Flight 741 Read online

  And for once the KGB reached a similar conclusion on its own.

  Ramirez was a terrorist, no worse nor better than a thousand others huddled in their warrens throughout the Middle East, in Europe, Southeast Asia. But the Raven... now there was an idea. In time it could become a legend if cultivated properly. The media fastened on a single terrorist and were prepared to make him something more: a superterrorist, perhaps.

  In spite of the publicity, Ramirez almost blew it on his own. Not content to lose himself until the heat from Rue Toullier dissipated, he began to read the headline stories, to listen to his own publicity, to believe what was being said about him in the media. And by believing, he saved the day.

  Sporadic missions marked his year in hiding. A border raid against the tough Israelis, bagging several women and a luckless child before the terrorists were driven back to sanctuaries in the east; a bank job in Berlin, with two guards murdered in a brief, one-sided fusillade; a skyjack, ending with the death of six Israeli passengers and demolition of the plane while newsreel cameras rolled. There were other strikes and other deaths, but it was OPEC that made the difference in the end.

  In 1975, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries maintained its general headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Already putting pressure on the West, inspiring temporary shortages of energy to boost the flagging price of oil, OPEC did not surrender totally to interests in the Middle East. The union of petroleum exporting nations was already moving toward a sort of jury-rigged omnipotence, a recognized invincibility. Composed primarily of Third World countries, OPEC was beset by strife and civil war around the globe, but terrorists had left the oil-producing states alone.

  Until Ramirez.

  In OPEC Julio saw a target ripe for the picking, fat with petrodollars, weak from years of being catered to by larger, stronger nations. The plan was bold, and it made the Raven more than just another terrorist. With one inspired, demented stroke, Ramirez made himself a star.

  That Sunday in December, OPEC ministers were bogged down in debate on oil price differentials. An undertone of bitterness had colored the proceedings, bringing the discussions to a standstill. The media were generally aware of trouble in the ranks, and enterprising journalists descended on Vienna, each alert for any opportunity to scoop the competition.

  There was nothing special, then, about the three young men and one young woman who displayed their press credentials for the guard on duty, whisking through the relatively lax security on Sunday morning. Camera cases passed unscrutinized, the pistols, hand grenades and automatic weapons safe inside. When Julio Ramirez gave the signal to attack, his "journalists" were armed and ready for the kill.

  Three guards were slaughtered in the first exchange, another on the very threshold of the OPEC conference room. Surprise was absolute; no terrorist was even wounded as the armed quartet secured their hostages — some seventy in all — and broadcast terms for safe release. Twelve million dollars was the asking price, together with safe passage to Algeria by jet.

  A fourteen-hour siege by members of the Austrian Einsatzkommando unnerved Ramirez to the point that he was forced to set a grim example for the world... and he did so via television, live, in screaming color for the leaders of the West to see.

  The Raven selected representatives of Libya, Gabon and Venezuela, herding them downstairs at gunpoint through the double doors that faced the street. When he was satisfied that camera teams were ready to immortalize his deed, Ramirez fired a single burst that dropped all three captives. The Libyan and Venezuelan delegates were dead on impact with the sidewalk; paralyzed for life, the spokesman for Gabon would live to tell his story — and perpetuate the Raven's reputation for ferocity.

  The double murder forced Vienna's hand... and set the strategists back in Moscow to thinking. Clearly, Julio Ramirez was a man of some initiative and daring, marked for bigger things provided that he did not risk his life too often, too unwisely. If his energy could only be controlled and channeled into special areas...

  The answer was Project Raven, and the rest was history. Instead of disappearing after OPEC, suddenly the Raven had been everywhere at once, in touch with rabid groups of terrorists in Europe, South America, the Middle East. His sheer audacity ensured attention from the media; the almost casual violence of his raids assured that he would top the "wanted" lists of every Western nation while he lived. It seemed impossible that any single man, no matter what his underground connections, could attack with such rapidity at widely separated points, inflicting heavy casualties in quasisuicidal actions, fading back into the woodwork instantly, without a trace.

