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The Killing Rule
Don Pendleton


Demolition ChargeThe disappearance of two CIA agents in London plus intelligence chatter involving the IRA and access to weapons of mass destruction launch Bolan's hard probe in the British Isles. Suspecting the IRA link is the lesser part of something more far-reaching and sinister, Bolan recruits a renegade force to close in on a traitor high in the ranks of the British government–exposing a conspiracy involving stolen Russian nuclear submarine warheads and a death deal brokered with Iran. All that stands between a desert continent and a crippling blow to humanity is Bolan's sheer determination to take whatever action necessary to thwart a victory for terror.










The Killing Rule


Mack Bolan







Don Pendleton







www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Chuck Rogers for his contribution to this work.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN




CHAPTER ONE


Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, cat footed through the London fog. He’d already picked up a tail, which was all right with him. Bolan was spoiling for a fight this evening, anyway. In fact, it was the number-one item on his agenda. He turned up the collar of his peacoat and pulled his watch cap low over his forehead against the chill, and moved toward his target.

London was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on Earth. Nearly every immigrant group on the planet, including their organized crime and terrorist syndicates, had an enclave in the city. Since ancient times, the Irish had been one of the first and foremost.

The Irish Republican Army was on Bolan’s plate this night.

Pub Claddagh was his destination.

It was a well-known IRA meet-and-greet watering hole. Not surprisingly, Pub Claddagh was well used to visits by the English bobbies, inspectors from Scotland Yard and undercover agents from MI-5. It had also received visits from two CIA field agents in the past three months, both of whom had wound up floating dead in the Thames River with severe contusions, multiple broken bones and a .223-caliber bullet through the backs of their heads. Ballistics had shown that the bullets had come from AR-18 assault rifles, one of the IRA’s weapons of choice—one they were so pleased with they had come to nickname the AR-18 “Widowmaker.” Both CIA men had left widows behind.

Now Pub Claddagh was about to have its first visit from the Executioner.

But first Bolan was going to have to get to the door. The two men tailing him were making no more attempts at stealth. Their boots thudded on the cobblestones as they briskly caught up with him. An Irish brogue broke through the thick fog blanketing the street. “Hey! Yank!”

Bolan turned to his opponents. They were large men and heavily built. One wore his hair cropped short, the other had shaved his head. Their lumpish faces, poorly set broken noses, scarred brows and cauliflower ears only added to the “goon” effect. They looked like archetypal British soccer hooligans, only they spoke with Irish accents that could be cut with a knife. The skinhead leaned forward, jutting a jaw you could break a croquet mallet on.

“And where d’you think you’re going?”

Bolan spit casually on the pavement between them. “What’s it to you, Paddy?”

“Paddy!” The skinhead grinned happily. “D’you hear that, Liam?”

“Oh, I do, Shane.” Liam smiled like a shark. “A bold boy, this one.”

Both men were dressed in Team Ireland football jerseys voluminous enough to hide some significant weapons. Bolan suspected this was to be a beating, albeit a brutal one, rather than an assassination or a kidnapping.

“If you two are looking to beg a fiver, bugger off. If you’re looking to get buggered, you’ve got each other.”

Shane laughed delightedly. The American was being very obliging.

Liam’s eyes narrowed slightly. He was a predator, but he sensed something was wrong. The American wasn’t belligerent or filled with drunken defiance. He was showing no fear whatsoever, and his burning blue eyes were disturbing even in the dim light. Liam folded his arms across his thick chest and tsked sadly, still confident in his and his partner’s control of the situation. That was his first and last mistake.

Bolan took the opportunity to kick Shane in the shin.

During the early years of the Cold War, the OSS and other intelligence agencies had issued shoes with steel toecaps for crippling opponents in sudden struggles. Such modifications couldn’t make it through today’s airport X-ray or metal detector screenings, but Bolan had the modern equivalent made out of polycarbonate Lexan that had the tensile strength of industrial-grade cast zinc. They weren’t quite as strong as steel, but then again neither was Shane’s tibia. The bone cracked with an audible click noise.

Shane let out an amazingly high-pitched scream for a man of his size.

Liam had made the unforgivable mistake of crossing his arms and posturing when he should have been attacking. He unfolded his arms with alacrity, but he was already behind the curve.

Bolan’s hand blurred into motion, and he slapped Liam. But rather than slapping the man across the face, the soldier slapped into it. He cupped his palm as he hit Liam to create an air pocket, and the blow sounded like a gunshot. The cupped air concentrated the blow and drove the force into Liam’s Gasserian ganglion, where the trigeminal nerves carrying information from the eyes, ears and face met. Tears geysered out of Liam’s eyes and blood burst from his nose from the force of the blow. The trauma beneath the surface was far more severe. The Gasserian ganglion had a direct route to the brain, and by crushing the nerve bundle Bolan’s blow had reproduced the symptoms of facial neuralgia, which many medical resources described as the most terrible pain a human being was capable of experiencing.

Liam dropped to his knees, clawing at his face, his screams slurred by his malfunctioning jaw. Within heartbeats he collapsed and went fetal in blissful unconsciousness. Shane was still hopping around on one foot, screaming and clutching his fractured left shin, so Bolan stepped in and fractured his right.

Shane toppled, howling, to the cobbles.

Bolan took their wallets and removed their ID cards before moving on up the street. Above a green-painted oaken door thick enough for a medieval castle hung a classic tin pub sign. On it was painted a golden claddagh symbol, a heart topped by a crown and held by two hands. The heart symbolized love, the hands friendship and the crown loyalty. Bolan pushed open the heavy door and the smells of cigarette smoke and shepherd’s pie washed over him. Warmth radiated from a glowing fireplace. The interior was classic pub. The wood was ancient dark varnished oak, crushed red-velvet upholstery covered the walls and the furniture and gleaming brass was everywhere. There were about thirty patrons in the pub; most sat at tables or in booths. A few sat at the bar watching the football scores on the television.

Bolan pulled off his watch cap and walked up to the bar. The bartender was an immense man in formal bartender attire. His red hair was cut close to his skull and was the same shade as his short beard and mustache. He looked like a jolly Irish Santa. He had a lazy eye, and one eye looked at Bolan while the other one appeared to be taking note of the scorers on the television above the bar. He smiled at Bolan benignly. “What’ll it be, mate?”

Bolan ran his gaze across the taps. “Half and half.”

The bartender nodded wisely and filled a pint glass half full of Harp lager. He filled the rest of the glass with Guinness stout poured down the side of the glass over a spoon to create two distinct layers of light and dark beer. He topped it with a flourish that left a four-leaf clover shape in the foamy head. Bolan sipped his beer and acknowledged its perfect execution with a grin. He reached into his coat and produced pictures of the two dead CIA agents. “You seen either of these two in the past couple of months?”

The bartender squinted at the photos and shrugged. “Can’t say’s I have, but then I can’t say’s I haven’t.” He gave Bolan a merry smile. “Y’see we are London’s most famous Irish pub. We get a lot of American tourists and businessmen coming in.”

Bolan hadn’t said the two dead agents were Americans, but he was willing to chalk that up to an assumption on the bartender’s part. Bolan took out Liam’s and Shane’s ID cards and placed them on the bar. “You know these two?”

The bartender had an excellent poker face, but his face froze for the barest instant and he knew it. He lost his veneer of friendliness. “And where’d you get those, then?”

“From Liam and Shane,” Bolan said.

“Are they under arrest?”

“No.” Bolan smiled. “But I left their crippled asses lying in the street a couple of minutes ago.”

The bartender’s thick fingers clenched into fists. He took a long breath and unclenched them. “You know, I think you’d best be leaving.”

Bolan feigned surprise. “But I haven’t finished my beer yet.”

The bartender’s lazy eye suddenly swung into line and the big man glared at Bolan in binocular anger. He slowly leaned forward, worked his jaws a moment and spit into Bolan’s half and half. “Take your time, then.”

Bolan scooped up his pictures and pushed away from the bar. He went from table to table, showing the pictures and asking the same questions while he felt the bartender’s eyes burning holes in his back. A glance back showed him the bartender talking rapidly into a cell phone. Bolan went on with his interviews. Most of the Claddagh’s patrons genuinely didn’t recognize the pictures. A few clearly recognized Liam and Shane. When Bolan responded that no, he was not with the police, he was informed of several unique places he could “bugger off” to.

The big American concluded his interviews, leaving a card with a phone number and the address of the hotel he was staying at with whomever would accept one. Bolan pulled on his cap and stepped out into the London night.

Liam and Shane were gone. Rooted in the same spot where the fight had occurred stood two men of equally goonlike dimensions. They wore long coats with hooded black sweatshirts underneath. The hoods were pulled low over the men’s brows to throw their faces into shadow. A similar pair of men stood directly across the street from Bolan. One of them held a cell phone to his ear. Standing there like stones with the fog creeping around them, they looked like the IRA’s own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Bolan’s hand went to the grips of the Beretta 93-R machine pistol beneath his coat.

The IRA was different from a lot of terrorist organizations. They had what some might describe as a vaguely achievable goal of driving the British out of Northern Ireland and uniting their country. Driving the Protestants into the sea was part of it, but driving out the British had to come first. IRA members also tended not to be suicidal. Martyrdom usually wasn’t on the agenda, and they wanted to get away with their bombings and killings. However, like any such organization, they had their hardcore “soldiers.” Men who were ready to die beneath the bullets of British soldiers or do a life sentence in an English supermax prison standing on their heads and not talking.

Bolan faced four of them now.

One of the men across the street took a single step forward. He twisted his wrist and a length of wood slid down out of his sleeve. The weapon was a shillelagh, the ancient Irish war club. Only this wasn’t one of the walking sticks sold to tourists in the airports. The tapering blackthorn terminated in a root-ball the size of a human fist.

The weapon was not a total anachronism.

During a riot when British soldiers were wielding batons, firing tear gas and shooting rubber bullets and the rioters responded with bricks and stones, an IRA man could produce his shillelagh and crush the skull of a traitor or political target. One more fatal head trauma would go unnoticed in the melee.

Bolan didn’t currently want to shoot any of these men. He wanted the men controlling them. The Executioner took out his cell phone and punched a preset number. A cheerful Englishwoman asked him if he required a cab and he provided the address of the pub and then waited. He stared at the Irish, and they stared at him.

A London black cab turned the corner and proceeded up the street. The clubman threw his weapon, and it clattered across the cobblestones to rest at Bolan’s feet. The four men melted away into the fog. Bolan scooped up the shillelagh, surprised at its weight and heft. He tucked it under his coat and climbed into his cab. The club was a challenge. The IRA had dropped a punk card for Bolan and dared him to pick it up.

The Executioner had picked it up, and he’d left ample calling cards in the bar.




CHAPTER TWO


Bolan lay on the bed of his hotel room and examined his new club. The three-foot length of blackthorn was three inches in diameter and varnished against the elements. The Irish craftsman had added a brass cap on the tapered end to prevent splitting. The most interesting aspect of it was the business end. The ugly lump of the root-ball had been partially drilled out, and molten lead had been poured in to “load” the stick. It was a club that would not just crack a human skull but go through it.

He sat up as the satellite link peeped at him from its aluminum case. Bolan flipped open the attached laptop and clicked a key. Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman’s craggy, bearded face appeared on the eleven-inch monitor in real time all the way from Stony Man Farm in Virginia. Bolan held up his shillelagh for the camera. “Look what I got.”

Kurtzman’s brow furrowed. “Nice battle bludgeon you got there. Who gave it to you?”

“A nice Irish lad.” Bolan tossed the cudgel onto the bed. “Speaking of likely lads, what did you get on the two IDs I faxed you?”

United Kingdom criminal justice forms began to scroll on the screen beneath Kurtzman’s image. Liam and Shane had rap sheets. “We have Shane O’Maonlai and Liam MacGowan, both born in Ulster, Northern Ireland. Shane did two years for assault at Magilligan prison where apparently he was recruited by Liam. Both men have had multiple cases of assault lodged against them, though in almost all cases the charges have been dropped.”

Bolan nodded. “They’re low-level muscle.”

“Yeah,” the computer expert agreed. “Their MO seems to be cracking heads and keeping people in line for the IRA in London, but by their rap sheets they’ve also dabbled in leg-breaking and loan-sharking for the London Mob to earn pocket money.” His eyes flicked to the bed. “The shillelagh strikes me as a bit odd. Liam and Shane do their work with their hands.”

“I didn’t get it from them. Like you said, they’re leg-breakers. When I left them on the ground and started poking my nose around the pub, the bartender called in some heavy hitters.”

Kurtzman frowned. “You took it off one of them?”

“No, they gave it to me.”

“As a gift?”

“No, it’s a challenge.”

Kurtzman sighed. It was one of Bolan’s usual tactics. When all else failed, he stuck his head out and waited to see who took a swing at it. “I don’t suppose you got any fingerprints off it?”

“They were wearing gloves, and it’s as clean as whistle.”

The computer wizard regarded Bolan dryly. “I gather you left a road map to your exact location.”

“Pretty much,” Bolan admitted. “You get anything on the bartender at the Claddagh?”

“Ronald Caron, former Irish wrestling champion, former military policeman in the Irish Defence Forces, suspected of gun trafficking, suspected of harboring fugitives, suspected of assault, twice arrested on conspiracy charges but released for lack of evidence and a �person of interest’ in nearly every alleged IRA action in London for the past two decades.”

Bolan nodded. The bartender might be a hundred pounds over his fighting weight, but underneath the jolly exterior he had given off the vibe of a very dangerous man.

Kurtzman pulled up MacGowan’s file again. “It’s of note that Liam MacGowan and Caron both served at the same time in the Irish Defence Forces. Though MacGowan was light infantry rather than an MP.”

