"Are you blown, Toby?" Bolan asked.
"I think so. With Edwards it's not always easy to tell where you're at. He's sharp, Mack," she said seriously. "My cover was bound to unravel sooner or later. First of all, I know he checked my record out all the way back to Adam. Believe it or not, the guy still has an ear to the CIA ground. Sure, he didn't learn anything that proved I hadn't gone renegade like him, but up until then I was too damn clean. For a guy with his sensitive nose, it would have smelled fishy." Toby brushed absently at a grass stain.
She was wearing a jump suit of white parachute cloth, cut to accentuate the swelling curve of her hips, the front zipper pulled low enough to expose the valley of her full breasts. "Second, he caught me yesterday ( God, it seems like a week ago ( in Valais, making contact with Stony Man base. Making the call was a risk, but I thought it likely I was already blown, and what Edwards had planned needed to be stopped pronto. He didn't really hear anything ( but it was sort of suspicious, from his point of view. For sure he thought I was calling the States."
"Do all of his people know you're on the outs?"
"Probably not. It was..." she glanced at her watch "...only about an hour ago. Hansen and his boys busted into my room, told me to dress, and hustled me out. They claimed the boss wanted me on ice for a while, but I was afraid Edwards had given them orders to interrogate as well." Suddenly she shuddered involuntarily. "Edwards told me a story once, soon after I hooked up with him ( I don't know if he was trying to impress me or intimidate me. He said that one of the African tinhorn dictators had a special way of questioning prisoners to get them to give him the names of opposition sympathizers. The prisoner was strapped down on his back so he could only lift his head, and a rat was placed on his stomach, and over the rat a glass bowl. Then the bowl was heated. The rat only had one way out. Edwards said if the prisoner didn't pass out, he could watch the rat eat its way through his guts."
"Easy," Bolan said gently. "That's enough."
Toby squared her shoulders, as if shaking off the image. "Anyway, thinking about that, being awakened in the dark and so on, I didn't go quietly at first." She touched at the dressing on her forehead. "That's how I got the souvenir."
"So as far as most of Edwards's cadre know, you're still one of the gang?"
"Possibly. Even probably. Today is another big day for Edwards. I don't think he'd want the word to get out about any kind of trouble."
"What's going down, Toby?"
"Exactly what I thought when I made contact yesterday. Edwards is organizing an international intelligence agency with loyalties only to the highest bidders. It's incredible, but I'm afraid the guy can make it work ( and on a far greater scale than we ever suspected. For example, even though the word has gone out to every friendly intelligence agency in the world that Edwards is believed guilty of treasonous activities and no longer has any official CIA status, the guy can still tap into nearly all of his old sources."
"Through other traitors still in place?"
"No, Mack. That's the hell of it. Through loyal, committed operatives. You see, that whole shadow land they call espionage is built on a foundation of suspicion and intrigue. Edwards has let it be leaked to a select few on the inside that he was never fired from the agency at all; it was all a scam to get an operative into Libya and buddy-buddy with Khaddafi. And in a crazy kind of way it could make sense."
Sure, Bolan thought, in a topsy-turvy world where a government agent could become a turncoat representing himself as an agent, anything made sense, if you spent enough time trying to figure it out, trying to pigeonhole it into one of the cubicles of rational experience. But there was nothing rational about international terrorism, and those like Edwards who shored it up. Edwards was a traitor, and by proxy a mass murderer. And all the rationalization in the world was not going to neutralize him.
Direct action was the only response to the Frank Edwardses of the world, the kind of direct action that the Executioner held a patent on.
"Edwards has a broad base of direct support as well," Toby went on. "He already has commitments with agents from around the world. Men like himself, willing to give up any idea of allegiance, except to profit. He's been in contact with people in the British MI5, the French SDECE, the Israeli Shin Bet, the German BND. And he's not limiting himself to the Western allies, either. He's also hooked up with agents of the KGB, the Social Affairs Department of Red China, and Castro's DGI."
Incredible, for sure. Once his network was set up, he would be in a position to subvert the intelligence activities of every major power in the world. The precarious balance of the rock of world peace would go straight to hell, and when it toppled it would start an avalanche that could only end in total destruction.
