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  "Spare me the crap, I said," Bolan cut in. "So it suited your breed of 'politics' to stage a terrorist attack. For the last time, who's paying you?"

  There was sweat on Rinaldi's brow. "Part of the deal — perhaps the most important — is secrecy, discretion," he said nervously. "We are paid to keep bur mouths shut as well as to act. Any kind of betrayal… well, the client would be most unhappy."

  "And he might come gunning for you if he found out? Well, that's an occupational hazard in your line of business," Bolan said, curling his lip in contempt. "When you're up to your neck in filth, you have to put up with the smell. So who's the client?" He jammed the muzzle of the automatic harder between the edges of the red robe.

  Rinaldi shivered. "Ononu himself."

  "The bloodthirsty dictator? Okay, where and why?"

  "They were transferring her to another plane in Tripoli and then flying on to Montenegria. To Ononu's palace in the interior. That's all I know, I don't know why."

  Bolan dragged the gun muzzle up the whole length of the terrorist leader's body, pressing hard, until the snout lodged beneath his chin.

  "I don't know," Rinaldi yelped. "I swear. It was part of a package deal — There were two other girls, delivered earlier. I don't think any of them were for a ransom. He sent no demands."

  "Who were these other two? When were they kidnapped?"

  Rinaldi's glance flickered sideways. The expression of fear on his face faded. Before he could reply, Bolan whirled.

  Colibri had wormed his way toward a coffee table, reached up his good hand and grabbed a hand mike. Now he pressed the button and shouted, "Gate house! There's an intruder here! Get him…"

  Bolan shot him in the back of the head, cutting the sentence short. Brain tissue sprayed over the carpet; blood flowed from the hood's gaping mouth.

  Rinaldi took advantage of the diversion and swooped on the Walther PPK that still lay on the table. Bolan shot it out of his hand, fired again and caught Rinaldi in the right shoulder.

  The room hazed with gunsmoke. Rinaldi gave a high pitched scream and staggered back against the wall, clapping his left hand to the wound. The red silk, liquified, appeared to pump out through his clenched fingers.

  Bolan bolted toward the door and dashed down the hallway outside. Above the stairs at the far end, there was an open window.

  He climbed through, found himself on a shallow roof, ran to the edge and dropped fifteen feet to the terrace. The dump truck was below the balustrade. From the front of the house he heard footsteps and shouts, from upstairs Rinaldi frenziedly calling.

  Bolan vaulted the balustrade and pulled himself up into the cab of the truck. He turned on the headlights, twisted the ignition key and the still-warm engine rumbled to life. Slamming the lever into first, he gunned the huge diesel and sent the truck roaring around the corner toward the flagged yard and the electronically operated gates.

  The gates were closed. In the headlight beams he saw men on the terrace, men in front of the gate house, two men with shotguns in the center of the yard.

  Bolan drove straight at them. Flame blasted from both barrels of the guns, peppering the truck's hood and fenders with a hail of shot. There were pistols, too, firing from the terrace. The cab's rear window exploded inward, showering the Executioner with granules of toughened glass; the windshield starred.

  Taking one hand from the wheel, he emptied the M-39's magazine at the guys in front of the gate house, sending them scurrying for cover. Then he was on the shotgun pair. One leaped aside, the other was run down, his body tossed aside like a broken doll when the steel grill protecting the truck's radiator smashed into his chest.

  Bolan held the pedal flat on the floor, aiming the dumpster at the junction between the two great wooden doors. There was a jarring crash as the grill burst them apart, then the truck was through in a storm of splintered planking and twisted metal framework. A fusillade of small-arms fire followed. The truck veered wildly toward the side of the road as a front tire blew and wrenched the wheel from Bolan's hands.

  He wrestled the truck back onto the trail, but it was slewing right and left, almost out of control… and then, from a gate he had not noticed before at the far end of the property, a heavy sedan nosed out and halted dead across the roadway, completely blocking his escape.

