Night's Reckoning Read online

  “I feel a little more confident now. Not just in myself, but because you can concentrate on getting us there in one piece.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bolan said as he hit the ignition and pulled out onto the deserted road.

  As they neared the center of Den Haag, moving into the narrower streets of the older sections of the city, the traffic began to build up as they ran into the bulk of the morning rush hour. They slowed to a crawl through necessity. Bolan concentrated on the road: in his mind, the schematics of the roadways that he had memorized ran rampant as he tried to figure out a clearer route. He could see Grozny scoping the street, and trusted that task to the older man.

  But Bolan was still on the alert, and noted with interest as they crossed a junction where the traffic signals appeared to be controlled by a workman at the signal’s junction box. From the blaring of angry drivers, he figured that the signals had been running erratically, and this may account for some of the snarl up.

  He wasn’t surprised to note that the workman looked more than a little anxious—as if something more important than fixing traffic lights was on his mind.

  It was beginning.

  Chapter 8

  The Serb at the junction box didn’t notice the Saab in among all the cars that passed him. He wouldn’t even have known what type of car the target would be using to approach the court building. What he did know was that he and the two other guerrillas who had been assigned to snarl up the traffic signals were to stick to a strict schedule. So it was because of that he had a closer eye on his watch than he had on the flow on the road before him.

  “Time minus five,” he heard in his earpiece. The hands-free mic dangled around his throat. He grunted in reply, and then looked up.

  The Saab was out of his eyeline.

  * * *

  “WHAT KIND OF VEHICLE are we supposed to be looking out for?” the gate guard asked as he surveyed his inventory for the day and passed the first vehicle on the list through the barriers leading to the court entrance. “I just have a time and a blank space. No license, no make, no nothing. Any bastard could claim to be him.”

  “Relax,” Yvgeny Ushenko murmured as he looked over the other’s shoulder at the listing. “He’ll have Grozny. You know what that fucker looks like, right?”

  The gate guard shrugged. “He’s been here before... I watch TV, right?”

  “Then there is your answer,” Ushenko said with a shrug. “Now, chill and just do the job. Don’t worry—what can happen?”

  “I suppose... Hey,” the gate guard added as Ushenko walked away, cradling his H&K MP-5, “I thought you weren’t on until next Tuesday?”

  “Had to switch shifts with Florian,” Ushenko called back. “You know how he is, him and his stomach.”

  “He’d better watch his sick leave, or else they’ll start a disciplinary against him,” the gate guard said sagely.

  “That’s right,” Ushenko returned, adding in quieter tones, “and that’s what he’ll get after today.”

  * * *

  “YOU IN PLACE?” the heavyset Serb muttered into his headset as he hurried from his unmarked truck across to the building directly opposite the courthouse. He weaved through the slow-moving traffic, drivers registering their frustration with blasts that drowned engine noise. He carried a box that looked just like any maintenance man’s tool chest. The average maintenance man, picking it up by mistake, would baulk at what it held.

  “I’m round the back, entrance in view,” crackled back at him. “I’m in position. Radjan is, too. I can see him from here,” the voice said with a chuckle.

  The young guerrilla was adopting the disguise of a roofer working on the court. Scheduled works were taking place, and it took only the right amount of cash to exchange ID cards and passes with a homesick Polish worker who could return home sooner than he had expected.

  “Good, good,” the Serb leader murmured. “I will be in position myself in two minutes. Commencement in one.”

  “Grozny is not here yet, for Chrissake’s,” his compatriot snapped.

  “Don’t worry. Blacksuit will deliver on time, and what’s about to happen will only shoot a rocket up his ass.”

  * * *

  “STUPID TRAFFIC. WHY don’t these bastards move quicker?” Grozny complained, slapping the dash of the car hard with his hand.

  Bolan ignored the outburst, guiding the car through the crawling traffic—something very odd was happening to the flow this morning, which was just as he would expect. The only thing he could do was to keep sharp and try to find a way through to the court—he was due in a few minutes, and was keen to keep to time as this was the only indicator of identity he would initially have.

  He swung the car round a corner, sliding into a gap between a truck and a 4x4. The court building was in sight. It would be quicker if they could get out and walk, but at least while they were in a vehicle they had some degree of anonymity.

  “You don’t want to speak to me now, Cooper? You won’t even answer, or even drive on the fucking sidewalk?”

  “Don’t take your anger out on me,” Bolan replied quietly. “I’m not going to drive on the sidewalk without cause and draw attention to us. And look at it this way—if we’re moving slow, you can bet your ass that the enemy is, too.”

  “It is my ass you’re betting,” Grozny said with a growl.

  “Fair point.” Bolan shrugged.

  It was then that they heard the explosion.

  * * *

  THE SERB JAMMED the signal box, putting the lights in that area on a permanent red and gridlocking traffic for half a mile. He knew that at that moment his two colleagues were doing the same thing. A half-mile radius around the courthouse was successfully rammed and jammed. Nothing could move, and—more important—nothing could get in and out by road.

