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  "English," Bolan said. "Do you speak it?"

  "Ja," the man grunted.

  "Who do you work for?"

  "I am unemployed." The gunner's accent was heavy, but not indecipherable.

  Bolan pressed harder with the Desert Eagle. "I don't have time to argue. There's a lot of work to do. If you won't tell me what I need to know, you're useless to me. And I don't intend to spend any time looking over my shoulder." It was all for the gunman's benefit, of course; if he couldn't provide any useful information, Bolan would write him off and have Rieck contact the appropriate authorities to have the man processed by the locals. There was no way the gunman could know that, however. He had just watched Bolan shoot down more than half-a-dozen other men.

  "I cannot tell you," the man said. "I would forfeit too much. I cannot. Please. Do not force me."

  "If you're worried about family, or your own life," Bolan offered, "we can protect you. Tell me what you know."

  "I cannot..." The man stopped talking. He was looking at something behind Bolan, something that the soldier could hear, too. The sound of something heavy and metallic rolling on the hardwood floor.

  The grenade came to a stop three feet away, resting against the sole of a dead gunner's shoe.

  Bolan acted on pure reflex. He dived over top the wounded gunner and just made the protection of the hall corner. The explosion was deafening, like a hammer blow, vibrating through his head and washing over his frame. The world faded to gray around the edges, threatening to go black. He clenched his fists, the pistols in his hands anchoring him to the land of the living as the blast faded.

  Rieck emerged from the stairwell opposite. Bolan waved him off, the ringing in his ears still almost too much for conscious thought. The agent was saying something. Bolan shook his head and pointed to the exit around the corner.

  "Okay?" Rieck was asking.

  "What?" Bolan asked. He realized he could hear his own voice and the Interpol agent's, too.

  "Are you all right?" the man shouted.

  "I'm fine," Bolan said. "Come on!" He ran for it. Rieck followed.

  They hit the street at a dead run. Bolan radically altered his course as he left the building, hoping to throw off any sniper who might be lying in wait. No shots came. He paused, crouching behind one of the Mercedes. The door to the vehicle was open and the keys were in it. The previous passengers wouldn't be needing the car anytime soon.

  "Cooper!" Rieck shouted, gesturing. Bolan heard the little Vespa scooter as Rieck pointed it out to him. The rider, indistinct in a hooded sweatshirt, glanced their way before hunkering down over the handlebars. The scooter shot into an alleyway between two nearby buildings.

  "Come on," Bolan said again. He jumped into the Mercedes. Rieck took the passenger side, the shotgun awkward as he folded himself into the vehicle. They paralleled the scooter's course. The driver of the Vespa wasn't stupid. The scooter couldn't outrun the Mercedes, but it could go where the large car couldn't. Bolan kept the pedal down as far as he dared, navigating the narrow streets, keeping the scooter in sight as he tracked its movements.

  "Who are we chasing?" Rieck asked.

  Bolan shook his head, still shrugging off the effects of the explosion. "Grenade thrower."

  "How do you know this is your guy?" Rieck pointed at the Vespa, visible for a moment through a gap between buildings.

  "Timing is everything," Bolan said. He stayed on the motor-scooter's tail, whipping the responsive Mercedes through turn after turn, reducing the distance between the two vehicles.

  "There!" Rieck pointed again. The street forked, and the right-hand branch intercepted the parallel street on which the scooter now traveled. Bolan, grateful for the light traffic at that late hour, urged more speed from the engine. The Mercedes growled and surged forward.

  The Vespa's driver saw the threat too late.

  Metal screamed as the big automobile plowed into the small vehicle. The hooded driver hit the car's windshield with enough force to crack it, bouncing and rolling off onto the pavement. Bolan brought the Mercedes to a halt, whipping the wheel sideways to avoid crushing his quarry. Then he was up and out, the Beretta 93-R trained on the prone form.

  "Hands!" he ordered. "Show me your hands!" Behind him, Rieck translated into German, managing to sound as forceful as the soldier. The hooded figure remained immobile.

  "Rieck," Bolan said, never taking his eyes off the prone form. "Cover me. Could be shamming."

