Silent Threat
Before he realized what was happening, Helmut Schribner spent twelve hours at the computer. He didn’t eat. He didn’t move. Only when he realized just how badly he needed to use the restroom did he come up for air. By then, he knew what lay before him.
Helmut Schribner, previously at a loss for focus, had finally found two. The first, as he educated himself on finance and investing, moving from Web site to Web site, from resource to resource, was money. With the funds available to him, Schribner could build true wealth.
The second focus for Schribner’s life came quite unexpectedly. He was intensely curious as to the history of his sudden benefactor. None of the account names he had received, of those that bore names at all, carried the name Phineas Elmington. When he searched this identity on the Internet, he discovered why. “Phineas Elmington” was a rather notorious English serial killer.
The news photos he was able to find showed that Elmington had changed his face, somehow, prior to going into hiding. There were various subtle differences, but it was clear that the man Schribner had shot was indeed the man wanted for multiple grisly murders in Great Britain. Schribner read everything he could about the case. Elmington’s victims had nothing in common, nor did Elmington’s murders share many traits to connect them. This had allowed him to become one of the most prolific serial killers in history. He had attacked men, women, children, the elderly…basically, anyone who happened to cross his path during the course of his life. He had strangled them, stabbed them, shot them, bludgeoned them, crushed them with furniture and, once, burned an entire apartment building just to see how many people wouldn’t get out. When finally caught, he had told the authorities he wasn’t a murderer at all, but a man bringing the gift of peace to those whose lives he took. He had been tried, but before he could be sentenced, he had disappeared from prison. Three guards died during the escape. Phineas Elmington had never been heard from again. The hunt for him had obsessed Great Britain for a time, but eventually it had been called off, and Elmington was believed, perhaps, to have taken his own life, based on some of the writings found in his home in London. Those writings had extolled the virtues, the blessing, of death.
When, during his search for information on Elmington, Schribner had found videos on a video-sharing Web site devoted to the man, he was both surprised and mesmerized. It seemed there was no shortage of devotees to so famous a murderer, and he found more than one video clip that either paid a kind of homage to Elmington—or other killers like him—or professed an outright admiration. Many of those sitting before low-quality webcams proclaiming their obsession with death and killing were young people, some costumed in various goth outfits and makeup. They were from all walks of life, apparently, and from all over the world.
It was then that Helmut Schribner had the idea that would become the second focus for his life, and what he would come to consider his true mission, his real purpose. The money he would make, the money he would use, would be a means to this end. For as he stared at the flickering, sometimes blurry, always hypnotic images on the monitor, he realized just how much power there was in this virtual environment, how much value there was in being able to reach out through the computer to touch lives and those who lived them all around the planet.
Having spent so much of his own life merely waiting for something to happen, Schribner could be very patient. He did his homework, studying fully the medium he planned to use to execute his plan. Phineas Elmington had shown him the way. When Schribner had pulled the trigger of that pistol, he had known a sense of satisfaction, even of pleasure, that was unlike anything he had previously experienced. He yearned to feel it again, and more, to share it with others. He would use this new and marvelous worldwide Web to spread his message, to gain converts to what he could only describe as a religion. A religion of death. A religion of oblivion. A religion of ultimate pleasure.
As he studied, and as he began to notice the fanciful names and nicknames used by those who created accounts on the file-sharing sites he visited, Schribner realized that the task before him wasn’t one for a “Helmut Schribner.” No, he would require a new name, one that held within it a hint of the future, one that concealed his past while showing the way ahead. He thought, very briefly, about adopting Phineas Elmington’s name, but that wouldn’t do. Elmington’s time was past, and to appropriate his name seemed almost disrespectful to his legacy.
Looking through the ledgers, Helmut found it.
