Killing Game

“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.

“Did I miss something?” the Executioner asked.

“Only something in my mind,” Platinov said as she twisted the wheel and her neck, backing up into the open space before pulling forward again. “I was just thinking about the fact that everywhere else I go, and everyone else I go there with, takes orders from me. When I am with you, however, I seem to automatically follow your lead.”

When Bolan didn’t respond, Platinov added, “I wonder why that is?”

Bolan still remained silent.

“Perhaps it is because we have slept together,” Platinov went on as she twisted the key and killed the Nissan’s engine. “I do not sleep with every male I work with, you know,” she added somewhat defensively as she pulled the key out of the ignition.

“I never thought you did,” Bolan replied. “Now, let’s get checked in and see what leads we can find in that bag, okay?”

Platinov nodded. “Okay,” she said simply and exited the vehicle.

Bolan and Platinov entered the lobby of a hotel directly in front of their car. Letting the straps from their nondescript equipment bags slide onto the hardwood floor as they reached the front desk, Bolan stared at an open door behind the counter. When no one appeared, he tapped a bell on the countertop.

A surly faced, unshaven man wearing a coffee-stained white undershirt and dark trousers appeared in the doorway, then waddled to the counter. The shirt stretched across his immense belly as tight as one of the Executioner’s own blacksuits, and the ribbed stitching threatened to burst apart with every bounce brought on by the man’s steps. The stub of a cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth, sending wisps of smoke upward into the air. Without bothering to greet them, the man in the filthy undershirt reached beneath the counter, pulled out a registry card and slid it across the slick top.

Bolan registered them as Mr. and Mrs. Josh Murphy, of Enid, Oklahoma.

The unshaven man dropped a key attached to a large wooden stick on the countertop and said simply, “Passports.”

Bolan reached into one of the bags and pulled out a pair of the blue booklets. They had been made up for both him and Platinov by experts at Stony Man Farm, the top-secret counterterrorist installation with whom the Executioner sometimes worked.

The man in the dirty clothing glanced at the pictures inside the passports. As the Executioner and Marynka Platinov moved toward the elevator, Bolan noticed him leering at the Russian woman’s buttocks as she walked.

Platinov appeared to notice it, too. A slightly disgusted frown spread across her face.

A few minutes later, Bolan unlocked a door beneath the number 307. Holding it open for Platinov, he looked in to see the sparsely furnished room. A threadbare brown plaid bedspread was stretched tightly across the twin bed, and a chipped wooden table and two chairs set against a wall. Other than that, the room was empty.

“You always take me to the nicest places, Cooper,” Platinov said, dropping her bags on the bed.

“Thanks, Plat,” he said simply. He dropped his own luggage on the ragged rug on the floor. But immediately, he picked up the canvas bag that contained what they had collected from the corpses at the safe house. Setting it on the table, he took a seat in one of the splintery wooden chairs.

Platinov sat down across from him.

Bolan unzipped the bag, then turned it over, dumping the contents onto the tabletop. Out came a wide variety of objects, from key rings and more hideout guns and knives, to folded papers, receipts, chewing gum wrappers, billfolds, money clips and broken cigarettes. One man had been a cigar smoker, and a leather cigar case carried three medium-sized cigars with Cuban wrappers.

Bolan examined the cigars, careful not to touch the label, which might retain a fingerprint. Rising to his feet, he dropped the cigar and moved to the bed. From one of the black, zippered cases he produced a small fingerprint kit and a package of blank index cards. He returned to his chair.

“Separate everything that might hold a print,” he told Platinov. “And get the laptop up and ready.”

The Russian woman rose to her feet as Bolan unscrewed the lid off of a small bottle of black fingerprint powder. Setting it down carefully, he did the same with a bottle of white powder.

The dark powder would be used on light-colored objects such as the keys. The white was for the cigars, the smooth leather cigar case and other darker items.

Fifteen minutes later, the tabletop was covered with both white and black powder. But the Executioner had lifted seven full prints and fourteen partials from the items that had been in the terrorists’ pockets. Two of the best had come from the cigar case itself.

“Is the computer up and running?” Bolan asked as he pressed the clear plastic tape of the last print onto its index card.

“Ready,” Platinov replied. She took the stack of index cards he pushed across the table to her and began to scan them via the mini-scanner plugged into one of the laptop’s USB ports.

Pulling his satellite phone from the front breast pocket of his blazer, the Executioner tapped in the number for Stony Man Farm. The call took several seconds to connect, bouncing off numerous satellites and running through various dead-end numbers to throw off anyone who might be trying to tap in to the call.

It was a precaution that everyone associated with Stony Man Farm always took.

Thirty seconds later, though, the Executioner heard Barbara Price’s voice on the other end of the call. “Yes, Striker?” she said.

“Tell Bear I’m getting ready to send him seven full fingerprints and fourteen partials,” Bolan answered. “I want him to run them through AFIS. But he also needs to hack in to the similar systems in Europe. Especially France.”

