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  With Ross and Goldman established, and providing cover, Bolan moved into action. The Executioner cut between them, keeping low and cradling the AKSU as he sought a forward position. Throwing himself flat and rolling to the wall under Ross’s line of fire, he brought the AKSU up against his shoulder and began to pump out rounds in the direction of the retreating enemy. In front of him, marking the point at which the action had begun, were the two corpses that Ross had claimed with his first bursts.

  Bolan heard the chatter of the Beretta cease, and he stood, still firing, to provide cover for Ross as he advanced down the tunnel. When Ross was in position, flat to the ground to allow Bolan to fire over his head, Goldman made his next advance.

  They were moving rapidly down the tunnel, and had now reached the point where the torches had been extinguished. Sweat spangled Bolan’s brow as he strained his eyes to acclimate to the darkness, not wanting to fire at his own people or miss any opposition that may be using the darkness to make an ambush.

  But there seemed to be no opposition in view. The return fire no longer whined on the brickwork around, and it seemed as though the enemy had just retreated into the catacombs.

  “Cease fire,” the soldier yelled over the chatter of the Beretta and the echoing roar of the Desert Eagle. He figured that the darkness would provide a reasonable camouflage to prevent the enemy picking them out.

  As the sounds of the gunfire died, he strained his ears to pick out any noise the enemy may be making. There was little. It seemed to him that they had turned tail and fled in panic. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of people moving, possibly an evac.

  “I think they’re moving out,” he whispered. “Double-time. Follow the noise and watch any side tunnels to make sure.”

  The three men set off at speed, weapons reloaded and ready to fire. They needed to make time in order to reach the enemy before they deserted the catacombs, yet at the same time it was imperative that they didn’t fall prey to an ambush. So they moved forward in the same manner as they had before, but without laying down covering fire. They came across four subsidiary tunnels leading off from their direction, three to the right-hand side and one to the left. In each case, a quick burst from the Beretta or the AKSU neutralized any threat, although it seemed unlikely that any lay in those dark spaces.

  The noise in front of them grew stronger. They were approaching the area where the enemy was based. Throughout the action, they hadn’t caught sight of Signella, but there was little doubt in any of their minds that he was involved with the action. He had come this way because it was where Destiny’s Spear was located.

  The only problem was that their target knew they were coming. The necessity to spray fire down the adjacent corridors as cover meant that their approach was clearly audible—and their progress easy to judge. The lighting in this section of the old catacombs was good, with high-wattage bulbs and strong batteries powering the flashlights. This would make them all-too-easy to see.

  Bolan pulled up as they approached another tunnel curve. He flattened himself against the wall and beckoned his comrades to do likewise.

  “Now we’ve got a problem,” he said softly. “By the amount of noise they’re making, I’d figure that they’re just around the corner, and you can bet that they’ll have sentries posted and waiting for us. If we go straight in, we’re dead.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do, sit here and wait?” Goldman asked with barely disguised sarcasm.

  Bolan ignored his tone, treating it as a serious question. “We can’t. They’re in the process of moving out, and I’d figure that half the gendarmerie in Marseilles will be on our ass before long. The shooting and the grenade have certainly drawn attention. We’re not that far underground that it wouldn’t have been noticed up above.”

  “So time is of the essence. I suggest we make a maneuver like before and go in blazing. It worked then.” Ross shrugged.

  Bolan considered that. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s risky. If we hit those chemical weapons and shatter the flasks, then we’ve unleashed certain death for miles around. We’ve got to be more cautious.” A slow smile crossed his face. “Yeah, it might just work,” he said almost to himself. “Listen, you guys count to fifty and then start to lay down some fire. Very minor, just enough to draw their attention and let them know we’re here. Just enough to keep them focused.”

  “And you?” Ross queried.

  “Just trust me, and move when you hear the roar,” the soldier said, patting the AKSU before moving back up the tunnel the way they’d come.

