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  “Hurry up, we don’t have much time,” Malpas snapped.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Garrault muttered peevishly. “Where is that Sicilian bastard? He’s supposed to be on the gate.”

  As he spoke, he turned the tanker in the enclosed space of the yard and headed toward the gates, which were still locked. They had made their way through the chain-link fencing with bolt cutters, having checked for alarm wiring, and were relying on the Sicilian to cut the padlock on the gates.

  “Shit, why’d he go back?” Garrault asked as he slowed the truck before the locked gates. He listened desperately over the sound of the engine for any sirens. It was unlikely that the brief bursts of gunfire would be heard over the sound of the docks, even this late. The yards were too isolated for it to carry that far. But he didn’t want to draw any more attention by having to charge the gates or drive the tanker through the city with the front of the grille damaged.

  Just as his patience was wearing thin enough for him to gun the engine and make for the gates, Signella came loping into view. He took the bolt cutters from his belt and sliced through the chain attached to the padlock, pushing the doors open one at a time. He ran back to the truck, panting heavily as he climbed up through the open passenger-side door.

  “You took your time,” Malpas gritted as the Sicilian pulled the door shut behind him.

  “Got my first man with a knife,” he panted. “Unique blade, made myself. Too identifiable.”

  “Should have shot the bastard and saved us some time,” Garrault muttered as he swung the truck out of the gate and onto the dockside road that led toward the center of Marseilles.

  All three of the terrorists kept a close watch as they left the docks behind and entered the still busy night. They thundered past the harbor where the expensive yachts lay moored, and up into the poorer district before hitting the road leading out of Marseilles.

  “Think Chavez-Smith was watching us pass?” Malpas mused as they hit the main road without incident, and they all felt able to relax a little.

  “Nothing would surprise me,” Garrault replied as he took the second exit, navigating a series of small country roads until they saw a darkened sedan in the middle of a field. As they drew near, the vehicle’s lights flicked on.

  “Good. Emil’s ready,” Signella announced as the tanker slowed to a halt.

  “You know for sure where it is in here?” Malpas asked the Sicilian as they climbed down.

  “If Hector is right, and there’s no reason to doubt it,” he said with a sideways glance at Garrault, “then it should be under here.’’ He disappeared beneath the tanker. “Light,” he snapped from beneath.

  Emil Herve came forward with a flashlight, bending to shine it under the chassis. He was a lean, dark man with his black hair in a ponytail. The light reflected onto his sharp features.

  Signella pulled off a section of casing that should have housed the braking system.

  “Got it,” he whispered triumphantly. He pulled out a small wrapped parcel that he handed to Herve before replacing the casing.

  “This is it?” the man asked with disbelief. “They use something this big to hide this?”

  “Moron, no one is supposed to know how big this thing is. That’s why we’ve taken the whole tanker and lost it out here. We want them to think we don’t have it yet, maybe don’t know exactly what we’re looking for. Time is of the essence, and all we can grab we must take. Now let’s get out of here and back to base.”

  They piled into the sedan, and Herve turned it to head back to the main road.

  Throughout the operation, all four terrorists had been wearing latex gloves. But Signella hadn’t realized that the left index finger had ripped while he replaced the plastic chassis casing.

  2

  The man known as the Executioner was enjoying a much needed rest at the ultracovert Stony Man Farm. Although, in the case of Mack Bolan, a much needed rest entailed the kind of routine that would exhaust many men. For the best part of a week he had been between missions, and had spent the days sharpening his skills and reflexes. The firearms range had seen a vast amount of ammo expended as he honed his marksmanship and speed. The gym had seen him put in a large number of hours training, both in basic weight, muscle and bodybuilding, and also in unarmed combat and the various branches of martial arts in which he had knowledge—a knowledge that had left his sparring partners wishing they had stayed in bed.

  In between the physical training, Bolan took the time to hone his computer skills.