That didn’t come as a surprise, either. The Irish Defence Forces were small by nature, generally equipped with obsolescent equipment due to budget constraints, and chronically short of manpower. English recruiting officers for the U.K.’s armed forces were only a ferry ride across the Irish Sea and offered better pay, better benefits, better terms of service and were always happy to enlist Irishmen. The only reason to join the Irish Army was that you were Irish and wanted to.

The Irish government denied it, but there had always been cells of the IRA within the Irish Defence Forces, who used the Irish military as an IRA recruiting and training ground, as well as using the military structure for networking. He had no doubt that Caron had probably recruited MacGowan. When it came to petty intrigues, strong-arming and IRA errand-running on the streets of London, Caron was MacGowan’s and O’Maonlai’s control officer.

Still, killing CIA agents seemed somewhat above their pay grade. There was something bigger happening, and bigger fish were involved. Bolan was sure of it.

His phone rang. “Just a sec, Bear.” Bolan picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

A basso profundo, distorted voice that had obviously been put through a voice scrambler spoke over the line. “You’re dead here.”

Bolan pushed a button on his electronic warfare suite. The trace started, but he doubted his caller would stay on the line. Bolan had his suspicions about the caller. “That you, fatso?”

“Get out of England or you’ll wind up like the other two.”

The line clicked dead.

“Well, that was pretty cut and dried,” Kurtzman commented. “So you think they have the hotel surrounded?”

“I’m sure they’ve got an eye on it.” Bolan checked his watch. It was 2:15 a.m. He doubted they would have an assassination attempt or a snatch set up this quickly. The call was more designed to egg him on rather than to warn him off.

Bolan decided to be egged. “Well, I’m going out for a ride.” He scooped up the shillelagh and took a few choice items out of a suitcase.

“You’re not going back to the pub.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll check back in a little later.” Bolan clicked off the satellite link, tested the security measures in the room, then took the elevator down to the garage. His Renault rental vehicle was nondescript, but had enough power to suit his needs. Bolan key-carded the gate and tore out into the night. There was little traffic in the late hour other than cabs, so he quickly arrived at Pub Claddagh. The light over the sign was off and the windows shuttered closed. The ancient, thick oak door would probably withstand minutes of abuse from a police handheld door ram.

Bolan exited his vehicle and pulled a short length of flexible charge out of his coat pocket. He peeled off the adhesive backing, inserted a detonator pin and pressed the charge against the door lock. He stepped back and pushed a preset cell phone number. Yellow fire cracked like a halo around the lock, and Bolan put his foot against the door and shoved.

The lights were on. The fire in the fireplace still crackled. Caron blinked in surprise from behind the bar. MacGowan and O’Maonlai looked up from their beers in horror. Two men sat with the thugs. Bolan didn’t know them, but he recognized their long, dark coats and the hoods they’d pushed back onto their shoulders.

The Executioner closed the distance in three strides. Both of O’Maonlai’s lower legs were in casts, and a pair of crutches leaned against the table. The left side of MacGowan’s face was swollen as if a rugby ball had grown under the skin. The bruising had turned an ugly black and his left eye was swollen shut. He was drinking his pint of stout through a straw. He winced and sputtered beer as Bolan advanced. He couldn’t work his jaw to speak.

O’Maonlai shouted and pointed hysterically. “It’s him! He’s the man who—”

Bolan rammed his heel into the man’s chest and toppled him and his chair backward. MacGowan started to rise and Bolan lunged, thrusting his forefinger like a fencer into his opponent’s distorted left cheek. Liam let out a high, thin scream and fell backward over his chair.

Bolan grasped his new shillelagh. The two men Bolan didn’t know had recovered from their initial surprise. The closer man slapped a hand down on the table to push himself up and his other reached under his jacket. Bolan swung the club like a hammer and brought it down on the man’s hand. The man jerked and cringed with shock. The Executioner then swung the shillelagh in a tennis forehand and swatted the hand clawing beneath the coat. The man slid out of his chair, screaming and tucking his crushed hands against his sides.

The other man was up, his coat thrown back, and his silenced PB pistol had just cleared leather, but the combination of the long sound suppressor and a shoulder holster made for a slow draw. Bolan lunged again, ramming the brutal head of the shillelagh into his opponent’s solar plexus. The blood drained from the man’s face as his sternum cracked beneath the lead-loaded club. Bolan brought the weapon down across the gunman’s wrist. The ulna cracked and the pistol fell to the floor.

The assassin joined it a second later.

Ronald Caron leisurely came around the bar with his own shillelagh. He tapped the huge knob into a hand the size of a bunch of bananas and smiled at the weapon Bolan held. “Oh, boyo, you should have brought a gun.”

Bolan smiled back. “I did.”

Caron continued to advance, apparently without a care in the world. “You should’ve used it, then. When you had the chance.”

Bolan took a step back and put the table between them. He didn’t want to shoot Caron, but Cro-Magnon club fighting was the Irishman’s game, not his. Caron stepped over MacGowan’s mewling form and continued to advance. He tsked at the weapon in Bolan’s hand. “You know, I never much cared for the leaded ones. It ruins the balance.” He dropped his club to his side and began making small, lazy figure eights. “Of course some say it adds power. But as for me?”

Caron moved with speed belying a man of his age and bulk. He swung the shillelagh up and around, not like a man with a club but a man cracking a whip. The club crashed down and smashed the pub table between them in two. Caron recovered instantly and tapped the knob into his palm again, smiling at the carnage he’d wrought. “I say it’s the man behind the shillelagh that matters.” He stepped forward, wood crunching beneath his feet and his smile going ugly. “What d’you have behind yours, boyo?”

Crossing clubs with the big man was suicide.

Bolan flung his shillelagh. He threw it down like a game of mumblety-peg being played with sledgehammers. Caron should have had polycarbonate Lexan inserts in his shoes. The giant Irishman grimaced and tottered with his first two toes broken. “Oh, you’ll—”

Bolan was already airborne. He sailed across the broken table and delivered a flying side kick into Caron’s chest. It was like kicking a beer keg. Caron grunted and budged half a step back. Bolan pistoned his right fist into exactly the same spot over Caron’s heart, and for the first time the man’s face registered genuine pain. His left hand shot out and covered Bolan’s face like a catcher’s mitt, his fingers vising down in an iron claw. It wasn’t quite the facial neuralgia he’d induced in MacGowan, but it felt like cold chisels were attempting to crash through his facial bones.

Bolan thrust his thumbs into Caron’s carotids, but the bull-like neck resisted the blow.

The giant Irishman yanked the soldier into his embrace by the face and rammed it with his hip. A second later he’d spun Bolan and stood behind him, the huge shillelagh pressed against one side of his throat, a brawny arm squeezed against the other. The huge hand had slid from Bolan’s face to the back of his head and shoved his face forward into the strangle. It was the figure-four choke out, aided and abetted by three feet of Irish firewood.

Caron whispered in Bolan’s ear like a lover. “Yer going to go to sleep now, boyo, and when you wake? It’ll be me standing over you. Not with my pride and joy, now—” Caron cinched the strangle deeper with a practiced shrug of his shoulders “—but with a knife from the kitchen. We’ll have a long talk you and I, before I send you to the Old Place, at the bottom of the Thames.”

Bolan couldn’t break the hold. His trachea compressed and sparkly things danced in his vision. He regretted not having drawn his pistol. The Beretta was in a small-of-the-back holster and wedged against Caron’s massive middle. He was swiftly running out of air and options. Caron knew what Bolan was thinking from long practice, and he buried his face into Bolan’s back to prevent any eye gouging.

The Executioner lifted his knee to his chest and stomped down with all of his might on the Irishman’s two broken digits, breaking a third in the bargain. Caron groaned, and Bolan raised his foot and stomped his heel down again. The Irishman couldn’t help himself. He instinctively lifted his mangled foot from the floor to protect it. Tottering on one leg, he lost all his leverage. Bolan grabbed the club pressed against his neck, dropped to one knee and heaved.

The three-hundred-pounder flew over Bolan’s shoulder in a textbook judo “flying-mare” throw.

O’Maonlai screamed as the giant beached like a whale across his broken legs. Bolan gasped air into his lungs. Caron was already struggling to rise. The soldier strode forward and kicked the Irishman in the side of the neck. The blow had far more power than a karate chop, and the bartender went limp. The shooter with the broken sternum lay gasping weakly and staring up into the lights. His gun hand lay like a broken bird protectively between his legs. MacGowan was reaching through the rubble for Bolan’s fallen shillelagh. His open eye widened in terror as Bolan loomed over him. The soldier gave him another finger poke in the swollen hinge of his jaw. The thug passed out without even screaming.

The remaining shooter had risen to his knees and elbows and was making an admirable attempt to wrap his broken hands around his silenced pistol. He looked up just in time to receive Bolan’s foot in his teeth. He fell onto his back and took the soldier’s second kick between the legs. He curled fetal, spitting teeth and vomiting up stout.

Bolan relieved both shooters of their pistols. He shot out the overhead lights, blew out the mirror behind the bar and with a twinge of conscience expended the remaining bullets on the vintage ports and the decades-aged single malts on the top shelf. It was a shame to shoot up a historic pub like this, but it had become a nest of serpents, and it was a calculated affront. He wanted the IRA enraged. He wanted the hotheads among them to search him out for payback.

Bolan tossed the spent pistols onto pile of humanity on the floor. He tucked his shillelagh back up his sleeve and scooped up Caron’s, as well.

Now he had two.




CHAPTER THREE


“Well, Bear—” Bolan held up wood in each hand for the satellite camera “—now I have two.”

Kurtzman grinned. “That’s very nice, Striker, but did you really have to go back and beat up everyone a second time?”

Bolan considered. “No, but I felt like it.”

Kurtzman’s faced showed what he thought of that, and Bolan knew he was right. It had been close. Two CIA field agents were dead, and so far all Bolan had to show for it were two pub brawls and a couple of bludgeons. He just had to hope he’d stirred things up enough that someone higher up the food chain would reveal himself. “Have Shane, Caron or any of the boys showed up in any hospitals?”

Kurtzman shook his head.

It was a long shot. The IRA would have some doctors in London to take care of these kinds of things on the quiet. Bolan considered all they had, which wasn’t much. The Pentagon had gotten hold of some pretty wild chatter about the IRA getting its hands on weapons of mass destruction. Britain’s MI-5 had put the vague rumors on their very low order of probability list and continued with much more promising lines of investigation of terrorism in the U.K. However, the CIA had a sleeper asset in place with the IRA. That asset had gone active, quietly investigating the rumor, and he had swiftly wound up dead. So had his replacement. Despite their losses, MI-5 seemed to consider the matter a nonissue. At least they did not appear to be assigning any of their own assets to it.

Of course MI-5 probably wasn’t pleased that the U.S. had gone ahead and staged an operation on U.K. soil without telling them. Intelligence agencies, even those of staunch allies, were extremely territorial. There would be directors in MI-5 who on some level were secretly pleased and felt the “Yanks” had gotten a deserved comeuppance for playing cowboy games on British soil. Still, two dead CIA agents should have merited some attention. Hard-won instincts told Bolan that there was something wrong with the situation. He couldn’t say why, but to him it felt like the whole matter was being swept under the rug.

“Bear, who would have the power to hush this up?”

“A whole lot of people, but you also have to factor that the CIA blundered and got a bloody nose. It’s causing quite a little stink between our intelligence communities. There’s every reason to suspect that MI-5 is running its own operation on the matter right now and feels no compunction at all to inform the U.S. about it much less involve us.” Kurtzman pointed a condemning finger. “For that matter, once the Brits find out that you’re running your own gambit over there, which they will, considering how you’re leaving a trail of broken Irishmen everywhere you go, things are going to get downright frosty across the pond.”

Bolan knew that all too well. “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to pay MI-5 a visit.”

Kurtzman just stared. “Really.”

“Like you said, they’re going to find out about me sooner or later. I might as well give them a courtesy call.”

“They’re going to read you the riot act and have you shipped home, and that’s best-case scenario.”

“Probably, but there’s something going on here. Something more than the CIA failing to penetrate the IRA. So if I take out some low-level thugs and then go to MI-5, I think my cache as a target will increase. I have to rattle some more cages.”

“You know, Striker, I’d be real careful rattling MI-5’s cage. They’re some of the best in the world, and they don’t mess around.”

Bolan knew that, too. In fact he was banking on it.



MI-5 London Headquarters



BOLAN SAT ON A FOLDING CHAIR in a “white” or interview room. It was actually a neutral beige. There were no furnishings other than a table and two chairs. Several cameras were positioned in the ceiling and a CD recording device sat on the table. The gray-haired woman sitting across from Bolan looked like a stereotypical British grandmother right down to her horn-rimmed glasses, frumpy tweed jacket and gray wool skirt. Bolan had not been offered any coffee, tea or sherry. He sat, maintaining a professional and calm demeanor while Assistant Director Heloise Finch quietly and, with a British upper-class politeness so stiff it was insulting, lit into him.

Phrases like “poor spirit of cooperation,” “endangering a relationship that had thrived since World War II” and Bolan’s own “temerity” were tripping off her tongue forward, backward and sideways. It appeared that the director was finally winding down.

“…and while I do appreciate the courtesy of your taking the time to call upon us, I’m really not sure in what capacity I or my department can be of any assistance to you.”

Finch didn’t appreciate the visit at all. She was clearly appalled by the whole situation. Bolan smiled winningly. “Would it be shabby of me if I asked for your help anyway?”

Finch steepled her hands and stared at Bolan for long moments. “You know, I believe it would.”

“I can see how you’d feel that way.”