“Affirmative, Striker,” Stony Man Farm’s honey-blond mission controller replied. “Send them on.”

Bolan shut the phone and dropped it back into his coat pocket, then reached across the table and took the laptop from Platinov. Then, one by one, he called up the files and e-mailed them to Stony Man Farm.

Five minutes later, the laptop beeped and a mechanized voice said, “You have mail.”

Bolan tapped the appropriate keys to open the e-mail from Aaron the “Bear” Kurtzman, Stony Man Farm’s computer wizard.

When he had read the message, the soldier said, “We’ve got a hit. It leads to another safe house address.” He grabbed a large canvas-and-leather portfolio, which looked little different than a shoulder-carried bag any tourist or French businessman might have. Quickly, he unzipped it and pulled out a long, triangular-shaped canvas case with a zipper that ran three-fourths of the way around.

“What is that?” Platinov asked as he dropped the case into his shoulder bag and turned back to her.

“I could tell you—” he said as they started toward the door again.

“But then you’d have to kill me,” Platinov finished the tired, overused cliché as she rolled her eyes.

The Executioner chuckled as he led the way down the hall to the elevators, then pressed the down button.

A minute later, he and Platinov were striding out of the lobby of the hotel and back to the Nissan.

CHAPTER TWO

Bolan kept the Nissan just under the speed limit as he and Platinov made their way toward the next safe house. He had just checked in with Stony Man and learned that what had begun as mere rumors that CLODO was working up toward some kind of large-scale terrorist attack had now been confirmed by two independent CIA informants. And while Bolan wasn’t, and never had been, employed by the CIA—or any other government agency for that matter—he did retain an “arm’s length” relationship with Stony Man Farm. And Aaron Kurtzman, the wheelchair-bound computer genius at the Farm, regularly hacked through all of the Central Intelligence Agency’s security safeguards to obtain the intelligence information the “spooks’” field agents collected.

Word in the terrorism underground was that CLODO was building up to something big. Something, according to one of the CIA snitches, that would reputedly make the attacks on September 11, 2001 seem like a Fourth of July fireworks display by comparison.

Bolan knew it was true. He could feel it in his gut. Though not rigged for war, he had adequate weapons for the hit. In addition to his pistols, he had brought along his TOPS SAW knife, which was sheathed at the small of his back. Platinov had slid into the double horizontal shoulder rig that bore her twin Colt Gold Cup .45 pistols. Inside her skirt, she had the other 1911 Colt .45, and several spare mags that would fit any of the three pistols.

After crossing the Seine and traveling some distance, they arrived at a residential area of the city. While there were still lights on in a few of the house windows, the streets were devoid of pedestrians.

Bolan turned onto the Rue de Jeanette as Platinov pulled a small flashlight from her purse and unfolded a map of the city. Frowning in the semidarkness, she asked, “Can you see any of the house numbers?”

Bolan nodded. “There’s 1112,” he said. The Nissan continued to roll past the next house. “We’re at 1116.”

Platinov nodded back. “Good,” she said. “We’re going the right way. It should be about three blocks farther down on the left.” She cleared her throat. “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me the game plan?” She glanced over her shoulder at the Executioner’s bag, where the mysterious canvas case was hidden.

Bolan nodded. “Yeah.” He indicated the back of the vehicle with a twist of his neck, then said, “Grab the case I stuck in there.”

Platinov twisted between the seats and pulled the triangular object out of the Executioner’s bag.

“Unzip it,” Bolan said as he slowed, then stopped at a stop sign.

The sound the zipper made was loud inside the vehicle, which added to the rising tension as they inched their way down the dark and lonely Parisian street. When Platinov pulled the top cover back to reveal a giant revolver with a scope mounted on top of it, she burst out with, “Are we expecting these CLODOs to be elephants?”

The Executioner chuckled. “No. But by now, word of what we did at the other safe house will have reached this place. They’ll be on their guard, so the element of surprise is already lost to us. I think we should take out as many of them as possible from long range.”

“Well, this should do it,” Platinov said. “What is it? I’ve never seen one before.”

The former Olympic track and field star might never have seen that particular model of Smith & Wesson wheel gun, but she’d seen enough S&Ws to know how they operated. Pushing the latch on the side of the weapon with her thumb, she swung the cylinder away from the mammoth frame.

“It’s a 500 Smith and Wesson Magnum,” the Executioner said. “Meaning .50-caliber on Smith’s new X-frame.”

“It’s big, all right,” Platinov said. “But it holds only five rounds.”

Bolan drove on through the intersection as he said, “Imagine how big it would have to be to hold six.”

“Point taken,” Platinov agreed. “What you have here is a rifle disguised as a pistol.”

“Exactly,” Bolan agreed as he cruised slowly past the next block. “It was created for long-range silhouette shooting and big game hunting. But it’s easier to carry and conceal than a sniper rifle, and for what we’re about to do it should be more than accurate enough.”

Platinov agreed. “We don’t need the pinpoint accuracy of a true sniper rifle from across the street,” she said, nodding. “How long is this barrel?”

