Point Position Read online

  “No, man, that’s the beauty of it,” Ross interrupted. “These people who’ve hired us are years ahead of what they let the rest of your military know. When we were briefed, they didn’t tell us how it worked, but they had to tell us what we were looking for. It’s a microchip and the circuitry and programming on it can take any home PC and turn the speakers on it into a weapon. It’s the ultimate portable weapon when it comes to sonics. Anything that runs on a computer system can be adapted in a matter of minutes.”

  “And let me guess—the chip will be easy to reproduce once Chavez-Smith or whoever he’s dealing with has the chance to take it apart and examine it.”

  “They didn’t say for sure, but I’d guess that’s about the size of it, and that’s why they’re panicking so much.”

  Bolan said nothing as he secured the flasks in their case, bound it in the protective layer and stowed it in a secure pouch on his combat harness. When this was done, he spoke. “Then I guess the best place to start looking for it is on Chavez-Smith’s yacht. Let’s go—”

  “What do you mean, let’s go?” Ross said slowly, his voice showing an edge of hostility that had not been there a moment before.

  “I mean let’s get Chavez-Smith and try to recover this chip.”

  “No, man, I don’t think you get it. Your job is done. They only wanted you to get back the chemical weapons. And now you have them.” He indicated the safely stowed case. “You get to go back to your paymasters and tell them it’s done, while we go after our target. It’s that simple.”

  “It isn’t. That black project isn’t so black anymore. There’s been light on it, and some details have got out. The man in the Oval Office will want it, so it can be on official record. That brings it into my domain.”

  “Cooper, I don’t want to fall out with you over this, but it’s not just about me, you and Jimmy,” Ross said. “The people we work for will expect us to take you out and reclaim it ourselves, rather than share.”

  “And you reckon you could take me out?” Bolan said, fixing Ross with a hard stare.

  It was a tense moment that seemed to go on forever. Ross tried to hold the stare, but it was impossible. Bolan was a driven man, driven by his principles, and a sense of purpose and duty that could never allow him to back down. Ross could read all of that in the soldier’s clear, icy-blue eyes. He looked away.

  “Guess that’s their problem, not mine,” he said softly.

  “What about mine?” Goldman asked, now on his feet and gradually returning to a grip on reality.

  “You just shut up and follow,” Ross snapped. “You’ve nearly blown this out of the water too often to have an opinion.”

  “I think we’d better get the hell out of here as soon as possible,” Bolan said, “before the police get down here and before Chavez-Smith gets away.”

  CHAVEZ-SMITH WAS still seated at his desk when he heard the gentle knocking at his cabin door.

  “Come,” he commanded, and turned to see his bodyguard enter with the whip-thin and nervous Emil Herve.

  “He comes from Signella,” the bodyguard said brusquely before leaving them alone at an indication from his chief.

  Herve stood nervously for a few seconds, before Chavez-Smith snapped, “Well? Why are you here?”

  Herve sighed and closed his eyes, as though summoning up the words he was about to speak.

  “Salvatore is probably dead by now. So are Jean-Louis and Francine, although that will be no loss. I am the only one left from the raid, and so Salvatore entrusted it to me before setting up the rearguard action.”

  “What rearguard action, and entrusted you with what?” Chavez-Smith inquired, leaning forward.

  “Three men tried to take Salvatore at the Noir, and there was a firefight. He thought he had escaped, but they followed him into the catacombs. They fought hard, and they blew out great chunks of the tunnels. The gendarmes are everywhere, and it’s chaos out there. The three men got as far as our base, as we were trying to evacuate. Salvatore gave me the weapon you wanted us to steal, entrusted me with bringing it to you. I left them there. For all I know, they may be dead.”

  “Everyone?” Chavez-Smith asked incredulously.

  “Of those there,” Herve replied with a shrug. “Not everyone was at base.”

  “Where are the others?” Chavez-Smith asked. He was now on his feet and restlessly pacing the cabin.