One of the account names in the ledger, one of the pseudonyms—many of them almost gibberish, nonsense words that Elmington had used as placeholders to keep the accounts separate—was “Dumar Eon.” He liked it; “Dumar” sounded vaguely German, while “Eon” held a hint of timelessness. It was, simply put, the name of someone who could lead others, the name of someone who could share the gift, and the giving of that gift, that Phineas Elmington had demonstrated and experienced.
And so Helmut Schribner became Dumar Eon.
The name of the organization he would eventually form, in order to give Elmington’s gift and his cause an identity that lent itself to marketing, he took from Elmington’s own words: Iron Thunder.
In the coming months and then years, Dumar Eon learned he had a natural gift for marketing, an intuitive showmanship. He spread the word of Iron Thunder’s beliefs, which he codified on several anonymous Web sites. Like a virus, word of Iron Thunder grew among those receptive to its message. The appeal of the sect cut across demographics, reaching something primal.
All the while, Dumar Eon’s fortune grew.
Through shrewd, patient, long-term investing, Eon managed to multiply his start-up funding tenfold, then a hundredfold, then beyond. It was, therefore, only a matter of time, as he grew more educated in such matters, that Eon thought to create a German investment fund of his own. He located men and women he could trust, people who, even if they were not members of Iron Thunder, were either sympathetic to his cause or so blinded by desire for money that they cared little what he did. These he put in charge of the corporate face and broadening ventures of his new Security Consortium. And he implemented his long-term plan: to use the resources of the Consortium, first to gain control of certain very important industries in Germany, and then to funnel the matériel produced thereby to those international entities who could—however unwittingly—continue to carry the gift of death.
It had worked so well. The Consortium had grown larger than any one person could manage, and he put the appropriate individuals in place to run it. He had made sure to choose only those who valued secrecy, who safeguarded their identities, as did he. If he chose his most trusted operatives from among the shadows, they would remain within them. Thus they all had something to lose if they were exposed, and all would look to their own interests and preserve the whole.
Recently he had, as was only expected, become aware of the Interpol investigation. It paid to have the right people in the right places. To preserve Iron Thunder, it was necessary to stop the investigation before it began. And so he had dispatched the appropriate personnel. Eon imagined they were even now bringing peace to the would-be crime fighter Interpol had assigned. With the agent dead, the whole affair could be quietly covered up. A little push here, some thoughtfully used influence there, perhaps a bribe or two. The authorities could be bought, or otherwise contained. An object lesson now and then helped keep them in check. As for his own organization, the killing of a single bureaucratic drone, or even a swarm of them, would draw little attention.
Over time he had learned that, except for those true believers from among the ranks of Iron Thunder, very few of the people running the Consortium cared what went on, where the money went, what the investment fund’s ultimate goals were, or what actions were taken in pursuit of those goals. They cared only to fill their own pockets. Eon preferred that. It was predictable, and predictable quantities were quantities that could be managed and manipulated for his own purposes. Those purposes were what truly mattered. Those purposes would be poorly understood by certain less…spiritual entities within the Consortium, and thus those entities didn’t need to know what Dumar Eon really wanted.
In the long term, Dumar Eon sought to burn the world.
He wished to cleanse it with the fires of pure oblivion. He would, if he could, kill everyone and everything in and on it, everything moving across the face of the earth. Eventually.
There really was no hurry. As he contemplated the finer things he had acquired and did enjoy, he thought that while the final and most blissful peace of death was undeniable, neither was there any reason to rush toward it.
There was so much work left to be done.
4
Adam Rieck drove the BMW, which Bolan gathered was a rental, bringing it smoothly to the curb a block away from the building that housed Becker’s residence. Bolan got out and turned his back, using the interior of the car to discreetly check his weapons. It was dark and getting quite late, and there were no people on the street that they could see, but it always paid to assume unseen eyes were watching.
They had endured no small amount of bureaucratic wrangling from the local authorities. Rieck had been forced to phone his contacts at Interpol, which prompted several more calls back and forth before all the red tape was untangled. The police were none too happy to let Bolan and Rieck go, especially armed as they were. Bolan had seen it countless times before. When the lead started flying, those left standing were immediately assumed to be at fault in some way.