  Goldman gave Ross a bemused stare, but the merc just shrugged at his partner, and started to count in a whisper: “One…two…three…”

  Bolan moved back up the corridor as far as the last off-shoot tunnel. He knew it was clear as they had fired a precautionary blast down it on passing. He also figured that there was little chance of anyone in the main enemy camp keeping a guard on it. They thought that the opposing force was headed straight, and the probing fire from Ross and Goldman would reinforce that view.

  It was exactly what he wanted.

  The tunnel was dark. It had obviously been lit entirely by torches, which had been extinguished by the blowout from the earlier grenade blast. Bolan slowed and felt his way cautiously along the passage, one hand outstretched on the wall to grope along and keep flush to the side.

  His hand hit air. A turnoff. He could hear the sounds of evac coming from that direction. He moved around to stay flush to the wall as he took off down this new tunnel. The brickwork curved and ahead he could see a dullish light. The noises were louder now.

  The curve of the corridor obviously emerged into the chamber where the terrorists, and whoever else they worked with, had their base. By the look of the illumination, the chamber was near. And it seemed that they had not deemed it worthwhile to place a guard at the entrance, as the illumination was even, with nobody to block some of the light.

  This was the entrance Bolan had been hoping for. While the terrorists continued their evac and returned the sporadic fire from Ross and Goldman on the other side of the chamber, they would be completely unprepared for what was about to happen.

  All the while, Bolan had been counting in his head: “Forty-six…forty-seven…forty-eight…forty-nine…”

  On the count of fifty, the Executioner moved into action.

  Pushing off from the wall against which he had been resting, he came around the curve of the tunnel with the AKSU firing into the chamber’s entrance. But he still had to be somewhat cautious and reduce the risk of breaking the chemical flasks if they were in the room. The only way to do that was to hit hard, find direct targets and to strike with surprise, preventing the enemy from firing back and setting up a siege situation. There was still a chance of the flasks being broken, but this way it was much reduced.

  Unloading continuous rounds as he moved, Bolan finally got his first look at the place where the terrorists had made their base.

  The room, hollowed out of the catacombs, was about twenty feet square, and the first thing he noticed was that the only weapons in sight were those in or near the hands of the people in the room. One part of his brain breathed a sigh of relief. He had been hoping that they would keep living and briefing quarters separate from their armory, or else he and the mercs ran the risk of setting off a giant bomb below ground. The rest of his mind was focused on the task ahead.

  As he advanced, pumping fire into the chamber, he took a note of who was there.

  Signella was holding an Uzi, with blood staining a makeshift dressing applied to his lower left arm. Probably a superficial wound, perhaps a nick from the fire in the tunnel or a splinter of wood or brickwork. It didn’t seem to be impeding him. There was a small, elfin woman with an AKSU that dwarfed her hands, and a tall, thin bearded man with an H&K MP-5. Two men stood near what had to be the entrance to the tunnel from which Ross and Goldman were firing. One had an Uzi, the other an MP-5, and they were firing sporadically into the
darkness, returning the fire from the mercenaries.

  Seven other people were in the room, three men, four women. They had weapons on shoulder straps, but they were too busy packing papers and belongings to have them at hand. It was an evac, all right. They wanted to leave no sign, no clue behind them, and their haste had made them careless.

  The shells from Bolan’s AKSU ripped across the room. Signella, the bearded man and the woman all dived for whatever cover they could find, lifting their weapons to return fire. For the two men covering the other entrance, there wasn’t enough time to react and move. The AKSU rounds ripped across the middle of their bodies, almost separating torso from abdomen as they both tried to turn and return fire. Last nerve-twitch reactions sent Uzi fire into the ceiling of the chamber, bringing down dust and dirt, obscuring the view.

  Bolan stepped into the room and sought immediate cover, wondering if Ross and Goldman had started their advance.

  “I MAKE IT FIFTY,” Goldman said impatiently.

  “You’re counting too fast,” Ross whispered, only up to forty-three in his head.

  “So who says how fast you have to count?” Goldman shrugged. “I just want to get going.”

