Death Metal. Don Pendleton

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      “That links it to the U.S.A., I’ll buy that. But a bunch of rivetheads and survivalists in the swamps aren’t a real threat.”

      “Of course not. But the Russians are. Word is that the Russian president has been ranting about how that bunker could have gone unrecovered for so long and how he wants that ordnance back where it belongs.”

      “With him, naturally—and we don’t want that, do we?”

      “We certainly don’t, Striker, and we also don’t want this to be official. I’ve had Stony Man GPS your cell phone, and there should be a chopper for you within an hour to bring you to Washington for a briefing. Maybe you should have taken that training schedule up to Alaska.”

      “Yeah, funny, Hal. Don’t give up your day job.”

      * * *

      SEVERANCE AND THE BARON were cold, tired and bored. There had been no word from the Count or from Jari—like everyone, they could never think of the Neanderthal by his band name, no matter what—and they had been expecting to get at least a call. Severance had tried to call them, but their cell phones were switched off. That could be for any reason.

      In truth what had actually gone down had never occurred to them. As they sat and shivered in the bunker, raiding those sections of the kitchen that Jari hadn’t trashed, running over possibilities between themselves, they figured that the silence was due to security and that the first they would see of their bandmates was when they walked through the bunker doors with the Norwegians.

      In between this speculation they moaned at length about how everything else in the bunker seemed to be working except the heating system. Any attempt to get it turned on did nothing more than set the air conditioner to chill the area even more. So they huddled in their blankets, drinking and waiting, hoping that the time would pass quickly and that they would be greeted as heroes by the Count, Jari and the Norwegians.

      It didn’t quite go as planned.

      Thirty-six hours after they had entered the bunker to guard it, they were awakened from a stupor by the signal that the entrance had been breached. They were sleeping in what had been the control room—a small office with a bank of monitors, only some of which were working, showing the interior of the bunker. Those connected to the outside cameras were blank, the weather having long since eroded their efficiency.

      The signal was a regular pulse, accompanied by a flashing red light on the dash. Severance pulled himself to his feet, groaning, and shook the Baron, who was a touch more testy as he awoke.

      “They’re here,” Severance muttered.

      “Shit. I feel like shit,” the Baron remarked with a tenuous grip on comprehension. “You sure it’s them?”

      Severance nodded, wishing as he did that he hadn’t. “They used the right codes.”

      The Baron was on the verge of commenting that they could have read them from the scratch marks in the pad—which was what he had done—but refrained as he remembered how long it had taken him to actually locate them—and even then by chance.

      “Come on,” Severance continued. “Kitchen. Coffee. They’ll need warming. We need it anyway.”

      The two youths made their way to the kitchen area and were in the middle of brewing coffee when Milan, Seb and Ripper entered.

      The Baron tried to look past them, expecting to see the Count and Jari, and the other members of Asmodeus.

      “Ripper, who are these dudes?” he asked thickly, indicating the short-haired terrorists.

      “Where’s Mauno?” Severance added, more to the point. He didn’t have a good feeling about this, though he doubted that his fears had penetrated his companion’s denser brain at this point.

      “The Count is dead,” Ripper replied in a monotone. “So is Jari. The rest of my band won’t be coming. This is more serious than that.”

      Severance said slowly, “What could be more serious? What do you mean Mauno and Jari are dead? What’s been going on?”

      “A lot,” Ripper said as flatly as before.

      Severance and the Baron stood facing the three men in silence for a moment, not knowing what to say. Ripper had offered them no explanation; they didn’t know what to think.

      “What’s going to happen?” Severance asked quietly.

      “I think you know, my friend,” Milan said, speaking for the first time. “What you have found will be invaluable in furthering our cause. Our good friends in Norway know this, which is why they forged these links.”

      “Why is only Ripper here, then? And how did Mauno and Jari die?” the Baron persisted. “Do we have enemies we need to guard against?”

      Severance looked at his friend. Funny, he had always looked at the Baron as a pain in the ass, but now he realized that the drummer was the only friend he had in the room. The only friend he had in the world, now that Mauno and Jari were gone.

      “It’s too late to guard against them, Arvo,” he murmured. “They’re already here.”

      “You’re a bright boy,” Milan commented. “Pity your friend had a big mouth. He was a liability. He put you all in the firing line. Maybe you could have been educated and trained, like Ripper’s men.”

      “Who says we can’t be?” Severance said desperately.

      “Me,” Milan replied simply. “It’s too late. But what you have here will be removed and put to good use before anyone else can get to it. Letting the world know by YouTube was stupid. That kind of idiocy can’t be justified.”

      Severance felt his bowels turn to jelly as Milan added a final statement.

      “It’ll be quick.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      The chopper picked up Bolan from the Colorado Desert, then dropped him in D.C. A waiting unmarked sedan whisked him to the Mall for a meeting with a grim-faced Brognola and Aaron Kurtzman via a conference call on a scrambled line.

      After the briefing Bolan had hitched a ride to Bremen with a U.S. troop transport. From there another U.S. service flight had brought him to Oslo on a routine NATO business mission. One thing was for sure. The continued U.S. military presence—even though the Cold War was long dead and buried—was a useful cover for him in hopping around Europe.

      The Norges Statsbaner train had taken him from Oslo Airport to Trondheim, this water-surrounded city, the fourth most populated in Norway. Bolan got off the train and felt invigorated by the cold air blowing on his face. After the central heating of the train and the flight that had preceded it, he was glad to feel something sharp on his skin. It refreshed him and reminded him that he was alive.

      The hotel he had been booked into was only a short walk from the station, and he took the opportunity to get some air and a feel for the city as he made the journey on foot.

      The buildings were a mix of old and new—some clean lines and little exterior decoration with a functionalism that made it of less interest СКАЧАТЬ