  That just left the evenings for Bolan to wind down. Most of his life was spent living on adrenaline, at the knife edge of action. And, if he was honest with himself, he would admit that his War Everlasting had left him as something of an adrenaline junkie. Relaxing was something that didn’t come easily to him.

  Which was where Barbara Price entered the picture. As mission controller, the tall honey-blonde was a vital part of the Stony Man machine, and even Aaron Kurtzman, in his more mellow moments, would admit that it would be hard to run the place without her analytical skills and technological expertise. She had also proved herself as a hell of a fighter.

  Despite everything, at the end of the long day there lurked, beneath the hardened battle shell of the solider, a human being. He still cared passionately about those people who lived and fought alongside him, would spill his own blood rather than see theirs spilt. People like Jack Grimaldi. And although the battle-hardened pilot knew the risks he ran, Bolan would still take the risks himself rather than see his friend killed.

  Barbara Price was a different matter altogether. Bolan knew what she felt for him, although she kept it to herself. They both knew their work came first. But when they could, they tried to find some quiet time together.

  THE SHARP AND INSISTENT ringing of the phone by the bedside woke the soldier instantly from his sleep. Pausing only to allow his head to clear, and to disentangle his right arm from underneath the stirring, naked form of Barbara Price, Bolan reached across and picked up the handset. By the time it was at his ear, he was fully awake. The voice of Hal Brognola cut into the morning with no preamble.

  “I need you in the War Room in fifteen. Something nasty’s gone down in France, and it needs immediate attention…and tell Barbara we’ll need her, too,” the director of the Sensitive Operations Group added.

  “Okay,” the soldier replied briefly, replacing the receiver and rising from the bed.

  Price opened her eyes and blinked, taking in Bolan’s tautly muscled form as he padded toward the bathroom.

  “Trouble?”

  “Yeah.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hal needs us both in the War Room in fifteen.”

  They both arrived in the War Room ten minutes later.

  “Coffee?” Aaron Kurtzman asked as they entered the room.

  “Not if it’s your usual acid brew, Aaron,” Price said, shuddering.

  “It isn’t,” Kurtzman growled. “Hal made sure of that.”

  “Right. I don’t want anyone getting a caffeine high from that brew while I’m trying to brief them,” the head Fed replied.

  Bolan joined Kurtzman at the side-table and poured coffee for himself and Price. “I’m wondering, Bear,” he began, maintaining an innocent tone, “is that much caffeine in one cup actually a legal drug?”

  “Very funny,” the computer expert replied. “But I think you’ll be wanting some of it when you’ve heard what we’ve got to say.”

  “Then let’s begin,” Bolan said, slipping back into his usual business tone, and handing the coffee to Price.

  “First, I just downloaded this and I want you to watch it,” Brognola began, tapping on a keyboard and bringing up footage on an enlarged monitor along one wall.

  They watched in silence as the computer played French news footage of the raid on the dockside tanker yard, showing the break-in and the five corpses. It then cut to the tanker, left abandoned in the country by an open field.

  Bolan’s French was conversat
ional rather than academic, so he had no trouble understanding the commentary. The French media believed the gendarmerie to be baffled by the incident, as five men were murdered for the theft of an empty tanker. They put it down to a war between two haulage companies that was getting out of hand.

  The footage finished.

  “But it’s more than that, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have got me out of bed. Not for some kind of Teamster war.”

  “You’re right,” Brognola replied. “Anything strike you as odd?”

  “Yeah. Five men killed for one tanker. No damage to the other two. The fact that the tanker was then dumped…like they were looking for something. And it was a very professional hit. In and out, five men down and no casualties or sign of injuries on their side. I’d say that they were looking for something, and it had to do with that particular vehicle. One other thing. It said that four were shot, the fifth was killed by a knife wound, but that the knife was missing. Maybe it was easier to identify than any bullet or shell would be. To remove it from the body suggests someone who really knew what they were doing.”