  He grinned slyly. He had to hand it to the fat idiot who had become their leader, it was a smart move to plan a snatch that was followed by an underground getaway, moving beneath the gridlock above. So smart that it must have been someone else’s idea.

  Putting this thought to one side, he picked up his tool bag and ran between the cars, crossing the road and heading toward the court. He had a job to do along the way, but first he needed to get away from the small Renault van that had brought him to this spot before it blew up.

  He was a thousand yards away, one eye on the second hand of his watch, when the stone lintel of a nineteenth-century administrative building loomed before him. Thanking God that things had been built to last and withstand anything back then, he ducked into it. A startled concierge in uniform made to challenge him—this, after all, was not the kind of man to usually use this entrance. Puzzled, he opened his mouth to speak while wondering why the man had flattened himself against the wall before any such thought was driven from his mind, like the air from his lungs, by a deafening explosion that shattered the glass door and all the windows surrounding him.

  It was echoed within seconds by two more explosions as the other two Renault vans used by the fake signalmen also went off.

  The Serb took a BXP-10 from the bag, stuffing into his pockets some spare ammunition before hoisting the bag and its other ordnance onto his shoulders like a backpack. Sucking in a deep breath and steeling himself as he had preceding every combat nearly twenty years before, he stepped out of the doorway and began to run at a jog toward the court building, knowing that his two compatriots would be doing the same thing.

  As he ran, he heard a short burst of gunfire from a couple blocks away. Something he was compelled to copy as an armed policeman, in the middle of quelling a rising panic among startled motorists and pedestrians, stepped away from the pack and toward him, hand reaching for his firearm as he framed a question that he would not be able to voice. A short burst from the BXP-10

  stitched him
across the chest and face, propelling him back into the throng. As the gunman would have expected, those unused to combat panicked at the sight of blood and scattered in confusion, into each other, and across his path. Another tap, indiscriminate, caught one woman in the thigh. She hit the sidewalk screaming, while those around her parted as if the flagstones beneath their feet were the Red Sea.

  The Serb ran past the prone woman. He had no wish—nor the time—to finish her off. By parting the crowds, she had served her purpose—while at the same time easing his way toward the court building and the target.

  * * *

  CHAOS FOLLOWED THE BLASTS. A moment of stunned nothing, and then the crowds in and out the vehicles around them erupted. People on the sidewalks rushed away from the sounds of the explosions, running into each other as they came from the triangulation points of the blasts, converging and colliding with those in a central area who had no idea which way to turn. Some drivers attempted to run their vehicles onto the sidewalks to skip past the congestion or try to turn, finding only that they ran into each other or phalanxes of pedestrians, jamming on brakes and blaring warnings that went unheeded.

  Bolan cursed under his breath, while Grozny was louder and more forceful in his curses. The soldier’s mind raced. If this was an attack on them, then it made little sense to blow up three points at a distance—unless the triangulation was intended to trap them at this point, where they would be sitting targets. Certainly, as he scanned the chaos beyond the windshield, that would be a workable theory. It could be a diversion, but he doubted that—surely their enemy would know if they had arrived at court. No, the only thing that made sense was to assume that this was to trap them and then take them out.

  In which case the last thing they needed was to be sitting here.

  “Out,” he yelled at Grozny, reaching over and grabbing the duffel bag from the backseat.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” the warlord grunted as he heaved himself and the Benelli out of the passenger seat and onto the road, dropping the cover so that the gun was in full view. Even in the confusion, there were some who came up short on seeing the shotgun, trying to move back against the tide.

  “Which way are we going?” Grozny snapped.

  “There—” Bolan indicated the court building before leading off. He looked back to check that the warlord was on his heels. “And don’t wave that about. I don’t want bystanders shot,” he yelled above the confusion, indicating the Benelli.

  “Cooper, this is war,” Grozny yelled back with a vulpine grin. “Anyone gets in the way takes their chance.”

  “Not with me. You loose that into the crowd without cause and I’ll take you down myself,” Bolan shouted. As he spoke, he scanned the area around them for potential enemies. The crowds were dense and confusing in their movements, making it hard to recce for threats. They could come out of anywhere, and he was damn sure that the Serbs would have no compunction in taking out anyone innocent who was in the line of fire.

  Even as this raced through his mind he was making a path through the throng of people. The Micro-Uzi in his fist was a good machete substitute, cutting through the crowds like a blade through foliage. He could almost feel Grozny’s breath on the back of his neck; he could for sure hear it coming hard as the warlord struggled to keep up.

  Bolan slowed his pace, turning to let the aging fighter keep up, and that’s when he saw a rat-faced, whip-thin man in overalls cutting a path toward them. The man was able to move so swiftly because he had the same advantage as Bolan and Grozny—the BXP-10 he held at midriff level. From the glittering expression in his eyes, even at such a distance, there was no doubt that he had just the one thing on his mind.

  Grozny was likely to be safe from fire—they would want to take him alive at this point. No, it was Bolan who would be the target, and the only reason he wasn’t already roadkill was because Grozny stood in the line of fire.

  In the line of fire—and presently facing the onrushing gunman. Bolan heard him rack the Benelli, and knew that at this range it would rip the gunman to shreds, but also take out a number of innocent citizens.

