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  It was Anderson. "They've gone to their garages at the track," he said.

  "Sit tight," Bolan told him. "I'll be there in half an hour."

  Traffic was almost nonexistent and Bolan rode the bike harder than he had ever ridden a motorcycle on public streets, slowing only to ride through populated areas. He averaged over a hundred miles an hour and arrived at Laguna Seca in a little over twenty minutes. He found Anderson near the garage area twenty-five minutes after he'd put away his cell phone.

  "There's a bunch of them in there," Anderson said when Bolan parked his bike. "I've counted at least six guys going into the garages and none of them have come back out. What are we going to do?"

  Bolan surveyed the situation. Even though it was the middle of the night, the entire place was alive with activity — motorcycle engines revved in garages, people came and went, delivering parts and other supplies, air wrenches spun away, various tools banged and clanged away. It was the night before the big race and motorcycles were being rebuilt, their engines overhauled, their wheels being covered with new race rubber. This activity would continue through the night right up until the next afternoon's race.

  "Is there a back way into the garage complex?" Bolan asked.

  "Yeah, there are back doors to all the garages. It's a long way around to the back, but we can take a shortcut through the Ducati garages. Follow me."

  Bolan and Anderson jogged over to the Ducati garage complex and went inside.

  "Where've you been all day?" a man asked Anderson. "And what happened to your eyebrows?"

  "Let's talk later," Anderson said. "I've got to do something."

  "You've got to get your ass to bed," the man said. "What the hell? Are you on drugs or something?"

  "Look, man," Anderson said, "you're my manager and I love you like a brother, but you have to believe me — this is important. Have I ever lied to you or let you down before?"

  "Never."

  "I'm not my brother. I know he broke your heart when you managed him, but I'm not him. Please believe me when I tell you that this is a matter of life or death."

  "Who's your friend?" the manager asked. "You know you're not supposed to let anyone in here the night before a race."

  "It's important," Anderson reiterated. "You're just going to have to trust me."

  Anderson and Bolan jogged out the back of the Ducati garage complex and broke into a run until they reached the Free Flow complex. The door was locked.

  "Stand back," Bolan said. He pulled a gun with a sound suppressor screwed to the end and fired into the lock. Anderson was surprised at how loud the gun was — in the movies they just coughed a bit. Still, there was so much background noise around the garage area that no one would have noticed the shot.

  "Stay here," Bolan told Anderson just before he kicked open the door. While the door swung open he lurched to the side in case someone took a shot at them. When no bullets flew through the door he glanced around the corner. The area immediately behind the door was empty and unlit, but Bolan could see lights on in the area where Botros had set up his office.

  The Executioner checked to make sure that Anderson wasn't following him and entered the building. A couple of men appeared in the doorway separating the storage area in the back of the garage from the main part of the complex. Bolan ducked behind some boxes and watched them head back to the door. The first man looked at the destroyed lock and said something to his partner in Arabic, but before the man had a chance to process his partner's words, Bolan fired a round into the back of his head. The man who'd examined the door reached for a gun but his hand hadn't yet touched the grip sticking out of the waistband of his pants before the Executioner punched a round through his forehead.

  Bolan spun toward a noise he heard coming from the doorway and fired at a figure that had appeared, dropping the man to the ground. He moved along the wall until he reached the doorway and glanced around the corner. Before he could see anything a hand grabbed his neck and spun him around through the door, right into a roundhouse punch that would have dropped him, had the hand around his neck not been holding him up. Two other men came into what was suddenly a very fuzzy picture for the soldier. Each man grabbed an arm and slammed Bolan up against the doorframe. The man who had hit the soldier began to pummel him.

  Bolan saw a silver streak come down from his right and the man who was hitting him dropped to the ground. Though he wasn't quite sure what had just happened, his instincts took over and he brought both of his shoulders back against the Adam's apples of the men trying to hold his arms still. It wasn't enough to take the men out of action, but once again Bolan saw the silver streak come down across the head of the man on his right. This time Bolan had regained his wits enough to see that it was Eddie Anderson swinging a large torque wrench. Both the man who had been punching him and the man who had been holding his right arm lay on the ground, their brains exposed through large gashes in their skull.

  Bolan swung his right arm around and punched his knuckles into the throat of the man still holding his left arm. He felt the trachea collapse beneath his knuckles, but he held the man up and gave him another powerful punch in the throat, just to be certain. The man collapsed to the ground, choking to death.

  15

  When the bullets started flying, bin Osman grabbed Maurstad and ran for the door with Botros hot on his heels. He watched through the open door as the American devil mowed down man after man. Botros had been correct; this man was Iblis made flesh. Bin Osman threw Maurstad into the back seat of a BMW sedan and shouted at Botros to drive.

  They had barely made it out into the driveway when something inside the shed exploded. Botros looked at the building in his rearview mirror and saw flames melting the corrugated metal walls by the overhead doors. He got out to Highway One and pushed the German sports sedan to its absolute limits, taking the curves of the Coastal Highway as fast as the sophisticated combination of German suspension and Japanese tires would allow. Even though the BMW has one of the best-engineered suspensions available, it threatened to let go and the tires howled in protest, but Botros kept the car just within its limit and they made it back to Laguna Seca without crashing.