  "Understood," Rieck said. He held his shotgun at the ready.

  Bolan moved in, careful in his positioning. He put a booted toe in the body's flank and pushed. The hood came free, and a young man stared upward, blinking. He groaned.

  "Don't move," Bolan instructed firmly. Rieck translated again.

  "Do not... do not shoot," the man said, in English. "I will not resist."

  "Are you armed?"

  "I have two more grenades," the young man admitted. "In the pocket, here." He indicated the center pouch of the hooded sweatshirt. "I will not reach for them."

  Bolan dragged the man up and propped him against the Mercedes, hands on its hood. He searched him thoroughly, finding the grenades. These were old, possibly World War II vintage.

  "Are those.?.." Rieck asked.

  "American, originally." Bolan nodded. "There's no way to know how long they've been kicking around the black market arms channels."

  "He's awfully cooperative for a death cultist," Rieck said.

  Bolan, satisfied the man had nothing else on him, turned him over and pointed the barrel of the 93-R at his face.

  "I...please do not kill me," the man said. "Yes, I am Iron Thunder."

  "Three seconds," Bolan said simply. "Tell us everything you know. Why did you attack me? What was your purpose here? And how did you find us?"

  "You misunderstand," the man said. "I..." He paused, his face turning red. He began to sag against the car. Bolan, alarmed, eased him to the ground. The sudden loss of tension in his muscles was so total it was hard to believe it could be faked.

  "Cooper?" Rieck asked. "What's happening to him?"

  "Poison," Bolan said grimly.

  "Yes," the man said. "I simply... I did not wish to be shot. Guns are so ugly. My mother... she will want to pay her... her..." He stopped then. Bolan watched the light leave the young man's eyes.

  "How did he do it?" Rieck asked, moving to stand over the body with Bolan.

  "It wasn't very fast acting," he said. "He might even have taken it before he started running. There's no way to know. And there's no telling just how fanatical he might have been, how dedicated to Iron Thunder's message. Or they could be more rational than we think, and he took something, a pill or capsule of some kind, after he hit the pavement."

  "More rational than we think?" Rieck shook his head. "After those two women, I can't say I have much hope of that."

  "Me, neither."

  "I'd better get on it," Rieck said, taking his phone from his coat. "I'm not sure why all this hasn't drawn the police before now. Something strange is going on."

  Bolan left Rieck to wait with the body of the scooter jockey while he drove back to Becker's condominium building. The local police were starting to arrive and set up as he got there. It was too soon for Rieck's call to have made a difference, so someone had to have put in a call.

  The soldier stopped and conferred with the officer in charge of the scene, who spoke English haltingly but made his displeasure with the situation abundantly clear. Bolan apologized, in his limited German, for being unable to communicate better. Then he retreated to the Mercedes to await Rieck's return. The locals were searching the corpses and assessing the crime scene, and Bolan could only hope they did their jobs reasonably well. It would not do to butt heads with them directly until Rieck was back here to lend him credibility with the police.

  He checked in with the Farm. A worried Barbara Price, Stony Man's mission controller, sounded relieved when he explained the bomb had been successfully defused. Bolan up
dated her on his progress — their on-again, off-again relationship was something neither of them let get in the way of the Farm's business — and got the latest situation updates, which Price transmitted directly to Bolan's secure phone.

  "All right, Barb," he said finally, watching another marked police car pull up. Rieck exited the passenger side. He was talking animatedly into his phone, hopefully running interference with the locals. Bolan knew only too well how the lords of these little bureaucratic fiefdoms tended to react when he marched through their territory, slashing and burning in pursuit of a mission. No doubt to those accustomed to a reasonably quiet watch, the city was in the grip of all-out war by comparison. No, scratch that, he thought; it wasn't "by comparison" at all. This was war, it had always been war, and it was the same war he'd waged for years.

  Rieck was now pacing back and forth alongside the Mercedes. Bolan, never one to remain idle, busied himself with searching the car. He found a spare set of keys, a magazine for a Heckler & Koch USP pistol, and a small sheaf of rumpled road maps. Beneath these, however, was something else.

