the four guards. He stowed the NVD and moved on to the chalet's door.
From there on in, the play would have to be by the ear.
Beyond the front doors, the first floor was still laid out like the hotel lobby it had once been. Several chairs and two sofas were arranged before a fireplace, and the front desk was off to one side.
Beyond the desk was a staircase.
A swarthy guy in fatigues with no insignia was sitting in one of the chairs, facing the doors. There was an M-16 in his lap, and on top of it a girlie magazine opened to the centerfold. The guy's head was back, and his eyes were closed.
Through the crack where the doors met, Bolan could see a thrown deadbolt. He set the silenced Beretta on single-shot and put a slug into the bolt. The impact didn't make much noise, but it was enough to wake the door guard. He shook sleep out of his eyes, threw the magazine across to the sofa, and got cautiously up, the auto- carbine at port arms. Bolan saw he was also wearing a military .45 automatic pistol in a holster. When he was close enough to see the busted lock, Bolan came through the door.
Then the guy was pinned hard against the wall, the M-16 immobilized by the press of Bolan's body, a handful of his blouse twisted into Bolan's hard fist, which pressed into his chest. The wall was covered with flowered paper, beginning to fade.
Bolan let the guy have a very close look at the end of the Beretta's suppressor. 'Where's Corey James?' The guy opened his mouth to gasp in air, but it was a lousy attempt at a stall. Bolan anticipated the move before the guy had started it, letting go of the pinned M-16 and clawing for the .45 on his hip. The Beretta made a soft pffutt and spit a 9mm whizzer into the guy's face. Stuff came out of the back of his head and dripped down over the faded flowers.
Bolan's sensitive hearing picked up footsteps on the staircase. The first guy followed instinct and tried to get in the opening shot, and took a three-round burst from navel to neck for his trouble. The second guy followed common sense, and faced the blacksuited nightfighter with both hands over his head.
Bolan used the barrel of the Beretta to motion the guard down the rest of the stairs, then back against the wall next to the fireplace. He was a big-boned black man, and the gaze he gave Bolan was sullen. But then he saw the nearly headless corpse sprawled on the other side of the room, and his eyes widened in fear.
'James,' Bolan said, crossing to him, the Beretta big in his fist. He stopped three feet from the black man, did not touch him. 'Where is he?'
The black pointed with his chin.
'Downstairs. Only one door there.' He spoke with a thick West Indian accent. 'You gonna kill me too?'
'You're already dead, guy,' Bolan said. He laid the suppressor against the black's temple, his hand moving fast as thought, and the guy went down like a sledge-hammered cow. Blood glistened along his hairline. No sound came from the chalet's bowels.
Bolan did not like leaving the bodies there in the open, even for a few minutes. But there was greater risk in not reconning. He did not want his upcoming chat with Corey James to be interrupted.
The second and third floors were occupied by rooms bisected by a single long corridor. Light shone under the door of one on the second floor, but when Bolan kicked into it he found it empty, although it was clearly someone's quarters. The name on an old envelope identified the someone as Corey James.
If the lobby and the upper floors had been left as they were when the place was a hotel, the basement had undergone some remodelling, for sure. Bolan cat-footed down carpeted stairs. At the bottom there was a short entryway passage that jogged hard right after a few steps. At its corner a video camera on a motor mount was sweeping the entryway.
Bolan put a slug into the lens.
Beyond the corner the featureless hallway ended ten feet farther on in a windowless door. The door swung open and an M-16-armed gunman came charging out.
He charged into a three-round swarm of 9mm stingers that stopped him cold. Behind the fresh corpse the door started to swing shut. Bolan's right shoulder hit it before the motion could be completed, and the door swung wide again. Someone grunted with pain and crashed into something.
Corey James turned and looked at the black-clad intruder without expression. Over shirtsleeves he wore an automatic in a shoulder holster, but he made no move toward it.
The efforts toward maintaining the chalet's original Old World elegance had been foregone down here in favor of modern expediency. The basement consisted of a single large windowless room, and it was obviously the nerve center of Edwards's Alpine base. One wall was lined with a control panel fronted by swivel chairs. There were keyboard terminals, video display tubes, two computer-tape transports, several radio transceivers and a couple of telephones.
And it looked like the guy was still in the process of outfitting the place. Along the adjacent wall were stacked a couple dozen crates of various sizes, most of them stenciled, 'Fragile-Electronic Components-Avoid Extreme Heat or Cold.' Corey James was standing at the console, next to a man who was seated in one of the swivel chairs.
Another technician lay behind the door that Bolan had slammed into him; a goulash of electronic parts was scattered on the floor around him. The guy was trying to shake off his daze, but he didn't look hurt.
Bolan wished he could say the same. The body blow he had taken coming in, even though he had tried to absorb it on his good side, had cost him more than pain. He thought he had felt the traumatized muscle tear a bit, and there was a warm wetness under the dressing on the left side of his chest. As he straightened, a sharp pinch of hurt darted across it.
The traitorous ex-CIA agent across the room coolly regarding him would have been enough to arouse Bolan's righteous anger. The wound enhanced it.
'They're dead, James,' he snapped. 'Your amateur bodyguards weren't good enough. You ought to do something about security.'
James nodded toward the crates. 'You were a week early.'
'Too bad.' Bolan holstered the Beretta; the necessity for silence was past. He held the Uzi by the pistol grip, letting the lanyard support its weight.
Yeah, one more week. One week, and this base would have been in full operation, with capacity as a safe house, communications center, data-retrieval facility. Not even a headquarters, but only one of many bases just like it, the foundation of a scheme unlike any Bolan had encountered in all the days of the New Terrorist Wars. Bolan had long been aware that most of the terrorist organizations were loosely linked in an informal network. But for the most part the ideological hate-mongers were poorly trained at best, underfinanced and unarmed, and too suspicious and jealous to fully trust their so-called allies.
But Frank Edwards, and the people like Corey James to whom he had chosen to delegate responsibility, were experts, trained in the black arts by the finest intelligence outfits on the globe, the training backed by years of experience. Their contacts in the shadow world of international intrigue were vast, and by dint of their one-time official sanction, they had access to the most advanced technology in the free world. Not only that, but Edwards apparently had the money to pay for it. But that was no surprise; illicit arms smuggling could be immensely profitable, with terrorists desperate for firepower willing to pay markups of several hundred percent. As a business, it was hard to beat. If you didn't mind trading in death.
Now Edwards, along with other renegade agents of his ilk, were consolidating their resources to form a private intelligence agency. International in scope, wide-reaching in capacity, staffed by experienced men who still retained entree into most corners of the worldwide underground, it would rival the official bureaus of many free nations. And it would service those sworn to turn free nations into slave states. Mack Bolan was determined to see that would not happen. He owed it to the world and to one brave woman named Toby Ranger.
'Where's Edwards?' Bolan asked, his voice steel cold.
'I don't know,' James said calmly.
The guy knew all the tricks, and he tried one now. With his right hand he adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, let the hand linger there. He held out his left, gestured with it vacantly, a protestation of innocence and a polished piece of misdirection of attention.
The hand at the glasses shot across the twelve inches that separated it from the shoulder holster, got fingers around gun butt. It was a good trick, sure. But Bolan had seen it before. The Uzi stuttered a four-shot burst