  “Now let’s go,” Ross countered, having reached fifty in his own head. “I just hope Cooper counts at the same speed, or we’re chopped liver.”

  Goldman reloaded the Desert Eagle and rose to his feet from his previous crouch.

  Pumping out covering fire, the two men emerged from the angle of the corridor and turned the corner, heading for the light. The noises within the room were interrupted by the volcanic blast of controlled AKSU fire, and they saw the two guards with whom they had been exchanging fire suddenly jerk and fall, their bodies almost ruptured by the heavy-duty assault rifle shells.

  Ross grinned and held his fire as he and his partner gained the entrance to the chamber and saw the mayhem within. They just had a glimpse of their partner as he took cover, and noted that there were ten other fighters in the room. Three had weapons in hand, and were turning to focus on the Executioner. Seven others were in the process of scrambling for their arms.

  Not if Ross and Goldman could help it.

  The three men and four women didn’t stand a chance. A burst from the Beretta took them in neat lines from throat to groin, the high-impact 9 mm rounds rupturing organs and causing fatal damage in seconds. Those who didn’t succumb to the Beretta found large holes blasted in their bodies by the .44 Magnum rounds of the Desert Eagle. They hardly had time to react before their lives were taken from them.

  In terms of possible harm to the chemical flasks, it was a case of maximum impact, minimum danger. All fire from the mercs had been directed at the bodies of their enemies, and the surrounding chamber was relatively untouched.

  Their part was done.

  THE SOLDIER KNEW there was little cover, and in drawing the fire from the mercs, he was endangering himself. But it had to be done. After his initial burst, he had noticed that there were packing cases to his right. They would provide little in the way of protection, but using them for cover may just buy him that vital fraction of a second.

  As he hit the ground behind them, twisting as quickly as possible in the confined space, he heard and felt Uzi and MP-5 gunfire splinter the wood above him, thudding into the brick wall above his head, showering him with dust. He had only a few seconds until they lowered their aim enough to take him out.

  The rain of shells above him faltered. He heard other fire, including the unmistakable booming of the Desert Eagle, and he knew that Ross and Goldman had followed his cue.

  Bolan took advantage of the stutter to make his move. Coming up smoothly, he took out the elfin woman and the bearded man with two short bursts. As the shells hit and their bodies twisted toward him, recognition hit. They were the faces of Jean-Louise Garrault and Francine Malpas, from the photos of Destiny’s Spear.

  They both hit the ground, dead. In the sudden lull of fire, this left Signella between Bolan on one side, and Ross and Goldman on the other. The Sicilian gazed wildly at his three opponents, not knowing what to do.

  “Give it up, Signella,” Bolan commanded. “You help us, you get to live.”

  Signella turned instinctively at the soldier’s words. As he turned, the Uzi moved upward, but Bolan could see that his finger had relaxed on the trigger.

  Goldman shot him.

  9

  “Konstantin! Konstantin! For God’s sakes, move your ass and get in here.”

  The cabin door opened, and Hector Chavez-Smith’s personal bodyguard stepped into the room. He was breathing heavily, as though he had run to respond to the call.

  “What’s going on out there?” Chavez-Smith demanded. He was seated at his desk in his private quarters on the yacht, dressed only in a bathrobe. Two thick lines of cocaine were divided on the blotter in front of him, and he was using a hundred-dollar bill to snort them. His nose tingled and itched, the powder searing tissues already long since scarred by constant use. The amount he had consumed in that evening was enough to tilt him over the edge, making him paranoid and tense. He had wanted the Countess D’Orsini to stay, even asked her, and the bitch declined. And now he was alone, with no bimbo in sight to satisfy him. This was not helping his temper.

  All of this went through his mind as he waited for his bodyguard to reply. As with all the man’s speech, it was clipped and heavily accented.

  “Trouble in town. Someone setting off explosives beneath the sewer. Many police gathering. Nothing to directly affect us.”