  He turned the item over in his fingers. It was a magnetic key card, bearing a company logo that meant nothing to him. There were no words, no numbers and no other lettering of any kind. It wasn't a credit card. It resembled the computerized key cards used by hotels.

  Rieck ended his call and leaned into the open doorway of the driver's side. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.

  "Just possibly," Bolan said, "a break." He handed the card to Rieck. "Can you get this couriered through channels, fast?"

  "Sure," Rieck said. "Just give me an address."

  Bolan rattled it off from memory. The place was one of the local safehouses and drop points arranged for his visit to Germany. Anything sent there would find its way to the Farm or, more likely, a local lab on whose personnel Brognola could count for cooperation, maybe CIA or a related and reliable foreign agency. If there was anything to be found, the data would be relayed to the Farm for analysis, and Kurtzman and his people would make sure the Executioner knew about it.

  "All right," Bolan said. "Now we wait."

  "You don't want to move on the next target?" Rieck asked.

  "After this firestorm?" Bolan jerked his chin toward the building. Becker, with a blanket over his shoulders, was being led out the front under heavy guard. The local equivalent of SWAT, heavily armed and wearing goggles, helmets and ballistic vests, formed a cordon around him and walked him to one of the waiting ambulances. No doubt he would get a police escort to the hospital, where he could be treated. Then he would most likely end up at a safehouse. Bolan wondered just what the locals thought they would do beyond that.

  "You think they'll clear out any of Becker's assets," Rieck guessed.

  "Or be waiting for us." Bolan nodded. "Either way, I think we've dragged our feet through enough trip wires for one day. Go home, Rieck. Get some sleep. If tonight is any indication, you're going to need it."

  6

  David Schucker watched the dawn.

  From the window of his office in the Security Consortium's state-of-the-art Berlin headquarters, the company's head of operations watched the gray rays of the day's first light touch each building in turn. This was Schucker's favorite part of the day. The city, indeed the world, was so full of endless possibility with each new dawn.

  The soft knock on the heavy, polished wooden door made him frown.

  It would be Gunnar, of course. Only Gunnar insisted on knocking rather than using the intercom. No matter how many times Schucker told him to do so, Gunnar insisted on rapping lightly on the door itself. Schucker had finally given up, resigned to this tiny irritant. The problem was that Gunnar's visits never remained tiny irritants. The field commander for Schucker's security operatives never bothered Schucker in person unless he was summoned, or unless he had bad news.

  "Enter," Schucker said reluctantly. Gunnar Heinriksen looked almost sheepish as he walked into the luxuriously appointed office, closing the door quietly behind him. He moved to stand at attention in front of Schucker's desk, his eyes forward and seemingly staring blankly out the window. This was bad; Schucker knew Gunnar refused to make eye contact only when he felt his employer would be especially outraged.

  Schucker sighed. "Very well, Gunnar," he said in German. "Tell me."

  "Sir." Heinriksen snapped his heels together. He was a very large man, broad through the shoulders and as solid as a boulder. He never looked very comfortable in the dark suits he wore, as if the seams of the expensive custom garments might split at any moment. The bulge of the ridiculously large pistol he wore in a shoulder holster was visible under his blazer. The early-morning sunlight reflected from his shaved, bullet-shaped skull, while the craggy face beneath the bald pate was creased with worry.

  "Out with it, Gunnar," Schucker growled. "I'm in no mood."

  "We've lost the teams, sir," Heinriksen stated.

  "Which teams?" Schucker demanded.

  "All. All of them, sir. Each team from yesterday... gone."

  Schucker blinked. "What do you mean, gone?"

  "Down, sir," Heinriksen said. "Shot."

  "That's ridiculous," Schucker spit. "Dumar's people don't have the skill or even the weapons to stand against us, and they've no reason yet to suspect..."

  "Uh, no, sir," Heinriksen said, so flustered he actually interrupted Schucker in midsentence. "Dumar's people are not involved, sir. It was the Interpol agent, and someone with him."

  Schucker stood up, his fingertips brushing his gleaming glass-and-metal desk. "Gunnar," he said quietly, "if you don't start making sense I shall quite possibly have you shot."

