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  “Not on paper, but I can tap into any information on-line,” Grimaldi answered. “What do you mean, you’re going with them and they’re getting reequipped?”

  “Exactly what I say, Jack,” Bolan replied, leading Grimaldi toward the cinder-block bunker that was his base. “Chavez-Smith has at least twenty men surrounding him, and we need a little help.”

  Grimaldi looked over his shoulder to see Ross and Goldman follow at a distance. “Maybe you should wait until you see the intel Aaron finally managed to get on these guys.”

  “I doubt if it’ll change my mind,” Bolan replied, “but it might help me keep them in check, especially the redhead. He’s too hotheaded for his own good.”

  BOLAN SENT Ross and Goldman to shower and change under the auspices of Walters. There was a shower room for the use of the airfield’s clients, and members of the flying club that used the facilities, and Walters had made sure that these were secured for the use of the solider and his associates. There was a subtle presence around the airfield that Bolan’s trained eye had spotted, but which was otherwise unobtrusive. The Executioner was impressed with the young USAF officer.

  Bolan wanted them out of the way while he discussed matters with Grimaldi, and that was the best way to do it. He noticed the glances that passed between the mercs when he made the suggestion, but knew that he was in the driving seat at this point.

  “Sarge, those guys are nothing but trouble,” Grimaldi began as Bolan walked to the Citroën as soon as Ross and Goldman were out of sight. “Aaron’s report on them shows that they’re responsible for at least twelve missions on behalf of hostile agencies that have ended in the deaths of several civilians. Those bastards don’t care who they hit.”

  “I know, Jack, I know,” Bolan replied as he took the combat bag from the trunk. “That’s why I didn’t let them know what I had stashed in the trunk. Goldman is the real problem. He’s out of control. Ross would be a good soldier on his own, but he seems to spend half his time keeping the other one in check. I can’t work out why he stays with him.”

  “Loyalty, Sarge. The biggest tie there is,” Grimaldi added, knowing Bolan of all people would understand the import of his words. “Goldman saved Ross’s life when they were working as special branch officers for British intelligence.”

  Grimaldi shrugged. “Anyway, Ross figures he owes Goldman, and they’re efficient enough. They get results.”

  “Which is why I don’t want to be up against them until the end, Jack. The Chilean has a small army at his location. I need the four of us against them. As for what happens when we get the chip back, well, we’ll have to see.”

  “A chip? That’s all it is?” Grimaldi asked in astonishment as he jogged alongside Bolan back to the cinder-block bunker. “That’s going to be like a needle in a haystack.”

  “Not if Hector is in the middle of taking the chip apart to see how it works.”

  As they entered the blockhouse, and Bolan unpacked and double-checked the contents of the combat bag, he filled Grimaldi in on all that he had learned about the sonic weapon, and the suppositions on which they were currently working. When he had finished, Grimaldi nodded grimly.

  “It doesn’t give us a lot of time, that’s for sure. I’ll check in with Stony Man and see if they can come up with any intel on Attaturk’s employers and their agents. The Turk may not be going to pick up that chip alone, in which case we want to know the strength of his forces. And I’ll see if any of the other terrorist groups in this part of the world have made any arrangements with Destiny’s Spear. That could give us a clue to location.”

  Bolan grinned. “It amazes me that they think the Internet is safe to broadcast their movements on. Guess it’s a good job their cyphers are no match for Kurtzman. The other thing you could get them working on is any real estate bought and sold in the past twelve months around Aix that could be of a relevant size. We can check local maps, but if they can tap in and get recent transactions, we can cross-reference. Chavez-Smith’s files showed nothing, right?” When Grimaldi nodded, Bolan continued, “He would have purchased under a cover name, but I can’t imagine too many sizeable properties in that region have changed hands lately.”

  Bolan stripped off the ragged shirt and the ripped pants, then removed the weaponry on the combat harness. He detached the broken mike. “I’ll need a replacement for this,” he said. “Get Walters on it.”

