MacK Bolan: Bloodsport (6 page)

Jack Grimaldi flew the chopper with one eye on the sky and one on the maps spread out next to him. He had not eaten since yesterday afternoon, and was only now paying attention to the grumbling sounds of his stomach. "Easy does it," he said to his stomach. "Dr. Grimaldi has a nice big dose of sauerbraten waiting for you. Just a few more miles." He had followed the signal for almost thirty kilometers now, and there was no doubt where it was heading. The driving was slow and steady. Not like on the way down from Frankfurt, when the car had rocketed along the Autobahn at 150 kph. No, this driver was in no hurry, he had no major drive ahead.

Grimaldi nodded his head and smiled. In a few minutes he would be able to set his babying down and phone in the target area. Within an hour the hotspot would be pinpointed and surrounded with ground support.

Grimaldi would be at his receiver and waiting for the final countdown from Striker. Yeah, within an hour, all their forces would be concentrated on the car's destination.

Munich.

"Just what have you heard about us?" Thomas asked.

"That you're the slimiest group of killers on three continents," Bolan said.

Rudi lurched forward, gripping his log, but Thomas held him back with a laugh. "Ha, within the next two days we should improve upon that image, eh, Rudi? Tanya? Ha!"

Bolan yawned. "Everyone should have a goal, I guess."

"And what is your goal, Sergeant Grendal?" asked Thomas.

"Money," Tanya answered for him. There was contempt in her voice.

"You have no strong political loyalties. Ideologies?" persisted her brother.

"Just one," said Bolan. "Don't give credit." Just give blame, he might have said, in this world of terror where blame is hushed by fear.

"Admirable," Tanya sneered.

Thomas flopped back on his unmade cot and propped his head against the rough wooden wall.

Tanya sat on a large tree stump that served as a stool near the fireplace. Rudi leaned his three-hundred-plus against the front door like a thick slab of iron. Bolan went over to the canteen on the wooden table, unscrewed the cap, wiped the opening, took a long tug of water. Then he screwed the cap back on and said to Thomas. "Hope you don't mind?"

Thomas shook his head.

It was uncanny how much Tanya and Thomas looked alike. Sure, they had the same black hair that came to a dagger's point over their forehead.

But there was more to it than that. They moved alike, with the same graceful yet deadly intent, as if they were always sneaking up on something. But there were differences too, particularly in the eyes. Tanya's were calm and cold, with only a minimal sign of emotion.

She intellectualized everything, categorized it, dealt with it purely logically. Not so Thomas.

Though his eyes were the same pale blue as his sister's, the whites were different. Little thin veins like jagged red lightning bolts shot from the corners of them toward the pupils. Bloodshot, like an alcoholic's. Although he seemed to maintain a cool exterior, something ominous was bubbling beneath his surface: and just barely beneath.

"So let's quit doing the goosestep and get down to business," Bolan suggested.

Thomas Morganslicht smiled, without humor in his eyes. "The point, Sergeant Grendal, is that my friends and I had a tightly knit organization until you came along and disposed of Klaus."

Rudi's lips curled into a snarl.

"Oh, don't mind Rudi here," said Thomas. "Hi and Klaus were friends and Rudi does not make friends easily."

"He doesn't look like he could make his bed easily."

"I'm afraid Rudi does not much like you," advised Tanya.

"I'm crushed."

"You might be," Tanya added, "if Rudi ever got his hands on you."

"Look," Bolan said, "I'd like to help you guys out. I could use the business. So give me a thousand marks for that H and K that I brought here and I'll be on my way. A ride would be appreciated."

Thomas held up his hand. "Tanya also tells me you are an expert with weapons."

"I know my business."

Thomas pulled out his Luger and pointed it at Bolan. "What do you know about this?"

"Just three things. It's a 9mm Luger. It's one of the newer versions that the Mauser Jagdwafig factory began producing in 1971. And I'm getting real tired of looking down its barrel."

Bolan turned for the door. Things were clearly not going well. He still did not know why they had kidnapped the athletes. Rudi leered unpleasantly as Bolan approached him.

Suddenly Bolan asked: "How much?"

Tanya looked up surprised. "How much what?"

"How much is my percentage if I arrange for all of the weapons you want?"

"I thought you..."

"I have a source, okay? It's not a straight buy, you're going to have to take them, but they're the best you can get. Galil SAR short automatic rifles, effective up to five hundred meters with caliber five point five-six millimeters NATO. The Israelis make them with wire cutters in the bipods and bottle openers on the butt. They also have a new shipment of nine millimeter Parabellum Mini Uzis with twelvefifty rpms."

Thomas sat up off the cot. "How many?" he said coolly.

"Enough to outfit this little group."