Rieck used his trench coat to shield the bulk of the 12-gauge Remington 870 shotgun he carried. He had begged, borrowed or otherwise obtained the weapon from one of the responding German police units; Bolan didn’t know exactly how he’d managed it and didn’t care. The Uzi and the other recovered weapons had of course been taken as evidence, and Bolan was happy to leave that cleanup to the local authorities.
He turned to face the entrance to the building, surveying the block and scanning the windows. He saw nothing. The street was unnaturally quiet. A dog barked, somewhere faraway. He watched an empty coffee cup roll in lazy semicircles back and forth, stirred by a strong night breeze, grime from the wet street clinging to paper. He looked left, then right again. Something was wrong. Something subtle…
“Rieck,” he said, “do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” The Interpol operative paused and sniffed at the air. Then he caught it. “Smoke,” he said.
“Move,” Bolan commanded. He drew the Beretta 93-R and hit the front door, shoving the glass-and-metal barrier aside and covering the corridor beyond. Rieck followed. The two men covered each other in turns as they worked their way up the corridor. Bolan followed his nose, more concerned with clearing each space than in reaching Becker’s dwelling.
They cleared the first floor without incident, but on the second, the smoke became a visible haze. At the stairwell exit to the third floor, they found a body sprawled in the doorway. The man wore a suit and stared blankly in death, his hand clutching a walkie-talkie.
“Becker’s security,” Rieck whispered.
Bolan nodded curtly and motioned for silence.
The double doors leading into Becker’s condominium—his name and address were on a burnished plate mounted outside—had been smashed inward, possibly with a portable battering ram. The lights were out. Bolan, his Beretta pointed before him, tried a wall switch. There was no response; the power had probably been cut, either to the flat or to the building. The walls and floors were scorched and cloying smoke filled the air around them, but there were no fires evident.
“Homemade flash-bangs,” Rieck whispered. “Sort of a poor man’s incendiary charge. Burns hot, fast and bright, but often won’t set a blaze.” He looked around. “Lots of hardwood floors here. Not a lot of carpets. We’re lucky the building’s not on fire.”
“We need to clear this area,” Bolan said. “Now.”
Rieck nodded. Bolan unclipped his SureFire Combatlight, bracing it under his gun hand as he flashed the ultrabright xenon lamp, always moving, the barrel of the Beretta ready to acquire targets. Rieck had a small LED light of his own; he held it against the shotgun’s pump and did a passable job of checking his own side of the condominium. They found more dead men. Pools of blood, scorched furniture and empty brass shell casings were everywhere.
A voice shouted weakly in German from the last room of the apartment.
Rieck and Bolan hit the room high and low, respectively. The soldier kicked the door in and his Interpol counterpart followed with the shotgun. They found no resistance; there was only Hans Becker himself, secured to a chair in the center of the room, surrounded by three dead bodyguards in a room that had been largely untouched by the fast-burning charges that had scorched the rest of the condominium.
There was something strapped to his chest.
Becker looked at them, wild-eyed. He had been beaten; a livid bruise was spreading across his left cheek, and the eye on that side was bloodshot and partially swollen shut. He had been duct-taped to a straight-backed antique chair. He was barefoot, wearing slacks and shirtsleeves. He said something weakly in German, his voice faltering. Bolan imagined he’d shouted himself hoarse after his tormenters had left him like this.
“He says it’s a bomb,” Rieck reported.
The device was a shoebox-size oblong wrapped in layer after layer of the same duct tape that was holding Becker in place. Canvas straps ran from the box across Becker’s shoulders and under his arms, attached to the box from the back by some unseen means. Bolan eyed it, hard, but didn’t reach for it. Becker’s eyes followed Bolan’s.
“Eisen-Donner,” Becker whispered.
