Ripple Effect

CHAPTER FOUR

Jakarta’s Kemayoran district, formerly the site of a major airport, lies in the city’s eastern quadrant, two miles distant from the cooling breezes of the Java Sea. It swelters from the wicked combination of a tropic climate and an overdose of asphalt topped by concrete towers rising toward the humid sky. Pedestrians sweat through their clothes while traveling a block, and those blessed with the miracle of air-conditioning are prone to let it run full blast.

Finding the former airport was no problem. It appeared on Bolan’s maps, and Dixon knew the mall by reputation, while denying that he’d ever shopped there. Bolan cruised the spacious parking lot until he spotted a Toyota the same year and model as his bullet-punctured ride, then parked as close as possible.

It was that hazy time of dusk, between late afternoon and early evening, when floodlights set on timers hadn’t flared to life and mall employees tasked to watch security monitors were thinking more about the night ahead than what was happening on any given one of twenty smallish screens. Bolan was grateful for the hour, but he wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

“You’re watching, right?” he asked Dixon.

“Affirmative.”

Reaching into a bag behind the driver’s seat, Bolan withdrew a foot-long strip of metal and a large screwdriver, both of which he tucked beneath his floppy shirt. He left the car with Dixon, his companion staking out a point midway between the two Toyotas and pretending that he had to tie his shoe while Bolan went ahead.

Another moment placed him in the parking slot beside the target vehicle. He took a final searching look around, then slipped his shim into the narrow gap between the driver’s window and its frame. He found the catch in something like ten seconds, slipped it and was in the driver’s seat a heartbeat later, thankful that the car had no alarm installed.

The screwdriver came next, applied with brutal force to wrench the round ignition keyhole mechanism from the steering column. Once that obstacle had been removed, Bolan’s screwdriver doubled as the missing key itself; a simple twist was all that he needed to revive the sleeping engine.

Bolan left it running as he found a switch beside his seat, opened the trunk and exited. Dixon kept watch while Bolan palmed another tool, removed the rental’s license plates, then claimed his various belongings from the now abandoned car: his small toolkit, a slightly larger bag for clothes and shaving gear, a heavy duffel bag that clanked and rattled when he picked it up or set it down.

The latter earned a blink from Dixon, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he settled in the shotgun seat as if the car belonged to him and always had.

Two points for cool.

The second-worst part of stealing any car was exiting the crime scene proper without being spotted. Once they reached a public street, they would become invisible. A second stop, to switch the license plates, would make the switch complete. From that point onward, only a direct comparison of vehicle registration numbers would prove that the plates on their car were mismatched.

A quiet place to park, no witnesses, nothing to make a round-eye draw attention while he touched up small details about his vehicle. Bolan was looking for the perfect spot when Dixon asked, “What will you do with Talmadge?”

“That depends on him,” Bolan replied. It wasn’t quite a lie.

“Because I had a briefing on the Justice ruling, back in 1990-something, authorizing federal agents to arrest suspected terrorists on foreign soil, without a warrant from the local courts. We’re clear on that.”

Bolan suppressed a smile as he replied, “You think the Indonesians might consider that kidnapping? Did they get the memo? Does an order signed in Washington trump local law out here?”

“It does in my book,” Dixon answered. “We’re at war.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score,” Bolan told him, “but it didn’t start on 9/11, and it won’t end if and when we bag Osama. As for orders out of Justice, please refrain from telling any local cops or soldiers that you got your go-ahead from the attorney general of the United States. You’ll only make them laugh before they put a bullet in your head.”

“So, what you’re saying is—”

“We’re not in Kansas anymore. This isn’t U.S. soil and never has been. People here salute a different flag, and they’re not bound by anything the President or members of his cabinet may say. We’re fugitives right now, and most of what we do from this point on will be illegal.”

“In the strictest sense, of course, but—”

“In the only sense that matters,” Bolan interrupted him. “We’ve killed nine men. The penalty for murder here is death by hanging or by firing squad. You get a choice, but no appeal. Maybe you think the embassy will intervene if you’re arrested.”

“No,” Dixon said, sounding more subdued. “They made a special point of clarifying that.”

“We’re clear, then,” Bolan said. “You have to watch your step. Forget about what some attorney general said ten years ago, and focus on surviving, here and now.”

“I hear you.”

“Good.”

He found a residential lane where streetlights were in short supply and parked the car. Five minutes later, they were on the move again, wearing the license plates from Bolan’s rental.

