скачать книгу бесплатно
When he reached the other side of the house, the Executioner looked down to see that a trash receptacle had been turned over. And while grass covered much of the area below, it was still sparse enough to show footprints. Bolan followed them with his eyes, seeing that they doubled back in the direction from which they’d come. He looked behind him and saw the Iranian cops advancing. But slowly.
They didn’t want to find him any more than he wanted to be found.
A flock of pigeons took flight as the Executioner leaped to the next roof, still keeping his eyes on the tracks below. When the footprints finally led to a narrow sidewalk between the houses, he dropped to the ground and followed the muddy clods that had fallen from the Russian’s shoes. But each of Sobor’s steps helped clean the shoes, and when the sidewalk broadened and intersected with another walk, the trail disappeared altogether.
On a hunch, the Executioner followed the sidewalk, ignoring the turns as he made his way back toward the Hezbollah house. He stopped, his back against the wall of one of the dwellings, as the police crossed his path above. He could hear the blue-clad men whispering to one another as they walked slowly across the rooftops, doing their best to appear to be searching for him while at the same time making sure they didn’t find the man with the big .44 Magnum pistol.
Moving on, the Executioner finally saw the same street he had walked down in front of the terrorist’s house. Sliding the Desert Eagle back into his hip holster, he covered it with the tail of his overcoat, then exited through an open doorway in the brownstone wall. On the sidewalk two houses to his right, he saw the flashing lights of the police vehicles that had parked just outside the wall. At least a dozen officers stood behind the cars, their guns drawn and aimed at the entrance to the house behind the wall. One of the cops—a slender man with a receding hairline—turned to stare at him.
Bolan turned casually and began to walk the other way. It had been several minutes since the cops had first arrived, and assuming they were efficient they would have already searched the immediate area. At this point, even looking as he did, he hoped he wouldn’t attract much more than the second glance the balding officer had thrown his way.
The Executioner stared ahead of him as he walked, and a block farther down the street he caught a flash of red. Squinting into the distance, he saw that the color was that of a shirt, and that the shirt was bobbing slightly up and down as it moved away from him.
Sobor. And the Russian was still limping.
The Executioner was about to break into a run when a rough hand grabbed his shoulder from behind. Turning, he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel jam into his face. He looked down to see the Iranian cop with the receding hairline staring up at him. The hand holding the gun was shaking as the officer began screaming at him in Farsi.
“I am sorry,” Bolan said in Russian, raising his hands over his head. “I do not speak the language.”
By now three more blue-uniformed Iranians had left their posts behind the flashing red lights and joined the balding officer. All began shouting, as if they believed a deafening volume would suddenly teach Bolan their language.
The Executioner glanced over his shoulder and saw his prey limping toward a taxicab parked on the curb. If he lost the man now, he knew he might never find the Russian again. He could escape into the underground of any of a dozen terrorist-hosting countries and be lost forever.
As he was so often forced to do, Bolan made his decision in a microsecond. Bringing both hands suddenly down from over his head, he turned his body away from the muzzle of the cop’s pistol and grabbed the wrist holding the gun with his left hand. His right came across his body and clasped onto the barrel of the pistol. Pushing one way with his left hand, the other with his right, he snapped the weapon away from the officer, turned and sprinted away.
Though he hadn’t thought it possible for the Iranians to shout louder, he now heard them do so.
Bolan dropped the gun as he ran, hoping the cops behind him would see it and resist firing. On the other hand, Iran was hardly a country where police were famous for respecting human rights, and he knew there was at least an even chance that he would be shot in the back. But as he ran on, no one fired.
Ahead, the Executioner saw Sobor get into the back seat of the cab and close the door. As the vehicle pulled away, Bolan had time to squint at the number stenciled in black just above the rear bumper: 2348796.
The Executioner stopped and turned around.
A second later he was tackled by a half-dozen Iranian police officers.
CHAPTER THREE
It was a miracle he hadn’t been shot already.
As the Iranian police officers dragged him to the ground, Bolan let himself go limp. But as he fell, he counted the men around him. Six.
