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  To position men here for surveillance would have been difficult. To effect an escape was not easy. Bolan used the cover of approaching night to head for the cover of the trees. He plunged into the brook, ignoring the cold as it soaked through his boots and the cuff of his blacksuit pants. His ordnance was in the duffel bag, slung high across his shoulders. A Tekna knife in his belt was the only weapon immediately at hand, but as stealth and silence were what he required at this point, that wasn’t a problem.

  The brook was sluggish, and he was fortunate enough to be moving with the current and so making little noise. When he came to the culvert under the road, he was relieved to find that it was open, with no shutter or grille barring his way and needing removal. He dropped to his knees and crawled quickly through, feeling the water cold on his hands and knees. At least he was able to keep his belly raised and didn’t need to crawl flat. When he reached the far end of the drain pipe, Bolan massaged life back to his hands before continuing.

  He was now across the street from the target house, coming on the blind side. He looked at his watch: five minutes remained until the roaming patrol came into view. He crossed the street to the house facing him, the back of which connected to the yard of his objective.

  There was a six-foot side gate to the rear of the house, which he climbed with ease. A low wall stood at the rear of the yard, fronted with half-grown fir trees.

  The soldier scaled the wall slowly. On the far side the yard was empty, and by the light showing at the back of the house, a man was in the kitchen. The house resembled Manus’s from the outside, and the brightly lit interior showed that the layout was similar.

  Bolan dropped down and ran in a crouch toward the rear of the house. The back wall of the lower story was one long glass sliding door. The light from inside shone onto the lawn. Bolan skirted that area, staying in shadows, the knife now resting easily in his palm. The man in the kitchen was alone.

  The man busied himself in there, seemingly oblivious to anything else. He turned away, pulling open the refrigerator and peering inside.

  Bolan tried the sliding door. Unlocked. He eased it open, slipping through the gap and heading for his target.

  The soldier had been silent, but the terrorist had enough awareness to sense another presence and turned. His jaw dropped when he was saw Bolan coming for him, and his hand snaked toward the Smith & Wesson pistol holstered on his hip.

  He was quick, but Bolan was quicker. One arm curled around the terrorist’s neck, pulling him down to meet the upward thrust of the Executioner’s hand as it drove the Tekna knife into the cavity below the ribs, twisting hard. The victim’s face was rammed into Bolan’s shoulder, stifling his cries, while his gun arm was wedged, stopping him from pulling his gun from its resting place.

  Bolan felt the man stiffen then relax, and let him slide to the floor. He took the gun from its holster and slipped it into the web belt over his blacksuit before heading for the stairs.

  He had no idea how many terrorists were in the house, but he had already taken one out of the game and next had to be the man watching the street.

  * * *

  THE CAR CRUISED past the house for the eighteenth time. Two more and the crew would change shifts, getting some much-needed rest. Muscles would be tired and cramped after so long.

  The man watching them from the upper story window put down his field glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes before staring across at Manus’s house without the device. Manus and the mystery man had entered an hour before, and there had been no sign of movement since. All they would need was the word, and they could move in. It should be a simple operation.

  He heard the door of the bedroom click softly as it was opened.

  “I hope you put cream in my coffee this time and not milk. Since these assholes left us with a well-stocked fridge, we might as well take advantage of it,” he muttered, raising the field glasses once more. They were frozen halfway to his face by the time the sound of the strange voice behind him reached his ears.

  “No cream this time. You don’t deserve it. You should be more observant, if you want to do this job properly.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The terrorist turned quickly after Bolan spoke. Taking in the scene almost unconsciously, Bolan’s prey groped behind his back for the Walther pistol he had left on the windowsill, the field glasses falling from his other, now nerveless, hand. As he reached, at the same time he threw himself sideways so as to present a smaller moving target.

  Bolan threw the Tekna, the blade pinioning the terrorist’s hand to the sill, the gun skittering away from his hopeless grasp. He started to cry out in agony and shock, but the sound was stifled in his throat as the iron edge of Bolan’s hand slammed into his Adam’s apple, choking back both voice and breath. As he sank to his knees, the soldier slammed a fist into the soft area behind his ear.

  The terrorist was out cold. Ideally it would have been good to get some idea from him of how many other people were in the house and when the patrol would return. He would just have to find that out the hard way.

  Bolan frisked the unconscious man for weapons, pocketed his cell phone and picked up the Walther.

  The gun and the field glasses had landed with dull thumps, muffled by the thick carpet, but still Bolan paused for a moment, listening for any reaction.

  There was none. The two terrorists had either been alone in the house, or else there were others who had grown lax through inaction.

  Downstairs was clear. There was only this level left to secure. Bolan had seen three other closed doors as he had ascended the open-plan stairs. Bathroom and bedrooms? Probably, but which was which?

  Bolan left the unconscious terrorist, knowing from the force with which Bolan had hit him that Bolan had at least twenty minutes before the man would even stir. Outside, on the landing that faced the living room and kitchen area, Bolan walked softly to the first door. Listening, he could hear no noise within. He tried the handle; the door was unlocked. Gently he opened it to reveal an empty bathroom.