  “There is one important thing they didn’t say on the news report,” Brognola said softly. “The five dead were all U.S. citizens, three being ex-Marines. And they were all armed. These people were good, but—”

  “But what were they doing in a yard in Marseilles docks, heavily armed?” Bolan finished. “That question certainly needs answering.”

  Price nodded. “The other thing that gets alarms ringing is that the whole hit and lift was too clean—no prints?”

  Kurtzman wagged a finger at her. “Now there’s one of the most interesting things of all. We’ve managed to monitor a few communiqués between the path labs and the investigating officers, and it seems that these were very professional people. They used latex gloves, and there were no traces of prints, except…”

  “Come on, Aaron, don’t string us along. Cut to the chase,” Price commented good-humoredly when Kurtzman paused for dramatic effect.

  “Okay.” Kurtzman smiled. “For a reason I can only speculate on, they removed part of the chassis casing that should have housed brake cables. But it didn’t. They’d been rerouted, and this housed nothing more than a gap, where something could be concealed. When replacing the casing, one of the gang members tore the index finger of one glove—they found residual traces of latex—and left a nice, clear print behind.”

  “I take it this is where it gets interesting,” Bolan said.

  “It does,” Brognola replied. The head Fed took up the story. “We’ve got the print. We’ve got an ID, and we’ve also got a file on the owner of that print.”

  Kurtzman punched the keyboard, and a photograph and printed information of birth, education, description, prison record, and political and criminal activities came up on the monitor.

  “Salvatore Signella,” Bolan murmured as he perused the information on screen. “Trained soldier, mercenary in Rwanda and Bosnia, seen action all over the globe. Last known to be working as a bodyguard for Hector Chavez-Smith, a Chilean drug baron who’s expanded into arms. Pretty good at it, from what I hear. Then the certainties run out about ten months ago. Not known if he’s still alive. Well, we know now. Because of his political sympathies and right-wing leanings, it’s believed that he may have joined Destiny’s Spear, a French terrorist organization with a known base in Marseilles. Hell, that’d figure. They’re right on the spot for the hijacking, and they have links with right-wing organizations both in Europe, the UK and over here. They’re being bankrolled by someone, but no one knows who. There have been several high-profile assassinations and robberies. But this change in MO is interesting.”

  The soldier turned to Brognola. “So why are they hijacking an empty tanker? What was in the hollowed-out space beneath the chassis? And why were there five armed Americans on the French docks?”

  “You are, of course, assuming that it was the terrorist group behind this,” Kurtzman commented.

  “I know there’s nothing definite, but as a working theory it fits so far. So why do I think that you’re going to confirm it for me?”

  “I was talking to the Oval Office earlier,” Brognola said wearily, “and it gets complicated, Striker.”

  “It’s never anything else,” Bolan replied.

  “The first thing is that the hidden space beneath the tanker chassis was being used to transport a number of chemical weapons to a rendezvous in Paris. They were coming up from Italy, via Marseilles. There’s been a security leak, and the idea was to take an old and roundabout route and hide in plain sight.”

  “What are we talking here?” Bolan asked.

  “Three vials of a newly developed compound, secured in a flask. Prototypes for secondary testing. It’s an odorless, colorless vapor when mixed. Spreads on the air, and only needs one hundred-thousandth per liter of air to be effective. Allegedly, it breaks down in the body and leaves no traces, either. There’s a certain Middle Eastern power, at war with his neighbors, who has expressed an interest in acquiring this. And we know that Chavez-Smith is dealing with this man.”

  “Makes a whole lot of sense so far. So you want me to go in and get the flask back while neutralizing the terrorists, right?” And when Brognola nodded, Bolan added, “But you said the first thing…so what’s the complication?”

  Kurtzman sighed. “Rumor—and it’s strong enough to be a little more than a rumor—says that there was more than the flask being taken by this route. There have been whispers of a black project along the lines of sonic warfare.”