  Maurstad had finally lost his mind completely. Bin Osman couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying, but he was pretty sure Maurstad didn't know himself. When bin Osman started to worry that he might go as mad as Maurstad if he had to keep listening to Maurstad's caterwauling, he punched the man in the jaw and knocked him unconscious. Maurstad still hadn't woken up when they pulled into Laguna Seca. The security guard gave bin Osman and Maurstad a suspicious look, but bin Osman just said, "The infidel has had too much to drink." Bin Osman laughed at his joke, as did Botros, but the guard just gave them a forced smile.

  Once inside the garage complex, the pair carried the still-unconscious Maurstad to the office area and had their men stand guard against the attack they knew was coming.

  "He's Iblis, I tell you," Botros said. "He's come to take us to Hell."

  "You idiot," bin Osman said. "There is no Iblis. He is a man who just happens to be very good at what he does."

  "You blaspheme!" Botros yelled. "There is an Iblis as sure as there is a Heaven and a Hell."

  "You fool. We can never hope to understand Heaven and Hell. Simply thinking of them as concrete places is the real blasphemy."

  Botros had finally had enough of his so-called superior. Bin Osman had served his purpose. He'd obtained the plutonium and the technical expertise to build the bomb, and he'd built the network that allowed them to plant the bomb and activate it in the heart of San Francisco. For all this Botros was grateful.

  But to achieve all that Botros had been forced to allow a deviant to practice his perverted hobby on countless people over the past couple of years. It compromised Botros and worse yet, it compromised the plan. Every time Botros had been forced to leave someone alive so that bin Osman could torture them later, he had been putting himself, his people and the plan in jeopardy.

  B
otros had had enough. The Malaysian fancied himself the leader of this operation, and as long as he controlled essential aspects of the plan, Botros had been content to let him believe this, but now this weakling had become a liability. Botros had no doubt that if the big American devil captured him, bin Osman would roll over and give up the plan. He would tell the man where he could find the bomb, how to disarm it and probably the names of everyone who had worked on the plan from its inception. He was as weak as the now-conscious American lying in a heap on the floor, whimpering like a young schoolgirl.

  And now this deviant who had been polluted by Western decadence was lecturing Botros about blaspheming? That was more than Botros could tolerate. Before the swine could open his mouth again, Botros drew his dagger and in one hard swipe, he sliced the man's neck open, nearly cutting off his head. Blood sprayed the entire office area, covering both Botros and Maurstad.

  Before Botros had a chance to clean the blood off his face, arms, and chest, he heard commotion in the storage area at the back of the garage complex. He heard the muffled pops that he'd learned to recognize as the American devil's suppressed handgun, and he heard thuds that sounded like fists hitting flesh. Then all went quiet.

  Botros held no illusions that his men had finally beaten Cooper. He didn't care. As long as the American didn't capture him or Maurstad, he had no way of finding the nuclear device and no way of stopping the plan from working. He lifted up the blood-soaked scientist and placed his Glock handgun to the man's head.

  When Botros saw the large form appear in the doorway, he knew it could only be Cooper coming for him. The little spider monkey in his wake could only be Anderson. Botros thrust Maurstad in front of him and waited for the two Americans to enter the room. When the big devil saw him, he froze.

  "Welcome, Mr. Cooper," Botros said.

  * * *

  Bolan and Anderson moved slowly into the main part of the garage area, Bolan's Beretta leading the way. A flash of movement from the office area caught the Executioner's attention. He turned to see two figures bathed in fresh blood emerge from the makeshift office. At first he couldn't tell who they were, but upon closer study he realized it was Botros and Maurstad. He looked behind the two men and saw bin Osman crumpled to the floor, his head dangling from his neck. Botros held a gun to Maurstad's head and used the nuclear scientist as a human1 shield.

  "Welcome, Mr. Cooper," Botros said.

  The Executioner leveled the gun at the pair. He'd assessed the situation and deduced Botros' plan right off — kill everyone who could give up the location of the bomb, including himself. The overweight scientist made a complete shield for the smaller Saudi. Bolan couldn't get a clean kill shot at him, and that's what it had to be. Botros not only had his finger on the Glock's trigger, but he'd squeezed the trigger to the end of the cocking portion of its trigger stroke. The slightest pressure would send a bullet into Maurstad's brain, and Bolan needed the man alive if he had any hope of finding and disarming the nuclear bomb set to destroy the San Francisco area.

  "Drop the gun," Bolan ordered, knowing full well that Botros would not comply. He was buying time, trying to line up a kill shot at Botros.

  "Why would I do something so foolish?" Botros asked.

  "To live." Again, Bolan knew that living would not tempt a fanatic like Botros, but he just wanted to keep the man talking.

  "Live! Soon I will begin to live. Soon I will go to Heaven with the martyrs and will live in Paradise, away from you decadent infidels."

  Bolan could see the muscles in the man's hand tense as he prepared to pull the trigger.

