“Why do you care?”
“So I can do better the next time,” the killer said reasonably, blood trickling from his lips.
The man was in denial of his own impending death, despite the rapid blood loss from internal injuries. Bolan felt no pity for the death of a man who killed for profit, and he felt no compunction about taking advantage of his poor reasoning. “Okay, we’ll trade information,” Bolan said. “I’ll tell you how I got the drop on you. You tell me where to find Hamza al-Douri. But you go first.”
The killer considered this dumbly, the glimmer of life visibly dimming in his eyes with each faltering heartbeat, and Bolan had the urge to grab the man and try to shake this vital tidbit of information out of him—but it would have been wasted on a man who didn’t even feel the pain of a shattered rib cage. Finally the man nodded briefly.
“I will have to trust you as a fellow professional,” the killer slurred. “Hamza al-Douri is in the home of a powerful friend. A rich man named Jasim is giving him secret sanctuary. Jasim has a villa on President George Bush Boulevard.” The killer grinned. “I have been there more than one time for assignments. I have seen its security system. I know that even expert men like us will not get in.”
Bolan committed the information to memory. Kurtzman would know more about this man Jasim and about the villa.
“Now tell me how you did your little trick,” the killer said. “Keep your promise.”
“It wasn’t one little trick but a simple bait-and-switch, which you swallowed like an amateur.” Bolan stooped, looking the man in the eyes and began ticking off items on his fingers. “First I made myself obvious in the lobby because I knew somebody would be willing to talk about seeing me when the underground began a citywide survey of the hotels. I picked this room because it’s between two expensive suites. Then you showed up—alone, no luggage—and rented the suite next door, even though the hotel is just half-booked. You couldn’t have been more obvious if you were wearing your lapel pin from the Killer for Hire Guild. So I turned on the TV for a while, turned it off and started the shower, and you bought into the scenario without a second thought. Pretty soon I heard you picking the locks between the doors. At least as a lock pick you’re not totally inept, but you still made more than enough noise for somebody who was listening for it.”
The killer was bubbling with indignation but couldn’t summon the energy to respond to any of the insults.
“Those are all the stupid moves you didn’t know about. The one you did know about was trusting your video probe. Sure it could tell you if I was standing there about to ambush you in the middle of the room, but it couldn’t see the high technology surveillance device that I was using to monitor the door from the bathroom.”
Bolan reached into his back pocket and withdrew a slim dentist’s mirror with a plastic handle.
The killer’s mouth slackened, and he made a low stuttering noise as if to protest a violation of the rules. Bolan continued without letting him speak. “As soon as you withdrew your video worm, I knew I had a few seconds to get into position behind the door. You came through and got snapped in a trap like the rodent you are, smashed up and too stupid to know you’re minutes away from being dead.”
“Dying?” Even the one slurred word took great effort. The killer looked down at himself, and for the first time became aware that his clothes were drenched, and his blood-sodden cotton shirt clung to a chest that was oddly misshapen with a deep channel that couldn’t have existed if any of the bones on the right side of his rib cage were intact.
The killer didn’t have the energy to panic. His body flinched, and his eyes flitted wildly around the room. “Call for help.”
“You’re not worth it,” Bolan replied.
Bolan picked up his mobile phone and dialed his dedicated number into Stony Man Farm in Virginia. The scrambler on the phone itself made the voice transmission indecipherable except by the receiver, and the protocol that dictated the decoding was itself dynamically altered at irregular intervals during each conversation. Still, the call was routed through a bewildering series of global cutouts, filters and untraceable rerouting. It took almost five seconds before Bolan heard the first ring, which never finished.
“Striker, how’s it going?” Kurtzman asked.
“Could be better.”
“The Kuwaiti media is buzzing about your handiwork at the Ministry of Bread and Circuses.”
The killer tried to say something and choked on blood. He hefted himself to his knees momentarily, then collapsed with a grunt.
“What was that, Striker?”
“My informant.”
“Send me his prints and I’ll get you a background.”