It was still a problem, but at least he’d bought some time. Their new car would be flagged as stolen when its owner finished shopping at the mall, but with so many Japanese compacts thronging Jakarta’s streets, its tags would be the main identifier. Those were gone, and by the time some clerk at Bolan’s rental agency decided to report the other car missing, he hoped his work in the vicinity would be completed.

“Next stop,” he said to Dixon, “Talmadge’s apartment.”

“It’s across town,” Dixon told him. “On the west side, off Tomang Raja, near the Banjir Canal.”

“Okay.” A careful U-turn got them headed back in the direction they had come from.

“But I’m still not clear,” Dixon said, “on what you—what we—intend to do with Talmadge.”

“We intend to question him, ideally,” Bolan said.

“And if the circumstances aren’t ideal?”

“Our bottom-line assignment is to stop him doing any further favors for his latest batch of clients. Period.”

“Kill him, you mean.”

“It’s possible,” Bolan allowed.

“Because he’s dangerous. To the United States.”

“He’s dangerous to everyone right now,” Bolan replied. “Al Qaeda and Hamas don’t limit their attacks to the U.S. or Israel. They’ve bombed London, Spain, Kenya and Tanzania. They’re full-service murderers.”

“That’s good.” Dixon was nodding like an athlete getting pumped up for the big game of the season. “Right. That’s very good.”

“Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Bolan suggested. “You’ve already proved yourself. You didn’t freeze. Whatever happens next, you’ll be all right.”

“I’m good,” said Dixon. “We’re the good guys, right?”

“That’s what it says on my white hat,” Bolan replied.

THEIR TARGET’S SMALL apartment house off Tomang Raja stood among a hundred others that were more or less the same, distinguished by their faded colors more than anything unique about their architecture. They reminded Bolan of a minicity he had seen at LEGOLAND in Europe, on another job. Instead of plastic pieces, though, these look-alike apartment houses had been built with lath and plaster, cheaply painted, then abandoned to begin their slow decomposition in the tropic climate.

Sun and rain would do the rest, assisted by the tenants who cared nothing for a landlord’s property, and sometimes precious little for themselves.

Bolan wasn’t surprised that Talmadge would’ve chosen such a neighborhood in which to live. He wouldn’t fear the neighbors—quite the opposite, in fact, if they were wise—and living in a downscale area helped to preserve his anonymity. He would desire a low profile, waiting to make a bigger splash when he retired.

And Talmadge would have enemies, like any other mercenary who had shopped his skills around the troubled planet. There was never time or opportunity to kill them all, as Bolan knew from personal experience. No matter how he tried, regardless of his scorched-earth tactics, there would always be survivors hungry for revenge.

Still, with a new address, new name, new face, new history, he just might pull it off.

Somehow. Someday.

“Garage stalls in the back,” Dixon explained, “along a kind of alley fronting the canal. No parking lot.”

“It’s not a problem,” Bolan said. He’d noticed empty parking spaces on the street and didn’t mind a short walk back from wherever they had to leave the car.

“So, what’s the drill?” Dixon asked.

“We go in and knock,” Bolan said. “Say hello and ask if he can spare a cup of java.”

“Like Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

“Without the Bibles,” Bolan said.

“Okay with me,” his contact said. And then, “You sure?”

“What were you thinking?” Bolan asked him. “Climb a drainpipe? Go in through the bathroom window?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Dixon granted. “But it seems to me, he may be waiting for us. Well, not us, but someone. He’s a killer, right?”

“A soldier,” Bolan said.

“Ex-soldier. And a terrorist.”

“You’re thinking he may shoot us,” Bolan said.

“It crossed my mind. Suppose he’s sitting on an arsenal up there? Then what?”

“Has anybody looked inside? The team that bugged his place?”

“They didn’t want to risk it. Went in through the neighbors’ flats and put mikes in the walls.”

Which meant that Talmadge could be sitting on an arsenal—or nothing. Bolan didn’t think he’d be unarmed. It went too much against the grain, against his lifelong training and experience, but there were countless levels of preparedness. It was a waste of time to sit and speculate.

He parked the stolen car a block west of the target, locked its doors and took the slender shim along with him, for when they doubled back. It might look strange, him fiddling with the window when he wanted to get back inside, but Bolan chose that option over leaving it unlocked and trusting thieves to stay away.

Losing a stolen car was one thing, but he wouldn’t risk the hardware in its trunk until he’d had his money’s worth out of the mobile arsenal.

“Just pistols?” Dixon asked him as they left the car and crossed the street.

“If we need more than that,” Bolan replied, “our plan is seriously flawed.”