  “Sonic weapons are no secret. What’s so special about this black project?” Bolan queried.

  “Most sonic weapons go for frequency responses that can affect the bodily functions or impair the ability to think by blowing out the eardrums and causing brain damage. They’re still not that subtle. Their idea of subtle is to disrupt thought patterns and cause confusion.”

  “But this baby is better than that, right?”

  “This one is a real little bundle of joy,” Kurtzman said. “It can be set to any number or combination of frequencies, and can cause anything from paralysis to complete enslavement.”

  “How is that possible?” Bolan asked.

  “I did a little checking when Hal told me about this, as it stirred up a few memories. Over the past five years, a number of scientists have either gone missing or have been reported dead in accidents, the recovered bodies unidentifiable. They had one thing in common—they were all working on projects that had sonic warfare as their target field. What are the odds that they’re not dead, but that they’ve been working on this? As far as I can figure, sonic weaponry would work on the principle of a kind of hypnosis, suppressing some brain waves but stimulating others that made someone particularly susceptible to suggestion.”

  Bolan whistled. “That’s a hell of a double whammy if it’s been snatched. What does the President have to say on the matter?”

  Brognola scowled. “It wasn’t mentioned to me, and when I brought it up, the matter was denied flat out. What I can’t figure is whether that was a denial because no one is supposed to know about the sonic weapons or a denial because they don’t have the faintest idea what’s been going on. They only know about the chemical weapons.”

  “The Man has never sold us out on anything that’s been known before,” Bolan commented. “I don’t see why he would now, not after he’s requested—I’m assuming that’s my mission—I go after the chemical weapons.”

  “I’d like to think so,” Brognola said quietly. “But if we’re not supposed to know, or it’s so black it’s been hidden even from the Oval Office—which wouldn’t be the first or last time, let’s face it—then you know what it means?”

  “Incoming from all sides,” Bolan replied. “If we’re out for the chemicals, then someone will be on the trail of the sonics. And whoever it is, they’re sure as hell not going to be pleased to have me around.”

  “Maybe you should have an assist,” Price suggested. She had
remained silent for some time, taking in the situation. “Able Team is on a mission, but I could call some of Phoenix Force.”

  Bolan shook his head. “No, I figure you’re right, but I’ll only need one man, ready to come in at a moment’s notice. Marseilles isn’t that big, but there’s a lot of action. If Destiny’s Spear is based there, and have the area under tight security, a whole lot of heavies showing up are just going to scare them away. It’ll be enough to just have me and maybe someone from the black-ops team stirring up the nest.”

  “I’ll get Jack briefed then,” Price stated.

  Bolan grinned. “How d’you figure I’d want him?”

  She shook her head. “There’s no one else who can get in and out of situations better than a chopper pilot like Jack.”

  “I’ll also need whatever we know about Destiny’s Spear and this Chavez-Smith guy before I get equipped and ship out. Any background you’ve got.”

  Kurtzman smiled and tapped up a file from the computer. “I knew you’d ask, so we got it ready for you.”

  Bolan was already immersed in Kurtzman’s briefing as Price left the room in search of Jack Grimaldi.

  3

  From Stony Man Farm in Virginia to Marseilles was a trip that took less than half the time it would have if the soldier had been forced to use a commercial airline. As it was, Jack Grimaldi piloted an Air Force transporter to a U.S. air base in northern France, and they commandeered a chopper to take them to Marseilles, landing at a small airfield outside the city. The Air Force plane and chopper had been ordered up by Hal Brognola, with Bolan traveling under the name of Colonel Brandon Stone. His military alias and the clearance that the big Fed was able to conjure up made for a smooth journey.

  It was early evening when they arrived at the small airfield, and less than forty-eight hours since the tanker had been stolen and the chemical and sonic weapons taken. There was no way that Bolan could have been briefed and made the journey in a quicker time, but still he was worried that the trail would be too cold.