“The CIA has—”

Bolan cut in before she could work up a fresh head of steam. “Director Finch, I don’t work for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“You know—” Finch flipped open a thin manila folder “—I have something of a file on you, or at least someone matching your description. Much of the intel is above my pay grade and security clearance. Barely a pamphlet, actually, but it appears you have operated within the United Kingdom before, sometimes in what can loosely be described as cooperation with British Intelligence and apparently sometimes without the permission of Her Majesty’s government.”

Bolan saw no reason to lie. “That’s essentially correct.”

Finch was somewhat taken aback by Bolan’s directness. “I have received a report of a disturbance over at Pub Claddagh last night.”

Bolan shrugged.

“May I state that Her Majesty’s government does not appreciate American citizens coming to her shores and engaging in donnybrooks and shillelagh battles in her pubs.”

MI-5 clearly had informants in the London IRA infrastructure. Bolan maintained his poker face.

“However, MI-5 has received rather veiled suggestions from some very strange quarters that it would not be �unappreciated’ were my department to show you whatever professional courtesy seems appropriate.” Finch leaned forward and peered over the rims of her glasses. “I have taken this to mean I should not have you immediately detained and deported.”

“That would be preferable.”

“However, to reiterate, I am not sure what if any assistance I am willing to provide you.”

Bolan smiled.

Assistant Director Finch’s cool reserve broke as she smiled resignedly. “Of course, I have already been of assistance to you. You are sticking your nose into the IRA doings, and your taking a meeting at MI-5 HQ ups your market value.”

Bolan didn’t bother to deny it.

“I will be blunt with you. My superiors and members of the government concerned with this organization consider this rumor of the IRA acquiring weapons of mass destruction rather something of a wild-goose chase, and your government’s dogged pursuit of it puzzling if not downright ridiculous, as well as a strain on the relationship between our two countries.”

“Director Finch, the fact remains that two CIA intelligence agents have been killed.”

“The CIA agents in question were trying to infiltrate the Irish Republican Army’s London infrastructure, and that, and I say this in all modesty, if it is attempted without the help of my department is an excellent way to commit suicide. Their loss is indeed regrettable, however, it is not totally surprising.”

“I appreciate your candor. Let me blunt, as well.” Bolan’s smile fell away from his face. “There is something very wrong going on here, and you know it.”

Finch sighed. “Other than your two dead CIA agents, what proof do you have that the IRA is up to anything worse than usual?”

“Nothing. Just a hunch. Just like you.”

Finch stared at Bolan for long moments. He knew he’d read the woman correctly. Finch knew something was wrong, as well. MI-5 was one of the top internal intelligence agencies on the planet, second only perhaps to the FBI. Like all internal intelligence agencies they had civilian oversight. The FBI was responsible to congress. MI-5 was responsible to the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Throughout their illustrious history, MI-5 was known far and wide for spending almost as much time battling English bureaucracy as they did enemies of the United Kingdom.

“You are playing a very dangerous game, and I cannot even begin to describe my feelings toward yet another U.S. citizen engaging in rogue intelligence operations under my nose.”

“However,” Bolan countered, “you know there is something bigger going on here, and for whatever reason your department has been told to low priority the situation or ignore it completely.”

Finch’s face set in stone. “For the record, you are not to engage in any intelligence operations against the IRA on English soil. For that matter, you are not to �operate’ on English soil in any capacity at all unless directly requested to by Her Majesty’s government. If you are caught doing so, it would be my duty to have you at the very least detained and deported if not brought up on criminal charges.”

Bolan nodded. “I understand.” He glanced at the recorder on the table and Finch clicked it off. “For the record, any and all intelligence I might gather if I engaged in such a questionable activity would be immediately shared with Her Majesty’s government, and done so through your offices exclusively.”

“I believe we understand each other.” Finch placed her business card on the table and pressed the intercom button. “Security, please have our guest escorted off the premises.”



BOLAN GLANCED at his watch as he drove through traffic. His modified wristwatch was blinking at him, which meant that someone had gone into his hotel room without deactivating the security suite. Bolan drove an extra block past his hotel and then circled around to approach from the back, heading into the hotel loading dock. A man in a purple hotel jacket looked at his vehicle askance. Bolan exited the vehicle and handed him a fifty-pound note, and the man went back to overseeing the off-loading of towels from a linen truck. Bolan followed the pallets of towels into the laundry.

His watch peeped at him again. Someone had opened his laptop.

Bolan approached two men in white uniforms speaking what Bolan was pretty sure was a Nigerian dialect and smoking cigarettes. “Say, can I ask you a favor? Could you go up to the fifth floor and see if anyone strange is lurking around outside room 502?”

One of the men grinned. “Sorry. We’re on break.”

Bolan peeled off another fifty-pound note. “There’s no way I can convince you?”

The second Nigerian snatched the note. “I am convinced.” He pinched out his cigarette and carefully placed it back in the pack. “I’ll be back.”

His partner scowled after him as he disappeared into the service elevator.

Bolan smiled sympathetically. “I might have a job for you in a minute.”

The man peered at Bolan narrowly. “This is nothing illegal, then?”

Bolan was almost positive the two men were illegal immigrants. They were probably in desperate need of money but even more desperate to have no attention drawn to themselves. Bolan shrugged. The man clapped a hand to his forehead as if he had a migraine. “Oh, man…”

Ten minutes later Bolan’s scout returned. He shook his head. “This real James Bond shit, you know.”

Bolan nodded. “How many?”

“Two. One big. One little. Nasty-looking white men. Lounging about. I don’t know, but beneath their jackets I think they have guns.” He peered at Bolan in identical suspicion as his partner. “That your room?”

Bolan held up his key. “Can I ask you gentlemen a favor?”

They blinked in unison. “Oh?”

“I need a diversion.”

They stared at Bolan noncommittally.

The big American turned to his scout. “What’s your name?”

“Musa Balam.”

“Musa, nice to meet you.” He turned to the other man. “And you?”

He stared at Bolan defiantly. “Sheriff Modu.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Matt. What I want you to do is this. I want you both to go back up the elevator. When it opens, Musa, you run down the hall to the stairs, and you? You chase him, yelling in Hausa.”

Modu looked at Bolan as if he were insane. “Not for fifty pounds.”

“How about a hundred?” Bolan grinned. “Each, and another hundred once it’s done.”

Balam peered curiously. “And after it is done, what?”

“You’re better off not knowing. You just run for the stairs and keep going.”

A furious exchange in Hausa ensued. Balam apparently won. “Show us the money.”

Bolan peeled several bills from his money clip. Even the reticent Sheriff Modu’s eyes lit up. Bolan handed them a hundred each and followed them into the elevator. Modu took a wet towel from a bin and coiled it into a rat’s tail. The door pinged open on the fifth floor. Balam ran out screaming and Modu raced after him, shouting in scathing Hausa and snapping the towel like a whip. Bolan waited four seconds until he knew they had passed his door and then filled his hand with his Beretta 93-R and stepped out of the elevator.

As Balam had said, two men stood near his door. Both men had short, brush-cut blond hair and wore leather jackets. By the bulges under their left arms, his scout was right. They were packing substantial heat. The smaller man held a cell phone, obviously waiting for warning from the men watching the garage and the lobby. The two Nigerians were almost to the stairs at the end of the hall. The big man shook his head in disgust at their antics. “Agh, can you believe those bloody foreigners.”

The accent told Bolan that the man was a South African. Bolan strode up to him, the big man catching the movement a second too late. Bolan cracked the slide of his Beretta machine pistol across the side of the man’s face, laying the cheek open to the bone. He whipped the 93-R backhand across the bridge of the little man’s nose and shattered it. The big man had bent over with pain and clutched his face. The butt of the Beretta crunched into the back of his skull and dropped him unconscious to the ground. Bolan rammed the muzzle of the Beretta into the side of the little man’s neck and he fell to the carpet.

Bolan knelt over the big man and took his ID. Beneath his jacket he was wearing Threat Level II soft body armor. In a shoulder rig he was carrying a BXP submachine gun with the stock folded and a sound suppressor fitted over the barrel. The weapon was basically an American MAC-10 cleaned up and improved to South African specifications. Bolan took the weapon and checked the load. It was loaded with hollow point rounds. He took the little man’s BXP, as well, and checked his watch. Someone was still messing with his laptop. That laptop had been designed by Akira Tokaido, one of Stony Man Farm’s cybernetic experts. The Farm’s resident armorer, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, had installed a number of security devices that had nothing to do with binary code. Bolan pumped the bezel of his watch three times and was rewarded with a scream as the right-hand speaker in the laptop’s monitor frame spewed a compressed stream of pepper spray into the operator’s eyes.

Bolan kicked open the door of his hotel room.

A redheaded woman was on the floor in front of Bolan’s laptop clutching her face. The man who had been in guard position looked up from where he bent over her. His BXP was in his hand but on the wrong side of his body. Bolan put the red-dot sight of his right-hand weapon on the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. The BXP stuttered and twenty-two rounds of 9 mm hollowpoint ammo jackhammered into the gunner’s chest as Bolan held the trigger down on full-auto. The man’s armor held, but he still had to absorb the bullets’ energy and his body took a beating like he was being kicked to death by a mule. The BXP clacked open on empty, and Bolan helped the man onto his back and into unconsciousness by flinging the five and half pounds of smoking steel into his face.

The redhead squirmed across the carpet, her hands clawing for her own fallen submachine gun. Bolan pressed the muzzle of his second weapon against her cheek and pinned her head to the floor. “One more move and I’ll turn your head into applesauce. You understand?”

The woman nodded, her eyes streaming and wincing as her lower lip split beneath the pressure of the submachine gun.

Bolan backed the weapon off her mouth. “Who are you?”

She glared up at Bolan in red-eyed defiance. Bolan reached into his jacket and clicked open his phone. He pressed a preset number and Assistant Director Finch answered on the first ring. “You have reached MI-5. This is Assistant Director Finch.”

“We spoke earlier today.”

Her voice replied curtly. “Yes.”

“I have something for you. In my room.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, you should send a team down here. You have three suspects.”

The redhead stared up in alarm. She was part of a four-man team.

“They’re suffering from various broken bones and contusions,” Bolan continued. “One at least appears to be of South African extraction.”

“South African?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Finch registered genuine surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I’ll have a team there in ten minutes.”

“I won’t be here.”

“I’m not entirely surprised.”

Bolan was about to hang up when Finch spoke. “You’re to be arrested on sight.”

“I’ll call you later.” Bolan clicked off. He didn’t have much time. “You.” He pointed the BXP back at the woman’s head. “You’re coming with me.”




CHAPTER FOUR


CIA safe house, London

“Running the prints now, Striker.”

Bolan had taken the woman’s fingerprints and faxed them to Kurtzman. She sat on a chair with her hands cuffed together in front of her and her ankles bound to the front chair legs with plastic zip restraints. The gun Bolan had held in his hand during the ten-minute drive to the safe house had kept the woman docile. Bolan had washed out her eyes with water. They were still red-veined from the gas and still glared bloody murder at Bolan.

Kurtzman got back to him almost instantly. “I have a hit on the Interpol database.”

The woman went rigid on the chair.

“What have you got?”

The computer whiz hit a key and a police photo of the woman popped up on the screen. “Sylvette MacJory, born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Attended Strathclyde University and received her degree in computer science. In 2005 she was accused and convicted of cybernetic crimes in the U.K., including identity theft and criminal hacking into the databases of several major U.K. financial institutions. Sentenced to five years, sentence reduced to two years probation and public service. Current residence in London. No further criminal record.”

Sylvette’s face clouded with rage.

“So who are your South African friends?” Bolan asked.

“Piss off, Yank!”

“You should try to come up with something more original than that.”

“You’re no cop, then.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re holding me illegally. I want my lawyer.”

“You’re right. I’m not a cop, and you’re not being held.” Bolan clicked open his phone and punched a button. “You’ve been abducted.”

MacJory swallowed with difficulty as her position became more clear to her.

Assistant Director Finch answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“Did you get the package I left you?”

“Yes,” Finch admitted.

“I have another.”

There followed an appalled silence. “Listen to me. You really must—”

“Her name is Sylvette MacJory. You’ll have her in your files. Felony computer hacker. She was attempting to get into my laptop.”

“Did you know we detected pepper spray within the room?”

“She tried to get into my laptop,” Bolan reiterated.

Finch tried a different tack. “You shot one of the suspects twenty-two times. He survived only because he was wearing body armor.”

“I shot him twenty-two times precisely because he was wearing body armor and I knew you would want him alive.”

“Mr.—”

“The large one out in the hall is South African. Did you get an ID on the other two?”

Bolan was pretty sure she would have hung up had she not been attempting to trace the call. The NSA satellite Bolan was bouncing his signal through made that a losing proposition, but it would take the MI-5 communications people a little while to figure that out. Finch let out a long, grudging breath. “You’re correct. The large one is Ruud Heitinga, South African citizen, as is the other, one Kew Timmer.”

“You get a bead on the man inside?”

“He was a bit of an anomaly. His papers say he is a French citizen named Guy Diddier. All of them have clammed up, however, call it a hunch, but I found Monsieur Diddier most un-Gallic in his behavior.”

Bolan was swiftly coming to the conclusion that Assistant Director Heloise Finch had earned her hunches the hard way. “So what did you do?”

“I called in a favor with French intelligence and ran the name. Diddier is a French citizen, but not by birth.”

Bolan’s intuition spoke to him. “He served a tour in the French Foreign Legion.”

Finch seemed pleased. “That is correct. He was originally an American citizen by the name of Gary Pope. He served four years in the California National Guard’s 223rd Infantry Regiment. Somewhere along the line, he got the romantic notion of joining the Legion. Once he’d been accepted, he took advantage of the Legion’s opportunity of identity change and after serving his tour successfully he accepted French citizenship.”