  It seemed impossible... because it was impossible.

  Recruitment of the ringers was not a problem. There were numerous candidates from the outset, and if Moscow suffered any difficulties, they arose from struggling to narrow down the field of possibilities. Five "Ravens" were selected in the end, selected less for their resemblance to Ramirez — though physique, complexion and the like were closely scrutinized — than for their basic aptitude. Each member of the Raven team was finally selected after psychological reports and testing in the field confirmed his ability to kill — with energy, with relish, with enthusiasm. Anyone could learn the fine points of ballistics, demolitions and the rest, but killer instinct was a quality that could not be acquired.

  The first selected was a Cuban mercenary named Raul Escobar. A child of Castro's revolution, he grew to manhood on the fabled exploits of Fidel and Che Guevara, chafing at restrictions placed upon him by his family, society, the party that declared the revolution in Havana had already reached its goal. With no worlds left to conquer, no wars left to fight, Raul turned to crime and served a stint in Castro's prisons, reemerging as a bitter, streetwise gunman, hungry for excitement in a world that promised only tedium. His innate talents were recognized belatedly by agents of the DGI, and he was recruited for the training camps in Jordan.

  Brief, sporadic action with the Tupemaros preceded his recruitment into Project Raven, and Raul proved himself the perfect stand-in for Ramirez, moving arms and drugs and friendly fugitives from Mexico to Nicaragua, striking at Americans whenever opportunities arose. His sudden death in Mexico, cut down by unknown gunmen in Durango, surprised and worried planners in Dzerzhinsky Square.

  The second Raven clone was Carlos Castresana, yet another Cuban, chosen on the strength of Escobar's success. A radical by inclination, he was employed with Castro's DGI, dispensing lethal punishment to actual or suspected traitors, stalking Western agents in Havana and environs, leading brief, ferocious sorties aimed at disaffected peasants in the countryside. A man whose ego dominated everything except his taste for bloodshed, Castresana resisted plastic surgery at first... until he grasped the full potential of his opportunity. For Carlos Castresana, Project Raven was a hunting license and the world was his preserve. He took to random murder as an alcoholic takes to liquor; there was no looking back and no regrets.

  The Soviets were slow to realize that Hispanic blood was nonessential for their ringers, but they finally got the message and selected Janos Ludovescu as their third in line. The slim Bulgarian could pass for Hispanic if he tried, and surgery would help, but his instinctive thirst for blood was the real deciding factor. Known and feared as an assassin in his native land, suspected of involvement in the torture slayings of assorted prostitutes as recreation on the side, he became embarrassing to a regime not generally known for sensitivity to human rights. He was marked to die by members of his party, men who realized that they could not control him any longer, and the order was cut when Project Raven granted him a brand-new lease on life.

  The KGB was slightly more successful in controlling Ludovescu, but control was not the problem, after all. By definition, Project Raven was designed to foster chaos in the West, and Janos Ludovescu was a perfect doomsday tool in that pursuit.

  The Palestinian — Mahmoud Karmin Khaldi — was Raven number four, selected on the basis of his work with Black September and the PLO. R
eputedly an architect behind the Munich massacre of 1972, he was marked for execution by the Mossad, a standing "hit on sight" directive issued out of Tel Aviv. In Project Raven, he grasped a second chance to strike against the Zionists and their protectors in the West, to carry out his destiny as handed down by Allah in his youthful dreams. It mattered not that he surrendered name, identity, the links to family and friends in Palestine. His life was in the movement now, his soul committed in the struggle to eradicate the state of Israel. Nothing else bore any true significance, and he would die in that pursuit without regret, with pride.

  For Luis Calderone, the Nicaraguan, Project Raven was a shot at fame and fortune once removed. He did not mind the built-in anonymity; if truth be told, he viewed as heaven-sent the opportunity to hide behind the mask of Julio Ramirez, dealing drugs and revolution from Miami to Colombia.

