Don Pendleton - Lethal Payload

“From Java,” Bolan concluded.

Kurtzman hit a key triumphantly. “Bingo. Suriname was a former Dutch colony, just like Indonesia, and the Dutch imported a lot of Javanese for labor.” He lost some of his exuberance. “But that still doesn’t get us anywhere. The Javanese are in Suriname, and there are almost none to speak of in French Guiana. It’s a nonissue.”

“But our boy had a contact there.”

“He called a phone number there. They’re two tiny countries on the northern tip of South America, and it’s a small world.”

“Our boy was al Qaeda.” Bolan shook his head. “They don’t do anything small. He was on a mission, a high profile kidnapping and murder, and he had presets in his cell phone. Those would all be important contact numbers. One of them was in French Guiana.”

“Well, it is intriguing, I’ll grant you.” Kurtzman leaned back in his wheelchair and laced his fingers behind his head. “But how you’re going to string this all together into anything significant is beyond me.”

“I’m not.” Bolan leaned back and matched his comrade’s posture. “You are.”

“You know, I knew you were going to say that.” Kurtzman sat straight up. “How do you want to play it?”

“Suriname has a significant Muslim population, predominantly Javanese, and Regog was a Jokuk stylist, heavy into religion and mysticism, and now it looks like at least some splinter sect of it has gone militant. Do whatever you have to to find any practice of Jokuk-style pentjak-silat in Suriname. Find a connection, no matter how tenuous, and then make it lead to French Guiana.”

“All right.” Kurtzman chewed his lower lip in thought. “But this is getting thin, sniper. I trust you, and I trust your instincts, but we are officially grasping at straws.”

“I know,” Bolan said. “But I trust you, Bear. I trust your instincts, and you’ve worked with a lot less.”

Kurtzman laughed. “You keep talking like that, and you’re gonna have a date for the prom.”

Bolan smiled. “Here’s the part where you lose that lovin’ feeling.”

Kurtzman read Bolan’s mind. “You want Akira and me to hack the French foreign legion’s military records.”

Bolan nodded once. “Yeah.”

“Striker, if you’re accepted into the legion and want to change your identity and get away from your past, they do everything in their power to help you. This is the kind of info they’re going to keep protected. You know what kind of a stink it’s going to raise if we get detected breaking into their military databases?”

“So don’t get detected,” Bolan replied.

“Jeez, Striker, hacking France is—”

“Keep it real mission specific. Find Pak Widjihartani if you can, and any other aliases he may have. Find out where’s he’s from and where he’s been. If he was a legionnaire, find out what regiment he served in and where. Other than that specific info, no sight-seeing. Don’t download anything else France or the legion would find sensitive, but I have got to have Pak.”

“All right.” Kurtzman considered the enormity of the task before him. “I’ll lay out a battle plan for Akira and pull up our French translator programs. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of operating systems and safeguards the French foreign legion is using, but I’ll start on the assumption it’s using the same protection of information protocols as the regular French military. I’ll have Carmen download and collate every useful piece of information on the legion that she can find and get a copy made for us. The legion is one of the most colorful military units in the history of mankind, and it should make interesting reading on the plane.”

Kurtzman’s eyebrow rose once more. “I’m assuming you’re getting on a plane.”

“Yeah.” Bolan yawned and nodded. “But I need a nap. I’m gonna take twenty-four hours’ downtime. Then I want to meet with you again to see what we have. Assuming it’s anything, I’ll need Barbara to arrange a flight to Suriname. I’ll need an updated passport and a French visa, and get me a full warload delivered to the U.S. Embassy down there.”

“I’m on it.”

“Okay.” Bolan rose. “I’m sacking out. As soon as you have that information package on the legion, call me.”

“One thing, Striker.”

“What’s that?”

“You be careful about messing in legion business. They have a reputation for killing people who mess with them.”

“I’ve heard that.”

Paramaribo, Suriname

Bolan removed the bandage and surveyed the handiwork on his arm. It would have to do.

Sweat stung his arm as he stepped out from the air-conditioned hotel, and his shirt soaked through from the ninety-degree heat and the matching humidity. Suriname sat at the top of South America less than two hundred kilometers from the equator. As a nation, Suriname consisted almost totally of its coastal strip; and once one strolled half a kilometer from the surf and sand, the sea breeze ended and the cloistered heat of the tropical rainforest began. The capital city followed the geography. The Europeans clung to the coast. Modern European Dutch-style businesses and homes clustered along the beaches and the waterfronts of the capital. Once one went inland, the tin shacks of the ever-growing ghettos clawed space out of the jungle.

Bolan put the blissful breeze of the sea to his back and walked into the blast furnace.

He was walking into a part of the capital that most people avoided after dark, and where police went only when heavily armed and in number.

Bolan got the directions from the U.S. Embassy, but he could have followed his nose. It was evening, and with the setting of the sun the act of cooking had become tolerable. Bolan walked the invisible borders of the shantytowns by scent and turned to follow the aroma of jasmine rice, curry and simmering coconut milk to the Javanese quarter.

Bolan had few illusions. He was barely armed, and his ruse was as thin as hell. He would not be able to withstand more than a few moments of scrutiny, and if it came to a fight he would never live to reload the little .22 Walther PPK/S tucked in the small of his back. The knife tucked in his boot would be of even less use against men who had spent their entire lives practicing the dances of death with foot-long kris knives and parangs.

People sat outside on the stoops and rattan chairs, taking their ease, or leaned out the windows to try to catch some hint of the evening breeze. They smoked cigarettes and looked sidelong at Bolan with undisguised suspicion as he passed.

Bolan consulted his mental map and approached the practice hall of Pandekar Ali Soerho.

Soerho was a pandekar of high repute, of the Jokuk style, from the same lineage as Regog. In this confrontation, Bolan would not have tactical surprise or Adamsite gas to back him up against this mystic warrior and his circle.

The hall was a WWII-vintage Quonset hut that had been repaired many times. Tin siding had been used to patch the walls and the roof. Woven rattan screens covered the windows. The scent of sandalwood incense drifted from an open door that was obscured by hanging strings of cola nut beads. Two men sat on the stoop smoking pipes with incredibly long stems. They wore T-shirts, shorts and sandals and looked like everyone else in the quarter seeking relief from the evening heat. The veins crawling across their corded, rock-hewn forearms, and callused hands bespoke of long weapons training with blades and staves.

The two men watched Bolan approach with supreme disinterest.

When Bolan neared to a few feet, the two men suddenly rose with fluid grace. They flared out heavily developed shoulders and stood in his way like temple guardians carved of stone. Bolan smiled, but the smile he gave them was very sad, as if he were in mourning. He bowed his head toward both men respectfully. “Asalaam aleikum.”