Landing on his back, he felt hands roll him to his stomach as the men continued to yell at him. Turning his head, Bolan could see the parked police cars in front of the Hezbollah house. The cops around the vehicles still had their attention focused on the entrance in the brownstone wall. They were paying no attention to what was happening to him a half block away. Evidently, if they had even noticed his capture, they felt that six officers should be more than enough to handle one man.
Bolan felt his arms being pulled behind his back. He wondered what would happen next. Some police procedures dictated that the handcuffs go on first. If that happened, he would have trouble. But other departments taught their officers to pat down a suspect for weapons before cuffing him, especially when the man taken into custody was as vastly outnumbered as Bolan was now. But whichever way it went, the police were about to find a .44 Magnum pistol, a 9 mm machine pistol, a .45 ACP revolver and a knife.
More than enough to lock him away in an Iranian prison for the rest of eternity. Unless he acted fast.
Luckily, the Iranians had been trained to frisk first. While two of the excited men continued to hold his arms behind his back, a third started at his shoulders and began patting him down. Bolan waited, anticipating the split second of shock he knew would come when the searcher felt the shoulder rig beneath his overcoat. It would be slight and short-lived.
But it would be the only chance he’d have to turn the tables on his captors.
A second later, the searcher’s hand hit the holster under his left arm and froze. A shoulder rig was more than he had expected to find, and it took a second for the man to process the information. A quick gasp escaped the lips above the Executioner’s head, and as it did he felt the hands holding his arms lighten their grip slightly in their own surprise.
Bolan didn’t hesitate. With all the power in his shoulders and arms, he snapped his hands down and away from the cops holding him. As he rolled to his back, his right hand shot into the pocket of his overcoat and the Scandium .45 ACP revolver suddenly appeared in his fist. Still lying flat, he aimed the stubby revolver at the Iranian cops standing over him.
The men froze like statues.
“Somebody here understands Russian,” Bolan whispered in a menacing voice. “And they’d better speak up fast if you want to get home to your families tonight.”
Several frightened phrases in Farsi escaped the faces above the Executioner. All mentioned Allah. But they sounded more like prayers than curses.
“This is a 6-shot revolver,” the Executioner added, still in Russian. “And there are six of you. You do the math.” He had already fired one round into the Hezbollah man who’d met him on the garden sidewalk, but the cops looking down at him now had no way of knowing that. The empty brass casing was hidden behind the stubby barrel of the .45 and, even looking straight down at the exposed cylinder holes to the sides of the frame, the gun looked fully loaded. Bolan could see the frightened faces above him as their eyes froze on the round lead noses of the RBCD Performance Plus fragmenting bullets.
“I’m waiting,” the Executioner said. “But my patience is growing thin.”
The balding man who had originally spotted him finally spoke. “Russian,” he said. “I…speak a little…”
“You better hope it’s enough,” Bolan said. “Now, listen closely, then translate what I say to the others.”
“I w-will try,” stammered the cop with the receding hairline.
“Try hard. Your lives depend on it.” The Executioner gave his words time to sink in, then went on. “I want you to tell three of your men to stand directly between me and the other officers still back at the cars. Tell them to stand close together and block the view. If any of the other cops see what’s going on, I’ll kill every one of you. And I’ll start with you.” He paused again, then said, “Tell them. Tell them now.”
Bolan waited for the words to be translated, then watched the men nod as three of the six moved in behind him. Keeping the .45 aimed at the balding head, he said, “Now, you reach down and lift me to my feet by the left arm. Make a play for the gun and you’re dead. Got it?”
The cop with the thinning hair nodded nervously and bent slowly, tugging Bolan back to his feet with both hands. The Executioner kept the S&W tight against his coat, out of reach but still aimed at the man helping him. “Very good so far,” he said. “Now, instruct one of your men to go get a car and bring it back here.”
“Which man?” the slender cop asked, licking his lips.
“I don’t care,” the Executioner said. “Either of the ones not blocking the view.”