  The KGB did not object in principle to numbered Swiss accounts, so long as monetary profits kept the fifth and final Raven on his toes, in fighting trim. If Calderone attempted to defect or simply disappear, the planners in Dzerzhinsky Square would take delight in teaching him that even Zurich could be reached, the most secure of bank accounts eliminated with the stroke of a computer key.

  Except for Escobar, the Raven clones — recruited over twelve short months — had proved durable in combat and elusive when pursued by agents of the West. It helped, of course, that none of them resembled Julio Ramirez too exactly... just as it was helpful that no close-up photographs of Julio himself remained. The blurry telephoto shots from OPEC, hopelessly outdated yearbook photographs from London and Caracas — none would do the Raven justice now. The several different artist's renderings were even worse, compiled from memories of witnesses who had been praying for their lives and studying the automatic weapon in his hands instead of concentrating on his face.

  The Project Raven clones — complete with matching dental work, devoid of fingerprints — would stand inspection well enough in life or death, and through the safety guaranteed by numbers, Julio Ramirez became immortal. Even when the man himself was gone to dust, his legend — and his living likeness — would continue fighting for the cause that had become his life.

  Confusion.

  Orchestrated chaos.

  Mayhem in the streets.

  The Raven's message was a simple one: destruction for destruction's sake. And if a transient cause could be co-opted for the moment, used to justify the moment's carnage... why, so much the better. Let the IRA or Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhof gang or M-19 receive the "credit" for his crimes. The benefits — in pain and suffering, in the embarrassment of Western governments — would still accrue to Moscow in the end.

  The plan had been simplicity itself... and it had worked with the precision of a fine machine. But Project Raven had a blind side, too.

  Dzerzhinsky Square had never counted on the Executioner.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mack Bolan's flight approached the airport at Salzburg, Austria, through a drizzling alpine rain, the clouds and leaden skies obscuring his view until they leveled off for touchdown. Toby Ranger, in the window seat, was calling off strategic points of interest as they passed below, but Bolan kept his eyes averted from the oval pane of Plexiglas, his thoughts turned inward.

  Flying transatlantic, touching down at Frankfurt and again at Munich, had recalled a host of memories that Bolan would have gladly done without. The Raven's grinning Nixon face had never truly left his mind since he had seen the terrorist aboard Flight 741, but now — confined within the aircraft, the Bavarian Alps rising up to meet him like so many dragon's teeth — the images came flooding back with crystal clarity. He felt the fabric of the seat against his naked back and buttocks, saw the gout of blood as ax bit flesh and bone, remembered rolling in the aisle as boot heels drummed against his ribs and spine.

  His palms were clammy and he wiped them unobtrusively against his slacks. The images receded slowly, ancient anger and a sense of outrage rising in their place, dispelling nausea and setting Bolan's teeth on edge. It was a different flight, a different time...but he was glad the memories were fresh enough to make him sweat. If they had paled, grown dim, he might have lost the grim resolve that drove him on.

  Bolan had a score to settle with the Raven. For himself, and for the other hostages of 741. For every victim on the bastard's sheet. And there was only one way Bolan knew to even up that kind of score.

  In blood.

  The jet touched down and Bolan waited, restless, as they taxied toward the terminal. Beside him Toby seemed relaxed, but he could sense an underlying tension almost equal to his own. The lady fed was way out on a limb this time, ignoring her instructions, flying in the face of established procedures. In the wake of the Toronto blow-out, she had ducked the chance to call Brognola, making Lyons promise that he wouldn't pass the word of her departure from the States until they reached their destination, safe beyond recall. She was determined to pursue Gerry Axelrod, and Bolan wondered if the job was getting to her.

  Before the thought had taken on cohesive form, he put it out of mind. The lady was a slick professional, no question there, with all of the detachment that the term implied — but she had heart, as well. She felt for all the victims, bled along with them... and Bolan wondered if she might not have invested too much of herself this time.