"Where are they?" he said. "Who do we take them from?"

"Well, now," Bolan said with a grin.

"That's the part you aren't going to like."

No, they were not going to like it one bit.

But the Executioner was counting on their need. If he counted wrong, then there was no hope for the hostages.

"You must be insane!" Bolan smiled. "That depends on how badly you want those weapons."

"You're suggesting we steal them from our own people."

"Black Sunday is not your own people. Even Arafat has disassociated himself from them. In fact, word is that the faction of Black Sunday headed by Abu Sata is out to overthrow Arafat."

Bolan sat confidently on the edge of the wooden table, hunched slightly, taking another swig from the canteen. "I have some poker buddies at military intelligence who told me that a whole new shipment of these weapons was delivered last month to the Black Sunday faction in Mannheim."

"And what does your military intelligence plan to do about it?"

"What they always do," Bolan shrugged. "Nothing. Strictly wait-and-see. But you and your outfit here, you're different..."

"But they are our own people," Thomas persisted.

"Politically', philosophically we are aligned, despite petty internal squabbles." Bolan smiled. "Like I said, it all depends on how badly you need the guns. You come crying to me for guns and I come up with a reasonable solution. Now either go for it or cut bait and kiss this big-dea-I mission of yours goodbye."

Thomas Morganslicht paced beside his cot, nibbling on his thumbnail. When he spoke his voice was soft and distant, as if he were speaking only to himself. "Visibility, that's the key. Achieved only through reputation and recognition. Why is that so important?" He looked up suddenly, stared at Bolan and smiled. "Tell me, Sergeant Grendal, why is recognition so important for us? Is it to convey our ideals? Huh? Let me tell you about reputation, Sergeant, and its purposes." Thomas started pacing again, chewing harder on his fingernails. "Let me fill you in on the practicalities of running an underground liberation effort. We need money for food, lodging, clothing. Believe it or not, we purchase socks and underwear from time to time. Also medical services. As well as weapons."

"Thomas," Tanya interrupted, displeased that her brother should speak so openly with an outsider.

He waved a dismissing hand. "How do we get that money, Sergeant? Usually we steal it, robbing banks or homes or kidnapping for ransom. Sometimes those petty crimes are even riskier than our political, uh, adventures. And yet we look around at our revolutionary brothers in the Red Brigades, Japanese Red Army, IRA, PLO"

"Black Sunday," Bolan added.

"Yes," he nodded, "especially Black Sunday. We see how they get the best equipment, plenty of operating money, all supplied by our Soviet comrades and Arab brothers, funneled and laundered through various front organizations." As his voice rose higher, the muscles in his neck began to bulge. "And we, the Zwilling Horde, though we fight for the same end, have to continue to rob banks just to eat"

"Then I don't see where you have any choice," insisted Mack Bolan. "Either you raid the Black Sunday gang in Mannheim and steal their weapons, or you postpone your coming action."

"It cannot be postponed," spat Thomas, at the peak of his intensity. "This is our only chance at it. After two days it will be too late. Rudi," he said. "Take the sergeant and throw him in with the others."

"My proposition?" Bolan asked. "And my percentage?"

"We will consider it," Tanya said. "We'll let you know."

"...Just remember who is familiar with these weapons," Bolan hammered on. "Your men will need crash training before they can use any of the dandies I've been talking about," Rudi's massive hand wrapped around Bolan's arm and jerked him toward the door. Bolan offered no resistance, allowing himself to be ushered out of the cabin while the twins of terror deliberated on his plan.

It was crazy again, sure engineering a raid by one group of terrorists against another. But right now it was the best hope he had. Were the Morganslichts ambitious enough to do it? And would they be able to rationalize it with some slick political double-talk? If the answer was yes, then they would need Bolan and he would have a chance of completing his mission.

If the answer was no, all bets were off.

"Did Grimaldi give any indication as to where the car's owner might be located?" asked a weary Brognola.

"None," said April Rose. "He and some of General Wilson's men tracked the transmitter to a blue Saab abandoned in downtown Munich. There's already a police report showing the car was stolen in Frankfurt. So that lead is dead."

Hal moved over to the computer terminal and stared at the blank screen. "Can't this damn thing tell us anything?"

"Not yet." April followed him to the screen. "Jack thinks that Mack is still near the Alps someplace, probably in the foothills. That's where Jack first encountered the jamming device. It wasn't until the car drove out of the jammer's range that he picked up its signal again."

"So we've lost him. Completely. Striker is totally on his own."

She gave a sharp look. "He's been there before."

"What about Grimaldi? Should he go back to take another look-see? Mosey around?"

"Negative, according to Jack. He doesn't want to blow Mack's cover. He is just going to sit tight in Munich and do what we're going to do. Wait. And hope."

