Renegade

“But there are six of us,” the balding cop protested. “With you we are seven. The car cannot hold—”

Bolan slapped him again, this time on the other side of he face to make the red marks match. “Tell them and do it,” he repeated.

The cop whispered out another long stream of Farsi. The other five uniformed men nodded.

The man with the thinning hair took the Executioner’s arm again and they all started to walk toward the vehicle. Bolan kept one eye on the men around him, the other on the cops still back at the cars. So far, they still had taken no notice of what was happening. To them it appeared that the big “Russian” was being taken back to the station for questioning. Handcuffs or no handcuffs.

When they reached the vehicle, Bolan used his translator to assign seats. The beefy cop with the mustache stayed behind the wheel. The bald man took a seat up front next to him, and the Executioner slid in on his other side.

The other four cops packed themselves into the back seat like two cans of sardines pressed into one can, and it was that tiny detail that finally caught the attention of the dozen or so Iranian cops still standing behind the other vehicles.

Bolan saw it begin as he slid into the car and closed the door. An older, overweight officer glanced their way. He frowned with bushy eyebrows as the men crammed themselves into the back seat.

Through the window, the Executioner could almost see the man’s brain working behind his wrinkled forehead. Why were so many officers riding in one car when other vehicles were available? And why had the prisoner been the last to enter the vehicle instead of being tossed in first by the officers? For that matter, why was the man in the long overcoat in the front seat instead of the back?

His eyes still glued to the beefy officer, Bolan said, “Drive.” The bald man translated and the patrol car took off. The Executioner pulled the .45 from his pocket and jammed it into the neck of the balding officer so all of the men in the back seat could see it.

The overweight cop was still frowning as they drove away.

Six blocks from the Hezbollah safehouse Bolan ordered the driver to pull in to the curb. He got out, jerked one of the officers from the back seat and pulled the Tokarev 9 mm pistol from the man’s holster. Holding the man’s own gun on him, Bolan returned to the shotgun seat. Just before he closed the door, the cop on the sidewalk spoke out in Farsi.

“He asks what he’s supposed to do now?” The balding officer translated for the Executioner.

“Tell him to find a way home and come up with some story about how he lost his gun,” Bolan said. “Of course it’s going to seem a little strange to your superiors that all six of you lost your guns at the same time.” He nodded toward the windshield and the driver took off again.

Bolan repeated the process, ordering the car to the curb every six blocks or so and leaving one weaponless officer at each stop. Some began working on their stories in business districts, others in residential areas similar to the one where the Hezbollah safehouse had been located. They all had one thing in common, however.

They were going to have a hard time convincing their supervisors that they shouldn’t be suspended. Or worse.

When the balding cop’s turn came, Bolan ordered the driver out of the vehicle and shoved the translator behind the wheel. A mile later, the Executioner saw the glittering mirror-mosaic front of Tehran’s famed Gullistan Palace. He ordered his chauffeur to pull into the parking lot. By now he had five Tokarev pistols tucked into his belt and in the pockets of his overcoat, and he used one of them to nudge the driver out of the vehicle before sliding behind the wheel himself.

The balding man had ascertained by now that Bolan had no intention of killing any of the cops unless forced to do so. And that knowledge had brought with it a new confidence that bordered on arrogance. Turning back toward the car, his eyes rose to the emergency lights fixed atop the marked unit, then fell back to Bolan’s. “You will never get away with this,” he said with his newly found haughtiness. “How far do you think you will get in this car?”

“Far enough,” the Executioner said as he drove away.

In the rearview mirror, he watched the man with the receding hairline enter the museum, heading for the nearest phone.

The Executioner drove away from Tehran’s brightly lit downtown area as quickly as he could, ditching the patrol car in the first dark alley he came to, and tossing the keys over a fence into a coop full of clucking chickens. Walking casually to the intersecting street, a number rolled over and over in his head: 2348796.

He had seen Anton Sobor get into cab number 2348796. And at the moment, those numerals were the only chance he had of picking up the Russian’s trail again.

On the street now in a low-income residential area, the Executioner knew his appearance would stand out even more than he had back at the safehouse. And the police would have put his description out over the airwaves as soon as the first cop he’d freed had called in. Few people were outside their houses in the near-freezing temperature as he strolled past. But that didn’t mean they weren’t watching through their windows. And if they were inside, at least some of them would have televisions and radios. And telephones.

His situation was clear. He needed to get away from the curious eyes of Tehran long enough to do two things: change his appearance and check into the number 2348796.

Spotting an ancient Ford Mustang that had probably entered the country during the days of the Shah, the Executioner hurried down the street. All around him he saw poverty, and guessed that the rusting vehicle was some innocent Iranian’s most prized possession.

Which made him hate doing what he knew he had to do next.

Cutting into the driveway where the Mustang was parked, the Executioner tried the driver’s door and found it unlocked. The car looked to be a midsixties model, which meant it would have to be hot-wired under the dash rather than by cracking the steering column. Sliding inside, Bolan was about to begin feeling for the wires when he heard a door open in the house next to the driveway.