“Which car?” the cop asked, obviously stalling for time.
Bolan transferred the .45 to his left hand and in one smooth motion drew the mammoth Desert Eagle from under his coat. “I already warned you that you were trying my patience,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Keep asking stupid questions and I’ll shoot you just for that.” He had no intention of killing any of the cops. He was counting on bluff, and so far it had been working. “And be sure whoever you pick understands that if I get even the slightest impression that he’s tipping off the other cops, I’ll kill you and everybody else here.”
The balding cop licked his lips again and turned to the nearer man. He whispered several sentences in his native tongue. The man to whom he spoke—a short, stocky cop with a thick, bushy mustache—nodded and walked away.
Bolan holstered the Desert Eagle again, switched the wheel gun back to his right hand and held it up briefly so the men around him could see it. Then he jammed the revolver back into his overcoat pocket but kept his hand in the pocket, as well.
There was no need to explain, in Russian or Farsi, that he could still shoot any of them he chose with the mere pull of an index finger.
The Executioner instructed the balding cop to keep holding on to his left arm as the stocky man walked down the block, slid behind the wheel of one of the patrol cars and backed it away from the wall. None of the other uniformed men paid attention as he threw it into drive, then rolled it slowly up to where the Executioner and the other five men stood.
“Tell him to stay behind the wheel,” Bolan ordered the balding man. The man did as ordered. “Now, keep holding on to my arm and escort me to the back seat as if you’ve just arrested me.”
The man who spoke Russian saw another chance to stall for time and took it. Shaking his head, he said, “If the others see it, they will not believe it.” He nodded toward the cops still stationed around the whirling lights outside the wall. “You are not in handcuffs.”
“Just tell your men to move. We’re all going to pack ourselves into the car and go for a little ride.”
“But there are six of us,” the balding cop protested. “With you we are seven. The car cannot hold—”
Bolan slapped him again, this time on the other side of he face to make the red marks match. “Tell them and do it,” he repeated.
The cop whispered out another long stream of Farsi. The other five uniformed men nodded.
The man with the thinning hair took the Executioner’s arm again and they all started to walk toward the vehicle. Bolan kept one eye on the men around him, the other on the cops still back at the cars. So far, they still had taken no notice of what was happening. To them it appeared that the big “Russian” was being taken back to the station for questioning. Handcuffs or no handcuffs.
When they reached the vehicle, Bolan used his translator to assign seats. The beefy cop with the mustache stayed behind the wheel. The bald man took a seat up front next to him, and the Executioner slid in on his other side.
The other four cops packed themselves into the back seat like two cans of sardines pressed into one can, and it was that tiny detail that finally caught the attention of the dozen or so Iranian cops still standing behind the other vehicles.
Bolan saw it begin as he slid into the car and closed the door. An older, overweight officer glanced their way. He frowned with bushy eyebrows as the men crammed themselves into the back seat.
Through the window, the Executioner could almost see the man’s brain working behind his wrinkled forehead. Why were so many officers riding in one car when other vehicles were available? And why had the prisoner been the last to enter the vehicle instead of being tossed in first by the officers? For that matter, why was the man in the long overcoat in the front seat instead of the back?
His eyes still glued to the beefy officer, Bolan said, “Drive.” The bald man translated and the patrol car took off. The Executioner pulled the .45 from his pocket and jammed it into the neck of the balding officer so all of the men in the back seat could see it.
The overweight cop was still frowning as they drove away.
Six blocks from the Hezbollah safehouse Bolan ordered the driver to pull in to the curb. He got out, jerked one of the officers from the back seat and pulled the Tokarev 9 mm pistol from the man’s holster. Holding the man’s own gun on him, Bolan returned to the shotgun seat. Just before he closed the door, the cop on the sidewalk spoke out in Farsi.
“He asks what he’s supposed to do now?” The balding officer translated for the Executioner.
“Tell him to find a way home and come up with some story about how he lost his gun,” Bolan said. “Of course it’s going to seem a little strange to your superiors that all six of you lost your guns at the same time.” He nodded toward the windshield and the driver took off again.