  “No!” Bolan exclaimed, grabbing Grozny’s arm with his left hand and forcing the shotgun down before the warlord could pressure the trigger. At the same time he lifted the Micro-Uzi and tensed the muscles in his right arm. Hit the target and not those around—it was an imperative.

  Blotting out the noise and chaos around him, ignoring the pull of Grozny as the warlord struggled to loose the grip, the only thing he saw was the Serb coming toward him. He could see the man tense as he made to tighten his trigger finger.

  Not if he could help it, Bolan thought as he flexed and tapped a short burst that stitched the man across the chest and abdomen.

  The soldier knew it was a good hit, and before the Serb had even hit the sidewalk he was pulling Grozny after him. There was no time to make sure it was a kill; enough to know that the man was down and that they could gain ground.

  “Good shot,” the warlord said as he struggled to keep up with Bolan while they carved their way through the crowds.

  “Save your breath—unless you spot another enemy,” Bolan said. The court was in sight. There were guards clustered around the public entrance and the barrier leading to what he would call the tradesman’s entrance. They were expecting a car, not two men on foot with guns. The automatic response would be to fire first and ask second. That was assuming that they were all honest, and there were no plants who could take advantage of such an opportunity.

  All the while, Bolan kept an eye for both enemy gunmen and for local law enforcement: he hoped that they wouldn’t run into any, as there would be no chance to explain and the last thing he wanted was to have to take down an innocent body.

  Of course, it was inevitable that both things would occur at once.

  As they reached the last junction before the court building, the crowds seemed to part as though offering them a clear path—it was too good to be true.

  It became apparent almost immediately that the reason for their parting was the onrush, from two directions, of an armed policeman who was charging toward the direction of one blast and the oncoming Serb gunman, brandishing his BXP-10, who was responsible for the blast.

  Bolan could see them rushing toward each other, and hear Grozny’s low chuckle as he, like Bolan, realized that they were caught in the middle of the two.

  The policeman slowed, catching sight of what appeared to be three armed men coming from two directions. He was hesitant, unsure of whether he should aim for the duo first, or try to take out the lone gunman.

  The Serb had no such doubts: his view was focused solely on Bolan and Grozny. It made up the soldier’s mind. As the police officer yelled something in Dutch, but in an incomprehensible, garbled manner, Bolan swung round to face the Serb.

  The two men fired almost simultaneously, Bolan’s tap running straight and true, pitching the Serb forward as it hit so that his fire was deflected. How tight it had been between the two men was born testament by the chips of paving slab that plucked at Bolan’s legs.

  No time to worry about what might have been—the Serb was out of the game, and Bolan turned to the policeman, who was frozen, mouth agape, and confused by what he had just seen. Obviously he had expected them to band together against him. As if this were not enough, Grozny was holding his hands aloft, the Benelli dangling in one fist, in a gesture of supplication.

  “C’mon, he won’t bother us,” Bolan said as he grabbed the warlord and pulled him in train toward the court building, leaving the policeman still wondering what exactly was going down.

  That was his problem—Bolan’s was simple math. Three explosions, two men down following—there was at least one man still in the crowds, and they had a hundred yards to cover. The guards ringing the entrances were trying to marshal the crowd, some of whom were looking for sanctuary
in the court building. Overhead, he could hear the sound of choppers in the distance, rapidly approaching. Of course, it was the only way to get law enforcement into the area, given the gridlock. Would they be Koninklijke or army? He’d feel better if he had to deal with the army, given his prior experience with the paramilitary-police arm.

  He’d feel best of all if he could get through the crowd and into the court with Grozny, both of them still in one piece.

  The entrance he had planned to use was flush to pavement level and was surrounded by clamoring crowds, some of whom sought entry and others the reasons that the armed guards were not coming to their aid, merely standing there. It was an angry and confused mob, and there was no way he could bust through easily without risking fire from unsighted guards.

  The public entrance, on the other hand, was raised enough for the guards standing before it to get a view of the crowds in front of them. They could get a better view of who approached, and who parted the crowds—which was exactly what the sight of two armed men was doing.

  Two of the guards yelled at Bolan in guttural Dutch accents. He picked out something about dropping the weapons, but before he and the warlord were forced to yield the only defense they had against a hidden enemy in the crowd, he heard another of the guards exclaim, and caught Grozny’s name in the middle of the tangled sentence.

  Bolan heaved a sigh of relief—as he had hoped, the warlord had been recognized, and it seemed that at least one guard was aware of who they should have been expecting.

  This realization galvanized the guards at the entrance, and they moved down into the crowd, parting those who had not yet been moved away by the sight of the armed men at their rear. They formed a phalanx that allowed Bolan and Grozny to enter the building.

  Inside, the marble hallway was quiet: most of the security personnel had focused on protecting the outside, and there were only a few legal personnel milling about, casting curious glances at the two armed men.

  Bolan breathed a sigh of relief. The first part of the morning’s mission had been achieved. Grozny was in the building. Next he just had to make sure that the trial began with the defendant still alive.