“I don’t think there’s a need for that. He’s strictly local muscle. Hired help. But he gave me a lead. Hamza al-Douri is taking refuge in the home of a man named Jasim. Get this—he lives on President George Bush Boulevard.”
Over the line Bolan heard the tapping of fingers, then Aaron Kurtzman said, “Huh.”
“Got anything?” Bolan asked.
“Striker, I’ve got results on this joker streaming in from all over the place. CIA, FBI, M-I6, the Russians, the Israelis, the Italians, the Japanese. Hey, get this—this guy has a police record in Daytona Beach.”
“Give me the basics,” Bolan suggested.
“Yeah, okay. Maysaloun Jasim. He’s a Kuwaiti, born on the fringe of oil money. His father was a top oilman, but the family has been suspected of evil deeds since forever. Jasim parlayed his contacts into a thriving business of protection and facilitation.”
“Kuwaiti Mafia?” Bolan asked.
“Not quite. The picture is fuzzy, but he’s clearly in the good graces of the powers that be in Kuwait, so he has made a point of not stepping on toes. But he has a network of contacts and small-scale businesses outside the country. Arms. Prostitution. Drugs. And more business deals than I can count.”
“But why is he hiding an Iraqi undercover agent?” Bolan asked.
“Here’s why,” Kurtzman announced. “Remember the Arab Summit in early 2002? The one that Israel wouldn’t let Arafat attend? Iraq used the media attention for a little public-relations spit-and-polish. They formally declared their acceptance of Kuwaiti’s status as an independent nation, renouncing the claim that Kuwait was a renegade province that Iraq had legal claim to. Nobody in his right mind would take that claim at face value, but it did create better conditions for Iraqi-Kuwaiti trade—the legal kind and not-so-legal kind. Guess who spends most of April 2002 in Baghdad setting up trade ties?”
“Jasim.”
“Here’s the interesting coincidence. Jasim’s Grand Cayman accounts were fortified in May 2002—to the tune of twenty million U.S. dollars. And that’s doubled in the interim. This is information the Farm has culled—I don’t think the Company has a clue.”
Bolan got the picture. Jasim was a man who played the system and kept his dealings legitimate—if not ethical—as long as they served his ambitions. When those opportunities dried up, he wasn’t about to compromise his standard of living, so he gravitated toward less legitimate sources of income.
“Jasim’s enough of a traitor to hide out an important Iraqi agent when the situation calls for it. Bear, I’ll need to know anything and everything about the security at the house on President George Bush Boulevard. It’s supposed to be sophisticated. I’m on my way there now.”
“Not sure if I’ll have that kind of intelligence, Striker, but I’ll do my best,” Kurtzman said. “Can your informant give you any more details?”
Bolan crouched and put a pair of fingers against the throat of the figure sprawled on the carpet.
“No.”
8
A man like Hamza al-Douri, backed up by the resources of millionaire Maysaloun Jasim, would have sent in an anonymous killer first. That would make for the cleanest kill with the least chance of comebacks. But just in case the hit man blew it, Bolan knew al-Douri would have a Plan B.
So did
Bolan.
The Executioner had spotted his Plan B in the parking garage during a quick surveillance after his too obvious dinner in the lobby steak house. Plan B, a Suzuki GSX-R1000, was still parked there when Bolan came down. It was probably the property of the son of a wealthy Kuwaiti who had likely gone to college in the UK or the States and learned some Western ways. Chances were the kid who owned the Suzuki would never have reason to test its capabilities, but Bolan might.
The backup team would be watching the hotel doors and keeping tabs on Bolan’s rental car, a plush Mercedes parked in a VIP spot on the bottom level of the parking garage. The soldier had paid the parking staff well to keep an eye on his high-priced toy.
He had the Suzuki hot-wired in minutes but kept the big 988 cc engine rumbling at idle as he wheeled it out of its parking place and allowed the spiral decline of the garage carry him in neutral down the levels, from five to two. He braked and tucked the motorcycle against a concrete support column while he crept to the bottom level on foot. His reconnoiter paid off when he spotted two conspicuously occupied cars on the lower level, parked well apart from each other but both in places where their occupants had a line of sight on Bolan’s rental Mercedes.
