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  Ripper was the one with the beliefs; he was the one who had gotten Hades and Visigoth in over their heads. But Ripper was still their friend, and being purely selfish, if Ripper opened his mouth in court, they would all be in the shit over their heads, mouths open and suffocating. The latter being a better reason to get Ripper out than the former, if Hades was honest.

  So what if Freedom Right had an inside man? What good was one man on the inside? If a force of trained soldiers were utilized, then maybe they would stand a chance. But Hades and Visigoth were two guys who spent more time playing fast music than exercising, and drank too much beer and smoked too much weed. They were dead men walking.

  Hades looked away from the ribbon of road as it unwound ahead of him for as far as he could see. There was nothing else out here, so he could spare the attention. Visigoth sat still looking ahead, his features stony. Leaning against the door frame on the far side of the cab, his mouth slack and drooling while he gently snored, Arvo did not look like a man who was about to lead a paramilitary attack.

  Maybe he wasn’t. Back in Tallinn, the Freedom Right soldiers had scared the living shit out of Hades, but now that they were away from that atmosphere, Hades had a chance to process what had been yelled at him and Visigoth.

  In the back of the truck there was a lot of conventional weaponry, some of it from the bunker they had traveled to. There was also one of the cylinders that Seb had been so keen for them to load before the Americans got him. The thought that Hades and Visigoth had been so close to their own deaths that day still made Hades shudder and momentarily deflected his train of thought.

  But not that much. Death and the prospect of it were wonderful for focusing the mind.

  If he had understood correctly—through the rush and confusion of fear—then the attack on the courthouse was to be a straight assault and extraction. If that was so, then why did they need this nuclear device?

  Why the hell did Freedom Right want to nuke Oslo when they were supposed to be getting back one of their own?

  Hades returned his gaze to the road ahead. The only thing that would make sense was if he and Visigoth were being used as a decoy, and Arvo had another directive. Hades and Visigoth were to be a sacrifice while Arvo completed his mission. In which case, Hades and Visigoth—and Ripper too, for that matter—were as good as dead.

  Hades’s mouth set hard. If so, then these guys might get a little surprise. In fact Hades was more than a little surprised himself. Maybe now that he knew he had nothing to lose, he suddenly gained the courage to do things that otherwise would have seemed impossible.

  At first chance he had to talk to Visigoth without Arvo being able to overhear. The man had to take a piss sometime. Hades would hold Visigoth back when this opportunity came, so that Hades could persuade him. They were still at least eight hours from Oslo.

  No one—not even Arvo—had a bladder that strong.

  * * *

  THE WATERY SUN was still low in the sky as it rose over the firs of the Norwegian forest. Bolan and Dostoyevsky had been driving all night, swapping to rest and for the soldier to catch up with the intel that Kurtzman and Tokaido had managed to scare up through hacking every traffic system they could find along the route.

  The luck that had been so erratic throughout this mission had taken a turn for the good once more: the truck headed for Norway was the same one that Bolan had originally placed the GPS on, and a vehicle recognition program had been able to pick out that that was the vehicle now headed back toward Oslo.

  Bolan had mixed feelings about that. It would make it easier to intercept the terrorists before they had a chance to put their plan into operation in the Norwegian capital; on the other hand, it meant that the rest of the hardware they needed to track down was currently flying under the radar.

  “Don’t sweat it too much, Striker,” Kurtzman answered when Bolan voiced this concern. “We picked up one other truck—very similar to the one you’re chasing—that emerged from the same area of Tallinn within twenty minutes of the first. There were no others before the authorities locked down the area, so we can call it a reasonable assumption that this baby has what you’re looking for.”

  “You’ve picked up a trail?”

  “Not yet, but it’s just a matter of time. Considering the amount of money Estonia is supposed to be pulling in from their software, you’d think they might invest just a little more in a decent CCTV system for their capital. As it is, the images are so grainy that it’s been a bitch to get a recognition app to take. We’re filtering and cleaning the pictures, and we should be there shortly. As soon as we are, then we can apply it to every camera we can pick up on every compass point until we make a trail. You leave that to us, Striker, and concentrate on taking down these idiots before they do some serious damage.”

  “Your friend is right,” the Russian said when Kurtzman signed off. “We cannot split ourselves. The sooner we make it hard for these dudes, the sooner we can shoot the other ones a new corn hole.”

  Bolan looked at him askance. “Just what exactly have you been watching on that satellite dish of yours?”

  They continued in silence for some time. There was little traffic at this time of day, only long-distance truckers traversing the northern wastes from isolated city to city. As a result Bolan and the Russian made good time. The flipside was that—as Bolan was all too well aware from Bear’s intel—the first truck was also making good time.

  “How many men do they have with them?” the Russian asked at one point. “It would help if maybe we had some idea of who we were going up against.”

  “I figure that it has to be the two metalheads who were at the bunker. They weren’t at the house. At least I never saw them among the dead. They’d have to have at least one terrorist to hold their hand.” A raid on the courthouse and an atrocity like the one threatened—which Bolan knew Freedom Right had the hardware to perpetrate—would be too much for the inexperienced musicians on their own.