  “Probably their usual haunts. There were only eleven of us down in the catacombs.”

  Chavez-Smith nodded. Destiny’s Spear was a cell nearly thirty strong. So two-thirds were still on the loose, although their loyalty to him was compromised with Signella out of the picture.

  “Very well. Find them, spread word that we are to regroup at the château. And I will take the weapon,” he added as Herve turned to leave.

  The thin terrorist paused, seemingly about to speak. Chavez-Smith cut him short.

  “Give me the weapon. If you don’t, I can have my bodyguards kill you and take it. Then where will you, or your group, be? You can trust me because I need you, just as you have needed me.”

  Herve seemed to think about that for a moment. In truth, he knew he had no option, but Chavez-Smith assumed he didn’t wish to appear to give in so easily.

  “Very well,” Herve said finally, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small leather bag, which he handed to Chavez-Smith. The arms dealer took the bag, opened it and extracted a small plastic case. He opened it and revealed the chip.

  “This is it,” he breathed.

  “All of this, just for that?” Herve mused. “It doesn’t seem much, for so many lives.”

  Chavez-Smith smiled. It didn’t reach as far as his eyes. “Gather the remainder of the cell and go to the château, then you will see.”

  “How long will you be?”

  The arms dealer shrugged. “A day at most. We will cast off when you leave and berth at the next harbor. Then I will take this overland. It is important we lay a trail that will lead the opposition into nowhere.”

  “I understand,” Herve agreed. Behind him, the cabin door opened, as though the arms dealer’s bodyguard had been listening.

  Herve left the room unnoticed by Chavez-Smith. The Chilean was still admiring the chip.

  “THERE’S AN ARMED GUARD at the end,” Bolan reported to the mercs as they sat in the tunnel leading out to the port. It emerged into the mouth of the docks, and ended in an iron grille—presumably easily maneuvered—that covered the storm drain and prevented it from being apparently accessible from the outside. The Executioner had made his way along to the final bend and taken a quick recon. The gendarmerie, although making no attempt to storm the tunnel, were keeping it under observation from cover.

  “If they’re at that end, then they’ll sure as hell be at the other,” Ross observed. “Question is, when do they get tired of waiting and come in after us?”

  “When they have the plans of the complete underground and catacomb system,” Bolan said promptly. “It’s the early hours of the morning, and unless someone has these old blueprints transferred to a computer, what are the chances of getting a local government officer out of bed to unlock an office, let alone search for a set of old plans that could be anywhere?”

  Ross grinned. “If France is anything like England, less than zero.”

  Bolan nodded. “That’s what we’ve got to hope for. Which means that we have a number of options to get out, the vast majority of which will be safe for the moment. We just need to find one, and then check it out before evac.”

  “Pity we can’t just blast our way out, though. It would be quicker,” Goldman pointed out.

  “If you’re going to stick with me, then you won’t be doing that,” Bolan said coldly. “Those guys out there have a difficult job, and they don’t deserve to be shot down just because it could buy us time. They’re not the enemy.”

  “All right. I know, I know,” Goldman said, holding up his hands. “It was just an idea.”

  “A stup
id one,” Ross said pithily. “Come on, Cooper, where do we begin?”

  Indicating for them to follow, Bolan led them back into the maze of tunnels, and back past the hollowed out chamber that housed the remains of the Destiny’s Spear terrorists. They carried on into the dark, taking the route that Bolan had used to ambush the terrorists, groping their way through the blackness, using touch to find their way.

  “This is it,” the soldier said as his hands reached into empty air. “Can you feel that air current?”

  “Yeah, and it’s cooler than the air in here. Must lead outside,” Ross said. “But where?”

  “I figure that we’ll come up about halfway between the docks and the harbor, which isn’t ideal for being in a hurry, but will keep us away from the police.”

  “Sounds good to me. Lead on,” the black mercenary answered.