  Bolan spun the wheel and ran the dump truck in among the undergrowth that fringed the wood at the side of the track.

  It crashed through a screen of bushes, uprooted several saplings and tore down the lower branches of trees. Finally it came to rest with the grill against the trunk of a huge acacia. Bolan leaped out and ran past the steaming radiator, farther into the darkness of the wood. Beyond the improvised roadblock, the trail looped around in a wide curve. Bolan figured that if he could strike through in the right direction, then he could hit it again farther downhill.

  But the thugs from the gate house were not far behind. And three men from the sedan, guessing Bolan's intentions, were running through the wood lower down, hoping to cut him off. He could see a trio of flashlight beams bobbing between the trees.

  From behind and off to one side, shots rang out. Bullets thwacked through the branches, twigs snapped and leaves fluttered down around the fleeing warrior.

  Bolan was sprinting flat out. He was always in fine shape, muscles and reflexes honed to combat standard. Once he was back on the road he was confident he could outdistance any pursuit. But here in the forest — difficult target though he was — with the undergrowth plucking at his feet and unseen branches thrashing his face as he forced his way through, it was not so easy.

  The flashlight-carrying gunners from the sedan were less than one hundred yards away on his right when he saw a lighter patch between the dark mass of trunks ahead of him. He sprinted the remaining distance, jumped down a bank, twisted an ankle as he landed and almost fell.

  He was standing at the side of the road.

  Parked under the trees a few yards away was a small car. The engine was running quietly.

  Bolan hesitated. Through the rear window he could see the glow of a cigarette above the steering wheel. The soldier wondered if this was yet another stalling action staged by the AFL terrorists.

  He did not have to wait for an answer.

  Suddenly the passenger door swung open and a voice drawled, "Jump in quick, Mr. Bolan. I believe you could use a ride into town."

  It was the American newspaperman, Jason Mettner.

  Chapter Eight

  "Thanks," Bolan said, "but how did you happen to be there, at that time, waiting by the road in the middle of the night?"

  Mettner grinned through the layers of cigarette smoke weaving beneath the low-power lamp above his bed. Despite its name, the Albergo Splendido boasted no night porter, and he had been able to smuggle the Executioner in with a passkey he had cajoled earlier from the receptionist.

  "Partly luck and partly news sense," he said. "I was in town because I followed you from Turin. I was following you because my news sense told me there was a story in you. Then I happened to see you chasing that rifleman in the Mercedes. That was luck. The rest was legwork. I had to come back here to record a message — my Fiat could never have kept up with you two, anyway. But when I was through with that I drove out along the coast road, it was only a hunch, but pretty soon I was halted by a traffic holdup that stretched half a mile, and I was told a car had run out of road and dropped into the ocean.

  " 'No hope for the driver, they said, and the wreck couldn't be salvaged until tomorrow morning. I stuck around just the same. And right enough, after everyone had split, someone rowed this motorboat out beyond the point before the engine started. So, I thought to myself, someone who wishes to remain unobserved! Naturally I observe. I tracked the boat all the way back here — and then, from way down the main drag, I saw you come ashore and start up the dirt road leading to the Rinaldi place.

  "I figured you had to be heading there. It's an open secret that Rinaldi's behind this Action for Liberty crap. A
nd since they claimed credit for the train wreck, and the three guys you are supposed to have knocked off worked for the same group, it seemed reasonable that the chick whose dad you saw in Turin was snatched by the same team. Am I right?"

  "No comment," Bolan said.

  "Anyway," Mettner said, "for my money that ties you in with the train, the snatch and the terrorists. So I stick around some more, and after a while this Mercedes and a big truck pass me on the way to the house. Not long after that I hear shots. There was shooting up there, wasn't there?"

  "I believe I did hear something that could have been gunfire," Bolan said blandly. "Poachers in the woods, I guess. You know the Italians."

  "Is Rinaldi still alive?"

  "He was the last time I saw him."

  "You won't tell me what happened up there?"

