Carnage Code

But as he neared the room, Bolan suddenly heard a gagging sound from behind the wood. It was followed by yet another cough-wretch, and he stopped and turned quickly toward Urgoma.

The SNP colonel already had his key ring out.

A second later, the door was open and the Executioner saw that both the man with the mustache and his clean-shaved friend were lying on the floor, racked with convulsions. The corners of their mouths were drawn up and their faces fixed in eerie grins. The man with the mustache lay on his stomach but his spine was arched backward.

His clean-shaved partner was on his back. But his chest was raised high off the ground, and his arms and legs had been drawn stiffly together as he balanced oddly on the back of his head and his hips.

“What the—” Ron Cassetti started to say as the Executioner rushed into the room. “Hey, those are the guys who—”

He was cut off by Urgoma, who quickly said, “Shut up!”

Bolan dropped to one knee next to the man with the mustache, immediately seeing the symptoms and noting them for what they were. Both men had been poisoned. Probably by strychnine. The Executioner glanced up at the table where the two men had been seated earlier.

Two trays of food lay on the tabletop. It looked as if both men had taken only a few bites before ingesting enough poison to fall out of their chairs.

By the time he looked back down, the two men on the floor were dead.

“Damn,” Cassetti breathed out loud behind the Executioner. “That’s one hell of a way to go.”

Bolan rose to his feet and turned. “Who had access to this room while we were gone?” he asked Urgoma.

For the first time since they’d met, the colonel looked visibly shaken. Cassetti had been right—it had been one bad way to die.

“Any number of men could have brought in the food,” Urgoma finally said. “There are numerous keys to this room.”

“How long will it take to find out?” Bolan asked. It was a sure bet that the two men who had killed the old man for the encrypted limerick had in turn been killed to keep them from talking. The Executioner knew he was just lucky to have gotten the little he had out of the shooters before they became corpses.

Urgoma stepped forward and looked down at the top of the table. “It could take a long time,” he said. “These trays are from our cafeteria, but the food is not. It had to have been brought in from somewhere else where it was doctored.”

“Where are the trays located?” the Executioner demanded.

“Right next to the door. As soon as you come into the cafeteria.” Realizing the motive behind Bolan’s question, Urgoma added, “Someone could have simply reached though the door, grabbed two trays and been gone down the hall without anyone in the cafeteria seeing them.”

Bolan nodded. A man—or men—going through the cafeteria line, then taking two trays full of food out of the SNP cafeteria might have been noticed by the kitchen staff or other cops who were eating. But if the trays could simply be taken unnoticed, then filled with a poisoned lunch, it would have been easy. And the man with the mustache and his clean-shaved friend would not have recognized the food as being atypical of the cafeteria’s cuisine. They’d have eaten their deaths without suspecting a thing.

“Order an autopsy and see what you can find out,” the Executioner said. “You’re right about the fact that there’s got to be some renegade outfit operating in your government. These two men were part of it, knew too much and had to be silenced.” He paused. “But that’s the good news.”

“If that is the good news,” Urgoma said, “what could the bad news be?”

“The fact that you were right earlier when you said you thought they might even have a mole planted in your national police,” the Executioner said simply. “And we don’t have any idea who it is.”

Urgoma nodded. “I must be very careful as I try to determine who it is,” he said. “I will conduct this investigation personally. And discreetly.”

Bolan turned toward Cassetti.

The young man looked as if he might have been poisoned himself. His face had turned a pale shade of green, and he was holding his throat with one hand, trying not to vomit.

“You have an unmarked car we can use?” the Executioner asked Urgoma.

“Many,” the colonel said. “But if any of my officers—or anyone else with access to our files—runs the tag, they will find that the vehicle belongs to the SNP.”

Bolan shook his head. “That’s a problem I can take care of myself,” he said.

Urgoma frowned. “How?”

The soldier hesitated, then looked the man squarely in the eyes again. “It’s better that you don’t know,” he said bluntly.

Urgoma frowned deeper, then let a thin smile curl his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, the Executioner could see the death-grins of the two poisoned men on the floor. The colonel’s smile looked much friendlier.

“I understand,” he said. “If something should come up…” He paused for a moment, looking at the ceiling as he tried to decide exactly what words to use in English. “I do not want you suspecting me.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Bolan said. “It’s just a way of eliminating one of the officers who had access to the room—or could have ordered someone else who had access—to kill these guys.”

Urgoma nodded and his face relaxed. “I am certain I would handle it the same way if I was in your place.”

Cassetti was getting a grip on himself again now, and he said, “Would someone please tell me what the hell’s going on around here?”

Bolan turned to face him. “All in good time, Ron,” he said. “All in good time.” He stepped back out of the interrogation room and waited for Urgoma and the young American to follow. Then he said, “You and I are going to hit the streets in a minute. But first, there’s something we need to get.”

“What is that?” Urgoma asked.

“A couple of copies of the limerick,” the Executioner replied.

3

There once was a girl named Camille

Who fell madly in love with a seal.

She loved his warm nose,

And his soft fuzzy toes.

But his flipper was what made her squeal.

“So what in blazes is it supposed to mean?” Ronnie Cassetti asked as soon as he’d read the words out loud.

Bolan was backing one of the Sudan National Police’s unmarked units out of its parking space in the lot at the rear of the building. “You’re the English lit expert,” he told the young man next to him in the passenger’s seat. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know where to start,” Cassetti said. “I mean, it’s got to be symbolic in some way. But in order to understand the symbolism, you have to have some place to start. Some key to the whole imagery thing.”

“So find me that key,” Bolan said.

Cassetti cleared his throat in disgust. “I don’t guess I’m quite making myself clear,” he said. “What I’m trying to tell you is that we don’t have the key, and we don’t have any place to start looking for it.”

The Executioner drove slowly out of the parking lot. “Then we’re going to have to find a place to start,” he said simply. “But first, there’re a couple of other things we need to do.”

“What are they?” Cassetti asked. He folded the photocopy of the limerick and stuck it in the back pocket of his blue jeans.