Killing Game

“You find an address for him?” the Executioner asked.

“Got more than two dozen,” Kurtzman replied. “Most current is six months ago. You know how it is—small-time crooks are the same the world over. They never stay in one place very long.”

“I hear you, Bear.” Bolan had known that a current address was improbable but it had been worth a try. “Talk to you later.” He hung up.

As they had driven down the street, both Bolan and Platinov had looked at the faces they passed. Men, women and children glanced up, frowned slightly, then returned to whatever they’d been doing before. The frowns told the Executioner that these citizens were noting that something was different about the two people in the Nissan. They didn’t know exactly what. But they knew.

Bolan knew it was going to get worse. As soon as he and Platinov started asking about Rouillan, they’d be branded as police, or intelligence officers, or some other branch of the French or another government looking for the newly infamous terrorist. Word of their inquiries would spread like wildfire and reach Rouillan’s ears if he was anywhere near Chartres.

They were already running against the clock. If Rouillan heard about them, he’d be gone quicker than a flash of lightning.

Platinov stared out of her side window, doing her best to look like a rubber-necking sightseer. They had stopped at Versailles to gas up the automobile, and the Executioner had decided at the last minute that a change of clothing was appropriate. So, within the confines of the gas station’s unisex rest room, he had traded his blue blazer and slacks for a baggy green T-shirt and khaki cargo shorts. With his broad shoulders and narrow waist, he was able to leave the Desert Eagle in the close-fitting holster and jam the sound-suppressed Beretta into his waistband on his other side. The TOPS knife stayed at the small of his back, and he filled the cargo pockets of his shorts with extra magazines for both pistols. The low-cut hiking shoes he’d worn with the blazer and slacks worked just fine with his “new look” as well.

Drawing his pistols and reloading would be slower than if he’d worn the weapons openly, but for their visit to Chartres, blending in as much as they could with the scenery took a much higher priority than speed.

His mission, at this point, was to gather intelligence on Rouillan. He wasn’t expecting to run into a gunfight.

But he was ready if one came running at him.

Bolan turned a corner off the main downtown street. As he began looking for a place to park, the Executioner glanced again at Marynka Platinov. The Russian beauty drew attention no matter where she was, or how she was dressed. He had done his best to keep his eyes to himself while they’d changed clothes back at the gas station. But he couldn’t avoid an occasional glimpse of her naked breasts after she’d shed the suit jacket, white blouse and bra, and replaced it with a blue short-sleeved sweatshirt that read Sorbonne and featured the world-famous French university’s logo. The sweatshirt had been cut off just below her breasts, and what was left of the tail now hung straight down at least three inches from her bare midriff. Platinov, too, now wore khaki cargo shorts. But unlike the Executioner’s, which extended almost to his knees, the Russian woman’s shorts barely covered her posterior. Her hosiery had gone back into a suitcase, and white Puma athletic shoes were tied at the end of her shapely, well-muscled legs. Platinov had threaded a leather belt through the belt loops of her shorts, but the cut-down sweatshirt barely hid her breasts, let alone any weapons. So she had been forced to put her matching Gold Cup .45s and the extra 1911 pistol into a canvas bag. It would be slung over her shoulder, and she could even keep her hand out of sight inside the bag, holding one of the guns, if they sensed danger.

The Executioner turned another corner onto a side street, still looking for a place to leave the car. He knew there were other items in Platinov’s bag as well. He’d watched her drop both Russian-French and English-French language dictionaries in to cover weapons from sight should anyone get close enough to look directly down into the bag. He wondered for a moment what they were for. He had heard Platinov speak French on numerous occasions, and her command of the language was impeccable.

The Executioner’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted when he spotted an empty parking spot along the side street. Pulling up next to the car in front of it, he backed in to parallel park, then turned to Platinov as he twisted the key to kill the engine. “You ready?” he asked.

“Aside from feeling like a complete fool in this ridiculous American-tourist-geek getup, you mean?” she answered. “I feel like I should be wearing mouse ears at Disney World.”

Bolan grinned. “Yeah. Besides that. Any ideas where to start?”

Platinov turned to him and frowned. “We know that something is supposed to take place here at 1600. And we know—or at least think we know—that it involves Rouillan’s friend Achille LeForce. And we hope it involves Rouillan.”

The Executioner nodded. “The trail’s thin, I admit,” he said. “But it’s all we’ve got. We don’t know whose pocket that scrap of paper came out of before we found it, and it probably wouldn’t do us any good if we did. Maybe one of the dead men back at the house was supposed to meet Rouillan and LeForce here. It could be that LeForce is bringing in that cache of weapons or bomb-making materials we speculated about earlier. Or he might have cocaine, or heroin, or ice or crack or any of a number of other drugs, the profit from which Rouillan uses to finance CLODO. Or there could be a bomb set somewhere in town that’ll detonate at 1600 hours. The possibilities are endless.”

Platinov nodded. Twisting in her seat, she reached behind her and grabbed the leather briefcase Bolan had opened back in their room and set it in her lap. Flipping the latches, she opened the file on Rouillan and began shuffling through the pages. Finally, she pulled out a photo of Rouillan. In it, the French terrorist was talking to another man. The picture had obviously been taken with the aid of a long-range, telescopic lens. But it showed Rouillan’s face and the other man’s quite clearly.