  "I think," Bolan said, "you can be pretty sure that Action for Liberty will be keeping kind of a low profile for quite some time."

  "Great. But can't you give me some of the details? Somehow I don't think they're going to set up a welcoming committee for reporters and photographers — and you're the guy, after all, with the inside story."

  "The details? Maybe," Bolan said. "Later. In return for a piece of legwork you can do for me."

  "It's a deal," Mettner agreed. "What do you want to find out?"

  The Executioner hesitated. It was against his principles to involve a third party in the middle of a mission. But the intel he needed could be important — and if it was, time could be vital. "Two other girls were kidnapped," he said, "probably by the same team who took Suzanne Bozuffi."

  "Rinaldi's henchmen?"

  Bolan ignored the question and continued, "I don't know exactly when — not too long ago, I guess. They may have been taken to the same hideout as the Bozuffi girl. The only other thing I know is that neither has been the subject of any ransom demand. I was… interrupted before I could find out more."

  "And you want to know…?"

  "I want to know who the girls were, who their fathers are, where they were snatched and how. Could you run a check on that through your office files?"

  "No sweat," Mettner said. "I can do better. I can get someone in the Paris bureau to write a program that will not only come up with the information you want: it will also comb the crime-sheet data banks for any similarities between the two cases and the Bozuffi abduction. How does that grab you?"

  "I like it," Bolan said.

  "And if I do this for you, I get a first-person piece on tonight's scenario? Plus the waterfront killing yesterday afternoon and your escape from the sea?"

  Bolan shook his head. "No first-person material. I'll background you on the events here in the village. No comment on the escape. And, on strict condition that my name be kept out of any story you write, I'll fill you in on the Rinaldi deal. Take it or leave it."

  "This is too good to be true," Mettner said.

  "There is one other favor you could do for me."

  "Name it."

  "I reckon it'd be an idea if my face wasn't in evidence around here tomorrow. I've done what I came to do and there's no reason for me to stay. In particular I want to avoid any brush with the local law, because… well, for obvious reasons."

  "Testimony on the waterfront shooting — and then they'd find out you were on the wanted list." Mettner nodded understandingly. "You want me to help you get out of here, is that it?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Let's go now," Mettner said. "I'll bring the car around to the rear entrance and we can take off right away. The bill's paid; I always settle up each day when I'm on an assignment. That way I'm free to leave any time I want, without any hassle."

  "Better still."

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "Turin," Bolan said. "It'll be easier for you to contact Paris there. And I have to get back to Bozuffi and make certain financial arrangements, put in a request for special equipment. The way things look, I'll be heading for Africa pretty soon."

  * * *

  Jason Mettner conjured up Bolan's intel before midday.

  Nineteen-year-old Joy Helder, whose father was a midwest plastics king, had been missing for three weeks. She had been returning from a vacation in Greece aboard a TWA plane hijacked over the Mediterranean and flown to Beirut. One hundred eighty-nine passengers had been taken off and held hostage in the Shiite quarter of the war-torn city. When terms had been negotiated and the hijackers paid off, the passengers had been returned safe and sound.

  All except one.

  Seven days later Rachel, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of Conrad Meyerbeer, owner of America's most profitable hotel chain, had failed to return from a water-skiing expedition in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

  Her playboy escort had been found drowned — in the cockpit of his powerboat, along with the girl's undamaged skis.

  Nothing had been heard of either girl since.

  The Globe Paris computer had found no similarities between the methods of abduction; such abstracts as callousness and ruthless behavior could not be expressed in binary mathematics. Apart from shared interests in tennis, horse riding and water sports, no correspondence between the girls' life-styles was traceable.

  It was in the business interests of their fathers that Bolan found the link he was seeking.

  Each of the three tycoons possessed a large holding in Montemines Corporation: between them they controlled more than eighty percent of the stock. Each had a seat on the board of directors, and each was a major shareholder in a subsidiary concern trading under the name of Negrimin International. There was a fourth director on the Montemines board but he held very little stock.

