Due south Bolan could see the Matterhorn, marking the border with Italy, and off to the west the Dufourspitze, at 15,200 feet the highest peak in Switzerland. The glaciers that never melted streaked the sides of the rugged Pennine Alpine range.
The dusk that had already pervaded the steep-walled valley for hours began to rapidly purple now, but it would be a cloudless starry night. That suited Bolan's purpose perfectly.
From a pocket of his military web belt he removed a Litton Miniature Night Vision Pocket Scope, the compact NVD no bigger than the palm of his hand. Designated the M-841, the second-generation image intensifier used passive low light operation; that is, it amplified available light, no matter how dim, five hundred times, focusing it on a viewing screen. An automatic brightness control counteracted blooming, and the second-generation microchannel plate completely eliminated streaking of the image. From another pouch Bolan selected the objective lens, an eight-step zoom whose magnification ranged from seven-tenths of unity to 4It, at f-stops from 1.8 to 22. Screw mounted to the pocket scope, it formed a unit about five inches long, weighing under two pounds.
The chalet where Edwards had recently called his 'black' CIA organizational meeting, and which he maintained as one of several permanent bases, sat about one hundred meters from and twenty above Bolan's surveillance position. The building rose three stories, each story encircled with an ornate balcony fashioned in a Bavarian style; the peaked roof was baroque with gingerbread trim, and topped by a weathercock. It could have been any one of the hundreds of small resorts that dotted this Alpine high country. Instead it was an operations center for a brilliantly twisted one-time U.S. agent now turned terrorist mercenary.
Alpine meadow surrounded the place out to the perimeter where Bolan had taken his position; a drive of crushed gravel curved up to the entrance a canopied parking apron like the entrance to a hotel, which is what the building had likely been at one time.
Bolan focused the NVD in that direction, clicked up to 2AX magnification, and picked out three 4WOULD rigs and a Toyota longbed pickup truck.
Bolan had made three other guards in addition to the dead man under the larch. Similarly armed with M- 16's, they were walking the perimeter, and not paying a hell of a lot of attention to their work. That was going to turn out to be a deadly mistake.
These men did not project the alertness or polish of well-trained operatives. Bolan figured they were the terrorist gang-members on loan to Edwards for routine security.
Except the Executioner was about to break up the routine. Above the canopy fronting the chalet, light flashed as a door to the balcony opened and shut. Bolan zoomed the Litton to full 4It magnification, and picked out the man, standing with both hands on the railing, scanning the dark grounds. He was about forty, in wire-rimmed glasses and modishly long hair, and he wore a nylon windbreaker against the chill of the spring mountain air.
Among the data package that Stony Man Farm had telexed to London were five photographs, which Bolan had committed to his eidetic memory. The faces in the photos, of four men and one woman, were of American Intelligence agents who had severed their official relationship with their agency within the prior six months under any circumstances which could be considered unusual.
One of the faces belonged to the man on the balcony. His name was Corey James, and he had been with the CIA for fourteen years, including two when he was posted to Western European Section, then headed by one Frank Edwards. His file had been closed with the notation: 'Voluntary retired, highest service rating.' That would have to be replaced by: 'Turncoat.' Bolan guessed that if a man of James's caliber were on-site, it would be as chief of operations at the chalet. As such he would be able to tell Bolan quite a bit.
Whether he wished to or not.
Bolan came out of his crouch. It was time to go hard.
On Bolan's right wrist was what looked like a thick metallic bracelet with a one-inch length of wooden dowling attached. Bolan nestled the dowel between the second and third fingers of his right hand and pulled, and the head end of a two-and-a-half-foot length of spring-loaded piano wire unreeled from inside the bracelet, like the starter on a lawn mower. But it was immediately and painfully apparent to Bolan that there was no way the torn shoulder muscle would allow him to raise his left arm high enough to put the garrote to deadly use. It was not a situation he was pleased with, but the reminder of his limitation was useful. Mack Bolan was no wild-ass warrior with a knife between his teeth and a blazing gun in each hand, charging heedlessly into a hail of lead. He was realistically aware of his mortality and his capabilities. Right now those capabilities were limited in a way he wasn't used to. But that would only change his methods, not his effectiveness as long as he kept in mind the restriction the wound was imposing.