  Bolan had seen them, back in the warehouse. They were not brave, experienced soldiers of any hue. They were amateurs and in all likelihood terrified. However, that would not make Bolan underestimate them. They had a raw courage and bravura, and fueled by the panic of fear, that could make them, in some circumstances, more dangerous than a seasoned warrior. The musicians would be unpredictable and would do things that others would neither expect nor dare to do.

  “You are quiet, Cooper,” Dostoyevsky murmured.

  “Have you ever considered,” Bolan said, not answering directly, “that there’s nothing more perilous than letting loose a man with tools he doesn’t know how to use properly and who has no idea what kind of consequences his ignorance can lead to?”

  The Russian gave him a look that was, if possible, even more serious than usual.

  “Cooper, I have been thinking of nothing else.”

  * * *

  VISIGOTH WAS AT THE WHEEL as they entered Oslo. At the behest of Arvo, Visigoth drove carefully but not so carefully that he would attract attention. He needed to pilot his way across the city to a safehouse that had been established at short notice by sympathizers in the city. The original plan, to drive in on the morning and hit directly, was blown out of the water by American interference. Now they had to hole up for twenty-four hours, knowing that they were in a city that would be approaching lockdown, sweating out Freedom Right’s bomb threat deadline.

  For Arvo it was about directing the Norwegians one way so that the two metalheads could take attention from his own mission. He was to trigger an explosion, the magnitude of which would announce to the world that Freedom Right was a group to be taken seriously and had the firepower to back up its goals.

  For the Norwegians, it was about freeing their friend. Originally because he could incriminate them. Now, knowing that they had already left a trail to damn them far more than any testimony Ripper coul
d give in court, it was about freeing him and fleeing somewhere they could start over and escape a justice that would never believe they had been sucked in beyond anything they could have imagined.

  Arvo had no idea how easy it would be for him to seemingly manipulate the young Norwegians. On the journey, Hades had managed to secure a few moments with Visigoth, and had found to Hades’s relief that his friend had been having the same doubts and ideas. A few snatched moments of conversation and they had determined that, as soon as they could escape from Arvo, they would continue with the mission in their own way, regardless of what had been intended.

  Now they pulled up outside a boarded house that stood near the center of the city, in a street that dated back to the nineteenth century. It was still early in the morning, and there were only a few commuters on the road as they climbed out of the truck. The door to the house opened before Visigoth had locked the truck, and a small man beckoned them in, casting a glance up and down the street as he did so.

  “Do you want to make yourself look suspicious?” Arvo grumbled.

  “The police have been more conspicuous of late,” the small man replied in an even tone. “They are waiting for tomorrow, and they are waiting for you. Is it any wonder I feel nervous?”

  “Nervous is one thing. Stupid is another,” Arvo snapped. “The last thing we need to do is attract attention at this time. What time is Nils due?”

  “His duties end at five thirty. He isn’t even at work yet,” the small man said, checking his watch. “I think you should chill out a little and take some rest. You’ll need it for tomorrow morning.”

  Reluctantly Arvo agreed. “I suppose so. You two, follow him,” he barked at the musicians.

  They followed the man out of the room and to the second story, where they were shown into a tiny room, with the door closed on them. They exchanged glances, and Visigoth put his ear to the door before speaking.

  “I half expected them to be listening,” he said with grim humor. “What the hell are we going to do, man?”

  “Get Ripper,” Hades said simply.

  “How the hell can we do that?”

  “This Nils must be the inside man they were telling us about. We listen to what he says and we just do it, man. He’ll be giving us all the information we need, and we have hardware. We just need to get rid of Arvo so he can’t screw us over,” Hades said.

  “You know what? I think he has other plans anyway,” Visigoth mused. “He’s got one of those weird bombs on board. No way were we going to be using that at the courthouse. I don’t think we can trust what Nils says, dude.”

  “Then maybe we don’t give him a choice,” Hades replied with a sharklike grin.

  * * *

  ON THE GROUND FLOOR Arvo looked out at the truck. “Will that be safe?” he asked the man.

  “Figure so,” he replied. “This is a quiet street. Nothing happens here. No one’s going to even notice the truck is out there. Don’t worry about it. We’re invisible.”

  Despite living in the house for almost a year, he had never noticed the CCTV camera mounted on a lamppost at the corner of the street. As it angled around, it caught the rear of the truck full-on, its license plate centrally framed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  By late afternoon Bolan and Dostoyevsky had arrived in the capital. The courthouse was a modern piece of architecture, and one of the few buildings in the center of Oslo not to be at least partially constructed of wood. The nearby stock exchange and university dated back to the nineteenth century and reflected the influence of the architect Grosch from that century.

  No so the courthouse. Leaving the Russian’s sedan safely locked and secreted in a side street, the two soldiers examined the exterior of the courthouse and the surrounding streets on foot. There was a heavy police and military presence in the area. It was discreet, but if you knew what to look for—as they did—then it was evident. There were unmarked trucks that contained soldiers and surveillance equipment, and although the added personnel did their best to blend in with the regular security around the environs, the sheer weight of their numbers told its own story.