  Chavez-Smith furrowed his brow. As far as this idiot knew, that was correct. But Signella and Destiny’s Spear had established a base in the catacombs, trading off arms with the smuggling crews for the rights to use some of their underground territory. Even if the terrorists weren’t involved with the events beneath the town, the incursion of the police could have dire effects.

  “What about Signella? Have you seen him this evening?”

  The bodyguard shrugged. “Before sundown. He say he go after his woman.”

  Chavez-Smith nodded slowly and dismissed the bodyguard with a wave. But as the man reached the cabin door, the arms dealer called out.

  “Better prepare to cast off at short notice. Just a precaution,” he said before once more gesturing dismissively.

  “I SHOULD SHOOT YOU NOW, before you cause any more problems,” Bolan said angrily, leveling the AKSU at Goldman.

  “Easy, big man, easy,” Ross said quickly, palms up to show that he meant no threat. “The idiot is my partner, let me deal with him.”

  Before either Bolan or Goldman had a chance to respond, Ross turned and hit Goldman across the face with the barrel of the Beretta. The redhead, taken completely off guard and unable to protect himself from the force of the blow, went sprawling across the blood encrusted dirt floor.

  “He’s right, he should shoot you!” Ross yelled. “What the fuck did you do that for, Jimmy?”

  Goldman sat up, eyes clouded, and spit a gob of bloody phlegm onto the already saturated floor beside him. The room stank of cordite and blood, the smells of violent death. The pause before Goldman spoke gave them a chance to realize the stench was amplified by the enclosed underground space.

  “’Course I shot the bastard, he was pointing the gun at him,” he said in a dazed but calm voice, indicating Bolan.

  “He had his finger away from the trigger and was about to give it up,” Bolan said between clenched teeth, his patience almost exhausted. “We needed him alive, not dead. What can he tell us now?”

  “I didn’t know, did I…” The voice of the still-stunned Goldman trailed off.

  Bolan slung the AKSU over his shoulder and moved out into the middle of the carnage.

  “Okay, forget it for now. We need to see if there’s anything they left behind before the police get here.”

  “I’m with you,” Ross said briefly, and the two men began to search the chamber while Goldman sat dazed, gradually returning to his senses.

 
; The packing cases and boxes that had been filled to move out of the chamber revealed very little. Wherever their armory was, it was either in a different part of the catacombs or in another location entirely, as there was nothing to indicate a weapons cache, and no noise of activity to indicate that there was anyone else in the tunnels at the moment. They knew that they had to work quickly, however, and both men sifted through the cases with a quick-fingered efficiency. Most of the material consisted of personal effects that would identify Destiny’s Spear members, or papers relating to planned actions. But finally Ross uncovered something that didn’t fit with the rest of the material.

  “Cooper, look at this,” he said, turning to Bolan.

  The soldier left his own search and joined Ross, examining the package the merc handed to him. It was a wrapped parcel. The tape around it had been cut and then resealed. Bolan carefully unwrapped it once again, taking off the insulating and protective packaging until he came to a box. The computerized lock had not been set, and with a sinking heart he opened the lid.

  Inside were three flasks, all still sealed, all seemingly untouched. There was also a pouch that was empty.

  Bolan breathed a sigh of relief. “The chemical weapons. They didn’t have a chance to hand them over to Chavez-Smith.”

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t really what he was after, was it?” Ross remarked ruefully, studying the case. He reached out and opened up the empty pouch. “It’s already gone.”

  “The sonic weapon?” Bolan stated.

  “That’s what we’re after,” Ross replied simply. “They must have already taken it to Chavez-Smith. All this for nothing,” he added, shaking his head. “Man, I really thought it would be Signella who’d be the carrier.”

  “Maybe that’s what we were supposed to think,” Bolan mused softly. “Intel would have Signella as the contact, so anyone on the trail would pick him up immediately. To use him as a decoy makes perfect sense.” His attention shifted to the empty pouch. “How can a sonic weapon be that small?” he asked. “It’d have to be bigger, just to—”