Renegade

The cab arrived at the Archaeological Museum. Bolan handed several bills over the seat to the driver and got out. He forced himself to frown, looking up and down the street as if he couldn’t decide which way to go first. But as soon as the cab had driven away, he pulled the map out of his pocket again and took off down the sidewalk.

According to Kurtzman’s computer probe, Mani Bartovi, the driver who had manned the cab in which Sobor had escaped, lived less than a half mile away.

Bolan walked swiftly but casually, stepping around the many Tehranians who still crowded the bazaars. At the stands he passed he saw everything from foot-high cones of sugar to donkey saddlebags, camel saddles and intricately embroidered women’s purses.

The Executioner had left the map in his hand as he walked, using it not only for reference but to further his guise as a foreign sightseer. Three blocks from the museum, he turned onto a side street and followed it two more blocks to another residential area with a brownstone wall separating the houses from the street. The only difference he could see between this neighborhood and the one where the Hezbollah house had been located was that this area of town was in a sadder state of disrepair. Chunks of the brownstone had fallen, or been knocked out, and the sidewalk was cracked and pitted. Here and there on the wall, spray paint announced the feelings of the younger Iranians. Many of the slogans ranted against the “Great Satan America.” But others railed out against Iran’s own oppressive Islamic fundamentalist leaders, and called for freedom and reform.

Bolan came to the number on the wall he’d been looking for, and found that the gate leading through it was not only open but had broken off its hinges. It stood just inside the opening, leaning against the wall. After a quick glance up and down the street, he ducked inside and began making his way through the shadows toward the rundown house.

Like most of the dwellings in the other Tehran neighborhood, Mani Bartovi’s house had a garden. But the muddy area in this region of Tehran was far smaller and looked as if had been abandoned as a futile effort long ago. As he crept forward, Bolan looked through the front window and saw three small children playing on the floor of a living area. A woman—apparently their mother—lay back against several large pillows on the floor, breast-feeding an infant. Not far to her side the Executioner saw a man who had to be the cabdriver.

Mani Bartovi lay back against his own pillow, staring across the room at a wall Bolan couldn’t see.

Changing his angle slightly, the Executioner looked through the glass and saw the white glow of a television screen. The picture was all but unrecognizable, and looking up to the roof of the house he saw a bent and weathered TV antenna.

Bolan moved back away from the window, deeper into the shadows. He needed desperately to question Mani Bartovi and to learn where he had taken Anton Sobor. But there was no guarantee that Bartovi would talk willingly. And if he wouldn’t, Bolan would have to resort to a more forceful interrogation.

But not in front of the cabdriver’s wife and children.

Quietly circling the house, Bolan spotted a walk-in toolshed of corrugated steel at the rear of the dwelling. Moving silently forward, he drew a small laser flashlight from the inside pocket of his jacket and tapped the button on the end. The bright glow illuminated the shed just long enough to show him that no padlock was in place. Tapping the button again, the Executioner reached through the darkness and opened the doors.

With the aid of the flashlight once he was inside, Bolan saw rusting lawn and garden tools piled in the corners. In the middle of the shed was an old hand-mower. It wasn’t an ideal interrogation room by any means. But it would do. The question now was, how to get Bartovi out of the house and into the shed without alarming the rest of his family.

Closing the doors behind him, Bolan pulled the cell phone out of his jacket and tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm. Like all of the calls sent to, or from, the Farm, this one was scrambled and routed through dummy numbers on several different continents before it finally connected and rang.

Barbara Price answered on the first ring. “Hello again, Striker,” she said.

“I need some help,” the Executioner told her.

“Want Bear again?”

“No. Let me talk to the translator the Farm uses for Farsi.”

Price didn’t question the request—just tapped the transfer button. Bolan heard a click, then the sound of the line ringing again. A moment later a young voice answered. “Yes? This is Ron Touchie. How may I help you?”

“I need you to make a phone call in Farsi.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The Executioner was watching through the window again when he saw the woman inside the house get up, hand the baby to her husband and answer the phone on the table against the wall. Her lips opened slightly as she said, “Shalom.” A few seconds went by, then she dropped the phone to her side, said something to her husband, then traded the phone receiver for the baby again.

Mani Bartovi looked angry as he rose from the floor and spoke into the phone. He nodded and his lips moved several times. Then he dropped the phone back into its cradle and disappeared from view into another room.

