Face Of Terror

Brognola nodded. “I’ll call ahead to the FBI field office in Atlanta,” he said. “Tell them to be expecting you.”

THE LEARJET WAS WAITING, with Jack Grimaldi behind the controls, by the time Bolan and Brognola helped the hooded Jessup and Sampson up into the passenger area. The Executioner buckled himself in, then said over his shoulder, “Buckle up. You can take the hoods off about five minutes into our flight.”

Grimaldi had been warming up the engine. But before he could start his takeoff, a figure appeared through the window, running toward them. Bolan turned to watch as John “Cowboy” Kissinger continued to hurry toward them, finally coming to a halt next to the door beside Bolan.

The Executioner opened it.

Kissinger was Stony Man Farm’s chief armorer, and a true master of weaponry and other equipment. He was constantly inventing, or improving, the equipment used by all of the counterterrorists who worked out of Stony Man.

Now, as soon as the door was open, he reached down into the front pocket of his faded blue jeans.

Bolan’s eyes followed Kissinger’s hand, and he watched as the armorer drew a pocket-clipped folding knife. “Check this out,” he told the Executioner, extending the knife in his hand.

Bolan took the folder and looked down at it. It was long and lean, and thicker at the hilt than at the tapered pommel. A thumb-stud opener was screwed into the blade next to a slight, half-moon indentation in the grip. Bolan flicked the stud with his thumb, and the blade sprang open.

The dagger-shaped blade looked to be a shade over four inches in length. But it was ground on one side only. The Executioner read the inscriptions on both sides of the steel. Caledonian Edge, San Mai III, and on the other side, Cold Steel, Japan.

“Looks like a good piece,” Bolan told Kissinger.

“Oh, it is, it is,” the armorer replied. “I polished the rocker a little bit more, but it really didn’t need much custom work. It’s custom-made in Japan already. The blade shape comes from the old Scottish sock knives.”

Bolan nodded and started to hand the knife back.

But Kissinger took a step away from him and shook his head. “Take it with you,” he said. “Then tell me how it stands up in the field. I’m thinking about offering them to everyone here at the Farm who wants one.”

“Will do,” Bolan said. “Always happy to risk my life as your guinea pig for untested products.” He was smiling when he spoke. The truth was, he had complete faith in Kissinger’s judgment.

Kissinger waved goodbye as Bolan closed the door. The Learjet was warmed up now, and Grimaldi began to guide it down the runway. Bolan sat back in his seat. The flight to Georgia would not take long, especially in the Learjet. But what little time it took could still be put to good use.

Flipping open a panel on the armrest nearest the door, the Executioner pulled up a folding work table and spread it across his lap. Next, he placed the file Brognola had given him on the table and opened it.

The only intelligence information he was interested in at the moment was in regard to the kidnapped daughter of the state senator in Georgia, and he found all of the reports held together by a paper clip on top of the rest of the information about the robberies and other crimes.

Behind him, the Executioner could hear Sampson and Jessup whispering softly. Grimaldi, to his side, took the Lear down the runway and into the air. When they had reached flying altitude, Bolan began shuffling through the pages.

Sarah Ann Pilgrim, eighteen, daughter of Henry and Myra Pilgrim, had been abducted by several men when she’d left her seat in the bleachers of a high school baseball field to visit the ladies’ room. Witnesses described her abductors as heavily armed with assault rifles and pistols, wearing green-and-brown Army clothes and black ski masks. The kidnappers had contacted Sarah’s parents the next day, demanding an immediate payment of a million dollars or they’d never see their daughter alive again. Henry Pilgrim, being an honest politician, had cried over the phone that he would never be able to raise that much money.

His tears had bought him an extra day. Nothing else.

Knowing that he was out of his league in both the financial arena and in handling terrorists and professional criminals, Henry had called in the FBI. One of the Bureau’s trained hostage negotiators was now in contact with whoever was on the other end of the phone calls, and doing his best to stall for more time. FBI technicians were also trying to trace the calls, but so far their attempts had been fruitless. The kidnappers were using a different cell phone each time they called, and evidently moving around Atlanta in some kind of vehicle. By the time the Bureau men could triangulate a call, they had moved to another area and were using a different phone.