  He closed the door softly and proceeded to the next one. There had to be at least two more terrorists in this cell, otherwise how could they organize the patrols, the static recon and still find time to rest? Yet there seemed to be no one else here.

  The room behind the second door was also silent. He repeated the procedure, only to find that this was a bedroom.

  He was about to close the door and move on when he heard faint voices from behind the last door. He made to duck into this room and conceal himself when he was forestalled by the last door opening suddenly and a tall, thin man in shorts stepping out. He was facing away from the soldier, rubbing his head as though only just awake, and muttering in reply to another inhabitant, out of sight.

  Bolan was almost hidden when the man looked around. He had to have just caught a glimpse of the soldier—enough before his instincts told him that something was very wrong. Snapped instantly awake, he yelled and dived back into the room. Bolan cursed and stepped out of cover enough to take a shot that took a chunk from the doorjamb but was just a fraction off the beat.

  He pulled himself back into the small room, anticipating the flurry of fire that rained down the hallway.

  Now he had a problem: he was trapped in this room, with two men able to advance on him.

  Slipping the duffel bag off his shoulder, he pulled out a gas grenade. He loosed a couple of shots at an angle beyond the door to dissuade any swift advances while he ferreted nose plugs from a pouch on his web belt and put them into place. Another two covering shots—only a couple left in the magazine now—and he rolled the grenade out along the hallway floor. He heard both men yell a warning and begin to cough as the cloud of gas started to spread up and out, drifting toward them. The soldier fired off the last two shots to keep the gunners back, then took his micro Uzi SMG from the duffel bag.


  Stepping out into the hall, he saw the two terrorists clustered around the doorway to the third room. They had MP5s, each pointed at the floor as the men were doubled over, their eyes streaming, both coughing as the gas seared their lungs. They tried to turn and fire but were too incapacitated to respond with speed. Their SMGs were not even level when Bolan had taken them down with two quick bursts that had stitched them both. Before they hit the floor, the soldier advanced toward them.

  He stepped over the bodies and sprayed gunfire into the bedroom. If anyone else had been hiding there, they would most likely have been hit; at least, they would have been driven to find cover and be unable to attack as Bolan stepped into the room, his Uzi SMG leading the way.

  It was empty. Bolan moved forward and quickly rummaged through three carryalls that lay on a twin bed. Two contained clothes and toiletries, while the third held ordnance. There were two cell phones lying on a nightstand. He picked them up and stowed them in a slit pocket of the blacksuit. A shattered photo frame lay on the floor, where his random fire had thrust it. It showed a young couple with two small girls.

  Looking around again, without the focus of a moment ago, Bolan could see that this was a little girl’s bedroom. The group in the photograph had to be the usual residents. The Executioner was thankful that they had not been here when the terrorists had chosen to make this house their base.

  But he put the thought out of mind; there was still work to be done.

  The cloud of gas hung thickly over the upper level of the house as Bolan surveyed the bedroom for any other useful items of intel, then returned to the first bedroom. He looked for anything that he might have missed, and while he was there, he checked the condition of the unconscious terrorist. The man was still out cold, and with the lungful of gas he had taken in while the brief firefight had raged, it was likely that he would be out for several hours more. Any chance of gathering intel from him was negligible.

  Bolan had no idea how long it would be until the members of the patrol were relieved, but if they maintained regular contact, then the lack of response would bring them running. He had to complete his search of the house quickly. Recovering his duffel bag, he hurried to the lower level, where a search of the living room turned up a tablet. He put it in the duffel bag. Along with the three cell phones he had taken, there was a good chance of useful intel being pulled from the devices.

  Time to reel in the patrol. Bolan wanted to get Manus to a place of safety as soon as possible and also get to work on downloading the contents of the phones and tablet to Stony Man for analysis. He couldn’t do that while two of the terrorists were still out there.

  He checked his watch. Forty-three minutes had passed since he had made his way down to the brook. That had been ten minutes since the last circuit he had observed. They were due back this way in seven minutes.

  Bolan left the house by the front door and jogged across the road to Manus’s house. As he ran up the drive, the front door opened, and he could see Manus peering anxiously at him.

  When they were both inside, Bolan explained briefly what had happened, and what he now needed to do. The young producer seemed to take it in, although Bolan could see that the tension was getting the better of him.

  “Hang in there,” Bolan finished. “I’ll arrange it so that you have protection, and at the same time you can tell the authorities everything that you know to show good faith.”

  “I wish I could trust you on that,” Manus said bitterly.

  “Listen, when my contact finishes with the authorities here, you’ll be surprised that they don’t give you the freedom of Oslo. You were roped into this reluctantly, and you’ve done all you can to extricate yourself. Keep it together, Manus, for just a few minutes more.”

  Bolan checked his watch: two minutes to go before the terrorists would drive by again. If he had been dubious as to Manus’s sincerity at the beginning, the young man was either genuinely terrified or wasted in the music business when he could be winning acting awards.