The soldier disregarded a capture-and-interrogate scheme and decided to try for a clandestine exit. After all, if this bunch was still sitting here with their thumbs up their noses when Bolan entered the Jasim villa, it would be that many fewer hardmen to face down.
He moved catlike, his black clothing making it easy to merge with the shadows between the cars, and found his way alongside a black Saab sedan. This was the car closest to the exit but also the easiest to get to without moving into the open. There was just a driver inside, and Bolan assumed this was the transport for a foot patrol that was now canvassing in and around the hotel.
A quick inspection revealed specialty body panels and run-flat tires, and he saw the tiny logo on the rear window glass that told him it was bullet-resistant. But whoever put a lot of cash into hardening the car forgot to invest in some commonsense classes for the driver, who was so overconfident he had the door opened to stretch his long legs.
Bolan carried a prepped booby trap. It took him only seconds to tie one end of the polymer monofilament to a reinforcing bolt under the Saab’s rear bumper. The fragmentation grenade dangled from it, a few inches off the pavement. Another strand of monofilament was threaded through a small gap in the inside rim of a rear tire. Bolan pulled the pin on the grenade and tied the loose end of the second line around the bomb and the pin with a slipknot.
He tightened it to reduce the slack, and the trap was set. When the tires moved the line would be pulled tight and it would slip easily off the grenade. Unless the sedan’s armor was better than it looked, it would be rendered undrivable.
Silently he crept away from the sedan. The man with the long legs was still lounging in his seat, watching the rental Mercedes. His range of vision was restricted by his kaffiyeh, the centuries-old traditional Arab headwear.
Bolan duck-walked silently alongside the sedan, the driver unaware of his presence until the soldier suddenly stepped over his stretched legs, grabbed him by both ankles and twisted powerfully, sending the relaxed driver into a full-body corkscrew that landed with him facedown on his car seat. His shout of alarm was muffled by the seat. Bolan stayed low and hauled on the killer’s ankles with all his weight, dragging the driver’s body from the car. It hit the pavement hard.
The driver flopped like a fish, twisting onto his back and grabbing for the handgun holstered under his arm. Bolan snatched him by the belt and yanked the heavy bodyweight toward him while he lashed out with one foot at the driver’s jaw.
The jaw was jelly and sagged open, full of blood, but the driver reached again for the gun. Bolan was unbalanced in an awkward crouch on one knee, and his next kick was a weak effort that he aimed at the hand, barely dislodging it from the holster before the driver got his grip. Then the Executioner rammed his knee into the driver’s abdomen with all the force he could muster.
The explosion of breath was the loudest sound to emerge from the battle, and it created a geyser of blood. Bolan was surprised to see the driver still conscious, still weakly going for his handgun.
Bolan crabbed in close to the man and rained heel blows on the lolling head until he was certain there was no life left in it.
He dragged the kaffiyeh off the corpse and looked it over. It was a plain ivory color, but the blood spatters weren’t large enough to be obvious from a distance. He took the garment and crept back up to the second level in a hurry, not knowing how long it would take for the driver to be missed. When he reached the Suzuki, Bolan dragged on the kaffiyeh and quickly tied the agal, the woven band of cords that held the cotton fabric in place. When it was lengthened slightly to fit his skull, the headwear felt natural.
He pulled it around his head and drove the bike at an unhurried pace down the ramp to the bottom level, where he found the scene unchanged. The driver’s corpse lay undiscovered alongside the sedan, and his oblivious companions were smoking cigarettes in their sedan near the doors into the hotel.
Bolan felt their eyes on him, but he didn’t turn to look. Even if they had his photograph they weren’t going to see enough of his face to make him.
The hotel parking attendant at the entrance gave him a brief, uninterested nod.
