Assault Force

4

“I think the movie star was the main attraction of that little scene. If I am not mistaken he hit that man when his bodyguard grabbed him. Bret something or other,” the other beautiful woman stated.

The show over, Mack Bolan noted the entourage, ringed by added security, rolling in herd toward the hotel, presumably seeking shelter from any more storms. “I wouldn’t know who he is,” he replied.

“You are American. You never see movies?”

“I never seem to get the chance.”

“Really. What does a retired homicide detective from Baltimore do with, I would imagine, so much time on his hands?”

“He starts over.”

“In Barcelona?”

“Could be.”

She seemed to think about something, then said, “Perhaps there is too much time, lonely time to pass. Someone you may care to spend such time with.”

He nodded, sipped his beer. “I’m doing that now.”

“Kat. You can call me Kat,” she said, smiling.

He felt her stare, the stunning Ukrainian blonde probing him closely from the other side of the table. “I remember. Kat to your close friends, Katerina Muscovky to everyone else.”

“Among other things to remember, I hope. And you, are you more than a close friend to Kat? Forgive me,” she quickly added, turning away to watch the crowd, shifting in her chair. “I had no right to imply there is anything more than what there already is.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Kat.” He looked at her. “I couldn’t have dreamed of time better spent with such a beautiful woman.”

She paused, then, shifting gears, said, “You do not belong here.”

A curve ball, but he kept his look and voice neutral. “How’s that?”

She sipped her drink, weighing whatever was on her mind for a long moment. “I do not know…there is something about you. Different. You are not like any man I have ever met. Certainly not like these jet-setters and playboys, most of whom because of their money pretend to know what being a man is all about. You, on the other hand…well, beyond what is already obvious to me, I sense you are only passing through, coming from some place I could never begin to understand. Two nights we have been together, making love, and you tell me so little about yourself. I do not know who—perhaps what—you really are.” She paused, and when he didn’t respond, said, “I am prying, but I cannot help myself. I should know better, having seen both the good and the bad the world has to offer. You do not mind if I act like some infatuated teenaged girl?”

“Kat, there are men right now who would like nothing more than for me to drop dead just for the chance to sit here with you.”

An enigmatic smile passed over her lips. “The way in which I caught the movie star look at me perhaps? Not that it would matter in the least to me. He is not a true man, only concerned about how he looks, whatever pleases him. I have seen fame, it does not impress me. What the famous show the world, what others think they love and aspire to be like is rarely what they get in person.”

Mack Bolan thought she could have spoken no truer words. The ex-super model fell silent. She was done fishing for the moment about Matt Cooper, appearing content to watch the crowd, work on her drink, enjoy time spent together. The silence was comfortable enough, the kind, he supposed, shared between lovers where trust and respect didn’t require an out-pouring of talk to keep their bond from being severed.

He began scanning the crowd, nagged suddenly by a troubled feeling he couldn’t pin down. Relax, reflect, recharge the warrior, let physical wounds heal, scars on the heart fade from witnessing firsthand man’s inhumanity to man. Or so—urged by Hal Brognola, his longtime friend from the Justice Department—this brief stint of R and R was meant to do.

Strange how it never really worked that way, he decided, not in his world, where he would soon enough return. His companion couldn’t possibly fathom the dark, bloody arena he came from. But she was right on one point. She was unaware of his real identity, the real man behind the concocted cover story he’d given her in one of the hotel’s bars the night they met. No, he would never fit in with this crowd of rich and famous types, worlds apart even from the few vacationing families he’d seen. His own experience was light-years from this fleeting illusion where all was money, pleasure and bliss. Where life was just one big party.

Different worlds, no question, as day to night, life to death.

And they would never know it, of course, but the man also known as the Executioner waged a War Everlasting on their behalf, prepared, in fact, to give the ultimate sacrifice, if need be, so they could live free whatever their lives.