"Mack!" The alarm in her tone cut into his reflections. Instinctively his fist tightened on the Beretta.
But Toby was looking at the chest of the nightsuit.
The black material was stained with something darker.
"You're hit," Toby said.
Bolan unzipped the front flap. "Just grazed. It happened yesterday." But the compress over the exit wound was soaked with fresh blood.
"Grazed?" Toby echoed skeptically.
Bolan got out a fresh field bandage and slapped it over the old one. But again the pain in the torn muscle had become sharper; no doubt the firefight just past had not done it any good.
"I'm all right," Bolan said. He rezipped the outfit, but Toby was still staring at the bloodspot. "How is Edwards financing this scheme?"
Toby turned her frown on Bolan again.
"Several sources. His first scheme, after he split with the CIA, involved brokering illegally exported arms, mostly American-made, to terrorists and various other sorts of criminals. The weapons ( everything from automatic pistols to heat-seeking missiles ( were smuggled to London.
That was where Sir Philip Drummond came in.
He made sure that there was either storage in the International Zone at Heathrow Airport, which meant no customs inspection, or that if there did have to be an inspection, the customs agents were bought off or fixed in some other way. Meanwhile, Edwards would use his connections to doctor up an end-users certificate, which is a document by one government friendly to the U.S. that states that armament stored in another country had been duly and legally purchased.
Of course, the real destination was never the one that was registered, but one of Edwards's warehouses instead.
The weapons business is highly profitable.
Edwards marks up the goods three or four hundred percent, depending on the buyer and the merchandise." Toby shook her head, almost sadly. "I got to know the guy a little, Mack. He is one of the most frightening men I've ever met, because to him it's as if it's just an exercise in deception and wheeling dealing, a game at which he has grown expert. He knows intellectually that people are dying because of it, but emotionally he is completely aloof."
It was the ultimate ego trip, sure. The notion that the world is composed of You and Everyone Else, because no one can touch you in deceit and manipulation. Except Edwards was wrong: he would be touched all right, and touched hard.
"I think Edwards has also received seed money from some of the wealthier terrorist groups. We know that before he began to set up his spy net, eyewitnesses placed him at the scene of several high-level meetings among Arab radical factions. At least a dozen European assassinations have been pinned on them in the past two years, and one or two of the earlier ones may have been Edwards's personal work. Now some of those groups are anteing up seed money."
"So it all ties in."
"Even more than we thought," Toby added. "It turns out that Edwards even has quasi-official status. Nominally, the reason he is in Tripoli is to train a class of Libyan intellectuals in espionage technique, and to design and start up an intelligence agency for Khaddafi. Of course, Khaddafi knows this is a cover for Edwards's own ambitions, but he doesn't particularly care. He'll be one of Edwards's best customers, and he'll even get a d
iscount."
Bolan pressed in the Jag's dashboard lighter and fished out a cigarette. "I figured he's using Wheelus as a base."
"That's right," Toby confirmed. "His primary communication and computer data-bank facility is there, and his own planes fly out of the old base. He's also got his largest illegal-weapons warehouse there too, in an old quartermaster corps facility ( and right now it's filled with inventory."
"Can you sketch me a layout of the base, Toby?"
"You bet, Captain Grim."
She found paper and pen in the sedan's glove box and began to rough out a schematic as Bolan asked, "How long before Edwards misses Hansen?"
"I'm not sure. Hansen wouldn't necessarily check in just to tell Edwards we had reached Wheelus, not unless something was wrong. But there's a good chance that the next one of Edwards's group to pass this way is going to recognize those two wrecked cars, investigate, and blow the whistle. It's still pretty early; with luck we might have a couple of hours."
"That could be all we need."
Toby looked across the seat at him and frowned, like she already knew the answer to the question she was about to ask.
"Now wait a minute, Captain Incredible. Are you thinking of taking him on by yourself?"
"Toby, Frank Edwards can't be touched through official channels. Technically, he hasn't been charged with any crime by American authorities, because to do so would open some top-secret cans of worms. Technically, he's outside the reach and authority of our law, anyway. Technically, no American agent or law officer has any official status in Libya."
