Lethal Payload

The timbers of the stairs creaked.

Pieter Ryssemus appeared in the hatchway. Bolan stayed stone-faced as the missionary staggered up the steps. He was a tall man, but his upper body listed in an ugly fashion from a broken collarbone. He was missing several fingers, and his body was covered with burns, bruises and wounds. The missionary had been tortured, not by professional interrogators or even amateurs wanting information. He had been tortured by those who had given in to their hatred. They had tortured the old man for the pleasure it had given them.

There was a Swedish Carl Gustav submachine gun pressed to the old man’s temple. The kidnapper stood behind the Dutchman, using his prisoner as a shield. He held Ryssemus’s injured arm cruelly twisted behind his back. Most of the terrorist was hidden behind the missionary’s body. His eyes glared over the top of his weapon, and he wore a red turban like the rest of his sect. Tattoos crawled up the corded muscles of his forearms. Ryssemus flinched as the gun muzzle was rammed even harder into his skull. The terrorist smiled and revealed missing teeth.

“Drop your gun, GI.”

The laser sight on Bolan’s carbine clicked on with pressure from his hand, and a red dot appeared just below the kidnapper’s turban.

“Drop yours,” Bolan replied.

The man’s hand whitened on the grip of the submachine gun. “Drop your gun!” he screamed.

Bolan frowned and lowered his rifle slightly.

The terrorist grinned. He did not notice the red laser dot came to rest on his gun hand. “Now, GI, you—”

Brass sprayed as the action of Bolan’s carbine clicked. The Swedish submachine gun fell from the shredded remnants of the terrorist’s hand. Ryssemus fell from his grip as the kidnapper’s eyes widened in horror at the sight of his wound.

The expression became his death mask as Bolan put a 3-round burst through his chest.

The kidnapper tumbled down the stairwell. Pieter Ryssemus collapsed on the floor. Bolan moved swiftly down the stairs. The terrorist lay sprawled in the lower chamber. Bloodstains on the floor and the fetid air of human suffering attested to what the lower room had been used for. Bolan found the pin from his grenade and replaced it. He scanned the room swiftly and took several maps, documents and a cell phone. He knelt beside the dead man and peered at his arm intently. Among the writhing tribal tattoos was a distinctive shield. An Asiatic dragon coiled across the background. Superimposed over the dragon was a very western looking cartoon owl. Above the owl was a tiny, stylized parachute canopy.

The dead man was also wearing dog tags.

Bolan memorized the tattoo. He snapped the dog tags from around the man’s neck and took the knife that was sheathed in his sash.

The soldier went back up the stairs. The old man groaned. “Famke?”

“She’s safe. She’s waiting for us.” Bolan surveyed the missionary grimly. He was in bad shape. “Sir, can you walk?”

“I prayed to God for salvation, and you came.” He clasped Bolan with his good arm and struggled to rise. Bolan had to do most of the work to get Ryssemus on his feet, but the old man steadied himself and nodded. “But God also helps those who help themselves, and I will walk from this place.” The ghost of a smile passed over Pieter Ryssemus’s mashed lips. “But I do not know if I can run.” He looked down at the submachine gun on the floor. “Swedish.”

Bolan scooped up the weapon. “Can you shoot?”

“I was a soldier in the army before I became a soldier of God.” The missionary slung the weapon over his good shoulder and took the grip in his hand. He looked back down the stairs at his torturer. “And we are among men who have fallen from the grace of any God I know. I will pray for their souls.” The smile ghosted back across the old man’s face. “But later.”

Bolan nodded. Missionary life was hard. They often went where disease, poverty and human suffering were at their absolute worst. The Executioner had only to look in the old man’s eyes to know he was about as tough as they came.

The soldier clicked on his radio. “This is Striker. I have the package. I am extracting.”

Ryssemus raised a hopeful eyebrow. “Helicopters are coming?”

“I have a canoe.”

The old man blinked.

Bolan smiled. “Come on. We have a submarine to catch.”

2

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Well, you’re the hero of the hour.” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman said, “That was about as slick a rescue op as has ever been done. One for the textbooks.” Kurtzman made a show of cringing in disgust and waving his hands. “An Adamsite gun, ugh! Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. The Cowboy is a sick man.”

Bolan stared into the distance, distracted.

Kurtzman grinned hopefully. “I hear a certain supermodel was suitably grateful.”

Bolan frowned slightly but not at Kurtzman.

The computer expert sighed. “What’s bothering you?”

The soldier glanced at the sketch he had made. “What’d you make of the tattoo and the dog tags?”

“A little, why?”

“That guy was in command.”

Kurtzman cocked his head. “What about Regog and Al-Juwanyi?”

“It was their show,” Bolan agreed. “But the guy in the cellar was in command, at least tactically, and he wasn’t part of the ceremony. He was wearing a red turban. He was Javanese. He may have been Muslim, and he was definitely more than just another member of the pandekar’s sect.

“Really?” Kurtzman’s interest was piqued. “How so?”

“I don’t know.” Bolan shook his head slowly. “His vibe. He didn’t act like some fanatic on guard duty who was missing out on the show of a lifetime. He was way too cool. If he was part of the congregation, he should have come up out of the cellar in berserker mode, foaming at the mouth with two feet of steel in each hand. Instead, he starts making like an FBI negotiator. I don’t think the riflemen he sent out were part of the party, either. I wish I’d had time to check them out.”

Bolan sat back in his chair. “What’d you get on the sketch I gave you and the dog tags?”

The Bear held up the tags. “These were simple enough. We’ve got his name, Pak Widjihartani, and his serial number, which implies to me that he at least made sergeant.”

“You think he’s Indonesian army?”

Kurtzman put down the tags. “I would, except that at the top of the tags are the letters LE.”

Bolan raised an eyebrow.

The computer expert grinned. “Légion Étrangère.”

Bolan raised his other eyebrow. “You think our boy is French foreign legion?”

“I’m betting he was. I’m running what I can on his dog tags now, but I don’t think I can get much without actually trying to break into Legion records, and I’d like to try and go the legitimate route first. We do not want to officially piss off the French foreign legion.” Kurtzman let out a long breath. “But I doubt very much your pal was acting in any official Legion capacity when you met him.”

Bolan was forced to agree, but something about the scenario still bothered him. “How about the tattoo?”

“I don’t know.” Kurtzman grunted noncommittally. “Some kind of insignia? I couldn’t find anything exactly like it in any open military databases, but soldiers have been giving themselves unofficial unit or specific mission patches and insignia since the French and Indian wars. If this is a legion insignia, I bet it’s an unofficial one, and not tolerated on formal uniform dress. I suspect it’s a custom job. Probably has to do with his company’s special role or a mission.” Kurtzman sighed again. “Assuming of course that he didn’t have it done when he was in the Indonesian army and then joined the legion later. A fair number of legionnaires are veterans of other services. I’m running a check to see if his name or the insignia pops up on any Indonesian or Asian military database we have, but so far we haven’t turned up anything. Of course, people who join the legion are allowed to change their names, and often do, so the one on the tag may not be the one his daddy gave him.”

“Any other good news?”