or General Hartley. Later, when they went up to the airstrip, they saw that the smaller helicopter had gone.

  Once more the top men had gotten away with murder.

  "But they won't get away forever," Bolan said grimly. "I suspect General Hartley will be taking an early retirement. And Giovanni, I promise you, will find that like Tufik I may reappear more quickly than expected..."

  Trudi turned to Kraul. "You're the expert, Jochen. You know what you have to do here?"

  Kraul exchanged glances with Bolan and replied, "No problem. I shall need a great deal of wire, detonators that I can probably raise from the stores here and an alarm clock. Plus a lot of manual labor to dismantle those warheads and lower them to the foot of that two-hundred-foot shaft in the limestone that we found near the falls."

  "You can use our porters for that," Trudi said, "and if you need more clout on the physical level, I'm sure the general will oblige."

  Halakaz had been sitting silently at the rear of the Range Rover with Colonel Mtambole. "My regrets, General," Trudi said formally, "but I hope you appreciate why we have to do this?"

  Halakaz retained his dignity in defeat. "I suppose so," he said wearily. "To be honest, we don't have the expertise to use them on our own, anyway."

  "Man has to face up to the occasional defeat," Mtambole offered. "Lost a battle but not the war, what?" He snatched off his beret and slashed it across his thigh. "Find some other way, damn it, that's all!"

  "We can't offer to help," Bolan said. "But tell me, apart from your own Anya Nya troops and workers, are there any refugees in this part of the forest?"

  "None," Halakaz said firmly. "We have rigorously excluded them, as I told you before, from an area ten miles around this base."

  "Okay," Bolan said. "Now you've got exactly three hours to clear every man, woman and child of your own people, plus as much equipment as you consider necessary, from that same area. I regret the inevitable destruction of Oloron, but it can't be avoided. I suggest you take the halftracks and any other vehicles you can find." He picked up the Combat Magnum that Jason Mettner had been using and handed it to Halakaz.

  The soldier was almost in tears. He took the gun, slammed it into its holster, snapped the cane under his arm, saluted and led Mtambole from the Land Rover. They walked smartly away toward the inner recesses of the cavern where the survivors of the Anya Nya awaited them.

  Some time later, Kraul looked up from an old-fashioned alarm with a bell on top. It was wired in to a nest of cables, terminals and junction boxes webbing the floor of the control room. Below, at the foot of the ramp, Trudi and Voigt waited in the Land Rover with the engine running. "What time shall I set this for?" Kraul asked.

  Bolan glanced at the wall clock. "Give them the full three hours. It'll still be dark then, anyway."

  Later still, when the cursing Mettner had been stowed in the remaining chopper and they were waiting to take off for Khartoum, the Executioner drew Kraul aside and asked him, "Tell me — why did you wise me up on the route to Oloron when Trudi and Voigt were being deliberately evasive?"

  The Israeli smiled. "That's simple," he said. "I'm the team archivist. I'm familiar with the dossiers. I knew who you really were."

  Trudi Finneman sat in the informal conference
between Bolan, Mettner, Hal Brognola and Samson, the CIA liaison, thirty-six hours later. "It seems, thank God, to have passed off all right," Samson said, tapping a copy of the Chicago Globe that lay on the table between them.

  There was a two-column headline halfway down the front page that read: Earthquake In Southern Sudan? Experts Disagree.

  Seismographs as far apart as Santa Barbara, Tokyo and Edinburgh registered shock waves the night before last whose epicenter was placed in an unexplored region of the southern Sudan. The shock, registering 7 on the Richter scale, was of short duration and is thought to have been a severe earth tremor. Certain characteristics, nevertheless, exhibited points in common with large man-made explosions, experts said here. The Sudanese government last night accused rebel factions in the southwestern province of Equatoria of responsibility for the explosion. But a communiqué issued by the headquarters of the Anya Nya guerrillas laid the blame squarely on "repressive government elements." Neither side specified exactly what form the disturbance had taken and there have been no reports of casualties in the area.

  emp1

  Jason Mettner II, special correspondent in central Africa, writes: Explosion or earthquake, the shock appears to have demolished a series of waterfalls and altered the course of the Oloron River. This will bring relief to thousands of refugee tribesmen, for the new watercourse irrigates what was formerly a barren thorn-tree desert, and this should soon be fertile enough to produce crops.

  "My God," Mettner exclaimed disgustedly, holding a hand to the bandage that still remained taped in place above his ear, "would you just look at that! I go through seven different kinds of hell and save the world for future generations, and what do I get? Two lousy sentences below the fold, tacked on to the end of a wire service special!" He snorted with assumed anger and set fire to a cigarette.

  "Better two sentences on the front page than seven column inches of obit inside," Bolan said soberly.

  "I've got to agree. Striker," Brognola said. "You're lucky yourself that human nature is so fallible. If Hamid el-Karim had not been greedy enough to want to line his own pockets — and if Courtney had not been such an egomaniac that he figured he could decoy you to his headquarters and choke our secrets out of you — you could've been written off with that man Ibrahim in Alexandria."

  "What about Courtney's own secrets?" Trudi asked. "Do you have those?"

  "Sure do," Samson said. "That Madison news agency was a front for Mob operations worldwide. Our guys found details of fifty companies they intended to put the bite on — plus listings of all the scientists and technicians suborned to steal the U-235 isotopes in Courtney's office safe. We're contacting the counterintel chiefs in the countries concerned so that the bastards can be weeded out. Your own people will be receiving a digest in the normal way."

  "A digest!" Mettner echoed. "Hey, that reminds me of food, reminds me I'm off the foreign circuits and back on the nightclub beat for a while. Fielding figures I need some kind of rest, can you imagine? But I have to be back in Washington at that new Mocamba joint at nine." He grinned. "There's a new Sudanese belly dancer there that they tell me is sensational!"

  Bolan and Trudi exchanged glances. "Small world," the Executioner said. "That's where we were heading ourselves..."