“About this knocking thing…”

“It’s how they play it, in polite society.”

“Is that what this is?” Dixon asked.

“Hope springs eternal.”

“Right.”

He had a point, of course. Maybe they should’ve loaded up for bear and smashed through Talmadge’s front door with automatic weapons blazing, but the job—at least in Bolan’s mind—was more than simply taking out a soldier who’d gone bad.

They were supposed to find out what Talmadge was doing for his latest sponsors, what their move was meant to be against the country they called Satan. Simply dropping Talmadge in his tracks might stall the plan, but on the other hand, there was a decent chance it could proceed with other personnel and reap the same results.

Whatever those were.

Count on chaos and destruction, maybe catastrophic loss of life, or else selective murders of specific targets carried out with surgical precision. Either way, the zealots who were renting Talmadge and his expertise would want the most bang for their bucks. And at the moment, only Talmadge could reveal who his employers were.

Only the man they’d come to see could give them details of the plan.

Assuming they could make him talk.

That would be easier if he was breathing when they started asking questions, but in games like this the target often literally called the shots. If Talmadge chose to make a fight of it, resisting with the same skills Bolan had and using any weapons within reach, taking the man alive might not be possible.

And if he forced their hands, what then?

Where did they go for answers?

Wait and see. Don’t count him out.

Not yet.

They walked around the block, came in behind the building, with the broad canal exuding stagnant odors on their right, stucco and curtained windows on the left. Bolan counted the buildings, picking out the paint job, and the back door opened at his touch.

So far, so good.

Stairs just inside, and Bolan led the way, knowing that Talmadge had a flat on the third floor. The stairs were solid, maybe concrete under threadbare carpet, so they didn’t squeak.

On three, Bolan let Dixon take the lead, moving along a narrow hallway redolent with smells of cabbage, pork and something else he didn’t want to think about. Maybe a version of despair.

Talmadge had found a place to hide where no one would expect to find him.

No one but the Executioner.

Dixon stood off to one side of the door and nodded.

Bolan reached across to knock.

NOTHING. THE RAPPING ECHOED back at them but brought no answer from inside the flat. No shuffling feet, no verbal challenge. No gunfire.

Nothing.

Dixon watched as his partner reached around the jamb and knocked again, more forcefully. They waited half a minute.

Still nothing.

“Keep watch,” Bolan said as he knelt before the door, extracting something like a wallet from one of his pockets. Dixon saw him open it and withdraw slender lock picks, then turned his full attention to the undemanding task of covering the hallway.

No one had emerged from any of the other flats to catch a glimpse of who was knocking on their neighbor’s door. He guessed it was that kind of place, where people minded their own business and resented nosy neighbors. Even so, he paid attention to the stairs and to the other doorways, keeping one hand on his Smith &Wesson in its belt holster.

Ready to shoot at the first sign of a hostile move.

What a day it had been, and not over yet!

In training, back at Quantico, Dixon and some of his classmates had talked about what they would do if they were ever placed in killing situations, where the only rule worth mentioning was door-die. With one exception, Dixon reflected, they’d been young males, full of piss and vinegar. Without exception, all of them had vowed to tag and bag all enemies of the United States if given half an opportunity.

Now Dixon had been graced with such an opportunity, and he’d surprised himself. He wouldn’t say the killings had been easy necessarily, but neither did he have the sickly feeling he’d expected, like an overdose of early childhood guilt. The shootings had been self-defense, beyond a shadow of a doubt, involving criminals or terrorists. He hadn’t started it, and he was definitely glad to be alive.

“You ever face a situation where it’s them or you,” his range instructor had remarked on one occasion, “make damn sure it’s them.”

Amen.

But he was nervous, like a restless sleeper waiting for his upstairs neighbor’s second shoe to drop before he dared to close his eyes. And Dixon couldn’t shake it.

Was it simple fear of getting caught? Of what came next? What if he—?

Click!

He turned and found the door open, Cooper crossing the threshold with his Glock in hand. A beat behind the action, Dixon drew his Smith & Wesson and followed, covering the left side of a smallish living room while Cooper took the right.

Gene Talmadge wasn’t home.

Dixon inferred it from the silence, then confirmed it with a hasty room-to-room search that left no piece of furniture unturned. He checked the tiny bathroom, while Matt Cooper scoured the closets and looked underneath the bed.

Their man was gone, with roughly two-thirds of the clothing from his bedroom closet. In the bathroom, Dixon found no toothbrush, no shampoo, no comb, no mouthwash.

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