Silent Threat. Don Pendleton

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      Bolan nodded curtly and motioned for silence.

      The double doors leading into Becker’s condominium—his name and address were on a burnished plate mounted outside—had been smashed inward, possibly with a portable battering ram. The lights were out. Bolan, his Beretta pointed before him, tried a wall switch. There was no response; the power had probably been cut, either to the flat or to the building. The walls and floors were scorched and cloying smoke filled the air around them, but there were no fires evident.

      “Homemade flash-bangs,” Rieck whispered. “Sort of a poor man’s incendiary charge. Burns hot, fast and bright, but often won’t set a blaze.” He looked around. “Lots of hardwood floors here. Not a lot of carpets. We’re lucky the building’s not on fire.”

      “We need to clear this area,” Bolan said. “Now.”

      Rieck nodded. Bolan unclipped his SureFire Combatlight, bracing it under his gun hand as he flashed the ultrabright xenon lamp, always moving, the barrel of the Beretta ready to acquire targets. Rieck had a small LED light of his own; he held it against the shotgun’s pump and did a passable job of checking his own side of the condominium. They found more dead men. Pools of blood, scorched furniture and empty brass shell casings were everywhere.

      A voice shouted weakly in German from the last room of the apartment.

      Rieck and Bolan hit the room high and low, respectively. The soldier kicked the door in and his Interpol counterpart followed with the shotgun. They found no resistance; there was only Hans Becker himself, secured to a chair in the center of the room, surrounded by three dead bodyguards in a room that had been largely untouched by the fast-burning charges that had scorched the rest of the condominium.

      There was something strapped to his chest.

      Becker looked at them, wild-eyed. He had been beaten; a livid bruise was spreading across his left cheek, and the eye on that side was bloodshot and partially swollen shut. He had been duct-taped to a straight-backed antique chair. He was barefoot, wearing slacks and shirtsleeves. He said something weakly in German, his voice faltering. Bolan imagined he’d shouted himself hoarse after his tormenters had left him like this.

      “He says it’s a bomb,” Rieck reported.

      The device was a shoebox-size oblong wrapped in layer after layer of the same duct tape that was holding Becker in place. Canvas straps ran from the box across Becker’s shoulders and under his arms, attached to the box from the back by some unseen means. Bolan eyed it, hard, but didn’t reach for it. Becker’s eyes followed Bolan’s.

      “Eisen-Donner,” Becker whispered.

      “Iron Thunder.” Bolan nodded. He bent to examine the bomb. Becker immediately became agitated and started hissing in rapid-fire German, shaking his head.

      “He says they warned him it would go off if it was touched,” Rieck stated. “He has been trying not to move, while crying for help. He wants to know if we could please summon the police, and begs that we not touch the bomb.”

      “He’s going to be disappointed then,” Bolan said grimly, bending to place his ear near Becker’s chest. “This thing is ticking.”

      “Wouldn’t it anyway?” Rieck asked.

      Bolan looked up at him. “The only reason for there to be timing connected to an explosive, is to set it off after a predetermined interval.”

      “So it’s ticking….” The Interpol agent said.

      “Because it’s going to explode,” Bolan finished.

      “Your call, Cooper,” Rieck stated.

      Bolan looked at the box, then at Becker. Without a word, he drew a dagger from his waistband. Then he spared a glance at the agent. “Get out of here, Rieck. Phone it in.”

      “You sure?”

      “There’s nothing you can do,” the Executioner said. “I’ll take this.”

      “We could wait for the bomb squad.”

      “We could if we knew how long we have,” Bolan answered. “We don’t. It’s only in the movies that the bomb has a big red LED readout staring you in the face.”

      Rieck looked at him, then at Becker. “You could…I mean, it’s not your responsibility. You could get to safety.”

      Bolan eyed him hard. “The hell it’s not.”

      Rieck nodded. “Then I’ll stay with you. You can’t watch your own back and deal with this, too. We’ve no idea who might still be around. The people who did this might return to watch the fireworks. This apartment is not secured.” With that he checked his shotgun and stood back a few paces.

      Bolan again raised his mental estimation of the Interpol agent.

      Becker began muttering in agitated German. The soldier didn’t bother asking Rieck to translate; the executive was clearly convinced any tampering with the bomb would cause it to go off. He was probably right. But Mack Bolan would no more retreat to safety and watch an innocent man be blown to bits than he would pass a wounded stranger on the sidewalk. With that thought foremost in his mind, he hefted the dagger and got to work.

      Using the keen edge of the compact fighting knife, Bolan made an incision around the oblong. The tape separated easily under the knife’s tip. Then, very carefully, Bolan peeled back the square of tape, making sure there were no wires or leads connecting it to the interior of the bomb. He set the tape carefully aside and took a long look at the inside of the casing. The ticking was much louder now, and came from a rotary clockwork of some kind that was spinning ominously near the bottom edge of the device. There was a fairly sizable chunk of plastic explosive buried in its heart, connected with wires to the clockwork and also to what looked like pieces of a wireless phone. Bolan leaned in and smelled the explosive.

      “Semtex,” he whispered. Becker’s eyes widened. The German knew the word.

      Rieck started to say something and stopped, dumbfounded, when Bolan took his phone from his pocket. Snapping it open, he used the secure phone’s camera feature to snap a picture of the interior of the bomb. He pressed the speed-dial key that would transmit the photo, scrambled, to the Farm. Then he paused, glaring at the spinning mechanism, hoping they would have enough time.

      There was no telling just what Iron Thunder had thought to accomplish by rigging Becker and then leaving him. The cult didn’t seem terribly concerned with efficiency. They were more into statements, into style over substance. It was that ragged edge that separated the Iron Thunder cultists from those professional soldiers who’d attacked Rieck and Bolan at the coffee shop.

      There was, however, no time to ponder that mystery now. It occurred to the soldier, as he waited, listening to the doomsday numbers fall, that there might be a camera somewhere nearby. The Iron Thunder terrorists who’d done this to Becker could be watching to see the man blown up, savoring his last fear-filled moments on earth. If the bomb was capable of remote detonation, however, it stood to reason that anyone with a finger on that button would have pressed it as soon as Bolan started to tamper with it.

      The secure phone began to vibrate, and Rieck nearly jumped out of his skin. Bolan glanced at him before keying the reply button. “Cooper,” he said. Answering with his cover identity told anyone СКАЧАТЬ