He was out of his element, he knew, a lion in a cage. Certainly it was not in his warrior’s nature to kill time in a resort, rub elbows with the privileged elite while standing down. Similar in remote orbit, he supposed, but another universe removed nonetheless when compared to the humble man of the cloth he’d spotted. The priest struck him as if he wished he was anywhere but there, if he read the agitated body language right. And who were the loners? Six, maybe seven or eight at last count. Swarthy guys, hardly unusual for this part of the world, all with similar black bags in hand, smart business suits, strolling the pool deck, trying to look casual behind the shades.

Why couldn’t he just unwind?

He recalled Spain was lately becoming an incubator for the kind of fanatics he hunted to extermination, a magnet for all walks of life, it seemed, legit and otherwise from all over Europe and Russia.

He’d been in France, and the chartered flight had allowed him to bring the Beretta 93-R and .44 Magnum Desert Eagle along, both stowed in a customized briefcase charged with an electrified field to jolt the curious or the thief into instant but nonlethal collapse. Bearing that in mind, he tried to will himself to relax but he felt a stalking invisible presence, one he knew all too well from sixth sense earned the hard and old-fashioned way.

“The hotel management is throwing a party in the ballroom for its guests in honor of its one-year opening. Or we could just order room service and…” He realized Muscovky was still speaking.

Her voice faded as Bolan spotted the white-haired man emerge from the bar. Just a strong hunch, but he sensed the guy didn’t belong. The Executioner knew the type, having seen it countless times: a predator. Only this one, Bolan thought, was uneasy in his present appearance and environs but holding it all together around so much choice meat. The look was right, hard and lean, the gait military, but loose and oiled, proud of the way he could handle himself thanks to hard-earned experience. The man had a stare that devoured the model’s flesh. A penetrating search lingered on Bolan, the guy doing his damnedest to figure him out, but coming up short. That same sixth sense told Bolan the man was dying to look back, but he kept heading for the doors, bag in hand, walking with purpose.

“Matt? Hello? Did you hear me?”

Bolan hoped the forced smile masked his inner rumbling. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d prefer just us. Unless…”

“No,” she said, her puzzled expression softening into a smile. “It is what I had hoped you would say. So? Your room…or shall we use my place again?”

“Your place. The view’s better,” Bolan told her with a smile. He held the expression, feeling she wanted to push it, then she nodded.

He preferred to stick to her suite, lest she be tempted to ask questions, such as why, when he was so far from home, did he have only the briefcase and a small duffel with a change of clothes. The soldier considered stopping by his second-floor room, just the same. Then again, switching the weapons to his duffel, or putting the briefcase in her suite might only arouse female curiosity, questions nonetheless.

Still, all the dead enemies burned down in his wake, many of whom were sure to have vengeful surviving allies, friends or relatives—a chance encounter or stalking him—there was always the possibility, slim as it might be considering his surroundings…

Leave it, he told himself.

He felt that dark nagging again, thinking he should be within easy distance of his weapons, no matter what. Was it just old habits not wanting to die for one second? Take it easy, he told himself. Enjoy one more rare night off the battlefield with a beautiful woman. He reached over to take Katerina’s hand.

“One more drink?” she asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Bolan said.

5

The woman’s sniveling about being a mother darkened his rage as her cries edged toward hysteria. Her ample stomach told him she was pregnant. Good, he decided. When they had something they were so terrified of losing—beyond their own lives, of course—then total compliance was all but assured. Her plight alone should make a perfect example to the others. Obey, or his wrath knew no limits, no outrage too great.

As the last of cell phones, pagers, IDs and walkie-talkies were piled in the far corner, Bharjkhan walked up to the woman and jammed the muzzle of his pistol to her forehead. She choked on her shriek, eyes widening in terror and the sound dissolved into a whimper. As she began to collapse, two of his men grabbed her shoulders. Yamil forced her up, barking curses and threats in her ear, shaking her out of her trance as Khajid finished fastening the dynamite vest around her torso. Suddenly there was a vicious curse, and a hostage rose from the group of corralled captives.

