Hellfire Crusade

3

The young woman in the car-rental booth at Tampa airport watched the tall man in a dark suit and tropical-weight raincoat approach. Linda could usually place her customers right away, but she couldn't peg this guy with the blue eyes that seemed to bore right through her. She felt a pleasurable thrill at being so exposed and, liking what she saw, Linda gave him her brightest smile as she handed over the keys. He had booked a V8 with air-conditioning; it was quiet, conservative and powerful like the client himself.

It took only a few minutes before Bolan was speeding west across the causeway.

Florida seemed dusty, crowded and run-down, as if it couldn't quite keep pace with the retirement and tourist boom it had so long encouraged. It certainly was not the same place he had first rampaged through so many lifetimes ago, hot on the trail of Portocci, Lavangetta and the dreaded Talifero brothers.

But then, Bolan wasn't the same man, either.

Hell, in those days he sometimes had to hit bagmen and runners for needed funds, or steal a mobster's car to give himself wheels; and often he rearmed himself by lifting weapons from the lifeless fingers of those soldiers foolish enough to shoot it out with the Executioner. On more than a few occasions he'd skimped on supplies to make sure he had the ammo he needed to feed Big Thunder.

Not anymore. Mack Bolan did not have to worry where the next meal was coming from, nor any other equipment he might need. The Phoenix program had given him respite from the permanent insecurity of a hunted man. But in the end the price tag had been too high. His new war was partly financed by a fund created by Swiss bankers at the bequest of Duchess Marijana, an expatriate aristocrat who had befriended him during his personal clash with Major General Greb Strakhov of the KGB'S Thirteenth Section. The Executioner also had money in his war chest from his Mafia-hunting days.

Bolan could dip into the Swiss account from anywhere in the world to furnish himself with weapons, transport or whatever was needed to continue his ongoing war against the grip of the Black Hand and the KGB'-sponsored terror mongers.

Bolan's campaigns, too, had changed over the years. Now the whole world was his battlefield and the odds against him were longer. But freed from financial constraints, Mack Bolan had redoubled his efforts.

He still thwarted the dark designs of the Mafia — he always would consider that a special crusade, for that was how it had all started — but there was an even more sinister hydra on the loose: a voracious many-tentacled monster that Bolan was sworn to oppose.

He would trade terror for terror, blood for blood, slashing ever deeper into the guts of the beast, determined to cripple this cancerous network of international outlaws, torturers and political hitmen: the kind of fanatical bullies who would kidnap a young boy who had more brains than common sense.

He turned south on 19, then hung a right on Bay Drive, cruising toward Belleair. The Bakers had a small but exclusive estate on the oceanfront opposite Sand Key. It was getting dark as he pulled up outside their gates. It was likely the police would still be there, reassuring the parents that a ransom call would soon come, even though they were treating Kevin's disappearance as a probable homicide. Bolan had scanned the reports of the wide-scale search in the papers handed out on the plane. He checked inside his wallet; he was ready for them.

He half turned to watch a flight of pelicans swoop overhead as he crunched up the gravel path. There were no uniformed men in sight. But Bolan was not expecting the young man who opened the door. This fresh-faced kid must have come straight from the academy; it confirmed that the inspector in charge of the Baker case was not seriously thinking that the kidnappers would make contact.

"Yes?" The young man was hesitant. His eyes darted past Bolan's shoulder, sweeping the approach to see if the visitor was alone.

"Logan." Bolan flashed an ID card, one of the many from the stock he had accumulated. "I'm from Washington."

"Yessir." The novice stood a little straighter. "Come on in. My name's Chapman. I'm pulling this watch on my own."

Bolan started to scribble a number on a small notebook. "Here, this will put you straight through to the White House — the duty officer will vouch for me — use it and forget it!"

"Why, yes sir, I'm sure they can." Chapman waived the proffered reference. He was not about to start checking out a troubleshooter from D.C., not on his first assignment. "The Bakers are out back by the Pool."

"Thanks," Bolan said, nodding, giving the beginner an encouraging pat on the shoulder as he eased past.

"No, that's all right, I'll show myself through. You've got an important job right here." Bolan sincerely hoped that Chapman was not going to get into too much trouble.

The house was furnished with more money than taste.