Then Bolan was on the street. As he cruised leisurely alongside the parking garage, he saw a pair of headlights sweeping through the second level, followed by a chirp of brakes. The grisly remains of the driver had just been discovered.
It was time to make some distance.
THE YOUNG MAN working the late-evening shift in the parking garage didn’t hear the footsteps. He was too worried about what he had just seen.
“Hey, Rumi.”
It was just Ilah, who worked the front door some evenings. They had come from Saudi Arabia together on a work program designed to teach work skills to young Saudis from poor families. They were making better money than they could have hoped for in Saudi Arabia, but neither had learned what they would have called a skill.
“What is the matter with you?” Ilah asked.
“I think somebody just drove out of here on the Suzuki that belongs to that guy who does the accounting,” Rumi said.
“You mean somebody stole it?”
The doorman never got his answer, because things started happening fast.
Someone was honking his horn, then there was a woman screaming. When the two hotel employees left the tiny glass booth, they saw a woman standing outside her car with both hands held to her head, looking at something on the pavement while she wailed.
Three men were already running to her aid—although they weren’t very helpful. They took one look at whatever it was on the ground and ran back down the drive to a waiting car.
“He’s dead!” one of them shouted. “Somebody kicked his head in!”
“Shit!” said the driver standing half out of the sedan. He now jumped back inside. “It was the dog on the motorcycle! Come on!”
They tore out of the parking garage, one of them shouting into a cell phone.
The woman figured out that the men in the sedan were not going to be of much help. She ran toward the glass booth, hysterical, at about the same time three more men emerged from the hotel in a hurry. They rushed past the woman and bumped her to the ground.
The doorman and the parking attendant were not sure what to do about all this. Especially when they saw the trio of newcomers kick the body out of the way and jump into the black Saab. The hotel employees helped the woman to her feet. The Saab moved about a foot before it exploded, and the three of them hit the ground again.
BOLAN WAS GOING the speed limit and driving defensively when he saw the police car stopped at the light. The lights on the police car blazed to life before Bolan was halfway through the intersection. So much for blending in with city traffic.
With a whoop of sirens the police muscled into
cross traffic and tore after him. Bolan watched the car come up fast in the bike’s mirrors. There was a blare of Arabic from the loudspeaker, probably telling him to pull over. They didn’t sound friendly. Some sort of APB had to have gone out pretty fast to make Bolan a wanted man already.
He slowed the bike and steered for the side of the road. The cops stopped, and Bolan heard their doors open. One shouted an order. They probably wanted him to turn off his engine, and they just might have a revolver aimed at his back.
Bolan waited for his moment as a pair of cars approached shoulder to shoulder in both lanes of the street. When they were just close enough he twisted the accelerator handle and yanked the Suzuki onto the pavement and directly into the path of traffic, its uncontrolled fishtailing accompanied by discordant blaring horns and screaming brakes. There was a crunch of body panels behind him when a pair of the skidding cars made contact. Bolan brought the bike under his control, heading back the way he had come with the police nowhere in sight—yet.
He turned the Suzuki around the first corner and killed the lights, cutting into a cobblestone pedestrian walkway between buildings. It was less than an alley, too narrow for a car, and as the tip of the handlebars scraped the brick on the left or right he found himself steering by feel. It widened only for a narrow alcove holding a trio of plastic garbage cans.
At the end of the passage he rolled to a stop in darkness, looking out onto a district of boutiques with understated signage almost entirely in English. Bolan’s realm of expertise did not include the fashion industry, but he knew he was looking at names that would inspire admiration in those who cared about such things. The inventory in these small shops would be worth millions. They were all dark now and the manicured grounds and walkways were empty, but Bolan didn’t need a warrior’s instinct to know the place wasn’t as deserted as it looked. There would be regular patrols. Maybe the place had cops stationed here permanently.
He heard the sound of sirens from the street he just left, the sound distorted by the odd acoustics of the narrow passage, and a glance over his shoulder told him at least two emergency vehicles were on that side of the block. He wasn’t going back that way.
Mercy Mission Page 6