  "Sir..." Heinriksen shook his head, as if trying to ward off Schucker's anger through denial"...per your instructions, I had several security teams shadowing Dumar's field people."

  Schucker snorted. "Field people" to Dumar simply meant whomever he could find who didn't mind pulling a trigger, no matter how sloppy the jobs that got done. They were bloodthirsty, yes, and fierce, but all of Dumar Eon's most capable killers were amateurs, little better than dangerous wild animals. Calling them "field people" galled Schucker, but he knew better than to argue the point. Gunnar could be quite defensive when pressed, and there was no need to sidetrack him further. The big man paused, trying to gather his thoughts.

  "Yes, Gunnar, I know," Schucker prodded. "Continue."

  "Sir, we tracked the group sent to assassinate the Interpol agent assigned to the case, the man named Rieck. He met with someone, an American, apparently. Our source does not know for which agency this man works. Our team was not in time to prevent the attempted assassination."

  "I feared as much," Schucker said. "They lack skill, but have no shortage of desire. Such murderers are hard to stop. It was precisely such a mess I had hoped to prevent or, failing that, wipe out utterly. That idiot Dumar! Killing an Interpol agent is sure to raise suspicions. It runs a very real risk of exposing our operations. So? What happened?"

  "The two of them, the Interpol agent and the American, defeated Dumar's assassins."

  "Which is also not that great a surprise," Schucker said. "I left orders that if Dumar's people failed, of which there was considerable chance, they were to be eliminated to prevent any liabilities, any possible tracing back to the Consortium. And that any and all witnesses be removed."

  "Yes, sir, I know, sir." Heinriksen nodded. "They did not have the opportunity. The team was taken out. All of them, sir. Shot by Rieck and the American."

  "You're kidding," Schucker said, his jaw dropping. "By two men?"

  "No, sir. I mean, yes, sir."

  "What of the security team assigned to purge Becker's home?"

  "Also dead, sir," Heinriksen said hurriedly. "We were too late to stop Dumar's people from making the first move on Becker in his home. As you suspected, it looks as though they left considerable evidence behind. I have seen the reports, copied by our paid informants in the police. Dumar's people left Becker alive, strapped to a bomb,
in order to make one of their... statements."

  "Fools," Schucker muttered. "I knew they were planning to do something stupid."

  "Yes, sir. And as you ordered, the men detailed to Becker's home knew they were to make sure of his death and burn his home to the ground, to erase any trace of Dumar's activities."

  "And?"

  "Rieck and the American again, sir." Heinriksen frowned deeply, further creasing his pocked face. "None of the operatives escaped. My sources within the police say it was a slaughter."

  "I don't believe it," Schucker said. He sat down heavily. After taking a few breaths, he tightened his jaw and looked at Heinriksen sharply. "You have the men you need for the exchange?"

  "Yes, sir. The materials were relocated early this morning. We will have everything ready when Bashir and his people arrive."

  "Dumar has no reason to suspect?"

  "I do not believe so, sir," Heinriksen said. "And he has no immediate plans for the materials of which we are aware. Depending on how vigilant he is, however, he will know eventually. We left little behind."

  "That I have planned for," Schucker said. "But losing so many operatives and failing to eliminate so many liabilities... this I did not anticipate. Gunnar, the situation is delicate."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You know what must be done to prepare for the meeting with Bashir," Schucker said. "See to it. No mistakes."

  "Yes, sir,"

  "Have Dumar's plans for today changed?"

  "No, sir. Our spies within Iron Thunder say the rally is still on for today. Dumar has given no indication of what his address is to involve, or at least, none our people could discover. But he will be occupied with the rally for some time, which will prevent him and most of Iron Thunder from focusing on other issues."

  "Good. Now go. We'll have to determine how best to deal with this Interpol investigation, but it will take planning."

  Heinriksen snapped his heels again. He spun on one leg and disappeared as quietly as he had arrived, easing the door shut behind him.

  Schucker let out an exasperated breath. Finally, he swiveled in his high-backed leather chair to gaze once more out the window. The sun was now fully visible, bathing the buildings below and throwing broad shadows across the streets.