Don Pendleton: The Iranian Hit

"What?"

"You heard it. I'm the one that wiped him, Minnie."

"What?" The dance began again. Minera wiped his lips with the back of his left hand and chewed on a knuckle for a moment. "What'd you say?"

"I also wiped Billy Garante and Mario Cuba."

"Santelli?" Minera whispered. "Damon? La Carpa?"

"Them, too," Bolan confirmed softly.

Minera went for his piece then. He did not quite get there. Bolan delivered a judo kick to the elbow of his gun arm. It popped audibly and fell helplessly away, dangling in numb paralysis. Minera groaned and tried to throw a punch with his left. Bolan went inside of it and broke the arm against his chest, then pinned the howling Mafioso to the wall with a hand at his throat. That stopped the bleating. Minera's eyes were rolling wildly as he struggled to pull air through his constricted larynx.

Bolan eased off just a bit, enough to allow those dangling feet to find a little purchase.

"You're Bolan!" the Mafioso gasped.

"You got it, pal."

"I thought you were..."

"I'm not. But maybe you are. What's the scam with Nazarour?"

Minera's eyes were reflecting the horror of a brutal soul at Judgment Day. It could have been the realization of a nightmare shared with all of his ilk, a dread that supposedly had found remission in the flaming wreck of a GMC motorhome in Central Park one rainy night, the night when Mack Bolan officially "died." Those horrified eyes were searching for an out, for some rebuttal to the awful truth. They found no comfort whatsoever in the icy stare of this adversary. Miner a groaned with pain and said, "Look, I don't... I was just... it's all bullshit. I got nothing with the general."

"Then you can die with clean hands," Bolan suggested. He returned the pressure, lifting the guy away from earth again.

Those eyes bugged and rolled, and spittle formed at the lips as Minera tried to squeeze airless words past them.

Bolan gave him just enough adjustment and said, "I didn't catch that, Minnie."

"I said okay," the Mafioso sputtered. "It's like you say. I call the shots."

"For what?"

"For the new thing. We're pulling it together again."

"Starting where?"

"Africa."

"Uh huh," Bolan said softly. "What's the territory?"

Minera's groaning response was unintelligible.

"Say it again," Bolan commanded.

Minera croaked, "Military stuff."

"Nukes," Bolan decided.

"Whatever." Minera tried to clear his throat but could not. The eyes rolled as he continued. "I'm dying, huh? You're killing me. Let off."

"There are worse crimes than killing," Bolan told him coldly. "Letting off sometimes, for example."

"Huh?"

"One death against thousands, Minnie — maybe even millions. How do we balance that?"

"I guess I don't get you," Minera groaned.

Bolan reapplied the pressure as he told the dying man, "I guess you do." He lifted the guy completely off the floor, by the throat, and quietly held him there through the final agonized struggle, then slowly lowered the lifeless body to the floor of the hangar.

Brognola came through the door while Bolan was verifying the lack of life signs. The fed turned about quickly and went back out. Bolan joined him just outside the hangar and told him, "Arnie Farmer is dead again. How many times do I have to cancel the guy, Hal?"

"Let's hope this was the last one," Brognola replied with a tired sigh.

"Don't bet any lives on it," Bolan said. "The shit machines have an amazing ability to reassemble themselves. Even from the grave. Nazarour has to be stopped."

"Why?"

"I believe Minera was pulling together a combine to supply nuclear weapons to the Mideast. Someone over there obviously wants them very bad. Minera said Africa. I would have to guess Libya. And that could be only the beginning."

"Of the end," Brognola commented.

"Wherever and however, Nazarour is probably the central figure."

Brognola stared sadly at the ground as he tried to bring it all together in his mind. "Hell," he growled, "we turned the guy loose. Now he's free as a bird."

"Maybe not," Bolan replied. "Can you get me a link to Stony Man?"

Brognola's eyes were question marks as he jerked a thumb toward his vehicle. "Channel A," he explained, referring to the two-way radio.

Bolan strode to the vehicle, punched in the linkage to Stony Man Farm, and devoted some five minutes to quiet radio conversations with several different individuals. Brognola studiously avoided the vehicle during that period, approaching only when it was obvious that the Striker's business had been concluded.

"I'll settle for a hint," the fed told the big man in black.

Bolan lit a cigarette and took a deep pull at it, exhaling the smoke with a tired sigh. Then he gave the fed his "hint" for the day. "A STOL aircraft was observed attempting a rendezvous with a large yacht fifty miles off the coast. Funny thing happened, though. It suddenly burst into flames and fell into the sea several miles short of its goal. No way could there have been any survivors."

Brognola lit a fresh cigar while he assimilated that bit of intelligence. "Strange things do happen," he commented after a moment. "How, uh, how'd you get that?"

Bolan smiled thinly, dropped his cigarette to the ground, and crushed it beneath his foot. "Grimaldi told me."

Brognola nervously shifted his weight and said, "He, uh — you, uh...."

Bolan said, "Yeah. We thought it would be a good idea if he flew a bit of coastal cover during all this. He, uh, borrowed an F-16. You know, any eventuality."

The fed chuckled and stepped into his vehicle. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," he said cheerily. "My official report is going to say that all mission goals were fully met."

"Or exceeded," Bolan suggested. "You could say that."

And, yeah, you could say that.