  He had initially resisted her demand to join the game, convinced that he could do the job alone, or with the help that Katzenelenbogen and McCarter might provide. The lady's part of it was over from the moment that her mark had climbed aboard the Raven's van and left her scrambling for cover in an old Toronto cemetery. There was nothing more she could do for Bolan's war.

  But she had finally convinced him that the war could not be his alone. With Axelrod at large, with "Ravens" multiplying all around them, his conception of the struggle was no longer valid. The pursuit of sweet revenge had turned to something else entirely — something that demanded a sophistication and coordination of response.

  And Toby knew the Georgian. She knew him inside out and upside down. At length, reluctantly, the Executioner had been convinced that she would be an asset when he was required to deal with Axelrod.

  The seat belt warning lights switched off and Bolan left his seat, allowing Toby to precede him down the narrow aisle. A short, brisk dash through pelting rain, and they were safe inside the terminal, already scanning for the one familiar face they were expecting. Toby spied him first; the tall man's face was handsome, broken by a smile, his hand outstretched.

  "Striker," he said, as Bolan took the offered hand and shook it warmly.

  "Good to see you, David," Bolan told McCarter, and he meant it.

  Phoenix Force's man in Salzburg waited with them at the luggage carousel, amusing them with jokes and making small talk, touching on the weather, politics, security around the airport.

  Bolan didn't need to be reminded of the latter, there were fewer guards in evidence than they had seen in Munich, but there was tension all the same. As Bolan casually scanned the terminal, he marked no less than seven men in uniform with pistols on their belts and automatic weapons slung beneath their arms. The recent rash of skyjacks, bombings and the like had everyone on edge, from London to the Balkans, and he was relieved that he had come unarmed.

  McCarter would supply him with the necessary hardware for the job he had in mind. For now, the AutoMag, Beretta and the rest of it were safely stateside, ready for retrieval if and when he made it home. Whatever happened afterward, he would at least clear terminal security without the risk of an arrest for smuggling arms.

  It took another twenty minutes for the luggage to appear. McCarter waited while they checked through customs, had their passports scrutinized and stamped. The clerk on duty didn't waste a second glance on "Mitchell Bowman," seeming more preoccupied with "Bowman's" traveling companion. Toby gave the guy a smile that made his day, and they were through in moments, following McCarter toward the lot where he had parked his rental car.

&nb
sp; "We're meeting Katz in Steyr," he informed them when he had the car in motion, "at the Hotel Ibis."

  "What's the local action?" Bolan asked.

  "You're right about the leak," McCarter said, "although you'll have the devil's time persuading anyone to say so openly. They're losing arms in quantities, and nothing seems to stem the flow."

  "Security?"

  "They've been through half a dozen chiefs this year. No matter who they sack, the problem stays the same."

  "I didn't think Vachon would have that kind of weight."

  "He didn't. This is major movement, not your standard pistol-in-the-lunchpail pilferage."

  "Contacts?"

  "Katz is working on the Earth Party now, putting out some feelers for a buy. As soon as someone takes the bait, we move."

  They were traversing Salzburg eastbound, following the flow of traffic through the heart of town. On their left, romantic Old Town huddled on the Salzach River's bank, between the rippling water and the Monchsberg — narrow, twisting streets, arcaded courtyards and tall, narrow houses harking back to the age of Mozart. On the right bank were the newer districts of the town, with the Kapuzinerberg and its conspicuous Capuchin friary rising above them to the east. Despite the rain, a throng of tourists filled the narrow sidewalks.

  Toby turned from the romantic scenery, looking wistful. "Any sign of Axelrod?" she asked.

  McCarter shook his head. "Not yet. We've been expecting him since Ironman passed the word, but if he's here he hasn't shown himself."

  "Where can he be?" The lady sounded angry, worried, all at once. "He wouldn't run back home without the goods. I know that much."