“Iron Thunder.” Bolan nodded. He bent to examine the bomb. Becker immediately became agitated and started hissing in rapid-fire German, shaking his head.
“He says they warned him it would go off if it was touched,” Rieck stated. “He has been trying not to move, while crying for help. He wants to know if we could please summon the police, and begs that we not touch the bomb.”
“He’s going to be disappointed then,” Bolan said grimly, bending to place his ear near Becker’s chest. “This thing is ticking.”
“Wouldn’t it anyway?” Rieck asked.
Bolan looked up at him. “The only reason for there to be timing connected to an explosive, is to set it off after a predetermined interval.”
“So it’s ticking….” The Interpol agent said.
“Because it’s going to explode,” Bolan finished.
“Your call, Cooper,” Rieck stated.
Bolan looked at the box, then at Becker. Without a word, he drew a dagger from his waistband. Then he spared a glance at the agent. “Get out of here, Rieck. Phone it in.”
“You sure?”
“There’s nothing you can do,” the Executioner said. “I’ll take this.”
“We could wait for the bomb squad.”
“We could if we knew how long we have,” Bolan answered. “We don’t. It’s only in the movies that the bomb has a big red LED readout staring you in the face.”
Rieck looked at him, then at Becker. “You could…I mean, it’s not your responsibility. You could get to safety.”
Bolan eyed him hard. “The hell it’s not.”
Rieck nodded. “Then I’ll stay with you. You can’t watch your own back and deal with this, too. We’ve no idea who might still be around. The people who did this might return to watch the fireworks. This apartment is not secured.” With that he checked his shotgun and stood back a few paces.
Bolan again raised his mental estimation of the Interpol agent.
Becker began muttering in agitated German. The soldier didn’t bother asking Rieck to translate; the executive was clearly convinced any tampering with the bomb would cause it to go off. He was probably right. But Mack Bolan would no more retreat to safety and watch an innocent man be blown to bits than he would pass a wounded stranger on the sidewalk. With that thought foremost in his mind, he hefted the dagger and got to work.
Using the keen edge of the compact fighting knife, Bolan made an incision around the oblong. The tape separated easily under the knife’s tip. Then, very carefully, Bolan peeled back the square of tape, making sure there were no wires or leads connecting it to the interior of the bomb. He set the tape carefully aside and took a long look at the inside of the casing. The ticking was much louder now, and came from a rotary clockwork of some kind that was spinning ominously near the bottom edge of the device. There was a fairly sizable chunk of plastic explosive buried in its heart, connected with wires to the clockwork and also to what looked like pieces of a wireless phone. Bolan leaned in and smelled the explosive.
“Semtex,” he whispered. Becker’s eyes widened. The German knew the word.
Rieck started to say something and stopped, dumbfounded, when Bolan took his phone from his pocket. Snapping it open, he used the secure phone’s camera feature to snap a picture of the interior of the bomb. He pressed the speed-dial key that would transmit the photo, scrambled, to the Farm. Then he paused, glaring at the spinning mechanism, hoping they would have enough time.
There was no telling just what Iron Thunder had thought to accomplish by rigging Becker and then leaving him. The cult didn’t seem terribly concerned with efficiency. They were more into statements, into style over substance. It was that ragged edge that separated the Iron Thunder cultists from those professional soldiers who’d attacked Rieck and Bolan at the coffee shop.
There was, however, no time to ponder that mystery now. It occurred to the soldier, as he waited, listening to the doomsday numbers fall, that there might be a camera somewhere nearby. The Iron Thunder terrorists who’d done this to Becker could be watching to see the man blown up, savoring his last fear-filled moments on earth. If the bomb was capable of remote detonation, however, it stood to reason that anyone with a finger on that button would have pressed it as soon as Bolan started to tamper with it.
The secure phone began to vibrate, and Rieck nearly jumped out of his skin. Bolan glanced at him before keying the reply button. “Cooper,” he said. Answering with his cover identity told anyone on the other end that he wasn’t alone.