“Any line on the two South Africans?”

“Not yet, but I have every faith they are veterans of the South African Defense Force.”

Bolan agreed. “Ms. Finch, these individuals are mercenaries.”

“So it would seem, and how do you believe the girl fits in?”

Bolan glanced over at the hacker. “She may use a computer rather than a silenced submachine gun, but she’s a hired gun, nonetheless.”

“I agree.”

“Director, I find it very strange that the IRA is employing mercenaries.”

MacJory stared at Bolan strangely and then snapped her poker face back on. Bolan pretended to ignore the slip as Finch continued.

“It is indeed odd. It goes completely against their method of operation. By nature, mercenaries work for money and historically are notorious for switching sides. The terrorist wing of the IRA chooses its members for their absolute loyalty. They would never entrust any kind of sensitive operation to outsiders.”

“So someone else is in the game.”

“So it would appear.”

“Any ideas?”

“None whatsoever. The appearance of mercenaries in this situation is positively anomalous.”

“What’s their legal status, currently?”

“Well, their visas and passports are in order, and while they weren’t guests of the hotel there is currently no law in England against being beaten to a pulp in a hallway. However, we did find three automatic weapons on the premises. They are currently being held on suspicion and possible weapons charges.” Finch’s voice went slightly dry with sarcasm. “Since you took the liberty of kidnapping Miss MacJory, I suspect any evidence concerning her will be inadmissible in an English court of law.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“So what do you intend to do with her?”

Bolan raised the BXP. “Shoot her.”

MacJory started in her seat.

Finch shouted in alarm. “You can’t—” Bolan clicked his phone shut and stepped forward. MacJory cringed as far as her restraints would let her. Bolan pressed the muzzle of the BXP between her eyebrows and pinned her head to the back of the chair like an insect.

“You’re of no more use to me.”

“No!”

The safety clicked off beneath Bolan’s thumb with grim finality.

MacJory screamed. “Please!”

“Who do you work for!” Bolan roared.

The woman shook her head, crying. “I don’t know!”

“You’ve got five seconds.”

“Please—”

Bolan knew MacJory’s type. She wasn’t a terrorist. She was a genius. Breaking code and committing crimes in cyberspace was a game to her. Even after her conviction, she still didn’t believe she had done anything wrong. He wouldn’t shoot her, but he had to make her believe he would.

Nothing had prepared her for gutter-level, get-your-hands-dirty fieldwork.

“One…”

“Please!”

“Two…”

“I don’t know who I work for!”

“You’re working for the IRA. You’re a traitor to the U.K. Three.”

“I didn’t know!”

“Four…”

“I don’t know anything about the IRA!” The woman wept uncontrollably. “I swear it!”

Bolan read her body language and pulled the gun back. MacJory started to suck in a breath of relief and gave a strangled shriek as Bolan fired a burst into the ceiling. Plaster rained down on her, and he aimed the weapon at her again. “Okay, you’re a merc. Who brokered the deal? Who pays you?”

She shuddered with her betrayal. “Aegis…”

Bolan cocked his head slightly. “Aegis Global Security?”

“Yes! I swear! I freelance for Aegis!”

That was not good news. Aegis was one of the oldest, and in the controversial world of executive VIP protection, military advisement and “solutions by other means,” Aegis Global Security was one of the most respected.

Bolan clicked his phone open. Finch picked up midring. “Jesus, bloody—”

“She’s still alive and unharmed. She freelances for Aegis. I suspect the other three are permanent men on the roster.”

Finch was flabbergasted. “Aegis Global Security?”

“That seems to be the situation.”

“Not good.”

“No, it’s not. I’m going to turn Miss MacJory loose in a couple of hours, and I’ll let you know where you can find her.”

“Listen, I need you to—”

Bolan clicked off and went back to his computer. “You get all that?”

Kurtzman nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

“Get me everything you can on Aegis.” Bolan already knew a lot about it. “Where’s David McCarter?”

“You’ve got a bit of luck there. He’s in the U.K. right now visiting family.”

Bolan nodded. “I need him.”



Guernsey, The Channel Isles



“RED-HOT WILLY.” David McCarter stared at Bolan accusingly as he drove the Land Rover over the bleak, bumpy countryside of the island. “You know the man’s a bloody legend.”

Bolan glanced off across the gray chop of the English Channel toward Normandy. “Red-Hot” Willy was indeed a legend. The man’s biography read like an adventure novel. A television series on the BBC and two lines of pulp fiction paperbacks had been loosely based on his life. Just about anyone who had ever been in the military community had heard of Colonel William Glen-Patrick. However in England, formally, he was Lord William Glen-Patrick. The Glen-Patrick line had held the title of baron in England since the Middle Ages. Like a Dickens novel, little Lord Willy had been orphaned at the age of five when his parents had crashed their Lotus Elan into the wall of a cattle enclosure. The executors of his estate had been unscrupulous and absconded with the greater part of the family fortune, and by the time Willy had reached the age of seventeen the Glen-Patrick family had been bankrupt. Unable to pay his taxes, Lord William had sold the family castle and estates and used his family name to wangle a commission in the Life Guards, the most senior regiment in the British Army. He had served with distinction in Aden and Borneo and become the British army welterweight boxing champion. In the late 1970s he had joined the SAS, being one of the few members of the English peerage to ever successfully qualify and serve in English Special Forces. During the Falkland Island War, he had won the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery.

The wounds he’d received in the Falklands had forced him to retire from the British army, so he had taken his name and reputation and gone to West Africa, where he had gotten himself involved in the constant wars and revolutions. He’d come back with a personal fortune in diamonds. Throughout the 1980s Lord William had been famous for winning and losing fortunes at the baccarat tables in Monaco, reaching a respectable ranking on the Grand Prix circuit when not crashing his own personal sports cars, climbing Mount Everest and K2, sailing around the world, dating a different girl every month and even occasionally flexing his hereditary right as an English peer to cast his vote in the House of Lords. He was a nobleman, a hero, a mercenary, a professional adventurer and a dilettante. For decades he had been constant fodder for the British tabloids and earned the sobriquet “Red-Hot” Willy.

In the military community he was known most for pioneering what may have been the first VIP/executive protection mercenary outfit. In West Africa, war and violence had been and still were endemic. At the same time gold and diamonds flowed out of the area and guns and money flowed in. Glen-Patrick had seen the need not just for bodyguards for VIPs, but men who were soldiers in their own right. Developers, businessmen, African royalty and heads of state needed more than just bullet shields. Glen-Patrick had used the contacts he’d made in the army and the SAS, finding highly qualified men from around the world not just to guard VIPs, their families and business interests, but men who would act proactively. Glen-Patrick had developed a simple, three-step plan. When a threat was determined, it would be bought off. If it couldn’t be bought off, it would be intimidated. If it couldn’t be intimidated, it would be eliminated.

The work had been lucrative, but it was the international business contacts he had made that had made him a millionaire.

Lord William had slowed down upon reaching the age of sixty and retired to an estate on the Isle of Guernsey, living with three women, none of whom he was married to, and again, very occasionally, casting his vote in the House of Lords, usually on environmental issues. His mercenary group had gone from Aegis Incorporated to Aegis Global Security and was reputed to be less bloodthirsty in the new century. According to its prospectus, it was doing a thriving business in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bolan took note of Lord William’s service record with the Life Guards and the SAS. He’d seen service in Northern Ireland with both units. What he had done there with the SAS had been redacted.

Bolan closed the file. “I see a few red flags, David.”

“Oh, I know, millionaire playboy entrepreneur moves to a tiny island in his dotage, goes quietly bloody bonkers and starts engaging in crazy politically motivated actions.” The former SAS man shook his head as the Land Rover rumbled and bumped along the narrow, muddy lane between the hedgerows. “Don’t think I haven’t thought it.”

David McCarter was the leader of Stony Man Farm’s Phoenix Force and another man whose instincts Bolan trusted. “You knew him?”

“I met him. We’re two different generations of SAS. He was ending his career when I was starting mine. But he’s peerage and he won the Victoria Cross.” McCarter glanced meaningfully at the brown gorse all around them. “That bloody well means something in these islands.”

Bolan knew by “islands” McCarter meant the entire United Kingdom.

“I called him, like you asked,” McCarter continued. “He remembered me and agreed to see us, but he didn’t sound too happy about it. I’m—There are men in the hedgerows.”

Bolan had noticed them, too. McCarter brought the Land Rover to a halt as a man stepped out into the lane in front of them.

The man was about five foot ten. White hair fell around his ears in a shag that seemed to be three weeks past due for a cut. A white mustache draped across his upper lip. He wore a tweed hacking jacket with leather patches on the elbows and a quilted leather patch on the right shoulder for shooting. His heavy wool pants were tucked into stained Wellington boots. A tweed cap was perched on his head at a rakish angle. He looked lean and fit and every inch a British squire out for a morning hunt. All he needed was a double-barrel shotgun broken open and crooked in his elbow.

Instead Lord William stood in the misting rain cradling an L-2 A-3 Sterling submachine gun.

A pair of Great Danes flanked him. One had the black-and-white markings of a Dalmatian while the other was a startling, near-hairless pink. A human argyle vest with the sleeves cut off strained at its seams to insulate the giant furless dog against the cold.

The Sterling’s muzzle was not quite pointed at the Land Rover. Lord William’s finger was not quite on the trigger. His men came out of the hedgerows; there were four of them, two on each side of the lane. They were dressed in heavy wool sweaters, and all carried double-barrel shotguns.

McCarter glanced over at Bolan. The Land Rover’s armor package was rated up to direct hits from .30-caliber weapons. He was waiting for Bolan’s signal to run over the baron and his men.

“I say, David!” Lord William jerked his head. “Why don’t you and your friend come out, stretch your legs! We’ll chat a bit!”

Bolan caught motion out of the corner of his eye. The hedgerow was six feet tall, but a barn was visible above it some fifty yards away. A pair of men were atop it now, and Bolan recognized the 84 mm profile of a Carl Gustaf recoilless antitank rifle across one of the men’s shoulder.

The seven-pound, rocket-assisted warhead would light up the Land Rover like the Fourth of July.

Lord William shrugged. “Of course I could just bloody well light you up like November Fifth!”

November Fifth was Guy Fawkes Day in England, commemorating the day in 1604 when Guy Fawkes had stockpiled thirty-six barrels of black powder in a cellar beneath the House of Lords and tried to blow up Parliament.

Bolan turned to McCarter. “Let’s go stretch our legs and chat a bit.”

“Right.”

“Slow and easy!” Lord William called. He nodded at his yeomen. “Steady on, lads.”

Bolan and McCarter stepped out of the Land Rover and moved to stand in front of it. McCarter grinned. “Hello, Bill!”

Bolan nodded. “Your lordship.”

The two dogs quivered at the sounds of their voices. Lord William spoke soothingly. “Spot…Starkers…” Bolan looked into Starkers’s colorless albino eyes and saw cold, pale murder. Only their master’s will kept the giant dogs rooted in place in the muck instead of savaging the intruders.

Lord William ignored Bolan’s and McCarter’s greetings. “Lunk, their pistols, if you please.”

The man behind them was very good. Even in the squelching mud he’d barely made any noise on his approach. Bolan and McCarter slowly opened their jackets. A huge hand reached around Bolan and drew the Beretta 93-R. The Executioner spoke quietly. “Ankle holster and right pocket.” He was relieved of his snub-nosed 9 mm Centennial revolver and his Mikov switchblade.

The Executioner slid his eyes to look at the man as he moved off to disarm McCarter. Lunk had earned his name. He was huge. Not big like a bodybuilder or an athlete, but a human built to a different scale. He was running six foot six with shoulders that were axe-handle broad, from which hung arms like an orangutan. He had the pale complexion, anvil jaw, snub nose and tightly curling brown hair that fairly screamed Welshman.

He took McCarter’s Hi-Power pistol, noting the shortened Argentine “Detective” slide and the chrome base plate of the Israeli 15-round magazine with one raised brown eyebrow.

McCarter kept his smile painted on his face. “Not the warmest welcome I’ve ever had in Guernsey, Bill.”

“Can’t be too careful these days, David.” The aging lord stared at McCarter long and hard. “These days, in this business, it’s your friends who come to kill you, and they come smiling.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from recent experience, Lord William,” Bolan commented.

“A Yank, then?”

“Yes, your lordship. I’ve been having a few people coming by to kill me, as well. David was kind enough to arrange a meet so that you and I might compare notes. I think we have a few things in common.”

Lord William turned to McCarter. “I haven’t seen you in years, David. Then you call me out of the blue sky and tell me it’s urgent and come armed with an American in tow. What’s this all about?”

“Well, it’s a fine, soft morning, Bill. Shall we take that stretch of the legs and talk?”

Lord William stared up into the misting rain. “Oh God, no. I’m an old man. It’s worth my life to be out in this mist and muck.” He slung his weapon and suddenly grinned. “Let’s go inside and drink whiskey.”




CHAPTER FIVE


They sat in leather chairs in front of a roaring fireplace that was large enough to double as a car port for a Volkswagen. Spot and Starkers lay curled before it on a polar bear rug. Lord William had put away his Sterling, but when he unbuttoned his coat a Browning Hi-Power pistol in a shoulder holster was revealed. He and McCarter sipped ten-year-old Laphroaig single-malt whiskey from the Isle of Islay. Bolan drank a pint of the locally brewed ale. Lunk and two of the yeomen hung back in the shadows of the cavernous hall drinking ale and keeping their weapons close to hand. They were all quiet for a few moments while Lord William observed the laws of hospitality and everyone warmed their bones.

“So, David. What’s this all about?”

“Well, Bill, there’s been some trouble in London.”

Lord William peered over the rim of his whiskey glass. “Oh?”