"Yeah," Toby Ranger said sarcastically, "and technically, the Mafia never existed. If you go strictly by the book, that is."
"Which is why..."
"Which is why," Toby interrupted, "we're going by the book you wrote. It's just like the bad old days, isn't it, Captain Tough? Hit "n" git the hellfire storm, all of it. Call it "Blitzing the Baddies, by Captain Death.""
Mack Bolan did not smile.
"I'll need intel, Toby. With cars and bodies littering that field, we could go on the heartbeat any second."
"Mack, with that arm the chances...." She bit at her lip. You did not start thinking chances at a time like this.
"The layout at the villa," Bolan pressed. "Number and positioning of security layout, anything else you can give me."
Toby sighed. "You got it, Captain Stubborn." But then her wry smile turned into a pained drawn expression, as if all the tension of the past six months of living undercover, acting a role for the Oscar Award that was life or death, had finally become frighteningly real to her. "Mack," she said, in a voice gone suddenly little girl. She leaned across, and he let her come into his arms. There was nothing sexual about it; it was the need of two people to feel for a few moments a human touch, in the midst of the all-too-inhuman world in which they found themselves so often. He felt the warm wetness of her tears soaking through the elastic material of the blacksuit.
"It's okay," he told her in an incredibly soft voice.
"Damn it," Toby sobbed, and Bolan knew she was referring to nothing and everything. "Just damn..."
Very too quickly the moment was over. So few, those moments, so far between ( and so essential.
As essential as the need to stop Frank Edwards.
Toby was sitting across the seat again, her eyes red but dry. "I'm ready," she said, calmly, levelly.
East across the flat grassy plain, dirty gray fingers of dawn licked away the night sky.
Another day, and another long yard in the Executioner's endless Third Mile of War.
But Bolan nodded. He was ready as well.
11
Mack Bolan lay without breathing on the floor in front of the Jag's rear seat, his still form hidden beneath a rough wool blanket. The car cruised to a stop, and Bolan heard the sound of boot heels on pavement as the gateman came over, Bolan tensed, holding the charged Uzi in ready position. If Toby's cover had been blown completely off and the guard blew the whistle on her now, the scene was going to go rapidly hard.
"Accident?" The gateman's voice came from the rig's passenger side. Its tone was casual.
"Somewhere along the line," Toby replied just as lightly. "It was like that when I left Frank's place."
"A Jag, huh," he heard the gateman say rhetorically. "I haven't seen this one around before." Either the guy was looking for conversation to break up the monotony of duty ( or he was stalling for time.
"I guess Frank just picked it up. Probably at a discount because of the dent, if I know Frank."
The gateman laughed. "Frank knows the value of a buck, that's for sure."
"Just like the rest of us, huh?"
"Right you are, Toby. Listen, what's up?" In the background, Bolan could hear the Doppler effect of an approaching plane.
"That goddamned tag car was on its way to pick up some guy named Sid Bryant. That's probably his flight coming in now," she whispered to Bolan.
"Who is he?"
"Used to be FBI, but he's been freelancing around Europe and the Middle East for the past couple of years. Frank's never met him, I guess, but he'd got the credentials and recommendations."
"Coming in for the big meet?"
"No, that's just coincidence. He'll be there, I guess, but mainly Frank is just checking him out." Toby shifted the sedan into gear.
"Take it easy, Toby," the gateman called as she moved on into the one-time USAF base turned terrorist nerve center.
Bolan let out breath and loosened his death grip on the Uzi. He had changed out of the midnight suit and into light cotton twill slacks, a khaki safari shirt, and dark glasses. In the front right-hand pocket of the slacks was stowed a C.O.P. (compact Off-Duty-Police), Inc. SS-I four-barrel hideaway pistol, in .357 Magnum.
The Jaguar rolled to a smooth stop. From the sound of the engines as they were killed, the plane was close by. The Jag's door opened, slammed again.
"How they hanging, Toby?" a man's voice asked.
"Keep your mind on flying, Jerry." Toby's tone was just as bantering. "Are you Bryant?" she asked after a pause.
A different man answered, "That's right."