It was a new role for Mack, no doubt at all. A new game, a new gun or two, a new kind of death-death on foreign soil with no backup of any kind. New, every which way you looked at it. He'd been there before, but not like this.

The uncertainty actually stimulated Stony Man's head fed. Striker could cope with anything that Europe could throw at him. Hal knew that for a fact.

The German terrorist philosophy was a situational one. Tactics and targets changed according to the fall of the chips. Modern Europe went for that kind of moral relativity, had done since the sixties. And Bolan was a master of the situational response. He had damned near invented it. The new Colonel John Phoenix, disguised as a morally awash U.S. Army colonel stationed in Germany, was the ultimate quick-change artist of all time. Hal had no doubts whatsoever.

Inside it all, Bolan would always be Bolan.

When Rudi swung open the garage's side door, a long spear of sunlight sliced through the dark room that caused its occupants to wince from sudden brightness.

He shoved Mack Bolan through the doorway.

A naked light bulb dangled in the middle of the dark room, casting a dim shadowy light, maybe 40 watts at most. But the small group of prisoners huddled around that pale light as if it were a blazing fire.

"Be good," Rudi said in a thick German accent, punctuating the threat by whomping his log into the wall of the garage. The room echoed with a loud thump. He laughed again and left the room. Bolan could hear the heavy iron bolt sliding into place on the other side of the door. Within a few seconds Bolan had identified all four of his fellow occupants.

"Are you all right?" asked Babette Pavlovski, the Czech gymnast. She took a few hesitant steps closer, but stopped at the edge of the bulb's curtain of light like someone at the edge of a dark and forbidden forest.

"Yeah. Thanks. How about you folks?" Bolan studied her. She was tall for a gymnast, nearly six feet, but all of it looked solid sinew. Her thin blond hair was pulled back into a tight bun, making her look older than the thirty years he guessed her to be. She wore a maroon running suit with white piping up the legs and sleeves; the suit was smudged with dirt and grime.

He noted how she moved with an animal's ease, as if she were in complete control of every muscle in her body.

"You must forgive the accommodations," she said ironically, "but our hosts are less than considerate." She pointed to a dark corner of the room where Bolan could barely make out the form of a small squat object. "That's the toilet. A plastic bucket with no lid. We share it. But don't worry, they empty it once a day."

A tall muscular young man with curly brown hair and a bushy mustache took a step toward Bolan. His voice was angry and mixed with fear.

Bolan recognized him as Udo Ganz, the German skier who had captured two golds in the Olympics six years before. "What are you?" Udo asked with a halting German accent.

"A sergeant in the United States Army."

"No, no," he shook his head impatiently.

"Your sport. What is your sport?"

A short, thin oriental man stepped directly beneath the hanging light bulb. He wore jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Above his lip was a pencil thin slash of a mustache. Bolan could have recognized him without having been warned of his kidnapping: Mako Samata's martial arts studios were advertised all over Europe. "There is no practical use for football skills here," he said in a French accent, making the immediate assumption of Bolan's elective recreation.

"What do you mean, practical use?" Bolan asked. "What use do they have for you?"

The martial arts master released a sardonic laugh. "You will see soon enough, my friend."

"Don't mind him," Babette sighed. "He likes to play the inscrutable oriental. Too many Charlie Chan movies."

Bolan looked past the three of them at the burly man hunkered down on his heels, hugging his knees. He was just beyond the light, his face partially obscured. "What about him?" Bolan pointed.

"That's Clifford Barnes-Fenwick, the Welsh archer. A silver and a bronze." She lowered her voice. "Used to do trick shooting for a while." At that the silent man looked up and Bolan could see his haggard face. And the softball-size knob over his right eye. The bruise surrounding it was a nasty purple-yellow-black. But even worse was the nose, which looked as if it had been slammed by a locomotive. Most of it was pushed to one side at an impossible angle. Crusted blood clung to the edges. The injuries made it difficult to judge, but Bolan figured him to be near fifty, easily the oldest of the group.

"What happened to you?" Bolan asked him.

The big Welshman stared at Bolan a few seconds, then lowered his head back to his knees.

"That fat gorilla did it," Babette explained. "Cliff wouldn't do what they asked, so Rudi clubbed him with the log. You've seen the log?"

"What is it that they want you to do?" Bolan persisted.

"Well..."

"Hold it!" Udo Ganz interrupted. "We don't know anything about this man. He could be bad news."

The leggy blonde raised her eyebrows.

"What, a spy, Udo? For what purpose?"

Bolan cut in. "Maybe some introductions are in order. Then we can fill each other in on what the hell is going on around here. I'm Sergeant Edsel Grendal."