Yelling obscenities in Arabic, two of Bharjkhan’s men pummeled the would-be hero’s face and head with the butts of their assault rifles. Blood spurting as repeated blows pulped his nose, they drove the man to the floor, vicious kicks opening skin around the eyes and scalp until he didn’t move.

“If anyone speaks or moves,” Bharjkhan told them, grabbing the pregnant woman’s hair and thrusting her face up, inches from his slitted eyes, “I will kill your colleague here and choose another to take her place.” He let go, grunting for his men to take her out in the hall.

As he moved for the bank of security monitors, he ran a stare over the hostages. There were thirty-six captives, mostly men. All of them had their hands bound behind their backs with plastic cuffs, and had been dumped, facedown, on the floor. His black-clad men were planting blocks of C-4 primed for radio remote detonation around the room. In the event someone attempted to make contact before it all began, Bharjkhan would use the assistant head of security to lure them into joining the group.

The man who had made this part of the operation possible was being removed from the room. Fulfilling the charade, the bit player was squawking questions, pleading cooperation all the way out the door. The act, complete with bleating to at least release the women, had the desired effect on some of the captives. He heard a muffled sob, found two faces twisted his way, hate and defiance in the eyes. Filing away their faces, he decided they were next to be executed should there be any more interruptions.

“Do not resist and none of you will be hurt,” Bharjkhan said, stepping in front of the security monitors. “All of you, just relax,” he added, his tone as soothing and reassuring as he could fabricate.

Checking his watch, ticking down the numbers, he began looking at each monitor. The miniature cameras, he knew, were built into statues, hidden in palmettos and other shrubbery, mounted inside the frames of paintings or mirrors. Safeguarding themselves against invasion of privacy lawsuits, the hotel architects had not fitted any of the rooms or lavatories with minicams, but that wasn’t necessarily a problem. Each floor, he observed, was covered from the south and north ends, double eyes for front and rear watching on each camera. Close-ups came with a twist of a dial on his panel, if necessary. The high-tech spying included the broad scope of the lobby, shopping mall, pool, all playground interiors, bars and restaurants. It was near one hundred percent visual precision, as far as he could tell, in both sweep and clarity. That the building’s designers, he thought, didn’t install cameras in the basement complex beyond the watcher’s lair had allowed them to get in and take down the hostages, but could be a problem—perhaps a fatal one—if commandos responded.

However, breaching their defenses would be suicide. Unless, of course, they were willing to overlook initial devastating casualties. Again, he thought with confidence, no one, once warned, would be that daring, or foolish.

Bhajkhan plucked the handheld radio off his belt. “Abdul! Report.” He scanned the lobby traffic, thinning out as people made their way for bars and restaurants. Spotting two men with black bags in business suits ambling to the desk, he smiled. Four other men he recognized from Team Red were lounging around the lobby, comfortable in big leather armchairs, smoking, reading newspapers or magazines. There would be others, he knew, some of them unseen until it started, but all of them ready for the big event.

“We are sealed in,” came the answer in Arabic. “Should they pass through the motion sensors outside the service doors and stairwells—”

“Yes, yes. I want to know about the elevators,” Bharjkhan said.

“As I feared. Even with our software program tied into the main engineering computer that powers their electricity, with the elevators constantly moving, we still need thirty minutes, perhaps more. We discussed this, the number of cars alone…”

There were eight banks of two cars, staggered at roughly equal intervals, east to west, north to south. Including service cars for staff, he was well aware of the numbers, understood the task. “You do not have thirty minutes,” he growled. “Do it quickly and do not call me until it is done. And I do not want to hear any more about fear. Understood?” He punched off before Abdul could respond.