Bolan repeated the process, ordering the car to the curb every six blocks or so and leaving one weaponless officer at each stop. Some began working on their stories in business districts, others in residential areas similar to the one where the Hezbollah safehouse had been located. They all had one thing in common, however.
They were going to have a hard time convincing their supervisors that they shouldn’t be suspended. Or worse.
When the balding cop’s turn came, Bolan ordered the driver out of the vehicle and shoved the translator behind the wheel. A mile later, the Executioner saw the glittering mirror-mosaic front of Tehran’s famed Gullistan Palace. He ordered his chauffeur to pull into the parking lot. By now he had five Tokarev pistols tucked into his belt and in the pockets of his overcoat, and he used one of them to nudge the driver out of the vehicle before sliding behind the wheel himself.
The balding man had ascertained by now that Bolan had no intention of killing any of the cops unless forced to do so. And that knowledge had brought with it a new confidence that bordered on arrogance. Turning back toward the car, his eyes rose to the emergency lights fixed atop the marked unit, then fell back to Bolan’s. “You will never get away with this,” he said with his newly found haughtiness. “How far do you think you will get in this car?”
“Far enough,” the Executioner said as he drove away.
In the rearview mirror, he watched the man with the receding hairline enter the museum, heading for the nearest phone.
The Executioner drove away from Tehran’s brightly lit downtown area as quickly as he could, ditching the patrol car in the first dark alley he came to, and tossing the keys over a fence into a coop full of clucking chickens. Walking casually to the intersecting street, a number rolled over and over in his head: 2348796.
He had seen Anton Sobor get into cab number 2348796. And at the moment, those numerals were the only chance he had of picking up the Russian’s trail again.
On the street now in a low-income residential area, the Executioner knew his appearance would stand out even more than he had back at the safehouse. And the police would have put his description out over the airwaves as soon as the first cop he’d freed had called in. Few people were outside their houses in the near-freezing temperature as he strolled past. But that didn’t mean they weren’t watching through their windows. And if they were inside, at least some of them would have televisions and radios. And telephones.
His situation was clear. He needed to get away from the curious eyes of Tehran long enough to do two things: change his appearance and check into the number 2348796.
Spotting an ancient Ford Mustang that had probably entered the country during the days of the Shah, the Executioner hurried down the street. All around him he saw poverty, and guessed that the rusting vehicle was some innocent Iranian’s most prized possession.
Which made him hate doing what he knew he had to do next.
Cutting into the driveway where the Mustang was parked, the Executioner tried the driver’s door and found it unlocked. The car looked to be a midsixties model, which meant it would have to be hot-wired under the dash rather than by cracking the steering column. Sliding inside, Bolan was about to begin feeling for the wires when he heard a door open in the house next to the driveway.
A stout man, wearing soiled khaki work pants and an equally dirty ribbed undershirt, came barreling out of the house screaming. Thick black hair covered the man’s arms and chest, growing so high up on his neck that it merged with his beard. Bolan sat up in the seat as the man ran toward him.
In the Iranian’s hand, the Executioner saw a huge butcher knife.
Bolan had no desire to hurt the man—he could hardly blame him for protecting what was his. On the other hand, he needed the vehicle. Stepping out of the Mustang, he threw back the tail of his overcoat and drew the Desert Eagle.
The hirsute Iranian ground to a halt at the sight of the big handgun. His eyes widened and he didn’t have to be told to drop the knife—he figured it out all on his own, and began mumbling what even one unversed in Farsi could recognize as pleas for his life.
Bolan nodded, then held out a hand, palm down, which quieted the hairy Iranian. His face relaxed. But when the Executioner holstered the Desert Eagle, a frown of confusion came over his face once more. Quickly, Bolan reached inside his coat and produced a leather billfold. He had stocked up on Iranian cash before coming to the country, and now he pulled out enough money to pay for the Mustang three times over.
The hairy Iranian’s eyes grew large again.