The others formally introduced themselves in turn, all except the Welsh archer who remained huddled at the edge of the light. Each recounted the details of their kidnapping experience.

Except Bolan.

He asked one more time. "What exactly do they want from you?"

"Knowledge," Mako said, his hands erupting in a series of expert lightning slashes.

"That's what we think, anyway," Babette qualified.

"Explain."

"All they make us do every day is to practice routines while they all stand around and watch. Mako, here has to do a sneaking through the woods routine, surprising two guards and disabling them for real with a couple of his fancy chops."

In the few moments he had been in the tiny garage, Bolan had noticed the icy teeth of the cold nipping at his skin. The temperature could be no more than a few degrees above freezing in this dark hovel. "How do they expect you to survive here?" he asked.

"They don't!" Udo barked, desperation in his voice. Bolan noted the man's creeping hysteria and filed away the information.

"They don't keep us in here all the time," the lady gymnast said. "We're only locked up when we aren't practicing. At night they allow us to sleep in a preheated cabin. By then the exercise and cold have worn us down even if we could escape, we wouldn't have the energy to go anywhere."

"Some of us, anyway," Mako said quietly.

The accusation hung tensely in the air. Udo's eyes widened with sudden anger. Then he pivoted away, turning his back to the three of them. Bolan realized that unless they were rescued qdickly, the abducted athletes might destroy each other and, forever, their chances for survival.

"What do they make you practice, Babette?" he asked.

"The balance beam. Nothing tricky, just running as fast as I can along a four-inch by twentyfoot wall that they have constructed. All I do is run back and forth along the edge, carrying a knapsack containing two bricks. Not terribly difficult."

"Maybe not for you," Bolan commented. "What do the others do?"

"Udo here skis a rather steep slope, carrying the same kind of knapsack with two bricks that I carry."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Udo interrupted, turning back to face them. "Not only must I navigate the steep slope, but I must also make a twenty-foot jump off a hidden ramp. Then, while I'm in mid air, I must drop the sack into the back of a truck that drives under me."

"Sounds difficult," Bolan said.

Babette smiled. "Not for one of the best skiers in the world." Udo Ganz shrugged modestly, obviously pleased. "At one time, maybe. But now... That..." He shrugged again.

"What about your silent friend?" Bolan nodded at Clifford Barnes-Fenwick, squatting several feet away from the others, still hugging his knees.

"They want him to practice a series of unusual archery shots. One from two hundred yards, and another in which he must fire off five bull's-eyes from thirty yards, but all within fifteen seconds."

"Sounds impossible. Is that why he refuses?"

Babette lowered her voice again, more out of respect than any possibility that he could not hear her. "No, Cliff can do the shots all right. But be retired last year from his trick-shooting career following, well, an accident. His fourteen-year-old son was killed. It wasn't Cliff's fault, he'd been away on tour. But his son and some friends were practicing tricks they had seen him do, and one of them accidentally shot an arrow into Cliff's son. After that, he quit his job and refused to pick up a bow again. These people have beaten him, but they don't want to hurt him to the point where he won't be able to shoot."

"I've got a feeling they may not be so careful next time." Bolan moved directly under the hanging bulb. He motioned the others to come closer. All except Clifford obliged.

"I can't go into details yet," he told them. "But I can guarantee that you'll soon have a chance to escape. What you make of that chance will be up to you."

"When does this "chance" take place," Mako asked, the skepticism thick in, his voice.

"Sometime over the next two days. That's the best I can do."

"Who are you?" Udo asked. "Army Intelligence?"

"Just a guy in the same tight spot that you're in. Now, you're going to hear me saying some things and see me doing some things that won't make you think I'm on your side. But I am. You have to believe that, no matter what happens. Everything depends on that. Do you understand?"

Before they could respond, the door was wrenched open and Rudi's mountainous frame stood in the doorway. Bright sunlight streaked around his body like white flames.

He stepped into the room, tapping his log into his open palm.

Tanya Morganslicht appeared behind him, her expression calm, her voice crisp and businesslike.

"We have decided to exploit you, Sergeant," she said to Bolan. "Welcome to the Zwiaing Horde."

"What exactly is my percentage of this deal?" Bolan asked immediately. "In dollars and cents."

Tanya allowed herself a small smile. "You have just come within an inch of horrible death, and all you can think about is your percentage. You amaze even me."

Bolan started toward the open door, but before he had taken a full step, Babette grabbed his arm and whirled him around. She slapped his face with stinging authority.

"You lying traitor!" she spat.

Tanya laughed. "Well, Sergeant Grendal, apparently your charms have their limitations after all."

"Yeah," Bolan said, rubbing his check. "Apparently."