Bharjkhan felt the heat from anxiety rise, willing Abdul to hurry and complete the critical chore as he looked at his watch. The first sheen of sweat showed on his face. He glanced at the doorway when he heard the head of security cry, “No! Wait—”

He heard a muffled chug from the far end of the corridor, followed by the thud of deadweight. Bharjkhan returned to watching the screens. Just a few more minutes and he would become the great and avenging warrior of jihad he had dreamed about since fleeing the hateful occupation of his country.

6

“Why do you look at me like that? I am not sure if you despise me or…or what.”

Father Gadiz, snapped out of the trance by his brother’s voice, was unaware he’d been searching his face. Just what had he been looking for? The demon mask? There was no veil of diseased and burned flesh draped over Andres. Was there hope that he was not altogether lost? Was there some light still left in the eyes showing his soul had not been completely stained?

“Okay. You went through all this trouble to track me down. I take it you wish to relay a message? Tell me, did Isadora plead for me to come back? All is forgiven, we can live happily ever after?”

The priest felt his jaw clench. Unsure if he felt contempt, pity or anger toward Andres, he watched his brother gulp another shot, wash it back with beer, blow smoke. How pitifully tragic, he thought. All that pain and anger, eating up his soul, a festering cancer. Did he even care? The more he drank to calm the beast inside, the beast only grew stronger, soon enough to snap its chains. He could see that beast now, a warning beacon of rage building in the eyes.

“Speak, Father, please! Your silence is becoming insufferable.”

“You do not even bother to try to hide this shame. It leads me to wonder…” Gadiz said.

Andres snorted. “If it was worth your trouble to come all the way here and try to save my soul from eternal damnation? If when the gates of Hell are slamming on my face I will remember how you warned me so?”

“You would be wise to watch your tongue, Andres. You were once a believer.”

The priest fell silent, weighing his next words carefully, wondering if he should just get up and leave, stung to near outrage as he was by his brother’s mocking. No, too easy, he thought, it was what his brother probably wanted. Further, there was his own accountability to consider, if he didn’t harness the strength to persevere.

Andres, clearing his throat—was that shame flashing through his eyes?—inquired if he wanted something to drink. Oh, how he did, more than ever. He felt every flaming inch of his broken heart, the terrible burning ache with each awful pounding. He was tempted but declined.

Briefly Gadiz recalled the period where he’d indulged what had proved a near-fatal weakness in more ways than one. It had been so close, his own journey toward the abyss, teetering at the edge, so many nights wasted in an alcohol haze, questioning to near despair his own faith, his commitment to souls and to God. The young woman, restless and yearning to leave the village and her husband for the big city, had come almost weekly for confession. At her urging he began private counseling.

Where the Devil, he was certain, had conspired against him.

The woman had agonized over her habitual adultery, he remembered, but blamed her husband for the hateful trap her life had become. He had so despised his own thoughts toward her. He was wracked, worst of all, by such guilt and shame over his own lust, the bottle seemed his only relief from torment. Only the more he sought to drown the voice—the dark half of his own conscience, he believed—the more it urged him on, so persistent he thought he would go mad. He prayed almost nonstop for relief. He did not cave in nor pursue his desire, his only saving grace he was sure. But only when he stopped drinking for good, made his own confession, were his prayers answered. The taunting voice faded to nothing, the urge gradually died altogether.

“Your wife, she prays, but not for your return, Andres,” he said, and saw his brother flinch, no doubt all that monstrous vanity shouting to him that such a thing was preposterous beyond all reason. “Isadora is a woman strong of faith. She is at Mass every day. She lights candles. She says the rosary. Where you live in lavish luxury, indulge all the pleasures of the good life you have acquired through your club or whatever else…she barely has bread and water to sustain her life.”

Scowling, Andres broke eye contact. “What would you have me do? If it’s money—”

“You foolish stupid man,” Gadiz said, jolting his brother with the sudden anger in his voice. “She does not want your money.”

Andres spread his arms, truly baffled. “Then, what?”