  The Montemines Corporation had been formed four years before to exploit a huge mineral concession in the mountainous northern part of Montenegrin.

  Negrimin was the marketing organization that processed and distributed the tin, copper, zinc and other industrial materials extracted from the ores.

  "Each of those kids is being held by that bastard Ononu, that's for sure," Bolan said to Antonio Bozuffi. "So I'm going to take you up on your offer. I'll need arms, ammunition, transport and a certain amount of specialized equipment. But I'm going on in and free those girls if it's the last thing I do."

  It was while they were discussing the logistics of Bolan's rescue operation that they heard the news, on a television set at the foot of the industrialist's hospital bed.

  Palomar, seventeen-year-old daughter of Lucino Varzi, millionaire Italo-American at present living on the isle of Ischia, had been abducted at gunpoint from the family box during a performance of La Bohème at La Scala in Milan.

  Varzi was the fourth director on the Montemines Board.

  Chapter Nine

  Like the true dictator that he was, Emperor Anya Ononu ruled Montenegria, a West African nation of just under five million people, with an iron fist. The country itself, Bolan had learned from his friend Bozuffi, was a wedge-shaped enclave with an area of fifty-one thousand square miles, sandwiched between Liberia and the Ivory Coast.

  The country was rich in minerals, which included copper, zinc and tin.

  The Doulas river split Montenegria almost in two. Twenty miles upriver, Lake Gadrany drowned a winding valley at the foot of a ridge that formed the central backbone of the country.

  And it was just below the crest of this ridge that Mack Bolan now braked his Land Rover.

  Behind him, cliffs towering on either side of the pass blotted out the stars. Below, the dark landscape fell away toward a paler, sinuous blur that marked the position of the lake.

  Bolan adjusted night-vision goggles over his eyes and scanned the rocky trail that wound steeply down to the flatlands lying at the base of the mountain range.

  With luck he could coast maybe two miles without the engine running. After that the recon would have to be on foot: no way could he risk alerting watchers below that a foreigner was making a night entry into Montenegria by this route.

  Bolan's objective was Anya Ononu's summer palace, w
hich was built on an islet at the head of the lake, accessible only via a suspension bridge with a gate house and armed guards at both ends. It was here, he believed, that the kidnapped girls were being held prisoner.

  Here, too, that most of the elite palace guard, drawn from Montenegria's most warlike tribe, were quartered. "You want to watch your step with those boys, Mack," Antonio Bozuffi had told the Executioner. "Anything you saw in Vietnam's kid stuff compared with them. Impalement, castration, crucifixion, having your guts pulled out and fed to the palace guard dogs — those are the least of your worries if they don't like the shape of your nose."

  Between the ridge and the lake, the lunar landscape revealed by the NVD lenses passed from barren mountain slopes, through scrub-covered foothills to an upland savannah dotted with thatch-roofed villages surrounded by squares of cultivation. It was here, in the country's more temperate climate, that the self-styled emperor preferred to spend most of his time.

  The warrior eased off the hand brake and allowed the Land Rover to roll. The track was rugged, alternating loose granite chippings with shelves of bedrock.

  During the previous three days Bolan had seen worse.

  He was determined to have his own specialized transport in Montenegria; at the same time there had to be no record of his arrival. In a heavily policed dictatorship this presented problems. Bozuffi, who knew the place well, solved them in a single stroke.

  The Tunis-Monrovia Rally was about to take place. This tough transcontinental event required contestants piloting anything from a 250cc motorbike to a race-bred Porsche or a three-ton truck to dash across the southwestern fringe of the Sahara, cross a mountain range in southern Mali and complete their torturous journey through the tropical rain forest of Liberia.

  The latter part of the route passed within a few miles of Montenegria's northern frontier.

  In the wild and trackless wastes of that stretch of Africa it was easy enough — and believable enough if he happened to be caught — for a driver to lose his way and stray across that border. Bolan's Land Rover had accordingly been entered in the rally.