Splinter Cell

Again, the man who had helped them seemed thoroughly satisfied.

An older concierge in a tasteful black suit appeared at their side. “If you would, sirs,” he said with a sweeping gesture. “I will show you to your suite.” Without waiting for an answer, he strode off, leading them toward a bank of elevators at the end of a short hall.

Bolan smiled behind the man’s back. Top hotel officials had their moves down as well as any good counterterrorist team, he reminded himself. Just as many of them as possible got in on every act so everyone could receive a tip.

A few minutes later they were on the fourteenth floor and heading down the thick carpeted hall. The door to suite 14307 was already open, and the man the blond bellman had called Pietre was just finishing unloading their bags.

The concierge opened the curtains and let in the lights of the city. It was a beautiful view, and had the Executioner been in Amsterdam for pleasure rather than to locate and rescue a nuclear scientist being held by terrorists, he was certain he would have appreciated it. As it was, he simply reached into his pocket, pulled out enough money for two more tips and said goodbye to the concierge and the bellman with the luggage rack.

As soon as the two men had gone, Bolan and Paxton carried the suitcases containing their clothing into separate bedrooms, then met back in the living room and took seats on facing wooden love seats. The Executioner glanced around quickly. The way they had come in was also the only way out. He didn’t like that. But there was little he could do about it. The fact that the suite itself was as elegantly furnished as the Amstel’s downstairs areas made little impression on him one way or another. He had slept in beds built for kings. And he had slept without a blanket or pillow in the same sands of Iraq Paxton had mentioned earlier. He couldn’t have cared less about luxury.

He was here to do a job, to save a man’s life. The life of a man more than capable of building a nuclear bomb.

By doing so, Bolan would save the lives of countless others.

The Executioner leaned down and pulled his equipment bags to the front of the love seat. After opening all of the padlocks on his luggage, Bolan unzipped the innocuous-looking suitcase nearest to him and pulled out a custom-made Kydex and ballistic nylon shoulder holster. Inside the Kydex was his Beretta 93-R, the long sound suppressor already threaded onto the 9 mm barrel. The pistol came out of the holster with a clicking sound, and the Executioner pointed it toward the carpet as he pulled the slide back far enough to see the gleaming brass cartridge casing already chambered. Letting the slide fall back forward, he pressed the ejection button on the side of the weapon and pulled out the magazine. It, too, was filled with RBCD Performance Plus ammunition. The special subsonic rounds stayed just under the sound barrier, assisting the sound suppressor in keeping each 9 mm bullet as quiet as possible. And the bullets themselves, round nosed rather than hollowpoints, were total fragmentation rounds that penetrated solid material like a machinist’s drill but exploded as soon as they hit anything water based.

Like a human body.

Satisfied that the pistol had not been tampered with since he’d handed it over to Brognola to secrete in the diplomatic pouch, Bolan reholstered the weapon and slid his arms into the shoulder rig. Next he checked the two spare 9 mm magazines in the Kydex carrier under his right arm. They, too, were filled.

Finally Bolan turned his attention to the Kydex sheath mounted under the magazine carrier. Extending just below the spare 9 mm boxes was a Ka-bar fighting knife.

Bolan drew the knife from its sheath. Slowly he rolled up the sleeve of his white shirt and shaved a short section of hair off his arm. The weapon was razor-sharp, and ready.

Across from Bolan, the Army Ranger pulled out a shoulder rig not dissimilar to Bolan’s own. Constructed of the same hard plastic Kydex and black ballistic nylon, the only differences were that the shoulder system was equipped with two holsters rather than one. And in those holsters, Bolan saw a matched pair of black-parkerized Colt Commander .45s.

As Paxton began his own weapons check, Bolan turned back to the suitcase at his feet. The next item to appear in his hands had become something of a trademark for the Executioner. The .44 magnum Desert Eagle was a huge pistol that had been developed more for hunting and long-range silhouette shooting than combat. And, indeed, it would have proved to be a poor choice as a fighting pistol to most men. But Bolan was not most men, and he had the hand size required to manipulate the safety and other features of the big gun, and the strength to handle the massive recoil the way most men would handle a .22.

