Killing Game

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 Executioner agreed. “Help me search the rest of these bodies,” he said. “And be quick. We’re going to have to take off the second we hear the first siren.”

Platinov dropped to her knees on the carpet and began to go through the pockets of one of the corpses.

Hurriedly, and never leaving his knees, Bolan moved from corpse to corpse, going through the pockets of slacks, jeans and work pants, as well as shirts, vests and coats of all types. He found mostly the typical items that might be found on any man: money, keys, cell phones, cigarettes and a variety of paperwork. He had just come across another small hideout weapon—this one an old Baby Browning .25—when they suddenly heard the sirens of approaching Parisian police cars.

The Executioner had dropped everything that he’d found in the dead men’s pockets on the carpet next to them, and now he produced a folded canvas bag from a zippered pocket on the thigh of his blacksuit.

Platinov saw what he was doing, read his intentions and began scooping up everything from papers to loose change and wristwatches from the carpet.

Twenty seconds later, the bag was filled and Bolan was zipping it shut again. He handed Platinov his H&K, then slung the canvas bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ll go through this stuff as soon as we’re out of the area.”

The Russian woman nodded, then turned to follow Bolan out the back door she had kicked in less than five minutes earlier.

As the sirens neared, the two black-clad figures took off, sprinting across the grass, disappearing into the night.

THE EXECUTIONER and the Russian agent came out from between two houses and spotted the Nissan exactly where they’d left it. Bolan pulled a key ring from his pocket and pressed the vehicle’s unlock button twice with his thumb. Both the driver’s and passenger’s doors clicked, and the headlights flashed on and off as they approached.

Yanking open the driver’s door, the Executioner tossed the canvas bag into the back of the Nissan as he slid behind the wheel. Between the houses, on the street a block over, he could see the flashing lights of the Parisian gendarmes. Good. As he’d suspected they would do, the French police had only blocked in the streets immediately around the safe house. He and Platinov had gotten out of their enclosure by the skin of their teeth.

Bolan stuck the key in the ignition as Platinov strapped herself in with the seat belt. The Russian agent had both of their MP-5s held between her thighs with the barrels resting on the floorboards.

A second later, the Executioner threw the vehicle into Drive and they drove quietly out of the neighborhood.

When they had crossed a bridge spanning the Seine River and were nearing the world-famous Paris-Sorbonne University, Platinov finally broke the silence. “Where are we going now?” she asked.

“We need to find a room somewhere,” Bolan said from behind the wheel. “Someplace out of the way where we won’t be conspicuous. And where we’ll have the privacy to go over all of the stuff in the bag.”

The Russian agent nodded. “Yes,” she agreed. “But I believe we are going to be a little conspicuous no matter where we go, dressed as we are.” Without waiting for an answer, she unbuckled her seat belt, brought one of her shapely legs over the console between the seats and then used her arms to pull herself on into the back of the car.

Bolan heard the click as Platinov unsnapped the ballistic nylon gun belt from around her waist. His eyes rose briefly to the rearview mirror when the click was followed by a long, zipping sound that meant the Russian woman’s blacksuit was coming off.

Platinov met the Executioner’s eyes in the mirror. “Go ahead and look,” she said teasingly. “There is nothing here you haven’t seen before.”

Bolan chuckled as the woman behind him slipped out of her battle suit. He caught a quick glimpse of red thong panties—apparently the only underclothing she had worn beneath her blacksuit—as his eyes returned to the road. He heard another zipper as he drove on and knew Platinov had to be rummaging through one of their equipment bags for a less conspicuous outfit to put on.

A few minutes later, she climbed back between the seats to the front. As her legs crossed over the console, the Executioner saw that she had retained the red thong beneath a pair of flesh-colored pantyhose and a beige skirt. Above the skirt, she wore a matching jacket with a nondescript white blouse beneath it.

“Your turn,” the Russian woman said, ignoring her seat belt this time.

Bolan had turned onto a side street, crossed a bridge and knew he was nearing the Notre Dame area. The sidewalks were crowded with men, women and children taking in the nighttime beauty of the Seine and bartering with the vendors at the dozens of used-book and souvenir stands along the way. Traffic had all but halted anyway, so Bolan stopped the Nissan in the middle of the street, threw the transmission into Park and turned to Platinov. Without speaking, he twisted in his bucket seat and climbed into the back of the Nissan.

Platinov swung her legs over behind the wheel.

Quickly, the Executioner removed his own gun belt and shoulder rig, then stripped off the blacksuit. From one of the black nylon equipment bags, he pulled a folded, light blue dress shirt, a navy blue sport coat and a pair of carefully pressed khaki trousers. From another bag, he produced a pair of soft-soled hiking shoes and a dark blue socks. After buttoning the shirt and tucking it into his pants, he lifted the nylon shoulder rig that bore his sound-suppressed 9 mm Beretta 93-R and slid into it, fastening the retainers at the bottom to his belt. A close-fitting plastic belt holster went onto his hip, and he removed the.44 Magnum Desert Eagle from the web belt he’d worn over the blacksuit and snapped it into place.

Extra magazines for the Beretta, and a TOPS SAW—Special Assault Weapon—knife, in a sheath—hung under his right arm, helping to balance out the weight of the Beretta and sound suppressor. Pouches on his belt carried spare .44 Magnum magazines. He covered all of the weapons with the sport coat, then slid back between the seats as Platinov had done a few moments earlier.

By the time the Executioner had taken the passenger’s seat, the Russian woman had guided the Nissan out of the Notre Dame district into a quieter part of town. People still walked up and down the sidewalks, but those sidewalks were lined with hostels, hotels and bed-and-breakfasts.

“Where do you want to stop?” the Russian agent asked.

“One’s as good as another as far as I’m concerned. Just find a place to park.”

Platinov let a tiny laugh escape her lips as she spotted an open space along the street and pulled up to the side of the car in front of it, preparing to parallel park.