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When Bolan took up his surveillance again he still spent a fruitless stakeout. But on the second morning circumstances changed for the better.

  The van Ryden residence stood in well-landscaped tranquility. The low-rise house was at least a quarter of a mile from the road, fronted by the curving driveway lined by slender trees and cultivated bushes. At the rear sweeping lawns reached to a high fence that encircled the acreage. A paved patio jutting out from the back of the house had a large swimming pool and a stepped terrace that allowed observers to look down on the pool.

  Bolan had climbed the fence during the early morning hours and was concealed in the dense foliage of the garden that occupied the northeast corner of the property. From his vantage point he was able to watch the back of the house without being seen himself. He used the powerful binoculars he had purchased to maintain a solid watch over the house, and during the couple of hours he had been in position he had spotted the appearance of van Ryden’s security team. It consisted of a pair of armed men, dressed in suits and ties, who made regular patrols around the property. Bringing them into detailed closeup Bolan saw the sentries wore lightweight headsets that allowed them to communicate with each other, and maybe an internal control, as they patrolled the grounds. The paved driveway now held three expensive cars.

  At 7:30 a.m. van Ryden, dressed in bathing shorts, stepped out through French doors. He hit the water and for the next twenty minutes swam up and down the length of the pool. He finally emerged and picked up the towel he had brought out with him.

  Bolan watched him walk back inside the house, picked up the MP-5 he had brought with him from the dock mission and began to work his way through the foliage in the direction of the house. He reached the north corner, staying in the cover provided by the heavily bushed garden and waited until the sentry appeared. The man had an MP-5 hanging by a strap from his left shoulder, his hand resting lightly on the weapon. He walked past Bolan’s hiding place with feet to spare. Once he had his back to him Bolan rose silently, stepped up behind the man and took him in a blood choke hold, applying instant pressure to carotid and jugular.

  Starved of blood the sentry had little chance to fight back. As soon as he felt the man’s legs weaken Bolan followed him down, keeping up the pressure until the sentry lost consciousness. With the sentry on the ground Bolan disabled the comset and stripped it clear. He threw it aside, into the tangle of bushes. From his back pocket Bolan pulled out a couple of the plastic ties. He looped one around the sentry’s ankles, another to bind his hands behind him. Aware that the man could recover quickly Bolan took off the guard’s tie, balled it up and stuffed it into the man’s mouth. He took the magazine out of the man’s MP-5 and threw both items deep into the undergrowth. He located a handgun, holstered under the man’s coat. Bolan disassembled the weapon and scattered the parts.

  The Executioner had studied the routes the pair of sentries had taken. He fell in behind the second man, trailing silently in his shadow until he was walking the paved path that ran down the side of the house’s double garage. It was the ideal spot to deal with the man. Bolan moved up, ready to strike.

  The sentry stopped suddenly, reaching up to check his comset, speaking into the microphone. Bolan didn’t understand the words, but he picked up the urgent tone when the man failed to get a response from his partner. The sentry turned about, ready to retrace his steps. The first thing he saw was Bolan, poised only feet away. The sentry responded swiftly, snatching at his shoulder-hung weapon. Bolan closed in quickly, his left hand grasping the barrel of the submachine gun, forcing it skyward. His right hand snapped forward, closing around the sentry’s throat, pushing him hard against the garage wall. The back of the man’s skull slammed against the brickwork, the impact stunning him briefly and allowing Bolan the opportunity to lean in closer, turning and dragging the man’s gun arm down across his shoulder. The sentry’s resistance lasted only for as long as it took for his arm to snap. The MP-5 slipped from splayed fingers.

  Bolan spun, braced himself and launched a full-on right fist that connected with the sentry’s jaw. The impact threw the man to his knees, spitting blood. Bolan slammed his foot between his shoulders and hammered him to the ground, the man’s face crunching against the concrete. As he bent to relieve the man of his handgun Bolan picked up radio chatter. He pulled off the guard’s headset and listened closely. Someone was demanding a response in Dutch. Even though he couldn’t understand the language Bolan recognized the urgency in the challenge.

  Had his recon been spotted?

  Whatever the reason for the agitation Bolan wasn’t about to back off. He was too close to his target now.