Again, he checked both the chamber and magazine in the Desert Eagle. Then the pair of extra magazines. Satisfied, he stood and slid the holster through his belt, letting it come to rest on his right hip. He clipped the magazine carrier on his opposite side, just behind where the Beretta’s sound suppressor hung. He watched Paxton slide into his double .45 rig, then reach down into his bag and pull out a short dagger. The blade was invisible inside a brown Kydex sheath, but the handle had been made from some strange material that was an off-white—almost yellow—color with darker brown slots running from pommel to hilt.

Bolan slipped back into his coat, covering his guns and knife.

“Your knife handle,” Bolan said, his eyes on the strange-looking blade now clipped to Paxton’s belt on the side. “The grip. Cactus?”

The Army Ranger nodded. He drew the knife in a reverse grip and extended it cactus-end first.

“The light cactus keeps the weight down,” Paxton said. “Besides that, it has another special meaning to me.”

Bolan looked up from the dagger, curious.

“It was a birthday gift from Phil. He had it made for me from some guy in Texas.”

Bolan nodded his understanding as he examined the double-edged weapon, noting the deep Damascus whorl patterns on both sides. The blade was approximately four inches long, and the whole thing couldn’t have weighed more than a few ounces. He handed it back.

“What have we got as far as bigger stuff goes?” Paxton asked as he, too, now stood to put his jacket back on.

Bolan took a step away from the love seat and lifted a larger, heavier bag. Carrying it to the coffee table in the middle of the living room, he set it on top and unzipped it. Reaching inside, he pulled out a long, odd-looking pistol with a huge tubular drum magazine attached to the top.

“A Calico?” Paxton said, recognizing the weapon immediately.

Bolan nodded. “Two of them. One 50-round drum for each, and a 100-round backup.”

“Good weapons,” Paxton said. “But how are we supposed to carry them?”

The Executioner dug deeper into the bag and came out with another set of ballistic nylon straps.

“Ah,” Paxton said, nodding. “DeSantis rigs?”

The Executioner nodded again. “You’ve used this setup before?”

“Once,” Paxton came back. “You mount the 50-rounder on the gun. The 100-round drum balances it out on your other side. Both are secured to the straps with Velcro but the gun itself hangs on your strong side instead of in a cross-draw position. You can fire with it still on the strap.”

“You’ve got the picture,” said the Executioner. “And these rigs will fit right over the other shoulder holsters if we need them to. The only problem is we’ll need longer and heavier coats to conceal them. So for now, we’ll repack them and stick them under the bed.”

Paxton nodded his understanding. “Okay,” he said. “What’s on the paper that bureaucratic burnout Young gave you?” he asked.

Bolan reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled scrap of paper. “The name of a snitch,” he said. “And how to contact him.”

“He can lead us to my brother?” Paxton said, his voice suddenly tight.

“Maybe,” Bolan said. “Although I’ve never found things to work out quite that easily.”

“But he can get us started?”

“He can get us started,” Bolan agreed.

3

A rental BMW, arranged by Barbara Price, was waiting downstairs for Bolan and Paxton when they got off the elevator. The concierge handed them the keys and gave them directions to the parking lot. For his trouble, he got yet another tip from Bolan.

“You ever think we might be in the wrong business?” Paxton asked as they left the hotel and crossed the parking lot where the vehicle waited.

“How do you mean?”

“These guys,” Paxton said, glancing back over his shoulder in the direction from which they’d come. “Every time you turn around, they’ve got their hands out and somebody’s shoving money in them.”

Bolan chuckled. “If we were after money,” he said, “we’d have chosen different paths a long time ago.”

By now they had spotted the BMW. Bolan thumbed the button on the remote control to unlock the driver’s door, opened it, then pushed the button again to give Paxton access to the passenger’s seat.

As both men slid inside the vehicle, Paxton said, “Ever wonder why we do it?”

“You’re doing it to find your brother,” Bolan said as he started the engine. “What better reason do you need than that?”

“I mean, the rest of the time,” said Paxton. “Ever wonder why we risk our lives to help people we don’t even know?”

“We help them because we can,” Bolan said. “And because not very many other men have the abilities we do.”

Slowly Brick Paxton nodded his understanding. But an introspective frown stayed on his face. And a trancelike look remained in his eyes.

Bolan pulled the BMW out of the parking lot and drove just below the posted speed limit through the city. Soon, they were on a highway leading out of Amsterdam. It was not until then that Paxton spoke again. “I didn’t like you at first,” he suddenly said.