  “Okay, Sarge. Meantime, I’ll get the Farm onto our little problem and see what I can call up for the Aix region. It’ll be good to get out of here and out in the field again. I need fresh air.”

  Bolan clapped him on the shoulder. “I figure that by the time we’ve finished with this, we would have had more than enough…if we get out in one piece.”

  “It’s those risks that make it worthwhile, right?” Grimaldi said without looking around from the monitor.

  Bolan left him to his task and exited the bunker to go and take a shower. He knew that the water would freshen him up, and although he could have done with a couple of hours sleep to replenish, he doubted if they would have the time before they had to move out.

  The soldier jogged across the field to the building housing the showers, feeling the warming morning sun. The sky was dappled with low cumulus clouds, and the azure blue beyond was almost magical. Days like this, days for people to be free and not live in fear.

  This thought spurred him on, and by the time he reached the showers, he was ready to forgo sleep and keep running.

  The finish line had come in sight, but there were still a lot of hurdles to clear.

  13

  Bolan returned from the showers to find Walters waiting for him, along with Ross and Goldman. Both were dressed in combat fatigues that fit, but only just. Goldman didn’t seem to mind, but Bolan was amused to note that the fastidious Ross looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Sorry that the USAF doesn’t have made-to-measure tailoring,” he couldn’t resist remarking.

  Ross had the good grace to look abashed. “Yeah, well, it’s the best under the circumstances, right?”

  Bolan turned his attention to Grimaldi. The note of humor died in his throat as he caught sight of the pilot’s stony visage.

  “Problems?”

  Grimaldi screwed his face into an expression of distaste and disgust. “Something like that. You wouldn’t believe the amount of real estate that’s been sold and resold around the Aix region in the past few years. It’s going to take some time to unravel it all and try to narrow down the field.”

  Bolan shook his head in amazement. “You wouldn’t think that such an isolated region would be so popular,” he stated as he took in some of the information displayed on screen. Grimaldi had also printed some of the lists to cross-reference by hand.

  “Blame it on us Brits,” Ross said with a shrug. Bolan gave a questioning glance, and the merc continued, “Few years back there was a bestseller in England, and a TV series from it. Seems some journalist had taken off to Provence for a year to chill out, and then wrote a book about how wonderful it was. England’s not hot, not pretty and not laid-back…at least, not where most people have to live. So they bought into the dream, and there you are—lots of Brits buying property and then trying to off-load it when they find out it’s not as wonderful as they thought it would be.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” Grimaldi said, casting an eye over the lists in front of him. “A lot of these are English names.”

  “Think we could cut a corner and discard them?” Bolan queried. “Do we know if the Chilean ever uses English cover names?”

  “Wait…” Grimaldi cleared the screen and then brought up the file on Chavez-Smith downloaded to him by Aaron Kurtzman. Over his shoulder, Bolan read the information on display.

  Hector Chavez-Smith was all-too fond of using English cover names. The fact that his own name was double-barreled in Spanish and English was no affectation. Like many Chileans, his name was a reflection of the two colonial powers that had used Chile for farm
ing at the turn of the twentieth century.

  Which was absolutely no help at all to Bolan and Grimaldi.

  “Dammit, we’re just going to have to find another way of sifting the information,” Bolan said.

  Grimaldi sat back in his chair and tapped his teeth with the end of a pen, his mind racing to try to find a way of organizing the task. He wanted to locate the Chilean just as swiftly as the soldier.

  “How about this. We’ve got the maps of the Aix area. Cross-reference those with any property over a certain size to rule out the places that just aren’t big enough for the kind of personnel we know he has, then cross-reference again with those that have changed hands within, say, an eighteen-month window.”

  “Why eighteen months?” Ross asked. He and Goldman had kept out of the discussion so far, but had been listening intently.

  “Because we know from his file that Chavez-Smith had no property—under any name at all—in this area at that time. That was the last full security sweep on him, about the time of the Oval Office intervention on the Irish Peace Talks,” Grimaldi answered.

