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  “You know the way back to the truck?” he snapped at the two Norwegians, who nodded. Seb couldn’t be sure if that was the truth or just fear. He would have to take that chance. He instructed Manus to take an SMG from the armory and take up a position where he could keep watch and also ride shotgun for the two musicians, as a precaution.

  Then he turned to the two young men and outlined his plan. That done, he then directed them to help him load the first cart before sending them out into the night, while he returned to his task alone with a second cart, cursing as he did a mission that had been fouled up from the beginning. Only thoughts of the eventual outcome of the mission kept him buoyed as he worked.

  * * *

  WHILE BOLAN WAITED, he pondered the best course of action. He wasn’t about to rush the bunker. He had no real idea of the layout beyond a working knowledge of standard USSR design, which gave the people inside one advantage. A second advantage in their favor was that there may be more than the three of them. The soldier had no way of knowing if there had been men stationed there waiting for them. In an enclosed environment like the bunker, three to one was already poor odds. He had no wish for the odds to be upped.

  Bolan had already dragged the corpses of the three gunners off the trail they had been taking, covering them so that they could not be easily found or observed. He had also raked over any traces of his presence. Now he was a hundred yards from the concealed bunker entrance, in cover, waiting for something to happen.

  When it did, it wasn’t quite what he had expected. The entrance to the bunker opened, and he saw Erik Manus come out, tentatively staring around him like a frightened rabbit, inexpertly clutching an SMG.

  That made at least one extra gunner. Following close behind were the two black metallers—easily identifiable by their long hair and piercings, even at a distance—who struggled up to level ground, maneuvering a cart that was laden with—again, easily identifiable to the soldier even from a distance—the cream of the bunker’s ordnance. Weapons that the Russians would particularly like to retain, and the very weapons that Bolan had been sent to retrieve.

  There was no sign of the merc who had been with the two musicians. That would make it one-on-one if he went into the bunker now, and he could take down the two musicians as they returned. The fourth man, Manus, who moved away from the Norwegians and from where Bolan was secreted, looked more of a danger to himself than to the soldier. Manus could wait.

  But this course of action would split the ordnance and make it a little more difficult to recover. If Bolan allowed them to load their truck with the prime ordnance, and then took them out of the game, it would enable him to take away the weapons from the bunker before calling Stony Man, and so put some distance between himself and any enemy that was attempting to locate the bunker.

  The Executioner made the decision to wait until they had loaded the truck. At a distance he tracked them and watched while they loaded the ordnance from the cart before making their way back. When they were out of sight, he went up to the vehicle and checked the inventory they were planning to transport. From the amount of room it took up, he estimated two more loads from the bunker would fill the rear of the truck. Even then, it would risk the weight sinking the wheels in the muddy forest floor. He would have to act swiftly when they returned with the final load, or else the truck would be trapped here no matter the outcome of the ensuing firefight.

  He returned to his observation post near the mouth of the bunker and waited. Shortly the two Norwegians came out again, a little slower this time, with a filled cart that they toiled to drag through the forest to the truck. Bolan didn’t bother to follow them this time. Instead, he kept watch on the mouth of the bunker. It was still and silent, and he imagined the mercenary, alone in the armory, loading the last cart that they would be able to fit in the truck’s interior.

  When the two Norwegians returned to the bunker, they were dragging the cart. By the time they had taken the final load up to the truck they would be exhausted—as, he assumed, would be the merc from loading the carts single-handedly—and so they would deliver the ordnance to him, complete with transport.

  By not taking them down until now, he hoped that the odds would be evened up by the toll their exertions had taken on them. There had been no practical way of separating them otherwise. There was still Manus, but all trace of him seemed to have vanished, as though he never existed.

  After a short pause the two Norwegians came out from the bunker for the last time, with the mercenary at their rear. He was clutching an MP5, and even from this distance, Bolan could see that he had a wild-eyed look.

  Was he suspicious? Or was it just fear?

  Get to the truck, take it nice and slow, Bolan thought. Then the takedown will be easy...

  It wasn’t going to be that way. Suddenly the merc stopped the Norwegians, whispering urgently as he began to move off into the words. Bolan cursed and started to circle through the trees.

  For whatever reason the mercenary had been drawn to the location of the dead gunners. If he discovered the bodies and the truck and raised the alarm, then the Norwegians would be panicked.

  Bolan would have to take him out of the game silently, before the merc had a chance to raise the alarm, but the distance between them was too great. Bolan had little choice but to run faster and with less caution, casting to one side the need to keep his progress silent. He was aware that his footsteps across the fir were louder; however, the risk should be worth it.

  He was within a few yards when the mercenary heard his pursuer and whirled to meet him. A mix of surprise and fear washed over his face, replaced by the diamond-hard gleam of determination born out of the need to survive. As Bolan took a flying leap to make the last yards, the merc leveled his MP5 and let fly a short burst. It should have stitched Bolan across the torso.

  Should have. The soldier was too experienced not to have anticipated the move and had deviated from his path at the last second. The fire blasted past his shoulder, so close that he could feel the heat before he slammed into the mercenary as he tried to adjust his aim for a second shot.