  "Wait!" he shouted, not knowing what he'd say next, but relieved to see the muscles in the hand relax. "There must be something you want. A helicopter out of here, a fueled jet waiting for you at the airport. Something."

  "I know what you want," Botros said. "You want this man so he can betray our plans and help you find the device he so kindly built in order to destroy his fellow Americans."

  "We can work this out," Bolan said, trying to line up a good shot at Botros.

  "Work (his out," Botros said and squeezed the trigger of the Glock. The bullet entered Maurstad's face and flew out the opposite side of his head, taking most of the scientist's brain with it. Still holding up the lifeless carcass as a shield, Botros said, "Now you'll never find the bomb." He placed the barrel of the gun in his own mouth and pulled the trigger the final time.

  Bolan looked at the two bodies crumpled on the floor before him. Mareebeth Maurstad was an orphan. His heart went out to the girl, but he knew she was tough — he'd seen it in her eyes when he rescued her. He hoped she'd be all right.

  He'd failed. He'd just lost his last best hope for finding and disarming the nuclear bomb. If he was unable to do so, he'd have to have the president order an evacuation of the city, something that would cause almost as much chaos and social discord as a nuclear explosion. Given the short notice, tens of thousands of people would still likely die, and America would lose one of its most important cities. He'd have Hal Brognola get the president to start working up plans for an immediate evacuation, but the soldier still hoped it wouldn't come to that. He planned to do everything in his power to find and disarm the bomb.

  That meant searching the Free Flow garages on the off chance that they might find some useful information. He was about to have Anderson help him with his search when he realized that the young man was on the verge of becoming unglued.

  "You all right?" the soldier asked.

  "I was going to kill him," Anderson said, looking down at Botros' lifeless body. "He killed my brother, and I was going to kill him."

  "Well, he's dead now. You can want to kill him for the rest of your life and it won't change that fact. Dead is dead, and you can't undo that. Believe me, I wish I could."

  The young man looked up at Bolan and said, "You don't understand."

  "You think you are the only person who ever lost a loved one?" Bolan said. Anderson just looked at the man he knew as Matt Cooper and remained silent. "You think you are the only person who ever lusted for revenge? You think having this man die by your hand would somehow make what happened to your brother all right?

  "Listen to me, kid. It doesn't make anything all right. It doesn't change a thing. Dead is still dead. This man was evil. He is gone and the world will be a better place for it. It doesn't matter how he died — he's dead.

  "But right now I still have work to do or many more people will die. I need to search this place for possible clues and I could use your help. Can you compose yourself and help me?"

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Look for something, anything you can find that might have local addresses or lists of names, any information like that. They've planted a nuclear bomb and I have to find it."

  Bolan began by searching the bodies. He found nothing of use on either bin Osman or Botros, but he hit the jackpot when examining Maurstad's body. In the vest pocket of his sport jacket the soldier found the detailed schematics and sketches, all hand-drawn, that appeared to have been the man's blueprints for assembling the bomb. That meant that he also had the instructions for disassembling it. He'd send them to Kurtzman right away and with some luck he'd find someone to interpret the schematics and get back to him with the exact instructions he'd need to neutralize the device before it went off.

  But first he had to find it.

  16

  The Executioner used the downtime while he waited for Kurtzman to get back to him for a much-needed nap. He'd convinced Anderson to do the same. Anderson wanted to keep working with the soldier, but after much arguing Bolan had finally convinced him that he could best honor his brother by getting some rest and then going out and winning the race later in the day.

  If there was a race to win.

  If Bolan wasn't able to locate the bomb, the entire region was going to shut down and be thrown into a state of complete chaos. At that moment it was looking as if none of it mattered anymore anyway. Brognola and the presiden
t had concluded that evacuating the entire region was impossible. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people would be left behind, and thousands more would be killed in the ensuing panic.

  The Executioner had no options. He had to succeed in this mission. The results of his failing were too terrible to allow. At least he would know how to dismantle the bomb should he be lucky enough to find it. He'd faxed Maurstad's notes to Kurtzman, who'd gotten them to some of the nation's top explosive experts. Kurtzman expected to have detailed instructions on dismantling the device to the soldier within the hour.

  As for finding it, the loss of Maurstad, along with the deaths of Botros and his crew, bin Osman and all the Filipino gangbangers working for him had eliminated almost all of the soldier's sources of information. In a last-ditch effort, he and Delbert Osborne planned to raid known BNG hangouts and try to find a gang member who knew where the bomb was. While the scientists studied Maurstad's schematics, Kurtzman worked his digital magic to find out where those hangouts were.

  The problem was that these people almost certainly did not know anything about the bomb. Members of the BNG would be no more motivated to blow up their city and kill all of their families and friends than would any other San Francisco native, so Bolan was going to focus on finding someone left alive who had worked directly for bin Osman. The Executioner had thinned their ranks down to almost nothing since he'd arrived in Monterey, but he hoped there were at least a few gang members alive who knew where bin Osman had been working. They were his last chance, if they even existed.

  Osborne was standing by waiting for the Executioner to call once Kurtzman got back to him with the locations of the hangouts. Osborne had provided some suspected locations to get Kurtzman started.