  The Executioner led the way down the pitch-black tunnel until a ray of illumination lit the shaft of an access tunnel, leading up to a manhole, the light coming through the holes in the grate from the streetlights above. Bolan jumped and caught the bottom rung of the rusty ladder, pulling himself up hand-over-hand until his feet were also on the rungs. From there, it was simple to clamber upward and lever the grate out of its socket.

  The streetlights were reflecting on the windows of an apartment building. The manhole was on the sidewalk beside it. It was a quiet residential street, and there seemed to be no one to see them exit.

  Relieved at this stroke of luck when everything had seemed to be going wrong, Bolan pulled himself out and then called down to Ross and Goldman, urging them to hurry. He kept watch while they lifted themselves out of the shaft, Goldman coming last and replacing the manhole cover.

  Bolan slid the AKSU off his shoulder, disassembled it and stowed it on his combat harness. “Hardware away, gentlemen, and I’ll have the Desert Eagle back,” he added, taking the hand cannon from Goldman. Meanwhile, Ross stowed away the borrowed Beretta in its holster. He looked down at his rumpled and torn suit, and the ruined loafers, with distaste.

  “Man, this is no way to earn a living. Look at the state of this suit. You wouldn’t believe how much it cost me.”

  Bolan spared him an amused glance. “If that’s all you’re going to have to worry about before we’re through, then things won’t be that bad. Somehow, I have a feeling it’s not going to go that way.”

  Without waiting for a response, the soldier jogged to the end of the residential street and looked left and right along a road that was lined with shops, staring up at the street names to get his bearings.

  “Jack, are you still with me?”

  Silence. Bolan repeated the sentence. Still nothing. Somewhere along the way, the mike in the blacksuit had been damaged. He was on his own, with just Ross and Goldman for company and no backup from Grimaldi if they started to play their own game.

  It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  10

  Keeping to the side streets as much as possible, it took Mack Bolan and the two mercs almost a half an hour to negotiate the distance between their exit point and the harbor. There wasn’t that much time to spare, but they were hampered by two things. First, the main streets of Marseilles were beginning to swarm with police, as the magnitude of the battle below in the cata-combs began to come to light. Second, they were in no fit state to be seen by the police or any suspicious citizens. Bolan’s shirt and pants were ripped and muddy, revealing the blacksuit and combat harness beneath. Ross’s previously immaculate suit was ripped and torn, splattered in dirt and blood, and his loafers were barely hanging together. The only member of the trio who was able to blend into the background in any way was Goldman. His leather jacket was a little more scuffed and dirty than before, his jeans a little more ripped and muddy. But apart from the blood on his face where he had been hit, he looked more or less the same as ever, making him the one elected to go and recon the harbor when they reached port.

  “You know where it is?” Bolan asked.

  Goldman nodded. “Yeah, but are you sure you shouldn’t go? You’ve actually been aboard Hector’s yacht, and know a little more about the layout.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Bolan told him. “Your job is to check out the exterior security, assuming that the yacht is still there.”

  “And don’t get caught or lose it again, Jimmy,” Ross warned.

  Goldman mimed surprise. “Me?”

  Bolan felt a tension building in him as he and Ross watched the redheaded agent move away from their side alley cover and into the streetlights of the still crowded harbor area. There were increased police patrols, and the private security forces were more noticeable. Word of the disturbances in town had got back to the rich, and worried them, making them a little more paranoid.

  The soldier felt frustrated at remaining in cover. He knew it was the easiest way to complete the recon, as Goldman could pass for one of the poorer sightseers who were now thronging the area, headed for the area where the gendarmes were staking out the entrance to the storm drain. But Bolan was still uneasy. He would have trusted Ross to do a good job, but Goldman was too much of a loose cannon, and too much a slave to his own short temper. Each moment that Goldman was away, the greater the danger of the whole thing blowing up in their faces.