Bolan glanced into the lounge, where a cluster of tape-recording equipment was heaped around the phone in anticipation of a ransom call. There was also a red phone that was probably installed to provide a direct link with police headquarters. The wall at the far end was taken up with expensive stereo equipment and a full media center.

Wendell Baker was nursing a highball glass on his redwood recliner. His wife was unpicking some needlepoint stitches that displeased her. They both looked up expectantly as Bolan walked around the pool.

The outdoor floodlights were already switched on; they made the water look unnaturally blue and the grass unnaturally green. And Bolan noticed that June Baker was unnaturally tanned even by Florida's excessive standards.

Wendell, at least ten or twelve years older than his wife, had a boardroom pallor. He rose to his feet with a slightly unsteady shuffle.

Bolan flashed his ID card again and when the Bakers seemed satisfied at its authenticity, he apologized for not being the bearer of hopeful news.

He stated that there were some questions he'd like to ask them.

Washington needed a more detailed profile on Kevin.

"I don't know what more we can tell you, Mr. Logan, that we haven't already told the other policemen," said the father, launching into the same abbreviated biography he had recounted to all the other investigators and the press.

In the absence of any more positive action, cooperation with the authorities was the only contribution Wendell Baker could make toward the recovery of his son.

"He's such a bright boy. Very bright." Mrs. Baker echoed the one fact that had never been in doubt.

"Anything he needed to get ahead — I bought it for him," Wendell Baker assured the visitor from Washington. "I made sure he had it." There was something in the man's insistence on how generous he had been with his son that sounded as if he wanted to quash any suspicion that Kevin had somehow arranged his own escape in order to flee his parents. It was an option Bolan had briefly considered but discarded. "He had a private tutor by the time he was eight. Coached him in math on the weekends. Kev took tests at a special summer school and passed straight into ninth grade by the time he was eleven. He was the first boy in his school to have his own home computer."

Baker was the kind of guy who bought stereo equipment, not for the music he could hear on it, but for the maximum array of woofers, tweeters and graphic equalizers; just as he would buy a new lens for the extra f-stop it gave him, without thinking if it would make the slightest difference to his snapshot photography. Evidently he treated Kevin as another piece of expensive equipment, to be fine-tuned for a head start down those corporate corridors of power.

"We gave him every opportunity, Mr. Logan. No one can deny that."

All except one, thought Bolan, the opportunity to simply enjoy being a kid. He tried to imagine what it had been like for Kevin at school, where he had been streamlined into a class that probably teased him constantly for being too young, too small and much too brainy.

"Oh, there is one more thing. We gave all the recent pictures of Kevin to the local police and they are making copies for circulation. But June remembered she has a fairly new photo of him in a locket. It's upstairs. I'll get it for you."

"Thank you, it would be a great help."

Wendell Baker went across to the sliding doors and vanished inside. It was still warm but quite gloomy behind the perimeter of the lights. An insect trap zapped at the unwary pests it attracted. June Baker had set her embroidery in her lap and was staring vacantly at the pool.

"You do think Chip's still alive, don't you, Mr. Logan?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"Somehow I feel that he is, Mrs. Baker," replied Bolan. "Is that what you call him — Chip?"

"Yes... sometimes. He, well, he didn't have too many friends. A couple of his classmates called him Chip. I did, too... just trying to... It's odd, isn't it, that a mother has to work at being friends with her own son." She continued to stare down at the unruffled surface of the cobalt water, slightly embarrassed to be making this confession to a stranger. "It takes a tragedy like this to make one reassess one's feelings," she continued. "I do love him, Mr. Logan, don't get me wrong; I love him but I don't think I've ever really liked him. Perhaps that doesn't make sense to you. But I couldn't talk with him. I didn't understand a thing he said — it was always about chemical equations or computer programs. I don't think we ever just talked about..." June Baker dried up as her husband reappeared with the locket in his hand.

"Here, I took that picture of him about five months ago."

Bolan turned back to Mrs. Baker. "Would you mind if I kept this for a few days?"

She signaled her agreement. "Please bring it back to me."

"I hope I'll do better than that," he said, slipping the gold memento into his pocket. Bolan thanked them for their help and walked back through the house. Chapman nodded and dutifully logged Logan's time of departure.

Bolan was still thinking about Kevin as he pulled away from the curb. He doubted that the youngster had drawn up those blueprints for a homemade bomb in order to demonstrate the nuclear industry's lack of security. More likely that was just a lawyer's argument to get him off the hook.