"Your chariot awaits, chum."
Both front doors opened, and the Jag's suspension shifted under the weight of Toby and Bryant. The car started up again, swung around in a U-turn. It slowed long enough for Bolan to hear the gateman's, "Later, Toby," then sped up again." "Welcome to Tripoli, Bryant," Toby said casually Bolan slipped out from under the blanket and rose silently to his knees, bringing up the Uzi.
Bryant had started to murmur a response to Toby's apparent pleasantry when the barrel of the Uzi drilled into the base of his skull. "You've got two choices, Bryant," Bolan said into the guy's ear, his voice sharp and cold as an icicle. "It you keep your eyes straight ahead and your hands in sight, you get a long walk back from the desert. If you even twitch, you get your brains all over the dashboard."
"I guess I've got a long walk coming up," Bryant said expressionlessly.
12
Understanding the enemy, in everything from motivation to method, was an invaluable aid, Bolan had learned ( it was the edge that kept a man living. So from the moment he had received in London from Aaron Kurtzman at Stony Man Farm the telexed precise of Frank Edwards's dossier, he had budgeted a significant portion of his available waking time while in transit to studying, analyzing, and extrapolating strengths, weaknesses, causality, technique. By applying his vast storehouse of experiential knowledge of the human animal, Bolan was able to virtually open the lid of the man and examine the works inside.
Frank Edwards, age 38. Born Manchester, New Hampshire, to Earl Edwards, grocery wholesaler, and Bernice Edwards, high-school teacher. Educated in public grammar and high schools; two-year letterman in football and track, vice-president of the student council, honor roll academically. B.A. degree from Yale University; dual major in history and political science, upper-level courses in psychology, sociology, Spanish, German. Four years army ROTC. Grade
level of 73rd percentile, i.e. academically above average but not extraordinary.
The bare-bones outline of Edwards's post-graduate career went like this: Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, U.S. Army, assigned to military intelligence. Stationed in Saigon for twenty months during the height of the Vietnam War. Usual citations, honorable discharge six months before scheduled expiration of enlistment at administrative request, discharge rank of captain.
Joined the Central Intelligence Agency on discharge, posted to Langley for training. Subsequent postings to Caracas, Malaysia, Belgrade, Bonn, Paris. Chief of Middle East Section, HQ in Beirut, when his service was terminated. Total agency service: fourteen years, four months. The anecdotal material that the Bear had appended to the dossier fleshed out the skeletal, and fairly typical, description of one agent's career ( and revealed that Edwards was hardly typical at all. The CIA, Bolan knew, was not some sort of arcane secret society, approaching potential agents in the dead of night, swearing them to secrecy and offering them a James Bondian life of excitement and high adventure. Sure, of necessity there was a certain covertness to the agency's activities, and the mental and physical prerequisites for agents were extremely rigorous, designed to screen out all but the very best. But the CIA hired much like any other corporation, interviewing applicants on college campuses for example, as openly as General Motors. Occasionally, if in the course of his work a field agent encounters a particularly promising candidate, he might recommend he apply. This was the case with Frank Edwards, who during his military stretch came in normal contact with the head of the CIA'S Saigon station. It was Edwards's successful application that led to his early discharge from regular military service. A senior CIA field agent is given a great deal of autonomy; that was the reason for the meticulous screening procedure through which Edwards passed with flying colors. Although an agent enjoys the resources of the world's finest intelligence agency, he is also expected to develop and exploit his own sources. His primary mandate is explicit, and he is often given specific assignments, but he may also act on his own initiative if the contingencies of the moment demand it. In the words of William Colby, one of the CIA directors under whom Edwards worked: "It is the function of an agent, in the proper use of the situation, to maneuver himself into a situation by his own wits." Quite simply, Frank Edwards made an excellent spy. He was intelligent, cool-headed, resourceful, imaginative. His natural personality was affable and outgoing; he genuinely enjoyed people and got along with those of every social stratum. He would physically courageous, and unflappable in a dangerous situation. On three occasions in his agency career, he had killed twice under pressure when operations had been bollixed or betrayed. In each instance he had revealed none of the hesitation of compunction that could get a man dead.
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