Bolan let the spring tension recoil, and reached for the sheath on his left hip.
The second guard only managed to get out half of a gurgling cry as the Fairbairon-Sykes commando stiletto sliced through the flesh of his neck to sever the jugular vein, but one of his buddies was near enough to hear it. The body-cock called out, 'Ahmed,' softly, and followed it with a guttural string of Arabic ending in a questioning intonation. As Bolan let the deadweight of Ahmed drop to the ground, the shape of the other guard came into view.
The guy must have spotted Bolan at the same time.
He tried to bring up his M-16 while twisting to make himself a smaller target, and the mistake of thinking defense when he should have been thinking offense gave Bolan the millisecond he needed. The guard was still lining out his shot when a 9mm skullbuster cored into his temple and on through into the night, a spray of red and gray its wake.
Ninety seconds later, darkness covered the blitzer's path as he eased below the canopy fronting the chalet. Behind him, the same darkness hid the body of the fourth guard, heavier by the weight of three silenced 9mm slugs.
Because neither the time frame nor the chalet's physical layout allowed for a full-cover preliminary softprobe, the night-fighter had rigged up for every contingency up to an all-out firefight. His guess was that there were fewer than four bodycocks inside, the relief crew for the men now littering the lawn, plus Corey James and his technical support people. But if the chalet's forces went beyond that, Bolan was ready.
He wore the skintight blacksuit that had been specially designed of a rip-stop elasticized material by the same NASA scientists who outfitted the astronauts. The suit served another purpose beyond its obvious value as camouflage: it gave its wearer a significant psychological edge. The sight of the big black apparition, weapons dangling from shoulder and hip, had startled more than one enemy into momentary hesitation which abruptly ended along with the enemy's life.
A military canvas web belt hugged the waist of the outfit, the hook-and-eye flat bronze buckle snapping fast. The Fairbairon knife rode the left hip, and the Executioner's newest side arm rode the right.
Stony Man armorer Konzaki had introduced Bolan to the recently developed Beretta Model 93R. The production model was a true machine pistol, which meant it could be fired on full automatic with one hand. For improved accuracy and control, however, it was fitted with a fold-down front handle and an elongated trigger guard; the fingers of the left hand wrapped around the handle, and the guard accommodated the thumb. The side-by-side magazine held fifteen steel-jacketed 9mm cartridges; a sixteenth nestled in the chamber.
Konzaki had modified to Bolan's specifications the 93Rather he was now carrying. With the installation of a suppressor and specially machined springs designed to cycle subsonic cartridges, the Beretta was effectively silenced. A selector switch offered the options of single-shot fire or three-round bursts, at a reduced cyclic rate of 110 rounds per minute. The result was extraordinary auto-fire accuracy, particularly in the hands of a marksman like Mack Bolan. For gun-leather, Konzaki had customized an oversized one-piece holster with a plasticized friction- reduction lining that reduced to almost zero the possibility of hang-up by the gun's sights or hammer.
Bolan's submachine gun was the new Israeli Uzi. Konzaki had fitted it with a flash-hider, and it was throated to feed 9min Parabellum hollow-points. The armorer had also welded two 32-cartridge magazines together at a right angle, so that when Bolan inserted one into the magazine well of the pistol grip, the other extended forward parallel to the barrel. Not only did this facilitate speed-loading, but the extra front-end weight helped compensate against barrel-climb during auto-fire. The Uzi's change lever was all the way forward in the A (auto) position.
In addition to the web belt's pouches, Bolan wore a military hip pack with a capacity of nearly a half cubic foot. He would have preferred the size and comfort of a backpack, but there was no point in additionally straining his torn shoulder.
Bolan used the Litton M-841 for a quick-scan of his backtrack, saw no sign that there had been more than