“Yes, the CIA had two agents end up in the Thames. The IRA is involved.”

“Well, what the bloody hell is the CIA doing mucking about with the IRA? Can’t MI-5 cut the mustard anymore?”

Bolan decided to play it straight. “The operation was run without the cooperation or the knowledge of MI-5 or Her Majesty’s government.”

“Well, it serves them bloody right, then, doesn’t it?” Lord William snorted with disgust born of long experience. “Central sodding Intelligence my flaming—”

“Lord William, it appears some of your employees are involved.”

“Really.”

Lord William turned to the gigantic Welshman. “Lunk, you taffy bastard! Have you been having it on with the IRA again?”

“Oh, no, m’lord.” The giant grinned malevolently from where he stood drinking by the sideboard. His voice was as deep as thunder in the distance. “I haven’t killed an Irish in, oh, ten years?”

“CIA?” Lord William said hopefully.

“No.” Lunk finished his pint. “Not that I’d mind so much, though.”

Lord William gestured with his whiskey glass at the four men bearing shotguns and drinking on the couch. “How about the rest of you lads, then? Been misbehaving in London when I wasn’t looking?”

The men grinned and shook their heads in unison.

Lord William turned back to Bolan with a helpless shrug. “That’s most of the men I have on staff.”

“Actually, I’m thinking more along the lines of Aegis Global Security employees.”

Lord William shifted uncomfortably. “Well, for one, except for some accountants, lawyers and office staff, Aegis has no permanent employees. We have stockholders, and then we have contractors—we call them associates—whom Aegis employs, contract by contract, job by job. And two, Aegis Global Security doesn’t take contract work from the IRA. Indeed, on numerous occasions we’ve taken jobs to protect people from the IRA. Successful jobs, mind you, and we weren’t in the business of arresting people or taking prisoners, if you get my meaning. Except for MI-5 we’re the IRA’s worst bloody nightmare.”

Bolan opened his folder and started handing over pictures. “Do you know this woman?”

Lord William stared at the Scottish redhead with appreciation. “No, but I’d like to.”

Bolan handed him the pictures of the former French Legionnaire and the smaller South African. Lord William shook his head in mounting irritation and suddenly stopped. He tapped his finger on the final picture of the big man.

“You know him?”

“I remember him vaguely.” Lord William nodded. “Ruud something. Yes, that’s it, Ruud Heitinga. South African lad. Reconnaissance Commando.” He frowned. “Bit too fond of interrogation for my taste. Always pulled his weight, though. Had a brother, Arjen, even bigger than he was, big enough to give Lunk a run for his money. Together, the two of them were something of a terror.”

“Lord William, I realize that Aegis doesn’t have a standing private army, and that people who have worked for you in the past are quite capable of going off and doing private, illegal contract work without your knowledge. But you must have a roster of people who have worked for you,” Bolan said.

“Well, of course, but I’m not sure how I can help you. You see, I haven’t had my hand directly in the business except for shareholder votes in oh, well, probably going on ten years.”

“But you are listed as the president of the company.”

Lord William flushed with embarrassment. “Well, it’s not something I’m particularly proud of, but about eleven years ago I grew a wild hair to sail solo around the world. It took me ninety days, a respectable time, but when I returned I’d found there’d been something of a hostile takeover at Aegis.” Lord William shrugged. “I’ve always been good at making fortunes and starting businesses, but the trick, you see, is keeping them. Never my strong suit. It was all very polite. All very firm.”

Lord William glanced up at the life-size replica of classical Greek hoplite shield hanging over the mantel. It was painted black, and a gold fist holding a lightning bolt was emblazoned in the center. It was the Aegis, the all-protective shield of Zeus in Greek mythology. “Of course they wanted to keep the logo hanging over the door and my face on the yearly prospectus. So they let me have the title of president, but it’s largely ceremonial, for publicity purposes.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Lord William shrugged philosophically. “Well, you know. Aegis turned a profit but it was never a huge moneymaker. I started it in the eighties almost on a lark to get work for some good men I knew, myself included. It’s Jennings who really made the company take off. It’s bigger than ever, and good men from dozens of services around the world who’ve been cashed out by wounds or are a bit past it physically are still making good money doing what they do best.” Lord William poured himself another two fingers of whiskey. “You Yanks and your War on Terror have been good for business.”

“Jennings.” Bolan knew the name from the files Kurtzman had given him. “The chairman of the board.”

“Indeed.” Lord William made a face as though he had just tasted something vaguely unpleasant. “Rich boy. Went to Eton. He spent a couple of years in the TerritorialArmyVolunteers. He made lieutenant but never served anywhere. Something of an �intense’ personality. Loved shooting guns, rolling around on the judo mat and hearing everyone else’s war stories. A real �weekend warrior,’ as you Yanks would say.”

McCarter had met the type before. “Sounds like a right proper Charlie.”

“A right proper head for business, though,” Lord William countered. “Bought stock when we went public. Then he bought more. Infused some needed cash when I was between fortunes and ended up with controlling interest in the company. A real murderer in the boardroom. Trust me, I have the scars to prove it.”

“Lord William, the situation is this,” Bolan said. “The CIA heard chatter that the IRA was somehow mixed up with weapons of mass destruction. MI-5 discounted them.”

“Bloody right they did. What’s the IRA going to do with a nuke or some ugly bloody bug? They’re smart enough to know if they ever did such a damn fool thing all it would get them is a second Norman invasion. England would turn the entire island into a medieval fife again. I’m sure a few of the buggers have dreamy dreams of Parliament going up in a mushroom cloud, but that’s all it is, a pipe dream.”

“I agree. However, two CIA agents were killed investigating that rumor, and when I looked into the matter and stirred things up with the IRA, Ruud Heitinga and the other three in the pictures I showed you showed up unannounced at my hotel room. During interrogation, the woman claimed she was under contract with Aegis Global Security.”

Lord William was appalled. “What’s a woman doing working for Aegis?”

“Computer hacker.”

The baron considered this strange turn of events. “Really.”

“These days, breaking into enemy computer bases is almost more necessary than infiltrating their firebases,” Bolan told him.

“Computer hacker. Well, that is forward thinking,” Lord William admitted. “Must be one of Jennings’s innovations.”

McCarter saw his opening. “Bill?”

“Yes, David?”

“Not that I’m complaining, but that was an unusual welcome this morning.”

“Well, there’s been some trouble about.”

“What kind of trouble, Bill?”

Lord William stared into the crackling fire. “Oh, you know. The usual thing. An attempt or two on my life. One was a sniper’s bullet through the terrace window. Took my nightcap clean off my head.” He shook his head ruefully. “Never found the bastard.”

“And the other?”

“Lunk found him by the compost pile. Starkers was busy burying the poor bastard.”

Bolan and McCarter stared at the mutant Great Dane.

Lord William shrugged. “Well, they always say leave the dogs outside during the day but bring them in to defend you at night. But after the sniper attack, I started leaving the dogs out after hours. Felt bad for Starkers. I had to buy him some canine Wellies to keep him warm. Poor hairless bastard. You know, I almost had him put down when he was born. Bloody runt of the litter. But my lady friend at the time thought he was cute, so I kept him. Well, then, anyway, apparently Starkers and this son of a bitch had a difference of opinion in the wee hours a fortnight ago. Needless to say, Starkers earned his kibble.” Lord William leaned down and scratched the immense animal between the ears. “Who’s a good lad? Who’s a good lad, then? It’s bloody you, Starkers, isn’t it!”

Starkers thumped his tail on the polar bear carcass in agreement.

“You know, all the bastard had was knife?” Lord William turned to Bolan. “One of your Yank Bowie knives. I swear it was a foot long. You could skin an elephant with the bloody thing. Guess he wanted to get up close and personal with me.” Lord William gave his dog another rub behind the ears. “Should have brought a bloody elephant gun for you, Starkers, shouldn’t he have?”

Starkers rolled onto his back and shuddered like a squid.

“So then I get a call from an old comrade whom I never really knew that well from the old days in SAS. You, David, and you’ll forgive me if I was a bit suspicious.”

Bolan finished his beer. A bottle cracked open behind Bolan and the giant Welshman stalked forward and refilled his glass. “No harm, no foul, your lordship. May I ask you a personal question?”

“Everyone does, and I find myself far more fond of you than the average Yank.”

“I assume you still have stock in Aegis?”

“Oh, a sizable chunk. Jennings wanted to buy me out outright, but that’s where I put my foot down. I still get my dividends quarterly and occasionally vote in the stockholder’s meetings.”

“Do you still have the legal right to look into the company’s doings?”

“Might be a bit touch and go.” Lord William leaned back and contemplated his whiskey. “Though I suppose I could call an emergency stockholders’ meeting and raise a stench. There aren’t that many of us, but then again, we’re scattered about the globe a bit. It would take time.”

“What if you pulled a surprise visit to corporate headquarters?” Bolan suggested.

“You mean, just show up in Amsterdam, unannounced?” A devilish grin suddenly passed across Lord William’s face. “Brass balls and all that.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, it’s the last thing they’d expect, but I doubt I can get more than one guest through the door.” Lord William raised an eyebrow at Bolan. “I assume you would like to come along?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

McCarter frowned. “You sure you don’t want some backup?”

Bolan had already given that some thought. “Actually, I’d like you to go back to London. My name is mud with MI-5 right about now, but last I heard you’re still a golden boy with British Intelligence. You’re our best shot at getting real cooperation.”

He took out Assistant Director Finch’s business card. “Look her up. Deal with her and only her. I still have the feeling there’s someone higher up trying to smother this whole situation.”

McCarter scanned the card and memorized it. “Right, then.” He tapped his copy of the mission file. “I don’t like it, though. The more I hear, the less I trust this Jennings git.”

“Oh, well!” Lord William grinned. “If you’ve a git problem, then Lunk’s your solution.” He turned to the massive Welshman. “Lunk! How’s about a little jaunt to Holland?”

Lunk considered this for several long moments. “The smoked eel is delicious.”



Amsterdam



LUNK WOLFED SMOKED EEL from a roll of newspaper. Bolan had learned on the flight from Guernsey that “Lunk” was short for Lynnock ap Nock, and the Cymric superman had been a Coxswain in the Royal Marines 539 Assault Squadron. The mission was rolling too fast for the Farm to arrange a full war load of weapons to await him in Amsterdam, but Bolan had gone to the American Embassy and the CIA station chief had acquired a Beretta 92 for him from the Marine Guard armory and a snub-nosed .38 from his own personal cache. Lord William was currently making a pit stop of his own, and Bolan and Lunk stood outside the Central Bank of the Netherlands. Lord William came out ten minutes later and tossed Lunk an old-fashioned canvas courier’s pouch. “Hold on to that, Lunk, would you?”

Lunk tucked the canvas package under his arm, and they took a water taxi to the River Ij. Huge sections of Amsterdam were considered historical landmarks, with entire neighborhoods dating back to the 1850s. It was along the River Ij that Amsterdam had some of its most modern city developments, and freed from the constraints of historical preservation, the developers had explored their artistic sides. The neighborhood was famed for its unusual and experimental architecture. They stepped onto shore, and Lord William paused by a stand of willows. “Lunk?”

Lunk reached into the canvas bag and passed Lord William a Hi-Power pistol, and the Englishman made it disappear into his jacket. The Welshman pulled out a stainless steel .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 66 and grinned at Bolan. “Traded one of your Navy SEAL lads for it, back in the day.”

Lord William suddenly shot Bolan an embarrassed look. “Not to be insulting, old boy, but I gather you are armed?”

“I am, your lordship.”

“Good. Jolly good. They won’t do us much good, but at least we can lull them into a false sense of security. Oh, and for God’s sake, drop that �your lordship’ rubbish. Call me Bill. My friends do.”

“Bill.” Bolan nodded. “I gather we won’t get any weapons past security?”

“No, but we have Lunk in our back pockets, don’t we?”

Bolan let the cryptic remark pass as they stepped out of the little stand of trees and walked a block up the canal and came to a two-story building of glass brick and pink stucco right out of an episode of Miami Vice. Lunk kept on walking as Bolan and Lord William pushed through the smoked-glass double doors into a teak-paneled lobby. A beautiful Dutch woman with platinum-blond hair sat behind a desk.

Lord William whispered in appreciation. “Well, she’s new.”

A twin of the life-size Aegis shield and thunderbolt logo in Lord William’s Guernsey manor took up almost the entire wall behind her. Bolan noted the security cameras above it. The receptionist turned a blazing white smile and greeted them in Dutch. “Goede ochtend!”

“And good morning to you, too, my dear,” Lord William replied. “Is Mr. Jennings in today?”

The receptionist switched to thick English. “Yes, but he is very busy. Do you have an appointment?”

“Tell Mr. Jennings that Lord William Glen-Patrick and associate are here to pay him a call.”

“Lord William!” The woman’s jaw dropped charmingly. “I will inform Mr. Jennings immediately! You may wait—”

“What is your name, again?”

The woman flushed. “Grietje.”

“We’ll wait in the courtyard, Grietje, thank you.”

Bolan followed Lord William’s lead as he walked past the desk to the hallway beyond. A chime peeped as they crossed the threshold. Grietje shot the English lord a look that was both amused and accusing. “You should know policy, Lord William.”

“Sorry about that.” Lord William took out his Hi-Power. There were metal detectors in the door frame. “Old habits, you know. Feel naked without it.”

Grietje pushed a panel on the wall behind her that slid back to reveal a wall safe. She pressed in a combination code as Bolan took out his Beretta and the snub-nosed Smith. Grietje locked the weapons away. “Lord William, if you—”

“Would you be a dear and bring us some coffee?” Lord William continued on his way. Bolan followed. Grietje made a small noise of consternation. She had their weapons, but protocol was not being observed. However, William Glen-Patrick was a noted eccentric and the founder of the company.