  He checked the handgun. It held a full magazine. He slung his MP-5 across his back. Turning he made his way around to the back of the house again, heading for the French doors van Ryden had used. The glass doors opened at his touch and Bolan slipped inside, pausing to check out the well-appointed room. Even his cursory examination told Bolan that everything in the room spoke of expensive taste. Recalling the detail Kurtzman had supplied this was the main living area. He knew van Ryden’s study was directly through the arch ahead of him and to the right.

  From somewhere beyond the room he heard a murmur of voices and footsteps on hardwood floors. Bolan moved to the far side of the room. If anyone came in they would be forced to take time to locate him. Maybe only for brief seconds but that would allow him the advantage.

  Bolan spotted movement on the far side of the arch.

  A tall, dark-haired man edged into the room. He carried the obligatory MP-5, the muzzle arcing back and forth as he surveyed what seemed to be an empty room. When he saw Bolan’s dark figure against the end wall he tracked his weapon around, finger pulling back on the trigger. Slugs chunked into the wall, filling the air with plaster chips and dust.

  Bolan’s acquired auto pistol rapped out a fast trio of shots that hit the man in the chest. He stumbled back, a sharp cry bursting from his lips, and banged against the wall. As he did his finger held its trigger pull, sending 9 mm slugs into the wall above Bolan’s head. More plaster dust erupted in white spouts. The shot man slipped to the floor, face contorted into a snarl of anger and he attempted to pull his submachine gun back on line. A fourth shot from Bolan caught him above the left eye, blowing a chunk of bone out of the back of his skull, spattering bloody debris on the door behind him.

  Moving quickly Bolan crossed the room and stepped over the body, turning to scan the open hall and the doors beyond. He caught a flicker of movement ahead. He saw a figure emerge from an open door, pistol in hand. The man opened fire the moment he saw Bolan, then ran in a semicrouch across the open space, still triggering shots. Bolan heard the slugs thud into the wall. He stepped forward, dropping, holding the pistol double-handed as he picked up on the moving gunner. The Executioner fired off half the magazine, spent casings hitting the floor around him. The moving figure paused, lost coordination and crashed to the polished floor, skidding across the surface. The man rolled on his side, hauling his pistol around and fired again, not allowing himself time to lock on his target.

  Bolan centered his weapon and returned fire, his slugs catching the gunman in the torso. The man let out a long gasp as he rolled slowly on his back and lay still. Bolan pushed to his feet and loped across to where the man lay. He kicked the dropped gun across the hall, threw aside the pistol that had locked on an empty chamber and drew the SIG-Sauer.

  The house had fallen silent around him.

  Four down.

  Was that van Ryden’s complete security complement?

  Bolan figured that two on the outside, two more inside, would have been adequate under normal circumstances. Unless van Ryden recently felt he needed more. Bolan remained on full alert. Assumption could never replace caution. Complacency invited trouble. And Mack Bolan had never accepted complacency as a companion.

  He picked up sounds from behind a closed door on the far side of the wide hall. He knew that was the study. Someone was speaking. Bolan flattened ag
ainst the wall and picked up a voice he recognized.

  It was van Ryden.

  The conversation sounded one-sided. Bolan figured van Ryden was on the phone.

  Calling in help?

  The Executioner eased the door handle, pushing the door open. The room was large and airy. He saw book-lined shelves, a large desk, a picture window showing the grounds.

  He spotted the hunched figure of the lawyer with a phone to his ear, free hand waving to emphasize his conversation. He had his back to Bolan. He did not hear him enter. Or close the door and engage the lock. He made a final plea, then slammed the phone down. As he straightened up his senses warned him he was not alone. There was a handgun on the desk next to the phone and van Ryden’s hand made a tentative move toward it.

  “Not advisable,” Bolan cautioned.

  The lawyer turned to face him. His face had lost its color. Right then he looked far from his smart public image. His hair, still damp from his swim, hung limply across his scalp and he needed a shave. He was dressed in a gray tracksuit and running shoes. And he was visibly distressed.

  “You cannot do this,” he said. “Invade my home. Attack my house staff.”

  Bolan shrugged.