Bolan figured that Kevin Baker had probably done it to show his classmates he wasn't simply smarter than them but that he was light-years ahead. It was the same with the computer break-in-maybe he had done it to impress a special girl, maybe just to attract attention.

Well, the boy had drawn attention to himself all right... from the wrong kind of people. And Bolan had attracted notice by his visit to the Bakers.

Someone else was logging the comings and goings from the Belleair estate.

Bolan cruised at moderate speed along the edge of the golf course, keeping a careful watch in the rearview mirror. The dark blue van that had been following him turned back; an Audi took its place. When Bolan turned right the other car did the same, carefully adjusting its speed to maintain a constant distance. A coincidence? Or were they tailing him? It was time to find out. Bolan pushed the pedal to the floor.

Bolan felt the surge of power push him back into the cushioned seat. He scanned the deserted street ahead. The road he was on ended at a junction barely four hundred yards away.

The lights turned to a green signal arrow.

The tires screeched in protest as he spun the wheel in a slithering high-speed turn.

Bolan's unexpected acceleration had caught the other driver off guard; now the Audi was racing to catch up.

It could not have been the police or the FBI.

Bolan was sure of it. If Chapman had used the red phone to check him out, the cops would have scooped him up at the house. Anyway, it wasn't their kind of car.

And he doubted if it was the Mob. No, the Mafia would have gotten straight down to business, looking for a fast return on their risk, either by ransoming the boy or squeezing the information they wanted out of him.

Unlike the Bear, Bolan could think of several disturbing reasons why organized crime might want to get their hands on a nuclear device. But it was unlikely they would hang around the neighborhood to monitor the investigation.

Of course a political kidnapping was a whole different ball game. Anyone treading that dangerously close to creating an explosive international incident would be very interested in knowing exactly how the investigation was proceeding.

The Executioner was nearly three blocks in the lead. There was a small shopping plaza coming up.

He jerked the wheel to the right and plunged into the quiet backwater of a light-industrial zone. The foreign car took a tire-smoldering shortcut through the plaza car park in an effort to slice their quarry's lead time. The car swerved past a small girl bicycling across to the convenience store, clipped an abandoned shopping cart, which went spinning into a lamppost, and flew into the roadway beyond.

Red warning lights were flashing ahead. A slowmoving short-haul freight was coming through from the right.

Bolan gunned the last ounce of juice from the engine.

He swung over into the left-hand lanes and raced the lumbering diesel for the right-of-way. There was no room for error — a cinder-block warehouse filled the land right to the edge of the tracks — and no leeway for a loss of nerve. The rental car bounced over the tracks as the engineer sounded a desperate warning.

Bolan squeezed through the narrowing gap and jetted into the street like a cork shot from a bottle.

A fiery trail of sparks hissed out as the heavy vehicle landed, fishtailed and straightened out on the right side of the highway.

The train blocked his view in the mirror.

Bolan hit the brakes and gritted his teeth. He was doing everything in his power to lose his pursuers, but playing chicken with a freight train was cutting things too close.

He turned north, running parallel to 19, then swung across toward the long causeway.

He spotted the Audi again. It must have cut over a couple of blocks and beaten the startled engineer to the next crossing. His trackers were cruising the slow lane now, but gave away the fact that they had made him again by abruptly moving out and accelerating. The causeway was quiet. The rush hour was long finished and the late-night crowd were not yet heading home.

Bolan set a blistering pace along the narrow hump of the water-lapped roadway. A picnic area flashed past. A night fisherman dropped his rod as he spun to see this madman roar past.

Bolan reached forward and doused the lights, lifting his foot from the pedal as he coasted along the shoulder — another dark blotch of a recreation area loomed ahead.

He bumped down onto the banked sand, ran on past a concession stand and rolled to a halt behind a clump of palm trees. Bolan tore the key from the ignition and ran for the cover of the waist-high scrub that grew in a triangular wedge at the far end of the island. The sand sucked at his shoes and the sparse twigs snatched at his clothes as the Executioner sought cover.

A truck rumbled by in the opposite direction, and a few moments later the Audi sidled to a halt at the turnout entrance. Bolan, gun in hand, crouched in the semidarkness.