The Executioner finished skimming the reports and closed the file. He closed his eyes, seeing the photograph that had been with the other paperwork now on the back of his eyelids. Sarah Ann Pilgrim was a cute little strawberry-blond girl who had all the earmarks of someday growing into a beautiful, mature woman. She was standing next to what looked like a ski boat of some kind in the picture, clad only in a bikini.

Bolan found his upper and lower teeth grinding against each other in silent anger. He could only pray that the kidnappers were nothing more than perpetrators of crimes for money. If there was a rapist among them—

The Executioner turned his thoughts away from such things. It would do no good to brood over the possibilities. He was already doing everything he could to locate and rescue Sarah Ann, and he would get her to safety as soon as possible.

The Executioner opened the file again and read through all of the reports, then found himself frowning. Shifting the reports regarding Sarah Ann’s abduction to the right side of the table, he began shuffling through the pages that dealt with the robberies. The frown grew deeper as he read on, occasionally referring back to the reports concerning Sarah Ann Pilgrim and the other two victims who had been abducted—and murdered.

The time frames concerning some of these crimes simply didn’t add up. If it was the same men perpetrating all of these crimes, they had kidnapped another girl in Boston, and fifteen minutes later robbed a bank in Wilmer, Minnesota.

Not even Jack Grimaldi could get you from Massachusetts to the southern Minnesota town of Wilmer that fast.

Other bank robberies had gone down during the periods that these camo-clad men had had their kidnap victims in custody and still alive. The parents of the girl from Boston, as well as those of a young man from Albuquerque, had spoken to their children.

So who was keeping an eye on them while the others went running around the country robbing banks? Now the furrows on Bolan’s forehead deepened even further. There had to be at least two factions of this gang or terrorist cell using the same MO. Were they together in this, or separate? Together. They had to be.

The similarities were simply too many to be coincidence.

The Executioner closed the file again as Grimaldi spoke into his microphone, gaining clearance for their landing in Atlanta. The Learjet began its descent, and a few minutes later they were taxiing toward an aluminum-sided hangar reserved for private aircraft.

“Jack, you mind taking care of the paperwork?” the Executioner said as a dark black Chevrolet sedan made its way toward them. It had so many antennae extending up from the hood and trunk that it could only have been a police vehicle of some kind.

“No problem,” Grimaldi said. “I’ll stay here with the plane.”

Bolan opened the cargo door and began removing black nylon cases that, in addition to clothes, held weapons, ammunition, extra magazines and other equipment. Bolan, Jessup and John Sampson lifted their luggage and walked to where the black sedan had parked next to the hangars. The door opened, and a man wearing an expensive suit, a white shirt and black sunglasses stepped out. He wore his black hair in a short flattop cut, and his hairline was just beginning to recede.

“You Cooper?” he asked Bolan in short, clipped syllables. It was obvious that he wasn’t glad to be where he was, doing what he was doing, as he got out of the sedan and walked to the rear of the car, inserting a key into the trunk.

“I am,” Bolan told him. He pointed to Jessup and started to say, “This is Rick—”

“Jessup,” the FBI agent interrupted. “DEA. And the guy with the Santa Claus hair and beard must be the linguistics specialist your man at Justice told us about when he called down earlier.”

By now the bags were in the trunk and the four men found seats in the sedan. The FBI man took the wheel again, Bolan rode shotgun and Sampson and Jessup got into the back. “You haven’t told us your name yet,” Bolan said.

“I’m Special Agent Wilkerson, in charge of the Atlanta office,” came the reply in the same clipped tone.

“Ah, the special agent in charge has come to greet us himself,” Jessup said from the backseat.

Bolan felt his jaw tighten slightly. The competition between the DEA and FBI was legendary. He just hoped Jessup and Wilkerson didn’t let it get out of hand.

If they did, the Executioner would have to come down on them both, hard and fast. Such rivalries did nothing but get in the way on a mission like this.

Before Wilkerson could reply, Jessup went on. “We’re a pretty informal group, you’ll find,” he said.

Wilkerson threw the automobile into Drive and started toward an exit.

The DEA man continued talking. “What’s your first name, Wilkerson?”

“Special,” Wilkerson said with even more venom in his words than he’d already shown.

“Cute,” Jessup said. “Very cute. So I suppose that would mean you’ve got three middle names? Agent, In and Charge?

“That’s right, DEA man,” Wilkerson said.

“Mind if I ask you one more question?” Jessup said.

“Go right ahead.”