Bolan’s hope was that the machine gun and Stingers would still be unfired when the mission was over. The situation would develop much more smoothly if the Bell could simply be used as a means of transportation and not be forced to fight. But the weapons were there in case they were needed.
The half moon was high overhead, casting an eerie luminescence down over the rocky hills around the ancient city of Rey. Remembering the path he had taken earlier down into the valley, Bolan retraced his steps in half the time. When he reached the bottom, he ducked low beneath the twirling helicopter blades and climbed on board.
Jack Grimaldi was already strapped into the pilot’s seat behind the controls. Bolan saw him checking the various gauges in front of him as he buckled his own seat belt. He remained silent while the pilot finished his last-minute checklist. Seemingly satisfied, Grimaldi finally looked up and said, “You heard anything back from Stony Man?”
Bolan shook his head. “Not since we talked last.”
“Barb tried getting you,” Grimaldi said. “You were probably in a dead zone.” He glanced down at the cell phone that Bolan had just pulled from the pocket of his leather jacket. “Lot of them around in a place like this.”
The Executioner nodded. Stony Man Farm’s cell phones—like all of their other equipment—was top of the line, state of the art. But even though they had access to every satellite circling the planet, they were pushing contemporary technology too far expecting to be able to make phone calls around the world as if they were talking to the neighbors next door. At least each, and every, time. “I need to call in?” Bolan asked.
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Grimaldi said. “But I’m gonna take her on up while you do. I suspect I know where we’re headed, and if you decide different, I can always change course once we’re in the air.”
Bolan tapped the number to the Farm and got Price again. “Sorry your call didn’t come through earlier,” he said.
“Hardly your fault. Besides, I relayed the intel to Jack. He tell you?”
“Yeah,” the Executioner said. “But not the details. He’s leaving that to you.”
“And I’ll leave it to Bear,” Price said, and Bolan heard the familiar click of the call being transferred.
“I think I’ve got something for you, Striker,” the wheelchair-bound computer man said without bothering a “hello.” “I was able to tap into the VEVAK frequency again, and figured out a way to transmit as well as receive. It took a little doing, but Ron Touchie and I finally caught on to the passwords and code names and numbers, came up with one that sounded real.
“The passports and supporting IDs—everything from a couple of German driver’s licences to a Swiss voter’s registration card—were dumped in a cardboard box on the top shelf of an upstairs closet.”
Bolan frowned. He had checked all of the closets during his search of the house, and remembered several boxes. But he had been looking for men, not documents, and there had been no time to sift through the contents. “Go on,” he said.
To his side, Grimaldi said, “Ready?”
The Executioner nodded.
As the chopper began to rise, Kurtzman went on. “VEVAK assigned one of their men to put the IDs together, and they came up with thirteen different names. Eleven had passports with them. But they found a couple of supporting credentials for two other names—actually, the German and Swiss stuff I just mentioned—but no passports.”
The Executioner nodded. “Meaning that as soon as the shooting started, Sobor reached up into the box, grabbed a couple of passports and probably a few other things to back them up, and hightailed it out of there.”
“That would be my guess,” Kurtzman agreed.
The Bell had risen into the air and was now flying low over the rocky hills. Grimaldi left the lights off, using nothing more than the light from the half moon to guide him.
“What were the two names, Bear?” Bolan asked.
“Dieter Schneider’s the German,” the computer man said. “The Swiss voter’s card and a couple of credit cards were in the name of Jean-Marc Bernhardt.”
“I take it you followed up on them?” the Executioner said.
“Yes indeed,” Kurtzman responded. “No idea where Bernhardt is, but I suspect he’s in Dieter Schneider’s suitcase, and Schneider took the early evening junket out of Tehran to Isfahan.”
Bolan smiled. “Good work, Bear,” he said. He looked out into the darkened sky as a light snow began to fall over the rocky hills. “Jack’s got us headed toward Isfahan now. Anything else?”
“Uh-huh,” Kurtzman said. “But it’s only a ninety-minute flight so he’s already been on the ground in Isfahan for a couple of hours.”
“He didn’t take any connecting flights?”
“No. At least not under Dieter Schneider or Jean-Marc Bernhardt.” The computer man paused. “And he hasn’t checked into any of the major hotels yet, either. I tapped into them, too. Of course, all that could mean anything. Or nothing. The name Dieter Schneider’s sort of the German equivalent of John Smith—there could have been a real Dieter Schneider on the Tehran to Isfahan flight. And even if it was Sobor, he may have checked into one of the dozens of unregistered inns and boarding houses in Isfahan. Or some of his cronies may have picked him up and taken him straight to another safehouse. Actually, that’s where I’d put my money if I was betting. He’s probably hooked up with more of his terrorist buddies.”
“Thanks, Bear,” Bolan said. “Stay close.”
Grimaldi continued south, hugging the hilly terrain below radar. The flight from Tehran to Isfahan was almost directly south. It would be primarily flat land they covered until they reached the mountains near Oom, but even so there were enough dips and rises to slow them down if they stayed low. What was a ninety-minute flight by plane, as Kurtzman had said, could turn into a trip of several hours in the Bell.
And each minute’s delay gave Anton Sobor more time to disappear.
“Any way we can speed things up, Jack?” Bolan asked.
Grimaldi nodded. “Sure. But not without rising up into the radar zone and taking the chance of getting shot down.”
“I think we may have to take that chance,” Bolan said. “We’re racing the clock. We don’t know what Sobor might do now that he’s on the ground. He could even pick up another new passport from a contact in Isfahan and be on the next flight to Timbuktu. Or he could fade into the woodwork there. For that matter, he might take off over land—maybe even double back to Tehran. What I’m getting at is, we don’t know where he’ll go from Isfahan. But if we don’t pick up his trail somewhere near the airport, we’re likely to lose him for good.”
“You’ve got a point,” the pilot said. “Okay, if you say so, let’s chance it. At least we’re not marked and the guns aren’t showing.” He chuckled under his breath. “Which at least means we might be able to stall them a little before they blow us to kingdom come.”
“If they pick us up, they’ll try to make radio contact first,” Bolan said.
“Well, we