The causeway lights twinkled off the windshield as the hunters' car left the road. They drew up alongside the shuttered pop stand. Bolan heard a car door click, followed by a harshly whispered exchange... but how many men were there, two or three?

One stealthy shadow padded down to the water's edge, then slowly turned toward Bolan's hiding place.

Bolan poised, knees flexed, his gun hand extended and balanced lightly by the other palm.

The bushes gave a warning crackle, marking the approach of a second man sweeping the ground to Bolan's right. He was partially obscured by the tangled scrub.

The Executioner figured the odds, decided to take out the guy on the beach first. The man was dimly silhouetted by the dull sheen of the distant city lights on the satin water. Slowly the coiled death shadow lowered the muzzle to settle on target.

The sixth sense that had saved his life so often suddenly triggered its alarm. Bolan swung about, his arm traversing right, seeking the danger above him.

"Drop your piece!" There was a third man.

Bolan frowned. The guy must have moved swiftly along the road to position himself on the ribbon of grass behind Bolan's shoulder. He held the high ground — and a mini-Uzi.

The wicked little SMG was trained on the Executioner's chest. "Throw it down... now!"

Bolan shrugged and let the weapon fall. The gunner who was now on his left relaxed at seeing their opponent disarmed. "Walk up the slope toward me. Slowly." His voice was authoritative, the accent refined.

Bolan began to climb up the short, steep incline. His progress zigzagged between the bushes. He balanced his right foot on a tussock of salt grass and tugged on a nearby branch to assist his balance. He was bending slightly forward now, hunched to present the smallest profile. Then his right hand snaked down and plucked the second pistol from its ankle holster.

He straightened up and fired in one fluid motion. The crew boss gave one painful yelp and tumbled headfirst into the undergrowth. Bolan swiveled left and snapped off another shot. The second target took the hit low, rocking back to collapse on the sand.

The last of the hunting crew turned and fled, racing diagonally up from the beach in a heart-pounding effort to reach the car. Bolan fired again, the third bullet gouging a jagged chunk of palm trunk as the man twisted past it. The last shot smacked into the back of his skull, blew out his forehead and splattered a streak of mushy gore across the hood of the Audi.

Bolan ran the last few steps up the slope.

He scooped up the Uzi and shoved the body with his foot. The corpse tumbled loosely down under the bushes. He moved quickly to the left to check the other goon. The hapless gunman was twisted uncomfortably to the side, propped on one elbow, shuddering with each shallow, rasping breath. His weapon, a Walther PPK, was lying where he'd dropped it; Bolan tossed it into the bay.

He glanced over at the other man, who was sprawled facedown with his shattered head nestled in the crook of his arm. There was no need to see if he still had a pulse. The guy at his feet was not going to live too much longer, either; the soft-nosed slug had mangled his intestines. The guy uttered a soft curse in Arabic, then he said, "Not good."

"Nope," agreed Bolan. "So why the hell did you do it?"

"Hanzal gave the orders." He jerked his head in the direction of the bushes where the first man lay. The gesture cost him an agonizing stab through the gut. His elbow gave way and he sagged back on the sand. "Hanzal said you were not an official... he was sure of it. Thought you were a private investigator."

"Something like that," Bolan said. "And you thought you would scare me off?"

"Yes. And now..." He winced as he caught his breath. "I'm going to die."

"Yes," Bolan told him. It was not a time for lies. It was not a time for useless hatred, either. Bolan bunched up his topcoat and tucked it behind his adversary's head.

The pale wash of a passing car's headlights swept over them. The man's forehead was beaded in sweat. Bolan recognized his face. The police composite was not exact, but close enough.

"You were the driver, weren't you?"

"I drive for Hanzal. He demanded we catch you..."

"Where did you lake the boy? Who do you work for?"

"My home is far away. A small country — you will not have heard of it."

"Try me."

"But this will change. Khurabi will be the center of the Crescent Revolution. Hassan Zayoud — may Allah watch over him — will give new meaning to militant Islam."

"Where have you taken Kevin?"

"He is beyond your reach."

Bolan bent lower. Looming over him in the darkness, it must have seemed that the big American was about to make a final threat to wring out the truth.

"Just as I am beyond your reach. You can't kill us all." He gasped one feeble cough and died, staring sightlessly up at the ghostly palm fronds.