  The two men went rolling across the moss and fir, sinking into the soft mud. Bolan was acutely aware that the gunfire had to have alerted the Norwegians, and their reaction was unpredictable. He needed to finish this quickly.

  As the men grappled, Bolan felt the merc’s hands grab for Bolan’s throat. Fingers like iron, with the intensity of the desperate, clutched at the tendons of his neck, the thumbs feeling for the windpipe. Bolan was on top, and he rolled, so that they flipped and the mercenary was now uppermost. It enabled the soldier to bring his knee up into the merc’s groin, the sudden pain causing the man to loosen his grip, while the momentum of the thrust carried him over Bolan’s head.

  Before the mercenary had a chance to fully regain his feet, Bolan was on him. The soldier cannoned into the merc and drove him back into a tree, driving the air from his lungs. His adversary gave a strangled gasp as his ribs gave way under the impact. Bolan took hold of the merc’s jaw and drove his head back onto the trunk of the tree three times. The man’s eyes glazed as his hold on consciousness began to slip.

  Bolan brought the Beretta into play and discharged one shot, angled up into the merc’s body, the last light draining from his eyes. Bolan let go of the limp torso and turned away at a run, heading for the location where the two Norwegians had returned to their truck. He could hear the engine fire up; there was no loyalty among these terrorists, only fear.

  Which was the one thing he didn’t want. He had planned on being able to take them down at least one by one, almost relying on their camaraderie or discipline to keep them in one place. But the Norwegians were not soldiers of any stripe. They were frightened youths out of their depth, which made them—in some ways—more dangerous.

  Especially as Bolan’s sedan was a hell of a ways off, and it would take him far too
long to replace the leads on the disabled truck. He had to stop the truck, even at the risk of disabling it. He could fix it. He couldn’t fix losing them; at least, not as easily.

  He ran through the forest, zigzagging among the trees as the light of the moon illuminated his path. The engine of the truck gunned as it moved off. It started to grow fainter as Bolan took the MAC-10 from his shoulders and racked the weapon, ready to fire on the run, to take out the rear wheels. The forest resounded to the sound of the truck hammering into a tree and skidding away as the driver panicked, trying to find the way back to the road.

  Bolan cut through a clump of trees, the rear of the truck coming into view as it skidded along the path. He had one shot: a burst of SMG fire at the rear right tires. Sparks flew as he hit the bodywork, wood flying as the surrounding trees were sprayed.

  But the tires remained intact, and Bolan cursed as the truck went out of his line of sight.

  The gamble—and his luck—had failed him this time.

  At least it was the truck with the GPS tracker attached. All he had to do now was get back to his vehicle. He would keep a lookout for the fourth man, but chances were that he was as far from here as he could get. Poor bastard would probably get lost and freeze to death.

  The cold night suddenly felt a bit colder.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bolan reported to Stony Man the events at the bunker, informing them of its exact location. The Farm would arrange for a pickup team to remove what ordnance remained there, but it was left unsaid that the real payload was trundling the highway to Norway. Bolan vowed to keep on the trail and take down the two Norwegians.

  After making his way back to the rental car, Bolan had hit the road in the direction he had seen the rogue truck take.

  It was nearly half an hour and fifty klicks before he picked up any kind of cell phone signal and was able to follow the GPS. He drove through the night as the target vehicle hit the highway that took them north, headed toward the border with Norway. It was reasonable at this point to assume that they were retracing the route that had brought them to Karelia just a short time before.

  It should have been a straightforward task. At the speed he could push the rental car, he was gaining ground, and when the truck appeared to come to a halt, he was relieved. By the time the sun had risen, he was within a few klicks.

  Pulling into a service station, the soldier parked and got out of the vehicle, taking in the immediate area. The services consisted of a diner and gas station, with a large parking lot split into two sections. Even at this early hour, both the diner and the gas pumps were busy with long-distance truck drivers, the parking area littered by semitrailers that made a clear view across the lot impossible.

  Bolan headed for the diner. The Norwegians had not gotten a look at him, and at this time of the morning, he looked like any other truck driver on a comfort stop. He bought a coffee to go, used the restroom, and bought an English-language newspaper so that he could scope out the store attached to the diner.

  There was no sign of the men who—in truth—would have been easily visible among the other truck drivers.

  Bolan checked his smartphone as he left, headed for the parking lot. According to the GPS, they were still in the area and had not moved. He was hoping that it would be possible to take them down away from any civilians.

  A recon of both parking lots failed to reveal the truck he was tailing, and Bolan started to suspect the worst. A careful survey of the area confirmed that fear. The bad luck that had dogged him at crucial moments had been compounded by the fact that the GPS tracker he had fitted to the truck had worked loose.

  Thrown to the roadside and trammeled by passing traffic was a piece of chassis from beneath the truck. It lay there, battered and split. By some quirk of chance, the GPS transmitter was still attached where he had placed it, having escaped damage.