  “They look like they could handle three, maybe four men,” the Russian remarked. “They’ve got the numbers—are we really necessary at this end?”

  Bolan considered that. “Yeah, and I’ll tell you why. They don’t have the intel we have about the potential firepower. They don’t have our suspicions about an inside man or men. They don’t actually know who they’re looking for. We do. And I’ll tell you something else—they’re expecting this to be one attack focused on the courthouse.”

  “And we’re not?”

  Bolan shook his head. “They’re not going to use that kind of firepower just to bust out a failed terrorist who can’t tell anyone anything more than what they already know. This is a diversion. The real attack will be elsewhere.”

  “Given that the authorities have no knowledge or suspicion of this, and we have nothing more than your hunch,” the Russian murmured, “then how do we know where else we should be looking?”

  Bolan grinned. “Let’s get back to the car, and we’ll see what new intel we can scare up.”

  * * *

  HADES AND VISIGOTH listened carefully to what Nils had to say. On his arrival at the house, he had eyed them in a manner that suggested they were already history. Both Norwegians had kept stone-faced. Sitting them down, Nils opened a file on his tablet and took them through the schematics of the courthouse, and the one area of possible entry that he would be able to effect for them. He then ran them through the plan for diverting the authorities while they made an escape with Ripper.

  Arvo watched the two Norwegians carefully until he was satisfied they had understood—and more important, believed—the plan.

  A key part of this was that while Nils, under the guise of being taken hostage, would aid them in freeing and escaping with their companion, the diversionary measure would be taken by Arvo, at a different location. Hearing that, the Norwegians had remained impassive, though both now understood how they were to be sold down the river.

  In the room they shared, they waited until they were sure that they were not being observed before exchanging a few brief words.

  “You worked it out?” Hades asked.

  Visigoth nodded. “Seems clear. Gets you-know-who off our case.”

  Hades grinned. “We can make this work for us. Nils won’t expect anything.”

  Visigoth shrugged. “If he does, then it’ll be too late.”

  * * *

  BOLAN AND DOSTOYEVSKY booked a hotel room for the night, securing the sedan in the facility’s parking lot. Earlier a call to Stony Man had given them the intel they had been hoping for. Hacking into the traffic control system for Oslo, Akira Tokaido had lifted CCTV images that showed the known vehicle entering the city and was now monitoring its static position on a residential street.

  “It was nice of the boys to park so beautifully,” the Russian said as he looked again at the video on Bolan’s smartphone, which showed the truck facing the camera, the license plate clearly displayed.

  Bolan said nothing for a moment. He had watched the time-lapse images of the truck arrive and three men get out. There had been at least one other man who had greeted them. How many more? If there was another cell here, then the notion of dealing just with three or four men was blown. There was no real way of knowing exact numbers.

  That was one variable Bolan could have done without. Another was that there was only one vehicle that they could identify. If the courthouse attack was the decoy he suspected, then there would have to be a second vehicle to transport the ordnance to its intended target. He voiced this opinion to the Russian.

  “True,” Dostoyevsky replied after consideration. “But we have the advantage of knowing where they are based, and also that they will no
t move until the morning. What is to stop us from mounting an attack that will forestall their actions?”

  “Nothing in theory.”

  “But in fact?”

  Bolan grimaced. “It’s a heavily residential area. I’d feel happier if I could intercept them when they were in motion, get the truck somewhere a little more isolated. Right now, too many could get hurt if that truck went up.”

  “Cooper, if it’s a nuke, then a klick or two isn’t going to make a lot of difference.”

  “Maybe not. I wonder if they’ve armed it yet?”

  “They’d be really stupid if they had. Which, if you ask me, is another reason to attack now. At least this way, we can get the truck clear or eliminated before they have a chance to arm the weapon.”

  Bolan sighed. “You’re making a convincing argument. We haven’t had a chance to recon the area, though. There has to be a second vehicle, and that means maybe a second safehouse. If it’s close, then we could be outnumbered.”

  “Cooper, we can deal with being outnumbered. We can’t deal with being nuked. Come on, man, where is your sense of adventure?” The Russian laughed, clapping the soldier on the shoulder.

  “I don’t do this for a sense of adventure. I do it to keep people safe,” Bolan replied. “But maybe this is the best way to do that.”

  * * *

  STEIN THAULOW WAS a good soldier, despite a physique that made him seem small and ineffective. He compensated for that by having a devotion and thoroughness that made him consider carefully every eventuality. He had realized—when word from Andrus had reached him about the early arrivals—that it was likely the same American black ops team that had dogged their progress so far would be hot on the tail of Arvo and the Norwegians. To assume anything else would be stupid.

  So it was that he had detailed the men in his cell to mount a series of roving patrols for two blocks around the house. There were six men working in shifts, making clockwise and counterclockwise circuits, varying their routes by degrees and keeping in touch via disposable cell phones. The second truck—a white DAF van over twenty years old, taken from and marked with the insignia of a catering company that supplied the stock exchange—was under a tarp in a garage half a klick away.