  “Yeah, I remember that all right,” Bolan said wryly, recalling the concern that the Chilean was selling direct to splinter groups on both sides of the divide.

  “So anything between then and now, of the right size, in the area…that could be it?” Ross asked.

  “Yeah. Of course, we have to do some recons if there’s more than one,” Grimaldi mused, “which, knowing the way things have run so far on this one, is not exactly unlikely.”

  “So where do we get started?” Bolan asked, picking up a handful of printouts and looking at the screen.

  “We don’t start at all. At least, you don’t,” Grimaldi stated, taking the pile of paper from Bolan’s hands. “I think me and Walters can do this, right?” he asked of the officer.

  Walters nodded. “Absolutely, sir. No problem at all.”

  “And you,” Grimaldi continued, poking Bolan in the chest with his forefinger, “should get some rest. And that goes for those guys, too,” he added, directing a thumb at Ross and Goldman. “We’ve been sitting here waiting, whereas you’ve all been in a heavy-duty combat situation. If we’re going to pull this one out of the bag, then you need to be fresh. Go and get a couple of hours’ shut-eye if you can. You’re so wired that you’ll be more of a pain than a help at the moment, okay?”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right about that,” Bolan told himself. “Can you fix us up with somewhere to sleep?” he asked Walters.

  “I’ve got some men on the clubhouse, keeping it secured. We can make up some beds there.”

  “As long as it doesn’t take too long,” Bolan reiterated to Grimaldi. “We need to move quickly on this.”

  “I know.’ Grimaldi nodded. “But I can’t make any promises on this. One thing, though, the longer you keep hassling me, the longer it’ll take me to get started.”

  THE EXECUTIONER WOKE suddenly from a dreamless sleep. He was never far from the surface of consciousness, and the creak of the door and the soft footfalls of someone stepping into the room pulled him back to life.

  Frank Walters was standing by the door, which was open only enough to reveal that it was twilight outside.

  “What is it?” Bolan asked, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. “My God, how long have we been sleeping?”

  “About twelve hours, sir,” Walters replied.

  “How long? Why didn’t—”

  “There was no point in waking you until now, sir, because we were making very little progress. This Chavez-Smith is one hell of a slick operator. We’ve been back and forth over those maps and real-estate transactions, and we couldn’t get the list down below a dozen.”

  “Twelve…That’ll take a hell of a lot of time to recon,” Bolan said, almost to himself.

  “It would have been pointless, as well,” Walters stated. “Seems that he’s too wily to do anything as simple as buy.”

  Bolan’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve also been monitoring police-band broadcasts and news agencies for unusual events in the area. It figures that if there are that many people moving into an isolated spot, or there are any tests or accidents, then word will get out.”

  “And it has, right?”

  Walters allowed the ghost of a smile to cross his lips. “You could say that. Something very odd is happening up near Aix. In a small village called Santon. It seems that no one can contact anyone there. And I mean anyone. It still has a manual telephone exchange, and that’s out. The local gendarmerie are out. The fire department is out. The doctor is out. People with relatives are starting to complain that they can’t contact them. All this over the space of a day, but it’s building up to a hell of a lot of clamor.”

  “And let me guess—anyone who’s tried to get in has suddenly gone out of touch, right?”

  “Exactly,” Walters answered. “Cell phones seem to have entered some region where their signals can’t reach, even though there was no sign of this yesterday or the day before.”

  Bolan was now on his feet and pulling on his pants. “Get Ross and Goldman. We need to get fully briefed right now. Have you got that blacksuit with a replacement mike?”

  “Ready and waiting, Colonel. I’ll make sure the others are ready.”

  Walters left Bolan to finish dressing. Thoughts were racing through Bolan’s head. The fact that there was such a sudden and large blind spot around a village near Aix had to mean something, especially when the weapon in the Chilean’s possession had the capability to transfix and immobilize people so easily.