“I will bring you coffee.”

Lord William grinned like a schoolboy getting away with something as they stepped out into a tiny courtyard with a fountain, two small stone benches and a flowering lemon tree. “Big brass balls, then?”

Bolan smiled. “I can hear them clanking while you walk, Bill.”

Lord William flushed with pleasure. He pulled out his cell phone and punched a button. “Hello, Lunk! In position, then? Right. I’m facing the north wall of the courtyard. Jolly good. Heave away, then!”

Bolan looked up into the sky to see Lord William’s canvas pouch hurtling over the roof. The man clicked his phone shut and shook his head in wonder. “I swear that man could hurl a grappling iron over the Eiffel Tower. Be a good lad and catch that, would you?”

Bolan caught the package and handed it to Lord William. The little canvas bag was a handgun horn of plenty. Lord William produced a pair of Walther PPK pistols and handed one to Bolan. It was underpowered by Bolan’s standards, but the pistol was reliable, a classic, and best of all, the enemy had no idea they had them. He checked the loads in the little .32 and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket. Lord William gave him a spare 7-round magazine and tossed the empty pouch behind the lemon tree just as Grietje came out with a tray of coffee, brandy and cigars.

Lord William gave his coffee a healthy watering of brandy and let Bolan light his cigar. The two men drank coffee and Glen-Patrick blew smoke up toward the sky as they waited for their host.

“Bill!” Clive Jennings threw open the door and came out grinning. “Good to see you!”

Bolan sized up Jennings. He was just a shade under six feet, and his French-cut suit was tailored to accentuate his trim physique. His blond hair had enough product keeping it in place that it would take a gale-force wind to move it. His personality was hyperintense. He practically bounced across the courtyard. Jennings shook Lord William’s hand hard enough to make the older man wince. “How’ve you been, man! Came out of your self-imposed exile on the island, then, did you?”

“Something like that.” Lord William retrieved his hand and put it in the same pocket as his PPK. “This my associate, Mr. Cooper.”

Jennings slapped his hand into Bolan’s. He grinned as he gave Bolan the bone crusher. “Nice to meet you, Coop!”

He’d had his suspicions, but now, shaking the man’s hand and looking into his green eyes, Bolan was certain.

Clive Jennings was a sociopath.

Bolan squeezed back just enough to prevent his hand from being broken. He noted the golden Oxford University signet ring as they let go. “Heard a lot about you, Clive.”

“All lies?”

“No, worse,” Bolan replied. “The truth.”

Jennings threw back his head and laughed a bit too heartily. He clearly dismissed Bolan as a spear-carrier. He returned his attention to Lord William. “Well, I’m surprised to see you, Bill.”

“Well, I wanted to have a word, Clive, and I wanted to look you in the eye rather than talk over the phone.”

“Sounds mysterious, Bill.” Jennings smiled good-naturedly, his eyes unreadable. “What’s this all about?”

“Well…” Lord William looked down at his shoes in embarrassment. “To tell you the truth, Clive, I’m rather between fortunes at the moment.”

Jennings cocked his head. “You’ve been at the baccarat tables again, haven’t you?”

“Nothing quite so romantic. The fact is I’ve never had much of a head for business. Some investments haven’t panned out. Indeed, they’ve cost me rather dearly.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, old man. You’ve done quite well.” The words were solicitous, but Jennings’s body language told an entirely different story. He loved Lord William coming to the business he’d stolen from him with his hat in his hand. “You’ll land on your feet and be flush again in no time. You always do.”

Lord William squared his shoulders, seeming to summon what dignity he had left. “Clive, I’m not a young man anymore. The truth is, I need your help.”

“Well, I suppose I could arrange a loan for you.” Jennings shrugged. “I’d be willing to accept your shares in the company as collateral.”

“That’s generous of you, Clive, but what I really need are some good men.”

Jennings blinked. “Men?”

“I’m an old man, Clive, but I think I may have one last adventure left in me. Mr. Cooper came to me with a rather harebrained scheme. So harebrained, in fact, it sounds like it almost might work.”

Jennings was clearly intrigued. “You have a mission?”

Bolan kept the smile off of his face and reminded himself never to play cards with Lord William.

“I’ll be blunt, Clive. It’s a treasure hunt.”

“A treasure hunt?”

The old man flashed his trademark grin. “You know me, Clive. Diamonds have always been my best friends. Mr. Cooper’s research is quite solid, and I’ve had it discreetly verified. They’re there. The bugger of it is, the location is remote, and the terrain, the locals and the local government could only be described as exceptionally hostile. I need to put together a team, and I’ve lost contact with most of the men I worked with in the past. For that matter, most of the men I know from when I was running the company are like me, ten years past it, if not more. I’m not asking you for money, Clive. I need a few good men. Then the money will come.”

“�Gold does not find good soldiers, but good soldiers are quite capable of finding gold.’” Jennings was quoting Prince Machiavelli. “Or in this case, diamonds.”

“Just so, old man.” Lord William grinned. “Just so.”

“So…” Jennings frowned in thought. “You want me to recommend some men for you, then, is it?”

“I’d like to look at the current company roster. See who’s been where, what languages they speak and all that. There will be some aspects of this jaunt that will require some very specific skills. I want to put together a short list and begin interviewing as quickly as possible.”

“You need to tell me more, Bill.”

“’Fraid I can’t, Clive.” Lord William smiled slyly. “You’re something of a go-getter. I think if I told you too much about it, you might just go off and get them yourself.”

“Well, that is possible.” Jennings smiled slightly at the compliment. “But our list of associates as well as recruitment are my purview, and our associates depend on our discretion and respect of their serving in anonymity.”

“I believe most of the men on the roster would lose their little minds if they knew Red-Hot Willy was looking for a few good men.”

“That may be.” Jennings sighed in mock reluctance. “But I’m afraid I can’t do it.”

“I’ll cut you in for ten percent.”

“Ten percent of nothing is still nothing, Bill. You don’t have anything yet, and treasure hunts have a habit of turning out badly in my experience. As a matter of fact, most of them don’t turn up anything other than debt. It’s not a good investment in men or publicity. For that matter Aegis Global Security doesn’t need our associates being captured and rotting in some third-world prison.”

“Clive, I need this.”

“I can’t help you, old man.” The words were an insult coming off Jennings’s lips.

Lord William stared up into the clouds for long moments and reluctantly played his ace. “I’ll sell you my shares.”

An ugly light gleamed in Clive Jennings’s eyes. “Your shares aren’t worth that much, Bill.”

“Oh, I think they’re worth far more to you than what they’re listed at.”

Jennings shrugged indifferently.

“My shares and ten percent.” Lord William put a wounded look in his eyes. “It’s my last hurrah, Clive. Help out an old man.”

Lord William had built Aegis with his own sweat and blood. Jennings had stolen it with ones and zeroes. It was very clear that Jennings despised the old man. It was also clear that Jennings was very capable and shrewd. He smiled at Lord William. “Bill?”

“Yes, Clive?”

“You’re up to something.”

“Well, to be honest, yes.” Lord William dropped the act. “Clive, I really do need to have a look at the current Aegis roster of associates.”

“You can bring it up at the next shareholders’ meeting.” Jennings’s smile was sickening. “Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“’Fraid I’m going to have to insist, Clive.”

Bolan cocked the Walther in his pocket. It was a small noise but noticeable in the sudden quiet in the courtyard. Jennings shook his head. “What? You’re going to threaten me with a cigarette lighter?” He started to reach under his jacket.

Bolan took the cocked PPK out of his pocket and pointed it at Jennings’s face.

The man’s eyes widened. He was clearly used to being in control of every situation. Being caught flatfooted was an alien experience. He nearly made a move as Bolan reached under his jacket and relieved him of his two-tone 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-239 pistol but apparently thought better of it.

“Now, let’s have a look at that roster, then,” Lord William cajoled.

Jennings slowly folded his arms across his chest. “No.”

“No?” Lord William took out his Walther and thumbed back the hammer. “Are you sure?”

“You’re not going to shoot me, and neither is your friend.”

Lord William frowned. “We’re not?”

“No, you need to get into the computer and only I have the access codes to Aegis operational files.”

“Hmm.” Lord William scratched his jaw with the muzzle of his pistol as he considered the problem. “Guess we’ll just have to beat it out of you.”

Jennings looked at Bolan in speculation and Lord William in open scorn. “Try.”

“Right!” Lord William cupped a hand beside his mouth. “Lunk!”

Lunk arose on the roof. It seemed he had scaled the side of the building. Jennings’s mouth dropped open as the giant Welshman slid down one of the courtyard’s drainpipes and landed on his feet without a sound. It was genuinely disturbing to see a man that large move with such silence. Lord William dropped all pretense of polite behavior and snarled, “Now, you listen to me, you poncey little git. I don’t give a good god damn what bloody dan-ranking you have in judo. You just aren’t ready for what Lunk is going to do to you, and he’s wanted a piece of you for a very long time. Now you are going to give me complete access to my company, or I’m going to fucking feed you to him.”

Lunk leaned down to nearly press his face against Jennings’s. “Going to beat seven bloody shades of shite out of you, mate.”

Jennings was reduced to stuttering. “I…I…”

Lord William prodded the man with his PPK. “Good lad. I knew we could work this out.”




CHAPTER SIX


Bolan vainly wished Kurtzman or Akira Tokaido was on hand. He sat before the computer in Clive Jennings’s office and knew he was a little out of his league. The room looked more like a command center than the executive office of a small, highly specialized consulting company. Lord William peered about with a frown on his face. “Made some changes then, have you, Clive?”

Jennings glared and said nothing. He sat in the chair opposite his desk with Lunk standing behind him. The Welshman held his .357 loosely in one massive paw and had made it very clear on the short walk down the hall and up the stairs to the office he would pistol whip Jennings repeatedly with the gun if he tried anything.

Lord William waved his PPK at the flat-screen monitor. “So, how are you and the old �devil in a box’ getting on, then?”

Bolan took out his PDA. Like his laptop, it, too, was a product of Akira Tokaido’s cybernetic skill and would qualify as a supercomputer. “This isn’t my strong suit. I can probably hack in, but I’ll have to be walked through it, and it’ll take time. Time we don’t have.” Bolan turned to Jennings. “Give me your passwords and codes.”

Jennings’s jaw set.

A second later his head rubbernecked as Lunk’s open hand slammed against his ear. Jennings’s defiant look turned into a grimace of agony. Bolan had to admire Lunk’s style. It took a deft touch to box a man’s ear that hard without shattering the eardrum.

Lord William sighed. “Clive, despite all you’ve done, this isn’t personal between us. You took my company from me, but as far as I can tell you did it fair and square. Easy come, easy go, the better man won. All that jolly rot. However, to quote your earlier remark, I believe you’re up to something. There’s something rotten afoot, and I think you are at least aiding and abetting it if not actively involved. I dislike torture, so, let me state for the record you will not be tortured. What will happen is this—Mr. Cooper and I will leave the room for a moment, and in our absence you are going to have a fight with Lunk.”

Jennings flinched and involuntarily brought a hand up to his ear.

“Keep your bloody hand down,” Lunk rumbled.

Jennings’s hand fell into his lap like a dead bird.

“It will be a fair fight,” Lord William continued. “Barehanded, man-to-man, as God intended. After a minute or two, Mr. Cooper and I will return to this office and ask you once more for your passwords and codes. Should you persist in your obstinate ways, you will have another fight with Lunk, and then another, and another. This process will continue until you come to see reason. Do you understand?”

Veins began pulsing in Jennings’s temples. Lord William sighed impatiently. “Lunk, keep him conscious, don’t break his fingers or his jaw. We’ll be needing him typing and talking I should think.”

Jennings snarled through clenched teeth. “What do you want first?”

Bolan considered going file by file, gleaning out the relevant information, but that would take time and despite the fear in Jennings’s eyes he didn’t trust the man. There could be data deletion programs infesting the computer. However good Jennings’s defenses were, Bolan was willing to bet they were not up to the Akira Tokaido’s standard. He connected his PDA to an open port on the computer. “Download your entire hard drive.”

Jennings blinked. “Into that?”

Bolan’s PDA probably had ten times the computing capability of Jennings’s entire computer suite but he didn’t bother explaining. “Do it.”

Lunk slid Jennings’s chair around the desk, rammed him in front of the computer. “You heard the Yank.”

Jennings’s hands hovered, trembling over the keyboard. Bolan leaned in and peered into his eyes. “Forget Lunk. Do it or deal with me.”

Jennings flinched. What he suddenly saw in Bolan’s burning blue eyes was far more frightening than a beating at the big Welshman’s hands. He typed in letters and numbers, and files began to transfer into Bolan’s PDA. Jennings jumped in his seat as Lord William punched him in the shoulder in a comradely fashion. “Good lad! I knew you’d see reason.”

Grietje’s voice spoke across the intercom. “Mr. Jennings? Mr. Van der Beers has called to confirm lunch this afternoon.”

Lunk’s huge hand covered the speaker. He and Lord William both looked to Bolan, who nodded to Jennings. “Tell her you’ll be a few minutes late, but lunch is on.”

Jennings spoke as Lunk uncovered the intercom. “Lord William has brought some unexpected business to my attention. Tell Van der Beers I’ll be a little late, but we’re a green light for lunch.”

“A green light. Yes, Mr. Jennings.”

The intercom clicked off. Bolan screwed the muzzle of his PPK into Jennings’s temple. “Green light. That’s the signal for what? Intruders? Lockdown?”

Jennings stared up at Bolan with renewed purpose. “The police have been alerted. I suggest you leave while you still can.”

“Blow his brains out,” Lord William suggested.