Father Gadiz sighed, shook his head, but pushed on, saying, “I know you can see her, even if you have not thought of her in years. Picture her, kneeling before the crucifix or the Virgin Mother, praying for her own soul, but also that your heart will change, that you will renounce your ways and put them behind before it is too late.”

He thought he saw something change in his brother’s eyes, as his body went utterly still. “To her, Andres, your soul is the only important thing. That is how much she loves you. Your return to your wife, of course, would depend on you. But do it, I should warn you, only if your heart is right in the eyes of God.”

He watched as his brother’s features seemed to shrivel, eyes dropping toward his next drink. Were those tears he fought to hold back?

Andres swallowed more whiskey. He quickly hardened back to anger.

Shocked by the depth of his sudden bitter disappointment, the priest stood to leave, then Andres, almost in a panic, said, “Wait. Please, don’t go. I don’t know how to live.”

Gadiz stared at his brother. “What did you say?”

Andres cleared his throat, cracked his knuckles, eyes cast down. “Will you sit with me? Please, brother.”

Watching Andres closely, the priest sensed the torment. He sat.

Andres fiddled with his bottle of beer. “Do you know how much I hated him? How much the mere memory of the man makes me hate him? If I could dig him up…oh, but I’m sure you will tell me you pray for his soul to rest in peace, that God’s mercy knows no limits.”

“I understand your feelings, Andres. I was there. You mention infinite mercy, but likewise God’s justice knows no limits. It’s out of our hands, try to come to peace with at least that much. Are you so dead inside that you can’t even hear yourself? That what you so hate you have now become.”

“Which is what? A drunkard, a philanderer, a hedonistic scoundrel?”

“Yes,” Gadiz replied.

“I never beat Isadora within an inch of her life like he did our mother—or us for that matter. I never even cursed my wife! Yes, I know how that sounds, me trying to justify both my hatred for him and how I am living.”

“That is exactly how it sounds.”

In a harsh whisper, Andres said, “I tried…I wanted only a family. Two…we had two sons.”

“And I have taken that into account, but that does not excuse you.”

Andres stared off into the distance. There was fire in his eyes when looked back. “Why? Tell me, what did they ever do to be taken, and so young, to die so terribly…and from an illness that to this day no doctor can name? And does she, for all her virtue and noble poverty, ever for even one minute feel the kind of anger toward God that I feel?”

“If she did, I am unaware of it, and certainly her actions speak for how she feels in her heart,” the priest replied.

“Which is what? That it was God’s will our sons were taken from us and that she was left barren? That it’s God’s will I have become so wretched? Do you have an answer for me?”

Gadiz did, but he wasn’t sure his brother would listen, much less accept it.

“Tell me, Jose. I need an answer.”

“I cannot sit here and claim I know God’s will for your life. I know only what it isn’t. It takes courage to do what is right, Andres, that much I know. Evil is easy. It is a broad path of unrestrained laughter and song and pleasure. Evil is a coward and a liar. Evil is an illusion that will grant you what you think it is you so desire, but the price the soul has to pay is beyond the worst of any and all horrors on Earth.” He paused, wondering how to proceed. “Is there anything you wish for me to tell Isadora?”

Andres swallowed another drink, scowled, turned sullen. “Tell her whatever you wish.”

The priest stood. “Goodbye, Andres.”

“Wait!”

“What is it now? You wish to know about our village?” Gadiz asked, growing exasperated.

“Perhaps.”

“It is dying like all villages and hamlets across Spain. Only the elderly and the widows remain—”

“And the few faithful.”

“Yes, the few faithful it would seem. Most of the young, they have run off to the cities to chase, I fear, whatever their own illusions.”

“I meant to say, you have come so far, stay. What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t at least put you up for the night and feed you?”

The priest shook his head, turned away. “This place makes me very uncomfortable. I’m sure you have other plans.”

“Wait a minute!”

Frowning, the priest looked back, anxious to leave, but he was suddenly overwhelmed by the pleading in his brother’s voice.