  “Are all domestics in Holland expected to walk around carrying machine guns and pistols? Hell of a way to greet visitors.”

  A burst of defiance flared. “You are not a guest in my house. You are an invader. Have you forgotten who I am? A respected member of the legal profession. My name is known in high circles. I can have you arrested for breaching my human rights.”

  “Words, van Ryden. Coming from a scum who trades in human lives. I haven’t forgotten what you are. You forfeited your rights when you took up your business. Remember what I told you in your office? I’m going to bring you and rest of your associates down. No hiding behind your respectable name.”

  The lawyer snapped. Eyes widening with a reckless gleam, a scream of rage burst from his lips as he snatched up a heavy paperweight from the desk and swung it at Bolan, ignoring the gun pointing at him. Bolan leaned back, feeling the disturbed air stroke his face as the paperweight curved past. The lunge pulled van Ryden closer to Bolan and before he could regain his balance the Executioner hit him across the jaw with the P-226, putting every ounce of strength into the blow. As bone crunched and blood flew from his open mouth van Ryden slammed down across the desk, scattering papers. The paperweight slipped from his grasp. His face thumped against the hard surface of the desk. As he struggled to push himself upright Bolan stepped in closer and slammed the pistol down hard against the back of van Ryden’s skull. The lawyer groaned, his body becoming limp. Bolan stepped back as the lawyer slithered to the floor, sprawling on his back. His jaw was raw and bloody.

  Putting the pistol away Bolan moved around the desk and sat down. He removed van Ryden’s handgun. The computer sat in front of him. Bolan figured the lawyer would have data stored somewhere within the machine detailing the trafficking operation. In his capacity as the organization’s facilitator he would need information. The problem was that the screen text Bolan was looking at was in Dutch. A language Bolan was unfamiliar with. Bolan took out his phone and keyed in the number to connect with Stony Man Farm.

  “Striker,” Aaron Kurtzman acknowledged when he came on.

  “I need you to hack into a computer and download everything on it, then get the data translated into English.”

  “‘Hacking,’ as you put it, is for geeky amateurs. But I will electronically intrude into the hard drive and extract whatever is hidden there.”

  “Okay. Tell me what to do.”

  Bolan followed the concise instructions. With Kurtzman’s program installed on van Ryden’s computer it took less than ten minutes before the contents were transferred.

  “I’ll get everyone working on this. You need anything else?” Kurtzman asked.

  “How about emptying this system? Wiping the memory? Give these bastards more to worry about.”

  “Sounds like someone has upset you, Striker.”

  “And some.”

  “A thought here. There could be backup to this data. Flash drives. I’ll clear the hard drive and leave a little visitor. If they try to reinstall the data my little buddy will pick it up and fritz that, as well. How’s that?”

  “Pretty sneaky for a high-tech hacker.”

  Kurtzman’s booming laughter rumbled through Bolan’s cell phone before he ended the call.

  As the Executioner moved away from the desk the monitor screen began to flash with lines of rapidly scrolling codes. Kurtzman’s wipeout program had started, methodically eating its way through the data embedded in the computer’s hard drive.

  The Executioner had reached the center of the room when he heard a rush of sound behind him. Bolan spun on his heel. He saw van Ryden halfway across the room, coming at him full-on. The lawyer’s face was wet with blood, more of it making dark streaks down the front of his track suit, his mouth open as he let out a long, harsh scream of anger. Bolan saw the slim-bladed letter opener the man had snatched up off the desk. It was aimed in Bolan’s direction. But van Ryden was no combat veteran. It was unlikely he had ever been in a violent situation in his life.

  Bolan let the man get in close before he sidestepped, slamming a hard-edged hand across the knife wrist. As the blade spun from his nerveless fingers van Ryden squealed. In desperation he lashed out. Bolan caught the arm, turning it. He spun van Ryden in a half circle, then released his arm. The man’s own weight carried him across the room. Out of control he crashed head-on into a glass-fronted display cabinet. His shout of fright was lost in the sound of shattering glass. Scattered porcelain figurines suddenly spattered with blood as van Ryden’s severely gashed throat began to spurt. He fell to the floor, body going into spasm as his lifeblood began to spread in a wide, glistening pool from beneath his body.