  The Executioner walked to the front door and then out onto the drive. He took the Benelli shotgun from the duffel bag and racked it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Manus asked, half in disbelief and half in horror.

  “Ending this quickly,” Bolan replied. “There’s no need for subtlety now.”

  His timing was accurate. The car turned onto the end of the street, heading for him, as he reached the middle of the road. The headlights pinned him in their glare. The car seemed to slow for a second, and then picked up speed as Bolan raised the shotgun and aimed directly at the windshield. He cut loose two blasts that took out the windshield and the driver. He stood squarely in the middle of the road, unmoving, while the car slewed to the left and plowed through the hedge and into the front yard of the house directly opposite Manus’s.

  Even before the car had come to a halt, Bolan moved after it, racking the shotgun again as he approached. There was no sign of life in the car, even though the engine whined uselessly as the dead driver’s foot jammed on the gas and the wheels spun in the damp earth of a flower bed.

  His shotgun preceding him, Bolan looked in, could see that the second terrorist was also dead, his neck at an unnatural angle where it had hit the frame of the car.

  Bolan backed away quickly, returning to Manus’s house. The front door was already open, and the soldier beckoned Manus to join him. The young producer rushed out, and they climbed into Bolan’s rental car, the soldier pushing Manus to the driver’s side.

  “You drive. I need to make a call.”

  “Where am I heading?” Manus asked.

  “My hotel—for now,” Bolan replied.

  While Manus pulled away, Bolan took out his own smartphone and called Stony Man.

  “Bear, I’m downloading some intel I’ve just picked up from Freedom Right. You might tell Hal there’s some cleaning up to do...and I’ll need him to put in a good word for my friend Mr. Manus....”

  * * *

  BROGNOLA HAD NO IDEA if there was a minister of justice in Norway or what the equivalent post may be or who filled that position. But he soon found out, and when he had, he placed a call to the minister, regardless of any time difference. It was not the most comfortable of conversations under the circumstances, especially when it came to explaining why a quiet residential area of Oslo had become a temporary war zone, and why an American justice department official knew of this before the local authorities.

  However, even if the Norwegian was in the dark about the bunker and its contents, the mention of the threat to Oslo made by Freedom Right and the potential firepower that intel had unearthed was enough to cut through any red tape and dispel any air of distrust and political pride that may have been bruised.

  Two hours later Erik Manus walked into a police station in the center of Oslo and was surprised to find that he was not greeted as a criminal, which was still his expectation, despite the American’s promises. When he was taken to an unmarked building in the center of the city and made welcome by men in suits who were keen to ask him a number of questions—but politely—he only then began to realize the magnitude of what he had unwillingly been coerced into. At that point he also realized how lucky he had been that the American had got to him before the Estonians.

  He wondered who the American had actually been...and what he was doing now.

  * * *

  “TALK TO ME, BEAR,” Bolan said as he hit the highway once more.

  “Your friend Manus is in custody and will be looked after. You think he’s genuine? You think he knows anything?”

  “He’s a stupid young man like the others, but he’s a stupid young man who didn’t know how to back off without getting himself hurt and so got in too deep. I don’t know if he really knows anything, but I’d bet that, if he does, it’s something that he doesn’t actually know he knows.”

 
“Sheesh, I love it when you go all Scooby-Doo cryptic on me, Striker,” Kurtzman said sardonically. “But let’s leave that little debate for another day. What I know—and I know that I know—is that the data on the cells and tablet were very interesting indeed. The calls and texts were mostly personal. They seem to keep their communications to a minimum. What we have been able to isolate are many of a more businesslike nature—on all three cells—that go to a number we can trace to Tallinn.”

  “I know it’s the capital of Estonia, like Oslo is for Norway, but what is with these racial purists that they like locating themselves where their countries have the highest concentration of immigrants? Does it reinforce their beliefs to do that, or are they just hiding in plain sight?”

  “I’d bank on the latter,” Bear mused. “Neither city is a nationalist stronghold, so their security services don’t go looking there...”

  “But we do. Have you got a location?” Bolan asked.

  “Without a call in operation, can’t trace it. And, no, I don’t think you should try just to get a fix. That kind of warning even you can do without. We do have a billing address, though. It’s a box number, but I’ll give you evens they’re within about a quarter-mile radius. The little things always let them down.”

  “It’s a start. Anything else?”

  “They seem to operate on a need-to-know basis and keep their cells fairly isolated when on a mission. There was very little relating to the Oslo pronouncement. An address of where the other cell is, maybe? That would have been nice.”

  “Maybe they’re not even there,” Bolan suggested.

  “They’d have to be. Four days? It’s a hell of a job to get people in and set it up in that time.”

  “Not if they have one man there to rig things, and then move the rest of the men and the ordnance later. The Norwegians were headed up there with the ordnance. Freedom Right is planning to use one of those Russian nukes and decimate Oslo. They’re not concerned with stopping the trial. That’s just an excuse to flex their muscle. If it’s up there, then they’ll bus it down at the last moment.”