LITMIR.BIZ

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out where Sobor was dropped off.”

      “Yeah, there is, Bear,” the Executioner said. “And you just gave it to me.” Not waiting for an answer, he cleared the line.

      “You’re taking one heck of a chance going back to the city this soon,” Grimaldi said. “But I suppose I should add ‘what else is new’ to that comment.”

      Bolan didn’t answer as he left the aircraft.

      DUSK HAD TURNED to full night by the time Bolan had retraced his route from Rey to Tehran. The lights of the city were aglow. Traffic was even more congested than it had been earlier, with the same honks, obscene gestures and screaming threats issuing from the packed vehicles along the highway.

      Navigating through the flashing headlights, the Executioner spotted a small mosque a block down from Tehran’s Fine Arts Museum. He pulled into the parking lot, stopped and left the keys under the cracked rubber floor mat, hoping that the man who had cared for the ancient American automobile would eventually get it back. His war on evil, which had included many oppressive governments of the world, had never been directed at the individual citizens who had the misfortune to live under those regimes. The fact was, the man who had come after him with the butcher knife when he’d taken the Mustang was a victim; every bit as much a victim of the current venomous Iranian government as an innocent foreigner killed by the bomb of one of the terrorist organizations that nation sponsored.

      Bolan exited the Mustang and walked swiftly back to the street. A taxicab had just pulled up in front of the mosque, delivering a family of two adults and three children for evening prayers, and the bearded driver nodded when Bolan looked his way. On a long shot, the Executioner checked the number stenciled on the back of the cab as he walked around the trunk to get in. It wasn’t the same vehicle that Sobor had gotten into earlier in the day. But he hadn’t expected it to be.

      Lady Luck rarely followed the Executioner that closely.

      Sliding onto the back seat, Bolan pulled the folded city map from the side pocket of his leather jacket and glanced down to the area he had circled in red ink. He was now posing more as a tourist of indecipherable origin, hoping to appear to have come from nearly anywhere.

      The Executioner gave the cabdriver the address to the Archaeological Museum, which looked to be roughly a half mile from where he was really headed.

      The driver turned halfway around and rested an arm over the back of his seat. Frowning, he spoke in Farsi.

      Bolan forced an embarrassed smile, pointed to his mouth and shook his head.

      “The museum will be closed this time of night,” the driver said, switching to French.

      The Executioner nodded. “Yes,” he said in the same language, “I know. But there is a certain café near there where I want to go.”

      “Then tell me the name of the café and I will take you directly to it,” the driver offered. “I know that area well.”

      Bolan forced another embarrassed grin. “I don’t know the name,” he said. “Or exactly where it is located. Only that it is near the museum. If I can go there, I think I can I find it.”

      The cabbie shrugged disinterestedly, turned and took off. He paid no further attention to the Executioner as he drove.

      Bolan took advantage of the time to conduct a mental inventory of his weaponry. Beneath the leather jacket, in the same ballistic nylon and Concealex shoulder rig he’d worn under the gray overcoat, the sound suppressed Beretta 93-R machine pistol rode under his left arm. With a 20-round magazine and a sixteenth subsonic hollowpoint round already chambered, the Beretta was capable of either semiauto fire or 3-round bursts.

      Opposite the 93-R, helping to balance the weight at the other end of the shoulder rig, were three extra 9 mm magazines in Concealex carriers. Like the one already stuffed up the Beretta’s grip, each held twenty rounds, two containing the same subsonic cartridges that, along with the sound suppressor, kept the noise down to a mere whisper. The third extra magazine had been loaded with high-velocity, pointed, armor-piercing bullets. They would break the sound barrier after leaving the barrel, so the sound suppressor wouldn’t be nearly as effective with them. But Bolan wouldn’t use them unless he encountered an enemy wearing a ballistic nylon vest, or found himself forced to shoot through metal or some other equally bullet-resistant material. And then, he would only have to resort to them if his Desert Eagle had run dry.

      The .44 Magnum Desert Eagle was the heart of the Executioner’s weaponry. There was no way to effectively quiet a pistol with that level of authority, nor would he have done so if he could. When the “Eagle screamed” it screamed louder than any other firearm in the gunfight and, to an enemy not accustomed to such stentorian roars, it could be psychologically devastating. The Desert Eagle was secured in another Concealex holster, this one worn in the traditional strong-side hip position on Bolan’s belt. More of the space age, carefully molded plastic had been slid onto the Executioner’s belt just behind the huge pistol, and the butts of two extra .44 Magnum magazines extended from the tops. There was no need for retaining straps or any other methods of closure when using Concealex—the form fit around each item and held it in place on its own.

      The Executioner had reloaded the S&W .45 ACP wheelgun and it rode inside the hand-warmer pocket of the leather jacket much as it had in the gray overcoat he’d worn earlier. The revolver, using automatic pistol ammunition, required that either a half or full-moon clip be used to eject the spent casings. But those same clips made for the fastest possible reload with a wheelgun. The shooter just dumped the empties and dropped a fresh clip into the cylinder. It didn’t even require clearing a speed-loader out of the way before slamming the wheel back into the frame, and Bolan carried a pair of the full moons in his other hand-warmer pocket, opposite the S&W.

      The last weapon the Executioner carried was a knife known as the “Baghdad Bullet.” A relatively new design by the Tactical Operations company, the blade had the basic shape of a pistol cartridge, which made it look much like a short, wide dagger. Only one edge was ground, however. One of the Baghdad Bullet’s advantage was in its size, which could be easily hidden almost anywhere on the body. The other was that the grip was short enough to palm, and the end was rounded to fit the contours of the center of the hand. This meant that once a thrust had been made, the palm could be rolled to the butt and pushed in further. The Baghdad Bullet could then be shoved all the way into the body, from tip to the end of the Micarta slab grips.

      Once that was accomplished, it would take a surgeon to get it out again.

      The cab arrived at the Archaeological Museum. Bolan handed several bills over the seat to the driver and got out. He forced himself to frown, looking up and down the street as if he couldn’t decide which way to go first. But as soon as the cab had driven away, he pulled the map out of his pocket again and took off down the sidewalk.

      According to Kurtzman’s computer probe, Mani Bartovi, the driver who had manned the cab in which Sobor had escaped, lived less than a half mile away.

      Bolan walked swiftly but casually, stepping around the many Tehranians who still crowded the bazaars. At the stands he passed he saw everything from foot-high cones of sugar to donkey saddlebags, camel saddles and intricately embroidered women’s purses.

      The Executioner had left the map in his hand as he walked, using it not only for reference but to further his guise as a foreign sightseer. Three blocks from the museum, he turned onto a side street and followed it two more blocks to another residential area with a brownstone wall separating the houses from the street. The only difference he could see between this neighborhood and the one where the Hezbollah house had been located was that this area of town was in a sadder state of disrepair. Chunks of the brownstone had fallen, or been knocked out, and the sidewalk was cracked and pitted. Here and there on the wall, spray paint announced the feelings of the younger Iranians. Many of the slogans ranted against the “Great Satan America.” But others railed out against Iran’s own oppressive Islamic fundamentalist leaders, and called for freedom and reform.

      Bolan came to the number on the wall he’d been looking for, and found that the gate leading

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