Don Pendleton - Devil's Bargain

“Special Agent Matt Cooper, uh-huh. I heard about you.”

“Then you heard I’m in charge. That’s straight from the White House. You’re out of it.”

“Out of it? This one here,” he snarled, shoving the glowing end of the cigar toward the prisoner at the far end, “was just about to talk.”

“I’ll handle it from here.”

“You’ll handle it? What—you going to bring them some cookies and milk? Sweet-talk ’em? Maybe offer them some all-expenses-paid deal if they sing?”

Bolan stepped around the table, saw the Beretta 92-F within easy reach of the butcher. “Give me the cigar.”

It was a dangerous moment, Bolan watching as Moctaw wrestled with some decision, the soldier braced for the butcher to make a grab for the weapon. Moctaw bared his teeth, dumped the cigar on the table.

“It’s your party, G-boy. I hope you’re not just some six-pack of asskick, all show, no go, since you’re the man of the hour now. Maybe you don’t know it, but this country’s entire transportation system is on the verge of being shut down, I’m talking 9/11 five, maybe ten times over, depending on how many of these scumbags are out there. This is no time for ‘pretty please.’”

Bolan made his own decision right then, picked up the cigar. “I’m aware of what’s at stake.”

“Really? These Red Crescent terrorists pull off their big event, shit, we’re going to need Iraqi oil revenue ourselves to help put it all back together. This country will never be the same, they light up even one train or a couple of Greyhounds.”

“Besides your gift for stating the obvious, exactly what have you learned?”

Moctaw hesitated, then picked up one of four small square black boxes from the table. The clips-on gave Bolan a good idea of what they were, then Moctaw confirmed it, saying, “These are satellite-relay pagers. Far as we know, only the Russians and the Israelis, and maybe the Chinese and North Koreans, have this sort of technology.”

“And the NSA and the CIA.”

Moctaw hesitated. “Right. There are no markings, no serial numbers on these. I couldn’t tell you where they came from. They house computer chips that can tie into military communications satellites. Punch in your personal code, hooks you into the principal user, you can beep or be beeped, send or be sent a vibrating signal anywhere from three to five thousand miles. That’s how they knew to move.”

“Which means whoever’s running the operation is still out there.”

“That would be a good assumption. We’ve learned they were communicating by courier when they set up shop, or used P.O. boxes. Basic, keep it simple. For the most part they stayed off the phone, e-mail, Internet, but a couple of them got antsy, even made some overseas calls back home to their loved ones to say goodbye and they were on their way to Paradise. Not real smart. We were able to intercept—”

“I know all that.”

Moctaw scowled, then continued, “The usual bogus passports, only they come to America as Europeans, dyed hair, clean-shaved, perfect English. Never know they were camel jockeys. Two of them,” he said, nodding at the corpses, “were Iraqis, former fedayeen, to be exact. Made a point of letting me know they were going to blow up some buses and trains, jihad for Gulf II, standard Muslim-fanatic tirade. The two still breathing are Moroccan, recruited, they tell me, in Casablanca by Red Crescent about a year ago.” Moctaw pulled the Greyhound tickets from his bag, slapped them on the table. “Four one-way tickets. Two heading north, Port Authority. The other two were westbound, final stop Houston. I’ve got their ordnance upstairs. Three hundred pounds of Semtex between them, wired and ready to be activated by radio remote.”

Bolan looked at the tickets. “Richmond,” he said, noting the gate numbers and times of departure. Checking his watch, he found they were due to leave in an hour, give or take. It stood to reason they had been en route to link up with another cell, in Richmond or beyond. He stuffed the tickets into a pocket.

“You have a plan, or are you here to profile, Cooper?”

“What are their names?” Bolan asked, produced a lighter, then put the flame to the end of the cigar.

“I was calling them Ali Baba, one through four.”

Bolan puffed on the cigar until the tip glowed. “I could have you arrested.”

“Not if you’re about to do what I think you are.”

“I still might cuff and stuff you.”

“You could try.”

“Telling me whoever you work for has clout.”

“This thing isn’t being run by the White House. You could have the President arrest me himself, and I’d be out and free in less than an hour. And, no, I won’t tell you who I work for. You do your own homework.”

Bolan blew smoke in Moctaw’s face. There was no time for the hassle of arresting the man, get mired in a pissing contest. Besides, the more he heard from Moctaw, the more the bells and whistles rang and blew louder. If he let the man remain at large, he decided, he might end up using him to churn the waters.

Bolan turned his attention to the prisoners. Sometimes, he knew, the threat of torture, especially if a man faced permanent mutilation, worked better than the act itself. One look at the terror bugging out the eyes, bodies quaking, limbs straining to break their bounds, and he knew Moctaw had brought them to the breaking point. They just needed another shove.

The Executioner showed them the glowing tip, then puffed, working the eye to cherry red, let the smoke drift over their faces, choking them. “What are your names?”

“Khariq…”

“Mah…moud…”

“You have two choices,” Bolan said. “Tell me everything you know about your end of the operation. If you do that, and we find you’re just foot soldiers, no previous track record of terrorism, no blood on your hands, there’s a chance you eventually will be sent home to your families. I have the power to be able to make your freedom happen.”

“Cooper, you do not have—”

“Shut up,” the Executioner growled over his shoulder. He put menace in his eyes and voice that would have even made Moctaw flinch, he believed, leaning closer to their faces, holding the end of the cigar inches from a bulging orb. He saw tears break from the eye as it felt the heat. “One eye at a time.” He flicked his lighter, waved the flame around. “While I work on your eyes, I’ll put this to your balls. This is not good cop-bad cop.”

“We talk…we talk….”

And they did. Bolan stepped back, listening as they babbled so fast he had to slow them down, one at a time. They were to meet three more Red Crescent operatives in Richmond. Bolan got a description of both their attire and the duffel bags with custom designs. Two would be attached to each half of the four-man cell, then they would split off at other depots along the way. The lone operative out was the question mark; they didn’t know what his role was. Bolan figured the odd terrorist out for the cell leader. Then the clincher. Enough explosives were going to be left behind in lockers it would be enough to bring down the building.

The Executioner had a critical call to make, but decided to do it in the air while choppering to Richmond. He ground the cigar out on the table. “I’ll have James take these prisoners off your hands. He’ll take their passports and secure the ordnance.”

“That’s it? I’m dismissed?”

“No. For your sake you better hope I never lay eyes on you again.”

Moctaw made some spitting noise, an expression hardening his face Bolan read as “We’ll see.” The Executioner put the ghoul out of mind, bounding up the steps. The doomsday clock, he feared, was ticking down to maybe a handful of minutes.