  “No more human rights for you to abuse, Mr. van Ryden,” Bolan said as he left the room.

  The phone call van Ryden had been making to his associates was more than likely to bring reinforcements. It was on Bolan’s mind as he retraced his steps from the house, through the grounds and out to where he had parked his rented SUV. He slid the unused MP-5 beneath the seat. Climbing behind the wheel he started the engine and followed the narrow back road until he joined up with the main route.

  7

  Inspector Marcel DeChambre, Interpol, and joint task-force member, parked across the street from the hotel where the man known as Cooper was staying. He had made a telephone call a half hour earlier to be informed that Cooper was not at the hotel, and no, he had not checked out.

  So where was he?

  DeChambre’s long fingers tapped impatiently against the steering wheel. He needed a result. The explicit order from Hugo Canfield had explained things very clearly. He expected DeChambre to come up with something that would identify Cooper. Canfield’s message held a direct threat. He had not been paying DeChambre large amounts of money for the fun of it. He expected the Frenchman to earn his keep. If he didn’t…There was no need for the sentence to be completed.

  DeChambre understood. He had been associated with the Englishman long enough to have witnessed how Canfield dealt with those who let him down. Or betrayed him. DeChambre had been present when the two American undercover agents had been eliminated. The men DeChambre had betrayed when he informed on them to Canfield.

  The extreme torture before the men were killed had convinced DeChambre that the man meant every word. Now he was under the spotlight. And there was no avoiding it. He served up Cooper, or paid the price for his own incompetence in not knowing the man had been sent to check out what had happened to Turner and Bentley.

  Informing Canfield about the agents had been a good moment in his relationship with the man. It hadn’t been a lasting moment. Canfield didn’t concern himself about former successes. He lived in the moment and this particular moment was not boding too well for the trafficking group. The man named Cooper had already created enough
problems. Apart from killing Bickell and his team, Cooper had brazenly walked into van Ryden’s office and had presented the lawyer with his intentions to take down Venturer Exports. It had been a direct challenge, given by a man who plainly did not work within official rules. Cooper had then moved on to intercept a freshly arrived shipment, taking out the crew, freeing the cargo and getting them into the hands of the task force.

  Canfield had been angry at this deliberately provocative act and it had been made crystal clear to DeChambre that he had to identify, locate and terminate Cooper.

  No excuses.

  No delays.

  DeChambre’s problems began when he made casual inquiries into the identity of the man who had handed the task-force information in the form of live evidence. No one had any idea who the man was. None of the agents working the case appeared to be worried about that. They were more concerned with what they could get from the freed people and the wounded crew member from the dock. DeChambre had not been able to discover where the man had been taken. The agents within the task force were staying silent on that matter and DeChambre stopped asking questions after a while, not wanting to make himself conspicuous.

  Cooper had presented himself to Bickell as being from the same American department as Turner and Bentley. He had advertised his arrival time in Rotterdam and the hotel where he was staying. When DeChambre made a computer check of his own the search for Cooper came up blank. It was as if the man did not exist. That puzzled the Interpol agent even more. He made a deeper check, opening his search even wider. And still came up with nothing.

  So he went looking for Cooper using old-fashioned policing methods. Sitting in his car across the street from the hotel, staring out through the rain-speckled windshield, he found his mind wandering away from Cooper to the subject of his own mortality. He had no doubt in his mind that if he failed to satisfy Hugo Canfield’s demands, his life would end very quickly. He accepted the fact. Marcel DeChambre was a realist. No one had forced his hand when Canfield made him the offer to join his organization. If he had a weakness it was for money. His position within Interpol was never going to make him a rich man. By contrast his association with Venturer Exports had created opportunities DeChambre had never dreamed of. Canfield’s extended influence brought DeChambre into contact with a number of the man’s powerful friends in Rotterdam and throughout France. DeChambre’s position within Interpol allowed him to work favors for these people. In return he received substantial financial rewards. DeChambre’s nest egg had grown accordingly. He had hidden accounts, each holding extremely healthy balances. DeChambre wanted to be able to enjoy his money. That might not happen if he didn’t locate and eliminate Cooper.