A phone to one side of the desk rang. Bolan recognized the receiver as a satellite link. Jennings jerked and stared at the sat link in horror. “No,” Bolan said. “He’s going to answer that phone.”

“No, I’m—”

“Do it or I’ll kill you.”

Jennings stared once more into Bolan’s eyes and whatever recidivist bravery he had summoned wavered. He and Bolan both knew he was one pound away on a cocked, two-pound trigger toward death.

“I—”

The phone chimed.

“Do it,” Bolan ordered.

“But—”

“You’re out of time.” Bolan pulled the pistol away from Jennings’s temple and pointed it at the Englishman’s face.

“No!” Jennings lunged for the satellite phone.

Lunk’s paws slammed down on his shoulders. “Compose yourself.”

Jennings took a shuddering breath.

“Better.” Bolan nodded. “Put it on speakerphone.”

Jennings pressed a button on the link. A deep, British upper-class voice came across the speaker. “Clive, we need to talk.”

Bolan watched Clive’s face closely. He’d broken into a sweat.

“I agree,” Jennings replied.

“Listen,” the voice continued. “I’ve spoken with our counterparts in the East. We are in agreement. We need to step up the timetable.”

Jennings looked like he might throw up.

Lord William cocked his head. Clearly something about the voice was familiar. Jennings got that staring-into-the-middle-distance, everything-unraveling look on his face again. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“I say,” the voice said. “Clive, are you there?”

Bolan silently mouthed the words “keep talking” at Clive.

“I…”

Lord William suddenly beamed and leaned in toward the intercom. “Parky, you old sod! How the bloody hell are you?”

Jennings’s jaw dropped. Lunk shot Bolan a knowing grin. The voice on the other side of the secure link paused in shocked silence. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Why, Ian, it’s Bill! Bill Glen-Patrick! Haven’t seen you since I last voted in Lords! By God, when was that? Aught 2, then?”

The voice on the other end was clearly stunned. “Clive, what is going on?”

“I…” was all Jennings could manage.

Bolan subvocalized to Lunk. “Who?”

Lunk muttered under his breath, “His Lordship Ian Parkhurst, if I’m not mistaken.”

Bolan had never heard of Lord Ian, but then there were close to seven hundred members of the English peerage. “Is this bad?”

Lunk’s craggy brow furrowed. “Bad enough. Lord William is a baron. Parkhurst is an earl.”

“Listen, Parky,” Lord William continued. “Your lad Clive has cocked things up a bit. I’m doing a little spring-cleaning around the old office. I’m putting a stop to whatever he’s up to. I do hope you won’t be inconvenienced.”

“Glen-Patrick,” the voice said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave my office.”

“Your office?”

“Yes, William. Just who do you think it was who took your wretched little box of tin soldiers away from you? Surely not that pissant Clive?”

“Well, truth be told, yes,” Lord William admitted. “Not quite cricket, Ian. Peers turning on each other like this, is it, old bean?”

“You know, I never really considered you a peer,” the voice stated. “None of us ever did. You’re just a jumped-up country squire who never knew his station. You spent more time on your sordid little escapades and in the tabloids than you ever did voting in the house.”

Bolan listened to the exchange with interest. Whoever Parkhurst was, he was an amateur. He was gloating and monologing when he should have kept his mouth shut. Bolan silently mouthed the words “keep him talking” to Lord William. The baron nodded.

“Listen, Parky. We have dead CIA agents, the IRA, whispers of mass destruction, Aegis somehow involved. I was looking into this out of duty, you know. Queen and country and all that. But you know something, Parky? Now I think it’s personal.”

“Do you know what one does with toothless, barking old dogs?” The voice went utterly cold. “One puts them down. However, I’ve come to learn that you’re not an old dog. You, William, are a cockroach. A pest that refuses to be crushed. And I’ll tell you something, William. When Clive failed to kill you in Guernsey, I had a thought you might show up at the offices.”

“Oh? And what might that thought—”

“Goodbye, William.”

The line clicked dead.

Lunk was peering out the window toward the river. “Company, Lord William, coming to kill us quiet.”

Bolan gazed out the window. Men were spilling out of a pair of Volkswagen vans. They were dressed in civilian clothing, but each one was sporting a micro-Uzi machine pistol with the long black tube of a sound suppressor screwed over the stub barrels. The gunners’ torsos had the barrel shape of men wearing body armor beneath their clothing. Bolan counted ten of them and was pretty sure there would be more coming around the back. If Lord Parkhurst was telling the truth about owning the company, the killers would probably have their own keys.

He turned on Clive. “Where are the guns?”

“Your guns?” Jennings stared up at Bolan in confusion. “Grietje has them in the safe downstairs. You know that—”

“No, Clive. Where are your guns?”

“Mine? You have my—”

Bolan seized Jennings by his hand-painted Italian silk necktie. “You’re a boy who likes playing with the grown men’s toys, Clive. Where’s your toy box?”

“I—”

Bolan’s eyes flicked around the room and instinctively came to rest on the hoplite shield mounted on the wall.

Lord William’s mustache lifted in a curtain of amusement. “Oh, jolly good.”

Bolan nodded. “Lunk?”

Lunk happily wrapped his fingers around the edges of the shield. His knuckles went white as he pulled. Wood splintered, cracking and breaking around the hidden lock. Lunk let out a groan of effort, and the Aegis ripped away from the wall.

The shield formed the door of a recessed gun cabinet.

Lunk picked an inch-long splinter out of his palm. “Little boys with grown men’s toys.” The Welshman grinned. “Have to remember that one.”

Clive Jennings had some toys.

“My rifle!” Lord William exploded in outrage. “My bloody fucking Falklands rifle!”

Jennings cringed.

Lord William stalked to the ruptured gun cabinet and ripped a 1980s-era British L-1 A 1 SLR rifle off the rack. He racked the action on the big black .308 self-loading rifle and peered through the SUIT optical sight. “You son of a bitch! You told me it’d been lost!”

Bolan made his choice from the cabinet. “Lunk, mind Clive.”

Lunk slammed his hands on Jennings’s shoulders as Bolan pulled out something a little more modern. Personally, he had little use for the SA 80 assault rifle. Despite its futuristic good looks and compact bullpup design, it had been plagued with problems. In both Iraq wars it had been found that it jammed at the slightest bit of dirt or fouling, various parts broke off or bent with frightening regularity and many came home held together with duct tape. The magazine release was so poorly designed that it often spontaneously ejected when shouldered by men wearing armor and web gear, and there was a persistent rumor that at desert temperatures, with prolonged firing, and with the right combination of British army-issue insect repellant and cam cream on the user’s hands, the plastic parts would melt.

The SA 80 really only had one virtue, and that was that the combination of rifle and its SUSAT 4X scope was one of the most accurate out-of-the-box assault rifles available.

Bolan inserted a loaded magazine and racked the action. He had hopes that the trouble-plagued weapon might hold together for one firefight in Amsterdam. He pointed the assault rifle between Jennings’s eyebrows as Lunk pulled a Steyr AUG light machine gun out of the cabinet and clicked in a 100-round C-Mag double drum magazine.

Bolan’s PDA cheeped as it finished swallowing the contents of Clive Jennings’s computer. “We’re out of here.”

Downstairs Grietje let out a scream.

Lunk prodded Jennings with the muzzle of his machine gun. “Let’s move.”

The Executioner took point with Lord William behind him. Lunk rumbled as he took up the rear position with the machine gun. “You heard the man, blast you. Move along already—Bloody hell!”

Bolan whirled in time to avoid 280 pounds of flying Welshman. Lord William didn’t and they collided in a tangle. The SA 80 rifle cracked three times in Bolan’s hands, but Jennings had already risen up out of his throw and lunged back into the office. Bolan flicked his selector switch to full-auto and sprayed a burst around the doorjamb before lunging in. The eastern wall of the office had slid open, and Jennings ducked in as it began to slide shut again. Wood paneling flew as Bolan fired, but he knew it was hopeless. The door hissed shut, and he could hear the heavy mechanical bolts tumbling into place.

Jennings had built a panic room into his office.

“We’ve lost him.”

Lunk was already up and pulling Lord William to his feet. “Oh, what I owe that one.”

LordWilliam winced as he stood. “Do we have a plan, then?”

“Well—” Bolan could hear the thudding of boots even in the soundproofed office building “—we’ve lost our meat shield. I guess we’ll just have to make a door and take a van.”

“Meat shield…” Lunk’s laugh was like distant thunder.

“Cover your eyes.” Bolan raised his rifle and put a bullet into the window overlooking the river. The cracked window failed to shatter. The windows were armor glass. Bolan lowered his assault weapon. “Bill?”

Lord William shouldered his big .308 battle rifle and began squeezing off shots. Bits of glass flew like shrapnel throughout the hall. The glass was bullet resistant, not bulletproof. At point-blank range the rounds began to punch holes. Lord William lowered his rifle on a smoking empty chamber. “Bloody hell.”

The window looked like the surface of the moon but seemed far from falling apart. Jennings had built himself a fortress.

Bolan heard the door to the stairwell open down the hall. “Here they come.”

A cylinder skipped through the cracked door spewing CS gas.

Bolan strode forward, firing short bursts from his rifle at the door. Lunk fell into line behind him. The big man snapped open one leg of his machine gun’s bipod and came forward with his machine gun in the hip-assault position and spraying it like a fire hose. Bolan held his breath, but the rapidly expanding gas began stinging his eyes instantly.

The door was riddled with bullet holes under the onslaught. Bolan roared over the sound of gunfire, “Lunk! Door!”

Lunk kept moving forward and firing. When he was muzzle distant from the door, he put his size-16 boot into it. The wood buckled beneath the blow. Two men in gas masks reeled back as the door slammed off its hinges and into them. Bolan’s rifle cracked once, shattering the left-hand lens of one man’s mask. Lunk hammered the second man down with a long burst. Lord William moved onto the crowded landing, racked with coughing. His spent rifle was slung over his shoulder. He scooped up the fallen men’s Uzis.

Bolan calculated. He had about five rounds left in his rifle. Jennings undoubtedly had the spare ammo and supplies in his panic room, and he had said the police had been alerted. The enemy couldn’t afford a siege, and Bolan and his crew didn’t have the ammo to hold one off. He figured they were about to be rushed. Gas was filling the hall behind them.

The only way to go was down.

Bolan glanced back at Lord William, who was leaning heavily on the rail and limping slightly. He was an older man and having Lunk thrown on top of him had hurt more than he had let on.

But that gave Bolan an idea.

“Lunk?”

“Aye?”

Bolan nodded at the two dead men.

Lunk’s eyes widened. “Meat shield, then?”

“More like meat missile.” Bolan coughed.

“Oh—” Lunk shook his head and dropped his machine gun on its sling. “He’s a clever dick, this Yank is.” Lunk heaved up a dead man like a sack of potatoes. “On your go.”

Bolan slung his rifle and took Jennings’s commandeered 9 mm pistol in two hands.

A voice shouted out downstairs in command. “Go! Go! Go!”

Another gas grenade clattered onto the bottom landing.

“Now!” Bolan boomed.

Four men spilled into the stairwell spraying their silenced weapons upward. Lunk used the military press to raise the dead man over his head with a grunt and then dropped him over the rail. The stairs were narrow, and there was no cover to be taken. The two-hundred-pound corpse fell on its comrades, and two of them fell ugly beneath it. The other two barely kept their feet, as limp arms and legs clubbed them. Bolan was already moving. His pistol barked twice, and both men went limp from the head shots. The Executioner kept firing as he moved down the stairs and into the gas cloud. More men leaped into the stairway to meet him. They didn’t know what had happened, but they charged in depending on gas, body armor, numbers and firepower to win.

The second corpse fell onto the two lead men like a ton of bricks as Lunk gave the cadaver the bum’s rush from above. Lord William fired bursts from his Uzi. Bolan reached the ground floor grimacing into the gas. He was right on top of the grenade. Gas sprayed from the crevices between the piled bodies in gray geysers. Bolan stuck the SIG-Sauer pistol around the corner and fired it dry. He dropped the spent pistol and picked up a pair of Uzis for himself.

“Move! Move! Move!”

Lunk came halfway down the stairs and then leaped over the rail. Lord William came down the stairs as fast he was able. Bones broke and living men screamed as the giant Welshman landed on the pile. Lunk fell back against the wall and began firing bursts from his machine gun into the downstairs hall. “Go!”

Bolan rolled into the hall with an Uzi in each hand.

A voice was shouting in near hysterics. “Heavy resistance! Repeat! We are encountering heavy resistance! Automatic weapons! Request—”

Bolan could barely see the man down the hall crouched behind the reception desk. Bolan thrust out his Uzis and held down the trigger. Wood stripped and splintered and the man behind the desk screamed and fell. Bolan dropped the spent machine pistols and pulled his PPK. He moved to the courtyard door and scanned the outside.

It was blissfully clear of gas or men with Uzis.

Lunk ushered Lord William forward. The older man was gagging and clutching his face. Bolan himself could barely see or breathe. He took the baron’s arm, led him to the fountain and shoved his head under the water. Bolan let him go and rammed his own head under the surface. A few startled koi huddled in terror as Bolan swept his head back and forth and washed out his eyes. He surfaced to hear the strident sound of European police sirens in the distance. Lord William came up a second later with a gasp.

“Well…that’s a bit…better, then.” He sat heavily on the side of the fountain.

Lunk stood in the doorway, his eyes a solid red of inflamed blood vessels, and tears streaming down his cheeks. He held his eyes open and focused as he scanned down the hall through some superhuman act of Welsh willpower.

Bolan eyed the drainpipe Lunk had used to make his entrance and then glanced at Lord William. The old warrior wouldn’t make the climb and even Lunk wouldn’t be able to scale the slick iron carrying him. Even if he could, the two-story drop on the other side would be problematic.