A stout man, wearing soiled khaki work pants and an equally dirty ribbed undershirt, came barreling out of the house screaming. Thick black hair covered the man’s arms and chest, growing so high up on his neck that it merged with his beard. Bolan sat up in the seat as the man ran toward him.

In the Iranian’s hand, the Executioner saw a huge butcher knife.

Bolan had no desire to hurt the man—he could hardly blame him for protecting what was his. On the other hand, he needed the vehicle. Stepping out of the Mustang, he threw back the tail of his overcoat and drew the Desert Eagle.

The hirsute Iranian ground to a halt at the sight of the big handgun. His eyes widened and he didn’t have to be told to drop the knife—he figured it out all on his own, and began mumbling what even one unversed in Farsi could recognize as pleas for his life.

Bolan nodded, then held out a hand, palm down, which quieted the hairy Iranian. His face relaxed. But when the Executioner holstered the Desert Eagle, a frown of confusion came over his face once more. Quickly, Bolan reached inside his coat and produced a leather billfold. He had stocked up on Iranian cash before coming to the country, and now he pulled out enough money to pay for the Mustang three times over.

The hairy Iranian’s eyes grew large again.

Bolan extended his hand.

Fearfully, still wondering if what was happening was real, the shivering man accepted the money.

“I need the keys,” the Executioner said.

The man frowned again.

Bolan stuck his empty hand out in front of him, twisting his wrist to pantomime starting a car engine. The Iranian caught on and reached into his pocket. He was still looking at the money in his hand when the Executioner drove away.

Bolan was surprised to find that the Mustang’s engine purred as if it had just come off a Detroit assembly line. Whoever the man was, he had been proud of the vehicle and kept it maintained. Well, the Executioner thought, as he found his way to the thoroughfare heading south toward the ancient city of Rey, the Mustang’s owner now had enough money to replace it, and then some. And with any luck, he’d be able to ditch the vehicle in a place where it would be found by police and returned to him, to boot.

Traffic in Tehran was always insane, with horns honking, drivers shaking their fists at one another and traffic signs perceived more as suggestions than law. Nevertheless, a half hour later Bolan was passing the site where the Reza Shah Mausoleum had once stood, and a few minutes after that he had reached Rey. The sun was beginning to fade behind the mountains as he turned off the main road and began urging the Mustang up and down a hilly path through the foothills. He passed a small pool of water where dozens of women washed the carpets for which Persia had been famous for hundreds of years. On the rocky slopes around the water hundreds of other rugs lay drying. Red, blue, yellow, green and every other hue of the color spectrum made the hills appear to be rainbows fallen to earth.

The Executioner continued to navigate the back roads. He had memorized the location where his pilot—Jack Grimaldi—had hidden the unmarked Bell OH-58D helicopter when they had arrived early that morning. Taking off from an American-held air base in Kirkuk, Iraq, Grimaldi had kept the chopper beneath radar for the full four-hundred-mile trip. Few pilots in the world could have pulled off such a flight and, at the same time, avoided being spotted from the ground. But Stony Man Farm’s number-one flyboy was an ace strategist as well as pilot, and he had done it. Now, Bolan knew, his old and loyal friend would still be sitting in the helicopter, awaiting his return.

Dusk was upon him when Bolan made the final turn, following a path until it ended against the side of a foothill. He killed the engine, pocketed the keys and took off on foot, walking up and down hills for another five hundred yards before he came to the valley.

The Bell was barely visible, wedged in as it was between two narrow hills. Bolan grinned as he walked the last few steps. He and Grimaldi had worked more missions together than he could remember, and while there might be another jet jockey or two who could have crossed Iran unnoticed, he knew of no one else in the world who could have landed the craft as expertly as his old friend. Bolan doubted that it would be seen from the air even if an Iranian surveillance plane flew directly over it.

Bolan reached the helicopter and opened the door to see the two-and-one-half-inch barrel of a Smith & Wesson Model 66 staring him in the face. In his other hand, the pilot held a thick paperback book.

Grimaldi grinned. “Sorry, Sarge,” he said, returning the .357 Magnum pistol to his waistband beneath his brown leather flight jacket. “Couldn’t tell who it was in the dark.”

Bolan climbed aboard before speaking. “You think it was the bogeyman, Jack?” he asked.

“No, but I thought it might be some curious tribesman.” Grimaldi had left the control seat and was sitting in a chair bolted to the deck in the chopper’s cargo area. Now he placed the paperback book on top of a map on the small table in front of him.

Grimaldi tapped the map with an index finger. “According to this,” he said, “we’re several miles away from the nearest village. But these guys have been known to travel like everybody else.”

Bolan nodded as he passed the man, moving up to the front of the helicopter and retrieving a briefcase next to the pilot’s seat. He returned to the cargo area, took the chair across from Grimaldi and pulled out a cellular phone.

A moment later Barbara Price was picking up the phone at Stony Man Farm. “Good morning, Striker,” the beautiful honey-blonde said on the other end of the line. “Or, considering where you are, I guess good evening would be more in order.”

“Is the Bear awake yet, Barb?” Bolan asked, referring to Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, the Farm’s chief computer genius.