Bolan extended his hand.
Fearfully, still wondering if what was happening was real, the shivering man accepted the money.
“I need the keys,” the Executioner said.
The man frowned again.
Bolan stuck his empty hand out in front of him, twisting his wrist to pantomime starting a car engine. The Iranian caught on and reached into his pocket. He was still looking at the money in his hand when the Executioner drove away.
Bolan was surprised to find that the Mustang’s engine purred as if it had just come off a Detroit assembly line. Whoever the man was, he had been proud of the vehicle and kept it maintained. Well, the Executioner thought, as he found his way to the thoroughfare heading south toward the ancient city of Rey, the Mustang’s owner now had enough money to replace it, and then some. And with any luck, he’d be able to ditch the vehicle in a place where it would be found by police and returned to him, to boot.
Traffic in Tehran was always insane, with horns honking, drivers shaking their fists at one another and traffic signs perceived more as suggestions than law. Nevertheless, a half hour later Bolan was passing the site where the Reza Shah Mausoleum had once stood, and a few minutes after that he had reached Rey. The sun was beginning to fade behind the mountains as he turned off the main road and began urging the Mustang up and down a hilly path through the foothills. He passed a small pool of water where dozens of women washed the carpets for which Persia had been famous for hundreds of years. On the rocky slopes around the water hundreds of other rugs lay drying. Red, blue, yellow, green and every other hue of the color spectrum made the hills appear to be rainbows fallen to earth.
The Executioner continued to navigate the back roads. He had memorized the location where his pilot—Jack Grimaldi—had hidden the unmarked Bell OH-58D helicopter when they had arrived early that morning. Taking off from an American-held air base in Kirkuk, Iraq, Grimaldi had kept the chopper beneath radar for the full four-hundred-mile trip. Few pilots in the world could have pulled off such a flight and, at the same time, avoided being spotted from the ground. But Stony Man Farm’s number-one flyboy was an ace strategist as well as pilot, and he had done it. Now, Bolan knew, his old and loyal friend would still be sitting in the helicopter, awaiting his return.
Dusk was upon him when Bolan made the final turn, following a path until it ended against the side of a foothill. He killed the engine, pocketed the keys and took off on foot, walking up and down hills for another five hundred yards before he came to the valley.
The Bell was barely visible, wedged in as it was between two narrow hills. Bolan grinned as he walked the last few steps. He and Grimaldi had worked more missions together than he could remember, and while there might be another jet jockey or two who could have crossed Iran unnoticed, he knew of no one else in the world who could have landed the craft as expertly as his old friend. Bolan doubted that it would be seen from the air even if an Iranian surveillance plane flew directly over it.
Bolan reached the helicopter and opened the door to see the two-and-one-half-inch barrel of a Smith & Wesson Model 66 staring him in the face. In his other hand, the pilot held a thick paperback book.
Grimaldi grinned. “Sorry, Sarge,” he said, returning the .357 Magnum pistol to his waistband beneath his brown leather flight jacket. “Couldn’t tell who it was in the dark.”
Bolan climbed aboard before speaking. “You think it was the bogeyman, Jack?” he asked.
“No, but I thought it might be some curious tribesman.” Grimaldi had left the control seat and was sitting in a chair bolted to the deck in the chopper’s cargo area. Now he placed the paperback book on top of a map on the small table in front of him.
Grimaldi tapped the map with an index finger. “According to this,” he said, “we’re several miles away from the nearest village. But these guys have been known to travel like everybody else.”
Bolan nodded as he passed the man, moving up to the front of the helicopter and retrieving a briefcase next to the pilot’s seat. He returned to the cargo area, took the chair across from Grimaldi and pulled out a cellular phone.
A moment later Barbara Price was picking up the phone at Stony Man Farm. “Good morning, Striker,” the beautiful honey-blonde said on the other end of the line. “Or, considering where you are, I guess good evening would be more in order.”
“Is the Bear awake yet, Barb?” Bolan asked, referring to Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, the Farm’s chief computer genius.