“Lads.” Lord William was reading Bolan’s mind. “Just go. I can deal with the law, as well as Clive or any other bastard still running hot around the premises.”

Lord William would be facing weapons charges, unexplainable firefights, the use of war gas and possible multiple murder counts at a business that he was still officially the president of. Jennings was still in his panic room, and Bolan had a pretty good idea who would win in a “his word against mine” situation in a Netherlands courtroom.

Bolan grinned. “The hell you say.”

They were just going to have to go out the front door.

“Lunk?”

“I see movement in the lobby.”

“Let’s go.”

Bolan threw Lord William’s arm over his shoulder. He passed him off to Lunk at the doorway and the three of them moved down the hall. Bolan had counted ten out front before the engagement and had figured maybe the same number out back. They’d taken a terrible toll. There couldn’t be more than two or three fighters left among the enemy.

Lunk groaned. “Wait…” He dropped his weapon on its sling and propped Lord William against a wall. The Welshman ripped the 18-liter reservoir out of the lobby water cooler and upended it overhead his face. Lunk washed, gargled, snorted, spit and finally dropped the keg-size cooler with a thud. He shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry about that, but I haven’t been gassed since basic.”

Bolan caught movement outside. Two men were running for one of the vans. One of them had Miss Grietje Van Jan. Bolan threw open the glass doors and roared. “Freeze!”

One man whirled and the PPK snapped four times in Bolan’s hand. Two shots took the man in the chest and the second double tap took him in the head. Lunk and Lord William fell into formation on either side of Bolan. The second man kept his Uzi rammed into Grietje’s side. “I’ll kill her!”

“Let her go!”

“Drop your weapons!”

“I said let her go!”

“I’ll cut her in two!”

Bolan didn’t doubt it. He dropped the Walther to the pavement. “Lord William?”

Lord William dropped his Uzi and shrugged off his rifle with an exhausted sigh.

“Lunk.”

“The bloody hell I—”

“Lunk!” the baron snapped.

Lunk unslung the AUG light machine gun and dropped it in disgust. He glared, red-eyed, at the assassin. “I’ll see you in—”

Bolan blurred into motion.

He spun the SA 80 rifle around on its sling and shouldered it. The assassin’s face instantly filled the 4X scope and Bolan squeezed the trigger. The killer went limp as the bullet traversed his skull, and Miss Van Jan screamed anew as she was sprayed with blood and bone.

Bolan whipped his rifle around and aimed at the man behind the wheel of van with the engine running. The man screamed and dived out the driver’s door. “No! Please, God, no! Please!”

Bolan flung the spent SA 80 into the river and scooped up his PPK and reloaded. Lunk scooped up his machine gun by the barrel. The driver screamed as the giant stomped forward. “Please! God! No! I—”

“Shut your cakehole!” Teeth flew as Lunk swung the light machine gun by the barrel like a cricket bat. The man dropped unconscious and drooling blood. “Bloody hit men.” He tossed the AUG into the river, then helped Lord William into the van as Bolan slid behind the wheel.

“Bill?”

“Yes, Cooper?”

“We’re going to need some men.”

The baron smiled wearily as Bolan pulled away from Aegis. “Oh, I have a few in mind.”




CHAPTER SEVEN


Guernsey

It had taken two days to get back to Lord William’s manor in the Channel Islands. Bolan had assumed both the British and American embassies were being watched, so they had simply driven to Belgium. At the U.S. Embassy Bolan had used their satellite link to download his PDA into the Farm’s computers. Lunk had started making phone calls. Lord William had rented a French turbo-charged Socata Trinidad aircraft and flown them to the neighboring island of Jersey. From there he had hired a fishing captain he knew to sail them to Guernsey in the dead of night.

They sat in front of the fire and compared notes and files. Lord William had filled Bolan in on his peer. Lord Ian Parkhurst was a hereditary earl, a senior member of the House of Lords, and sat on the Appellate Committee of Law Lords. As a teenaged lieutenant in World War II he had won two wound stripes and the Victoria Cross in desperate rear guard actions during the terrible withdrawal at Dunkirk. He’d twice been a British ambassador, and he’d been knighted for his philanthropic activities in former British colonies. He was a very wealthy man with international business interests and despite being a Lord he was very active in the liberal British Labor Party. He lent his name, money and political clout to a number of British environmental and political activist groups.

None of which explained why he’d sent men to kill Lord William in Amsterdam.

Bolan knew that with a man of Lord Ian’s wealth, influence, title and popularity he could put a smoking gun in his lordship’s hand and still get zero cooperation from MI-5 or any other British law-enforcement agency. Bolan would have to gather the evidence himself. No one would help him, no one would thank him, and indeed he would be resisted all the way if not arrested and deported.

Most of the news was bad.

McCarter had phoned from London. Assistant Director Finch had been cordial but had little new information to offer. The barristers of Sylvette MacJory, Ruud Heitinga, Kew Timmer and Guy Diddier had arranged for their clients’ release on bail, and all four had promptly dropped off the face of the planet. MI-5 had no idea of their whereabouts.

Lord William was wanted for questioning in the Netherlands regarding his role in the firefight at the Aegis offices in Amsterdam. Clive Jennings was wanted for similar questioning. According to Dutch authorities and Interpol, Mr. Jennings’s whereabouts was currently unknown.

The first thing to come out of the stolen files from Aegis was the current roster. There were 315 men and seven women on it, each with an accompanying personal file. The majority of the contractors were former soldiers in the British and American armed forces with a sprinkling of other nationalities. Most of the active ones were working as VIP protection contractors in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Iraq and Pakistan. A few were doing similar work in Central and South America, mostly Colombia. Again there was a sprinkling of strange and out-of-the-way destinations but all could be classified as world “trouble spots” where above-average men of above-average martial ability could expect to be paid top dollar for their skills and services.

That was one of the problems. The mission profiles were not matching up with reality. Ruud Heitinga and Kew Timmer were supposedly in Afghanistan at the moment. According to the files, Guy Diddier and Miss MacJory were currently on jobs in Vietnam.

The next problem was that neither Lord William nor Lunk knew very many of the men on the list. They’d been out of the game for a decade. Most of the names they did know were on separate inactive and reserve lists of old soldiers like themselves. Nevertheless they knew a few, and Lunk had been making some calls. Lunk swallowed a pint of ale in a gulp. “Well, the good news is Partridge is in and ready for anything. He got hold of Layland and Layland got hold of Lovat. Lovat thinks Thapa might be in, but only if you ask him personal.”

“Thappy!” Lord William straightened in his chair. “By God, we could use that little bugger!”

Bolan glanced at files. Alvin Partridge was a fellow Welshman and fellow Royal Marine of Lunk’s. He’d made Mountain Leader Grade 2 in the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre. Nick Lovat had been a corporal in the U.K.’s 5th Airborne Brigade and a sniper. Scott Layland was a former Australian SAS sergeant.

Bolan paused at the next file. Thapa Pun had been a member of Queen Elizabeth’s own 6th Gurkha Rifles and gone on to join the Gurkha Independent Parachute Company. He’d served on detachment to the Sultan of Brunei, returned to Nepal and then joined the Indian army’s 8th Gorkha Rifles and reached the Indian NCO rank of subedar. He’d been decorated in all three services, and had seen heavy counterinsurgency fighting in Kashmir.

“Ah, Thappy.” Lord William sighed into his whiskey. “I swear the man has the power to turn himself bloody invisible. We had some trouble in Africa back in the day with some locals. They called themselves revolutionaries, but they were hill bandits, pure and simple. Knew the jungle, though. So Thappy goes walkabout, lurking as is his wont, for a couple of weeks. I swear, it got to the point all he had to do was carve his sign on a tree, and the jungle emptied like a bloody vacuum.”

Bolan smiled. The “happy warriors” of Nepal had earned a fearsome reputation as jungle fighters in their centuries of service in the British military. Many legends had sprung up around them, many of them specifically about the huge, curved, kukri knife. Rumor had it that once a Gurkha drew his knife it could not be sheathed until it had drawn blood. That wasn’t true, but the Gurkhas themselves had done nothing to discourage it. Throughout British military history, riots and even small unit engagements had ended abruptly or resulted in panicked routs at the sight of Gurkha riflemen drawing their foot-long knives.

“A wizard with a bloody wok, by God!” Lunk enthused. The giant Welshman’s life seemed to revolve mostly around his stomach. “One always eats well with Thappy about. We’ll be lucky to get him.”

Bolan was about to take on a knight and lord of the realm with God only knew how many professional mercenaries and the Irish Republican Army in his back pocket. He’d take every Gurkha rifleman he could get.

“Got hold of Otto.” Lunk shook his head. “He’s back in bloody Nigeria. He says he’ll come, but he’s broke. We’ll have to send him a ticket.”

Bolan scanned the list. Otto Owu had been born in England of Yoruba parents. He had spent a great deal of time shuttling back and forth between the U.K. and Nigeria before enlisting as a teenager. He had made corporal in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Bolan noted he’d earned his expert rating in rifle, pistol and light machine gun and had served a tour in Northern Ireland. It also mentioned that he’d currently been spending time as a hunting guide in Africa, which meant he was a tracker. “Is that a problem?”

Lord William stared into his whiskey. “Well, Cooper…”

“Bill? Call me Matt.”

“Matt, do you remember that story about being between fortunes for Clive?”

Bolan sighed. “You weren’t making it up.”

“’Fraid not, old boy.” He gestured around the manor. “This bit of sod is just about all I have left. Well, and Lunk. But he’s strictly a volunteer. The rest of the men will come out of loyalty, and face anything, but they’ll expect to see something for their trouble at the end of it.”

Bolan considered his money belt. “Will a hundred thousand pounds get the ball rolling?”

The baron waggled his snowy eyebrows gleefully. “You know, it just might.”

Lunk grinned. “I want mine up front.”

Bolan reached into his gear bag and pulled out the money belt. He placed approximately fifty thousand-pound notes in varying denominations into Lunk’s hand. “Lunk, I’ll leave recruiting up to you. You decide who you want and how to pay, but I want every man to have a good chunk of change in his pocket up front.”

“Not to worry, then.”

“You’d better tell them up front we’re going up against a Lord of the realm, and that arrest and incarceration for life are a real possibility.”

“I know, I’ll—”

“And you’d better tell them we may be going up against Aegis employees.” Bolan locked eyes with the Welshman. “If they aren’t salty for any of that, then we don’t want them.”

“Aye.” Lunk nodded slowly. The enormity of the undertaking hadn’t escaped him. “I will.”

“Well, I’m to bed, then.” Lord William rose with a wince. “Bring the dogs in, will you, Lunk? And have Tommy and Carrick spelled by Rooney and Todd. They’ve been in the weather for hours.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

Bolan watched Lord William limp toward the stairs. He’d been limping since Amsterdam. Worse, he’d been coughing since the gas, and it occasionally descended into an ugly, wet rattle. “He’s not well.”

“No. He’s not.” Lunk’s face went stony. “Damage accrues.”

Bolan was all too aware of the accumulation of battle damage. He’d had access to the very best doctors, surgeons, physical therapists and alternative medicine the planet had to offer. But he’d still been strenuously warned by all and sundry against suffering any more of the battering that was unavoidable in his profession. In the end he was a soldier in a war that was everlasting. The war would take his life. He’d accepted that long ago. But in the dark of night, in those contemplative moments, he sometimes wondered what he would do when even he himself had to admit that time, tide and damage had reduced him to ineffectiveness.

He watched Lord William pull himself up the stairs one stair at time and knew the old man wouldn’t accept being sidelined, and that was the rub. He needed the old soldier. He needed his connections both military and with the English peerage. Bill could open doors. Bolan grimaced. There was another thing Lord William had told Clive Jennings that wasn’t a lie.

This was his last hurrah.



BOLAN AWOKE to the tube noise. His feet were in his boots and the folding stock of the Sterling snapped open and the bolt racked on a live round heartbeats before the first mortar bomb struck. By the sound Bolan figured it was a pair of 81 mm’s firing in tandem. He was surprised not to hear the blast and shake of high explosive. Instead he saw a flash. Outside the window yellow-white fire snapped and hissed in the rain and streamers of gray smoke fell in arcs. The enemy was hitting them with white phosphorous. Shotguns roared downstairs in quick double booms and were met by automatic weapons fire. The enemy’s plan was fairly obvious. They were going to burn down Lord William’s manor and shoot anyone who came out. Anyone who stayed inside would be burned alive.

Bolan slung a web belt with six spare magazines around his shoulder and charged out into the hall. Lunk was pounding up the steps with a Sterling in hand. “We’re afire!”

“Get the baron!”

“The baron is here.” Lord William was shrugging into his hacking jacket and had his Sterling. “Lunk, go find our friend Carl.”

Bolan knew Glen-Patrick meant the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle.

Lunk pounded back down the stairs.

The yeomen had made a strategic retreat into the manor. Spot and Starkers were lunging on their leads and almost out of control. The blond man Bolan only knew as Todd was breaking open his shotgun and plucking out spent shells as he shouted up the stairs. “Tommy’s dead! Carrick’s injured.”

That left four yeomen.

Bolan cocked his head as the mortars thumped again in tandem. They were close, by the sound. The lag time between firing and detonation implied they were firing nearly straight up, which meant a lot of hang time. “They’re right on the other side of the hill. The riflemen will be in the hedges front and back, waiting for us to make a break for it when the fire drives us out.”

Lunk returned with the antitank weapon hanging from one hand and a crate of rounds perched on one shoulder.

The second salvo hit the manor. They all crouched as rifle fire began cracking in a steady stream outside, punching out the windows.




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