Bolan moved back into the shadows and called Stony Man Farm again. Price was expecting his call and routed it on to Touchie without speaking. “How’d it go?” the Executioner asked.

“Very well,” Touchie replied. “He’s not happy about going out again tonight but, what can you do when half the cab company has come down with the flu?”

“Thanks,” Bolan said. “Stay on the line. I’ll need you to interpret once I grab him.”

“I’ll stay on if you like,” said Tokaido. “But I don’t think you’ll need me. The guy speaks English quite well.”

Bolan frowned. “How’d you determine that?”

“I asked him,” Touchie said offhandedly. “I told him there was an important New Zealand businessman arriving at the airport and expecting to be picked up.”

“Thanks,” Bolan said into the phone. “I’ll call again if I need you.”

“Okay. Goodbye.”

Bolan hung up and looked back toward the house. He had passed a front door just beyond the wall before moving to the shed. But his instincts told him Mani Bartovi was more likely to leave the house from the rear. He had already started that way when the sound of a back door opening confirmed his suspicion. He stayed out of sight around the corner of the house as he heard the man and woman speaking softly. Then the voices stopped and the sound of a door snapping closed met his ears.

Soft footsteps started toward him.

Bolan flattened harder against the side of the house and drew the Desert Eagle.

A moment later Bartovi had rounded the corner toward the street. A second after that he had the muzzle of a Desert Eagle stuck in one ear.

“This is to get your attention,” the Executioner whispered. “I don’t want to kill you unless you force me to.”

“No English,” Bartovi said. “No—”

Bolan jammed the gun tighter into the man’s ear and grabbed him by the arm. “I happen to know better,” he said softly but sternly. “You just spoke fluent English over the phone.” He paused long enough to let the fact that he knew about the phone call sink in. But not long enough for the man to question how he knew. “You’re coming with me into your toolshed,” the Executioner went on. “I’ve got a few questions for you. You answer them honestly, in English, and you’ll not only live through the night but you’ll go back inside with more money than you make in a month driving that cab.”

The cabdriver was breathing hard now, as if he’d just finished a footrace. “And what,” he said. “If I refuse?”

Bolan cocked the hammer on the Desert Eagle as an answer.

Together, the two men made their way across the darkened courtyard to the shed. Bolan kept the gun in the man’s ear as he opened the door and a moment later they were both inside. The Executioner closed the door behind him before switching on the flashlight. He shone the bright laser beam up into Bartovi’s eyes as he said, “You picked up a man just down the street from where the Hezbollah bust went down today,” he said. “The man had on a red shirt and was limping. You remember him?”

Bartovi was frightened beyond the point where he could even concentrate. “No!” he said in a loud voice, his eyes clenched shut against the light. “No! I am not Hezbollah! I am not a terrorist! I am—”

There were men who wouldn’t talk unless you threatened them and other men who turned incoherent when frightened for their lives. Bartovi fell into the second category, and Bolan brought him back to reality with a light slap across the face. At the same time he dropped the beam to the ground. The light, reflecting off the steel inner walls of the shed, was still bright enough to illuminate the entire area.

Bolan holstered the Desert Eagle. “Relax, Mani,” he said. “I know you aren’t a terrorist—you’re a hardworking cabdriver trying to support a family. Now, let me tell you what I am. I’m a man of my word. You tell me what I need to know and you’ll be fine.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of large denomination bills. “And I told you I’d pay you. I will.”

Bartovi slowly opened his eyes. The expression on his face was one of relief that the huge Desert Eagle was no longer in sight. Then it changed to nothing short of lust when he saw the money that had replaced it in Bolan’s hand.

“The man with the limp,” the Executioner repeated. “He may have spoken Farsi. But he would have done it with either an American or Russian accent.”

For the first time, Bartovi looked up at Bolan. “I remember him, yes,” the cabdriver said. “The accent was…very odd. Not really Russian. Not really American. More a little of both.”

The Executioner nodded. That made perfect sense for a man who had been raised in the Soviet Union but had spent the majority of his adult life in the U.S. “Where did you take him?” he asked.

Bartovi closed his eyes again but this time it was in concentration. “To the airport,” he said.

Bolan frowned. “Which terminal?”

“I am sorry,” Bartovi said, frowning. “I do not know that English word.”