“Mr. Cooper,” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman said, being cautious lest whomever was with Bolan could overhear, “I’ve just received your message. You’ll be pleased to know that Mr. Akira has found corresponding schematics. I’m transferring you now.”
“Understood,” Bolan said quietly.
“Akira here,” Akira Tokaido said. The young computer hacker was all-business now. He was particularly good with intricate electronic devices, which was likely why Kurtzman had tasked him with this problem. “It is a fairly conventional device,” Akira reported. “Our recognition programs have identified all of the visible components as COTS,” he continued, “commercial and off-the-shelf. That block of plastic explosive, is it C-4?”
“Semtex, by the odor,” Bolan corrected.
“Ah, the color of the photo is a little washed out. No matter. You are ready?”
“Hurry,” Bolan said.
“The two cards connected to the small transmitter on the right-hand side,” Tokaido stated. “Those are from a cell phone. They can be removed without detonating the device. Simply pull them out and yank the wires free.”
Bolan gritted his teeth, reached out and pulled the components free. Becker shut his eyes tightly. No explosion came.
“Still here,” Bolan said softly.
“Now, the timer circuit,” Tokaido said. “This is more complicated. There should be a third wire, not visible to me, somewhere near the two that are visible at the base of the rotary timer. You will have to find that third wire and cut it. Cut only the third wire.”
Bolan set the phone on the floor and used the tip of his knife as a probe, careful not to slice into the insulation covering the two wires that had been visible in the photograph. He eased these aside, prying them gently, careful not to separate them. Beneath these black wires he found a third, blue wire, well hidden and also connected to the timing mechanism.
“I have a blue wire,” he said, picking up the phone.
“The color is not important,” Tokaido said. “The third wire is the detonation one. Cutting it alone deactivates the timer. Sever either of the other two wires and the circuit closes, detonating the bomb.”
“Copy that,” Bolan said. Once more setting down the phone, he put his fingers to his lips and then placed his hand on Becker’s shoulder. He pointed at the bomb and then gestured with the dagger. The meaning was clear enough. Becker closed his eyes again and did his best to stay very still.
The timing cylinder began to spin more quickly.
“Great,” Bolan muttered.
Rieck, looking over his shoulder, gasped. Like Bolan, he could understand what that meant: the timer had run down and the mechanism was going to trigger the explosive.
Bolan cut the wire. All three men held their breath.
There was a loud metallic ping as the mechanical trigger closed.
“Well,” Bolan said. “That’s that.” He cut the straps holding the bomb to Becker’s chest, removed the device and set it next to the chair.
Becker breathed hard, muttering “thank you” in German over and over again.
“Now what?” Rieck asked. He stepped to the nearest window and glanced out, checking the street beyond.
“Now we keep moving,” Bolan said. “Obviously, Iron Thunder has been and gone. We need to follow the next lead in the chain. That means—”
“Cooper,” Rieck interrupted. “Trouble.”
“How many?” Bolan asked, checking his Beretta.
“Two more cars full of our well-armed, well-dressed friends.”
“This is starting to get repetitive,” Bolan said, nodding to Becker. “Explain to him what’s going on.” He looked around, noted the incongruously large bathroom off this room, which was apparently Becker’s study. “Tell him to get into the bathtub and keep his head down. Tell him to stay down until the shooting stops. Stay here and shoot anyone who comes through that door that isn’t me.”
“And you?”
“I’m taking the fight to them.” He secured the Beretta 93-R with a full 20-round magazine, then drew the Desert Eagle and checked it. A .44 Magnum round waited in the chamber and the magazine was topped off.
“I don’t blame you,” Rieck said.
“What?”
“Well, after all that trouble we took to save him,” Rieck said with a grin, “I’ll be damned if it’s fair to have the second string take him out.”
Bolan offered him a vertical salute with the barrel of the Desert Eagle. He let the weapon lead him as he walked out into the scorched corridor beyond.
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