Bombs, stray bullets and other collateral damage were always the result of warfare. But with terrorists, it became the objective rather than an unfortunate by-product. Since its reorganization, CLODO’s bombings, machine-gunnings and other terrorist strikes had claimed hundreds of lives.
The Executioner’s jaw tightened as the bloody sight before him brought on anger rather than the frustration or fear or nausea that it might have inspired in a more common man. It was not he, or Marynka Platinov, who was responsible for the death and destruction at this CLODO safe house.
It was Pierre Rouillan who had brought about the deaths of his own men.
PIERRE ROUILLAN’S EYELIDS lifted the second he heard the doors crash open. As gunfire thundered in the other rooms, he swung his legs off the bed, grabbed his shirt and leaped to his feet. Silently, he thanked a God he didn’t believe in that he had not taken off his pants. Snatching the 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 compact pistol off the nightstand, he stuck it in his belt and hurried toward the window.
A moment later, he was in the backyard, half-expecting to suddenly be tackled and thrown to the ground by men dressed in SWAT-type gear.
He frowned when he found the backyard deserted.
The firing behind him was in full swing now. Rouillan slowly drew the pistol from his belt and held it close to his leg as he walked toward the open back door, curiosity getting the better of him. From several yards away, he could see that the back door had been kicked open. Moving to a window next to the door, he gazed at the flash-fire that accompanied each round. Rouillan would make his escape in a moment, but first, he had to know who had learned about the safe house and was now attacking it.
The back door opened directly toward the kitchen table, which meant the living room stood out of his line of vision. Dropping to both knees, Rouillan peered through the opening and angled to see around the corner, his nose almost dragging across the hard concrete of the single step that led to the entrance. As his eyes focused on the back of a blond-haired woman wearing black combat gear, he saw her lean forward and shoot.
He looked past her. Standing on the tiles by the front door was a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in an identical blacksuit. And, just like the woman, he was firing an H&K MP-5 submachine gun. He also carried two pistols—one was in a shoulder holster beneath his left arm and looked like it was long enough to have a sound suppressor threaded onto the barrel. The other gun—in a holster on his right hip—was huge. Rouillan wasn’t close enough to identify it.
The terrorist leader started to pull his Kel-Tec around the corner, then paused. Shooting the woman in the back would be easy. And the big man at the front of the house hadn’t noticed him yet, either. Rouillan might even be able to pump a couple of rounds into him as well.
On the other hand, he didn’t want to risk having the shot miss. While Rouillan knew he was a good shot, he wasn’t ready to gamble his life on the Kel-Tec. The hollowpoint rounds did not always open up after they’d left the short barrel, and the muzzle-flash in the doorway might well catch the attention of the big man at the front of the house.
And even though his face was deadpan as he fired his MP-5, there was something about the big, black figure that screamed at Rouillan to be careful.
This man was deadly.
No, the Frenchman thought, it was a chance better not taken. Better he make his escape while he could. After all, he had worked hard reestablishing CLODO. And without his leadership, the still-fragile organization was likely to crumble and then disintegrate altogether.
Another quick thought suddenly entered his mind, but Pierre Rouillan immediately pushed it out of his head. That thought was that he might not be all that concerned with CLODO, and that he might just be a simple old-fashioned coward, worried more for his own safety than the good of the organization.
That uncomfortable idea was pushed out of his head as quickly as it had come.
Rising to his feet, the CLODO leader replaced the pistol in his belt and took off at a jog across the grass toward the chain-link fence at the rear of the backyard. He had plenty of other men, and plenty of other safe houses, where he could hide out until it was time for the big strike.
He doubted that he would ever even see the big man and blonde woman again.
Rouillan smiled as he grabbed the top of the fence and swung his legs up and over the barrier. He jogged across the backyard of his neighbor’s house. CLODO was still known primarily for the bombing of the Phillips Data Systems in Toulouse in 1980, but his new CLOCO master plan was coming up.
When it detonated, nothing would explode.
But the whole planet would shut down in a screeching, screaming halt.
EMPTY BRASS CASINGS crunched under Bolan’s boots as he made his way toward Platinov, who stood in the center of the living room. He kept the H&K up and ready. Too many “dead” men had magically come back to life during his career for him to let his guard down yet. And when he looked at the Russian agent, he saw that she had learned the same lesson over the years.
Marynka Platinov’s submachine gun was still gripped with both hands, her right index finger on the trigger.
“We’re not going to have much time,” Bolan said as he knelt next to a body in the middle of the floor. “Neighbors will have already called the cops.”
“I’ll check the back rooms,” Platinov suggested.
Bolan nodded as he began going through the pockets of the man on the floor, who wore a blue beret like some of the others. But, otherwise, he was dressed in faded blue jeans, high-topped hiking boots and formerly-white T-shirt, now soaked crimson with blood. His pockets contained everything from a little .22 hideout Beretta to a receipt from a local laundry. In the left front pocket, Bolan discovered a small Spyderco Clipit knife being used as a money clip. It contained at least a thousand euros. Although he had unlimited operational funds from the U.S., the Executioner saw no reason to waste taxpayers’ money for his war chest. It was always a bonus to use the money of America’s enemies to finance their own destruction.
By the time he had finished searching the man in the vest, Platinov had returned to the living room. “I didn’t find anyone else in the house,” she said. “But there was someone.”
Bolan frowned as he waited for more information.
“The bed in the back,” Platinov went on. “The sheets are still warm.”
The Executioner nodded.
“And the window into the backyard is open,” she added. “He, or she, must have heard us come in and booked out of here.” She paused. “I couldn’t have missed him by more than a couple of seconds.”
Bolan knew such coincidences sometimes happened. They were the fortunes of war. “Rouillan himself, maybe,” he speculated.
Platinov shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. No way to know.” She paused for a moment, then added, “And you won’t believe what I found in another bedroom.”
“What’s that?” Bolan asked.
“A computer.”
“Why is that so unbelievable?” he asked.
Platinov stared him in the eyes. “Cooper,” she said, using Bolan’s cover name, “That’s what this whole group is about, remember, they are against computers. Their famous quotation is ‘Computers are the favorite instrument of the powerful. They are used to classify, control and repress.’”
Bolan nodded. “I remember it,” he said. “But all that a computer in the back room of this house means is that CLODO has modernized since the 1980s. They’ve learned that if you want to defeat the enemy, you have to first know him.”
“Yes,” Platinov replied. “But I still find it ironic.”
The