  Another thing that worried the Executioner was that he was still carrying the chemical weapons. He had hoped to call in Grimaldi and evac the weapons to the safety of the nearest U.S. air base before being shipped back to the States. They were well protected, but there was no denying that being on his person didn’t exactly leave them in the safest place in the world.

  Bolan didn’t want the two mercenaries on the trail of the sonic chip alone, but he also didn’t want to risk lives by carrying the chemical weapons and risking disaster. At the moment, he could see no way around this, and he would have to improvise if the chance arose.

  He almost breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Goldman striding back toward them through the crowds. He wasn’t being followed—he was even stopping to check—and his grim visage as he entered the alley told its own story.

  “The yacht’s gone,” he said simply.

  “You’re sure?” Bolan queried. “You checked that it was the right berth?”

  “I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m not,” Goldman snapped. “I asked a few questions—discreetly—and it left over an hour ago. It’s well out of port by now, and no one knew where it was headed, or even seemed interested. It’s a complete dead end.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Bolan mused. “If Chavez-Smith is making such a quick getaway, that suggests that he must have the chip.”

  “What good is that if we don’t know where he’s headed?” Goldman fumed.

  “Maybe a lot,” Bolan countered. “He has the chip, and he has to take it somewhere to strip it down and see how it works. That won’t be at sea, that’ll be inland. Which means he has to land and disembark somewhere. Now why wouldn’t he just go by land in the first place?”

  Ross grinned. “Because he wanted us to follow his damn boat, perhaps?”

  Bolan nodded. “That’s what I’d be thinking. And if that’s the case, then we can forget about the boat and concentrate on our other lead.”

  “What other lead would that be?” Goldman said angrily.

  Bolan resisted the temptation to deck the man. A brief glance at Ross told him that Goldman’s partner felt much the same way. Instead, Bolan said calmly, “Signella sent someone out of the terrorist camp to deliver the chip. That someone knows where Chavez-Smith is headed. And I’ll tell you another thing. From intel, I know that we met nowhere near the total of Destiny’s Spear members back there. They’re around this town, and I’d lay odds they’ll be regrouping and moving out, maybe to wherever Chavez-Smith is headed.”

  Ross nodded. “So we track them down, maybe question them a little, and who knows?”

  “Exactly. Okay, so we’re not dressed for the part, but we need to get on this fast, or else we’ll lose any ini
tiative. They may already have gotten word to each other and be gone. I know you two did a lot of barhopping to find Signella in the first place, so I guess you know all the likely places.”

  “Yeah, and a lot of the likely suspects, as well,” Ross replied, opting not to voice the question in his head as to how Bolan knew of their prior activities.

  “Then we need to get moving. Hopefully, we won’t look too conspicuous in some of these places,” he added ruefully, looking down at his clothing, and that of Ross.

  Goldman gave a short, harsh laugh. “Mate, compared to some of the people we’re looking for, we look positively over-dressed.”

  THE FIRST TWO BARS yielded nothing, as they were deserted except for bar staff cleaning up the mess of the previous evening. Yes, they were open, but the incidents down at the docks and in the catacombs had cleared them out. In response to the question as to the best place to try next, each bar mentioned the other.

  It was already beginning to look as though it was a dead end, but the third bar they visited had potential.

  Ari’s was run by a Greek who had jumped ship ten years before and settled in Marseilles. The basement drinking club could hardly even be dignified with the title bar, consisting of one room that had a makeshift bar cobbled together at the far wall, a counter hiding a fire ax, a baseball bat and an M-4000 shotgun thatAri kept on hand for difficult customers. The choice of liquor was limited to whatever Ari bought cheap that week from the sailors who stole it from cargoes or smuggled it in. And the ambience of the place would make a cockroach feel alienated.

  “This is the place, I can feel it my bones,” Goldman said with a savoring smile as he led them down the rickety iron stairs that led to the chipped and battered bar door.

  “Cool it, Jimmy,” Ross warned.

  Bringing up the rear, Bolan could tell from the set of Goldman’s body as he walked that this was a pointless statement.