The Executioner didn’t answer.

Paxton turned slightly toward Bolan in his seat. “I’m more used to giving orders than taking them,” he said. “Except from officers, of course. And I didn’t have you pegged as an officer.”

“Then you had me pegged right,” Bolan said as multicolored fields of flowers, windmills and other sights flashed by.

“But you served, didn’t you.” It was a statement rather than a question.

Bolan answered anyway. “I served,” he said. “NCO.”

“Rangers?” This time Paxton’s tone did invite an answer.

“Special Forces,” Bolan said.

“Ah.” Paxton nodded. “The Green Beanies.” He paused. “Okay. You guys were all right, I guess.” The last sentence was said with the feigned condescension all special squads exhibit toward one another.

Such rivalry between Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEAL, and other such units was expected and both men chuckled now. Bolan looked up to see a sign that read Marken 10K.

“Anyway,” Paxton went on, “I thought you were just another damn bureaucrat afraid to bend the rules. You see, I don’t care what I have to do to get my brother back safely.”

“I bend the rules when I have to in order to get the job done,” Bolan replied. “Other times, I shatter them.” He saw an egg-shaped lump form in Paxton’s throat as the man swallowed.

“Well,” the Ranger said. “Just in case I get killed before I get a chance to say this, thanks. I appreciate your help in finding my brother.

“Both of our parents were killed in a car accident my senior year in high school,” Paxton went on. “I was seventeen at the time. Phil was sixteen. We didn’t have any other relatives.”

Bolan glanced quickly toward the other man, frowned, then turned back to the highway. “I’m surprised the court didn’t put you both in foster homes,” he said.

“I’m sure they would have if they’d known about our situation.” Paxton chuckled. “But we both kept quiet and slipped through the cracks. That’s probably when I first began to develop such great respect for bureaucracy.” His last sentence dripped with sarcasm. But when he went on, his voice was lighter again. “The folks had the house already paid off, and Phil and I both got jobs after school to pay the utilities and other bills. We didn’t do any high-rolling. But we got by.”

Ahead, the Executioner saw an arrow pointing out the exit to Marken. He let up slightly on the accelerator.

“Anyway, when I graduated I got a full-time job working construction,” Paxton continued. “Stayed home until Phil hit eighteen and they couldn’t take him away if they found out. He’d always shown a great interest and aptitude in all the sciences, and he wanted to go to college. I didn’t. So I went off into the Army and he headed for Yale on a scholarship.”

Bolan slowed even more as he took the exit, nodding for Paxton to continue if he chose to do so.

The Army Ranger did. “So Phil and I are closer than most brothers, I think. Sort of like the guys you go through a war with. It’s like we survived a different kind of war together, and neither of us could have pulled it off without the other one.”

Bolan knew what the man meant, and said so.

“Maybe I am too close to this whole thing to be objective.” Paxton paused again momentarily, then said, “But I’m going through with it anyway. I’ll leave it up to you to tell me if I’m letting my emotions get in the way of my thinking.”

“Don’t worry,” Bolan said. “I will.”

Paxton laughed. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” he asked rhetorically. “Anyway, that’s enough on the subject.” He closed his mouth.

Bolan took a left off the exit road and entered the small fishing village of Marken. He had seen windmills in Amsterdam and along the road during the drive, but Marken itself was like a Disneyland version of Holland. Everywhere he looked now he saw women dressed in pinafores. Most obvious of all were the Dutch clogs, the wooden shoes that had captured the imagination of the entire world. It seemed that there was a store selling them on every corner.

“Damn,” Paxton said, sitting forward in his seat. “I didn’t know people really wore those things anymore.”

“They don’t in the cities,” the Executioner said. “But out here, yeah. Particularly since it’s the town’s leading industry besides fishing.”

“I’d think they’d hurt your feet,” Paxton said.

“Well,” the Executioner came back as he drove slowly on down the street. “You can find out for yourself if you’re really interested.” He slowed the BMW, then pulled into an empty parking space under a sign which read Klompenmaart. “We’re meeting the informant inside here. It’s the shop of a custom wooden shoemaker.”

Bolan killed the engine and both men got out. The Klompenmaart was roughly halfway down a small shopping strip, and from somewhere in one of the stores classical music came piping out. On the sidewalk, men, women and children all walked expertly past in the wooden shoes, chattering happily away in Dutch.

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