“Eight inches,” Bolan said. “But the last inch, you’ll notice, is actually a recoil compensator.”

“I expect it still has quite a kick,” the Russian agent said, turning the weapon around in her hand to stare at the compensator holes.

“Well, I think you’ll know you’ve fired something. There’s factory ammo on the market with bullets up to 500 grains. But since we’re after men instead of dinosaurs, I’ve got it loaded down with 325-grain hollowpoints.”

“I suspect I’ll still feel quite a jolt,” Platinov said.

Bolan laughed. “It doesn’t scare you, does it, Plat?”

Platinov looked up from the gun, a quick trace of anger on her face. “Of course not,” she said.

One of the many things the Executioner had learned about the beautiful Russian woman over the years was that she couldn’t stand her courage, or dedication to an assignment, being questioned. Another was that while her days of Olympic stardom might have ended, she had retained the same competitive mind-set that had won her the gold medals.

Bolan stared ahead but watched Platinov out of the corner of his eye. Almost as quickly as the grimace of anger had appeared, he saw it disappear, leaving her face deadpan. “No, it doesn’t scare me,” she said again in a voice that betrayed only a slight degree of irritation. “Have you shot it yet?”

The Executioner nodded.

Platinov’s smile was as plastic as a smile could get. “Then it should be quite easy for me,” she said with phony pleasantry.

Bolan let the Nissan roll on as he suppressed a smile. One of the things he liked most about working with Platinov was her competitive nature. He didn’t know whether she’d been born with it or had it taught to her as she grew up in one of the Soviet Union’s “athletic schools,” but she definitely had it now. It made no difference whether she was sprinting or running hurdles in the Olympics, or helping him take down a terrorist cell during a firefight, Marynka Platinov was going to win.

Platinov broke the icy silence by saying, “Okay, that childish little outburst of ego was my fault and I apologize for it. Now—” she paused to draw in a deep breath “—does all this imply that I’m the one who’s going to be shooting this monstrosity?”

“That’s right, Plat,” Bolan said. “I’m going to park somewhere down the block, then give you time to find a decent place to snipe from. I’ll make my way up next to the house before you start shooting, then hit them up close and personal.”

Platinov nodded. “Makes sense. Is that all there is to it?”

“No. Couple of other things.” He twisted at the waist and reached into the bag in the backseat. Pulling out a plain brown paper bag, he set it in his lap, opened the top and pulled out a round steel object with .500 Magnum rounds sticking out from it in a circle. “The .500 wasn’t designed as a combat weapon,” he said. “And nobody makes speed loaders for it. So I had a friend do a little gunsmithing on it. He had to bevel out the holes in the cylinder so the moon-clips would fit. But now you can load all five rounds at the same time.”

Platinov frowned, tipped the big pistol up in her hand and caught the 5-round bundle already loaded as it fell out. She nodded as she skillfully stuck it back into the weapon, then took the sack filled with full moon clips from the Executioner. She began transferring the extra ammo from the sack to the side pockets of her jacket.

“There’s one other thing,” Bolan said as he drove on. “And it’s the most important of all.”

Platinov waited.

“Once I enter the house, I’ll be close to your targets. Don’t shoot me by mistake.”

Platinov laughed. “If I ever shoot you, Cooper,” she said, “it will not be by mistake.” Now her smile turned seductive. “Besides, I have other plans for you. And I’ll need you alive for them.”

Bolan grinned. It seemed there was no getting around the attraction between them. “Then it sounds like I’m safe until then,” he said.

“Yes, certainly until then.”

Bolan slowed the Nissan as they passed the address Kurtzman had sent them. It was a split-level clay house, at least a century old. Nothing unusual about it. Nothing that made it stand out from any of the other older dwellings up and down these residential streets.

Except for the fact that an oversized picture window was set in the front of what Bolan expected would be the living room. The curtains were tightly closed, but a light glowed brightly behind the draperies.

And unless there was some kind of party going on inside the house, there were far too many vehicles in the driveway, and along the curb, for it to be occupied by just one family.

Bolan circled the block, passed the safe house again, then pulled over to the curb as soon as he found an open space just past the other parked vehicles.

The Russian agent got out of the car, then paused, looking back in. She held the huge S&W 500 in her right hand, and the side pockets of her jacket bulged with the extra moon clips. “I’m going to see if I can get up on top of that house without waking anyone inside,” she said, pointing to the darkened structure directly across the street from the safe house. “From there I should have a direct shot into the living room through that front window.” She paused a second, then said, “Get that curtain out of my way as soon as you can.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Bolan stated. “Signal me with your flashlight when you’re in place and ready.”

“I will. But what—”

The Executioner held up a hand to cut her off. “I’ll signal you the same way when I reach the corner of the house.” He paused a moment, thinking through his strategy once again. “When you see my beam, take out that front window with your first shot. Then wait. I’ll be diving through the broken glass and, with any luck, taking the curtains down to the floor with me when I land inside. That should not only get me in, but give you a wide-open view of the inside of the house at the same time.”