  Bolan left the room and crossed from the clubhouse to the cinder-block bunker where Grimaldi had been working. The evening air was cool and fresh. He could hear Ross and Goldman coming up behind him, in heated discussion. Goldman was complaining to Ross that their room—Walters had made sure that two rooms were prepared, so that Bolan could sleep alone—had been guarded, like they weren’t trusted. He was amused to hear Ross point out that it was only natural that they be under guard.

  Ross, he could work with easily, but there was still that nagging feeling about Goldman. Bolan dismissed the thought as he entered the blockhouse to find Walters waiting with Grimaldi.

  “So what have you got for me?” he asked without preamble.

  “Would you believe that the sly bastard hasn’t bought any property aroundAix at all?” Grimaldi said with a mix of weariness and astonishment. “Hours spent referencing and cross-referencing, and I’d lay everything on this being the answer.”

  “This being?” Bolan queried.

  “This being the events Frank has just told you about. Suspicious enough, but I had another look over the maps of the area, and also the real estate thereabouts. There’s a château with a vineyard that’s a good size for Chavez-Smith’s base of operations, but it’s something that we wouldn’t have considered.”

  “The reason?” Bolan knew Grimaldi’s exasperated pause was because he wanted Bolan to ask.

  “Because it hasn’t changed hands for at least two hundred years. It’s been owned by the same family for that time. But—and here’s where he was smart—he didn’t bother buying it. He rented it. That way it doesn’t show up on transactions for real estate. I had to spend half an hour getting hold of the local real estate management company on the phone, and then threatening them with anything I could think of to get them to admit that it was being rented. Apparently the family hit financial problems about a year ago, and an old family friend called David Martin—a nice, English kind of name—came in with a proposition. He would rent it in return for being able to occupy it without interference. He’s a reclusive art dealer, allegedly.”

  “With a South American accent, no doubt. I wonder if they really did need the money, or if he just leaned on them a little?”

  “If it’s all aboveboard with rent and a management company, no one locally is going to talk about, or snoop into, the new occupants.”

  Bolan shook his head. “He knew anyo
ne going after the chip wouldn’t think of him renting. But with enough pressure on whoever…”

  “So, he has no on-site landlord, and nothing obvious to tie to the property.”

  “Looks like we couldn’t have found him until he started using that sonic weapon.” He turned to Ross and Goldman. “You were briefed on the weapon, right? I know it was a strictly need-to-know basis, but they must have given you some indication of the effects. Does it last after the weapon is in use, or is he still using it if the village is cut off?”

  Ross considered that. “I don’t know,” he said finally, shaking his head, “I just don’t know. If he’s conditioned the people in the area to stay under his command by posthypnotics, then he could have turned it off. Or it may be that he’s just using it nonstop until his techs crack what makes it tick.”

  “Wouldn’t that be dangerous to them, or to the Chilean himself?” Walters queried.

  This time it was Goldman who answered. “Think about it. When your boys developed it, they must have developed a countermeasure to enable them to use it. Part of the deal Chavez-Smith made to get hold of the chip must have included that.”

  “Is that what you were told?” Bolan pressed.

  “Not as such,” Goldman admitted, “but there was a definite implication.”

  “Can we afford to go with something that slim?” Grimaldi asked Bolan.

  The soldier was grim-faced, his thoughts unreadable. Finally, he said, “We’ll monitor the situation for a couple more hours. In the meantime, we prepare to move. Walters, you pin this down while the four of us get equipped.”

  NIGHT PASSED with the mercs being equipped and run through a few basic procedures by Bolan and Grimaldi. The combat bag was taken from its locker and placed in the back of the Citroën after Bolan used the contents to add additional inventory to the Smith & Wesson and Beretta that constituted the whole of the mercs’ armory. Grimaldi was also equipped, and all four men donned blacksuits with working mikes. Bolan would have direct contact on a four-way basis with the other operatives, and they would also link up with Walters at base.