  Bolan had reported the find and within minutes had a call from a phlegmatic Brognola. It was not enough to assume that the truck had headed back to Oslo, particularly as the soldier had left a trail in that city that made his presence a risk at this time. The big Fed suggested Bolan head to the nearest NATO base with a U.S. presence, and from there he would be flown to Essen to await developments. In the meantime intel sources would be utilized to trace the missing payload.

  Bolan did not suffer from pride. He would have been history long before if this had been the case. He did, however, have a professionalism that smarted at this job not being wrapped up.

  Three days later Bolan was in Essen, Germany, at a military base, resupplying and trading intel with the Farm, awaiting the next move with the tension of a coiled spring.

  Seventy-two hours full of tension. Then came the chance for its merciful release.

  * * *

  “HIS NAME IS STEIN SUNDBY. Sounds a lot less impressive than Ripper Sodomizer, don’t you think?”

  “Certainly does, Bear. Have the authorities got anything positive to tie him to the death of Arsneth? Or is it just the word of a bunch of kids and a mysterious guy with a gun?”

  “Considering the level of deductive ability they had shown up to that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d settled for that. But, no, they were actually forced to do some work and found DNA links.”

  “Nice to know CSI shows are big in Norway. I didn’t think the locals were that lax.”

  “They’re not as a rule. Anything to do with black metal brings up nasty memories, and they’d rather bury it as soon as possible.”

  “Not at the expense of the truth,” Bolan said flatly.

  “Our friend Sundby is the only one left standing to take the rap,” Kurtzman continued. “You may also be interested to know that Milan Millevich also had DNA traces at the apartment where Arsneth was murdered. As did Seb Illytch, whose body we retrieved from the woods near the bunker. All three men had traces present in the bunker and around the corpses of the two remaining Abaddon Relix youths, who had been there some time.”

  “Kids shouldn’t mess with grown-up issues,” Bolan said sadly.

  “The important thing is that all bodies were removed along with the remaining ordnance. There was no sign of your fourth man. ID could be Erik Manus—it was his house you followed them to. He’s a musician and producer. No real political or terrorist history of any kind.”

  “Out of his depth, too, and it probably cost him his life,” Bolan observed.

  “Indeed. By the way, I hear that the Russians have finally pinned down a location for their bunker. They’re going to be sorely disappointed at what they find. Or rather don’t find.”

  “That’s one consolation. A small one.”

  “Not really. The mother lode is still out there. But, on a positive note, if we don’t know where it is, the chances of the Russians finding it first are remote. And it may be flushed out sooner than you’d think.”

  “Why?”

  “Sundby has a court hearing to set a trial date tomorrow. Hal thinks it’s time you went back to Norway.”

  “He thinks it’s safe?”

  “Striker, you’re going to be there.... When is that ever an indication of ‘safe’?”

  * * *

  AFTER HITTING THE HIGHWAY to Norway, Hades and Visigoth had made the arranged rendezvous on the border with a third truck. The vehicle, with four men, had been sent by Freedom Right to split the cache and transport it to two different locations. The original plan had been for the Norwegians and Seb to return to Oslo with some of the ordnance, while the second and third trucks would head for Estonia and the headquarters of the organization.

  The two Norwegians arriving alone, and a truck short, had changed all that. They had expected to be greeted by comrades who would sympathize with their plight, which only served to show their naïveté. First, they were dragged from their truck at gunpoint and questioned as to
why they had sent no word. Their protestations about a poor cell phone signal were dismissed. Why had they not called when they regained reception?

  Again their explanations about not having a contact number were dismissed. Where then was Seb’s cell phone? Come to that, where was Seb? And where were the men they had sent as backup?

  Their story, garbled as it was by their own fear and exhaustion, did them no favors. They were split up and held under observation while the existing ordnance was split into two loads, and the trucks now set off north, both vehicles headed for Estonia.

  After a journey in silence, they were blindfolded as they entered the city of Tallinn, so that their eventual destination could be kept secret. Not that it mattered. Both young men felt that they would never see the outside world again.

  They had been bundled into the basement of a building, locked in a room that had two beds and a table, and left there until fear had softened them up. Hades and Visigoth had spent two nights in that cellar. They had not yet been tortured but feared that would be their fate.

  Then they were questioned and cross-questioned relentlessly. They had to understand, they were told, that security was paramount. Could they have been followed from the bunker? How had they been tailed there in the first instance? What had happened to the men sent to them? Where was Seb? What went on in Oslo that had left them short of men to begin with?

  It didn’t help that they could not answer any of these questions. They had been witness to nothing, and even with Seb’s death they only had the impression of sounds to go by.

  As the only survivors, with nothing to offer as to why they had been lucky, they looked to be in an untenable position. The whip-thin man with the drawn, hawklike face who came to them last was blunt about this.

  “I cannot understand you. You are either cunning and very good actors, or incredibly stupid and extremely lucky. If you are the last, then perhaps we can still have use for you.

  “You know what we stand for, by now. Here we are in Tallinn, in the county of Harju. This is the center of Estonia, yet it is also one of the two regions that are populated by foreigners. They have been here for generations at the behest of the scourge known as Communism, and still they will not move.