LITMIR.BIZ

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detector portals.

      Right between the eyes, Bolan thought. A head shot, most likely done with a split-second target acquisition. Whoever did this had good marksmanship skills to effect a head shot at that distance.

      Inspector Dorao motioned them forward and they moved through the portals, the alarms going off as each of them passed.

      Dorao’s eyebrows lifted as he regarded Bolan and Grimaldi. “May I assume you have special permission to carry concealed weapons?”

      “We came right here from another assignment,” Bolan said. “There was concern that this might be the first of several attacks.”

      Dorao shook his head. “Let us hope not. But your weapons are of little importance to me at this point.” He gestured toward the elevators. “There were two bodies in the elevator. Others in the security office. Come. I will show you the rest. Upstairs. Be warned. It is not pretty.”

      After leading Bolan and Grimaldi through the rest of the building, pointing out where each fatality had occurred, Dorao looked visibly drained. The last scene was a large room on the second floor into which a group of people had been herded. The floor was splattered with pools of blood. A profusion of small, yellow, plastic markers with bold, black numbers covered the floor, indicating expended shell casings. These were 7.62 mm—rifle shells for an AK-47 or SKS.

      A row of computers and monitors lined up on a series of desks near the inside wall had been totally destroyed, the screens riddled with holes, the computer themselves smashed.

      “They expended a substantial amount of rounds on those,” Bolan said, pointing to the ruined devices.

      “A few computers in the building survived, but are infected with a virus of some sort,” Dorao advised, raising an eyebrow. “Interesting, do you not think?”

      Bolan studied the debris and nodded, saying nothing as he continued to look around. Lines of blood had been scribbled on the lemon-colored wall next to the door. Although the bodies had been removed, the stench of death still hung in the room. Bolan could smell something else, as well...a faint trace of smoke.

      “Was there a fire set in the building?” Bolan asked.

      Dorao nodded. “In the office down the hallway. How did you know?”

      Bolan tapped his index finger against his nose, his face maintaining a grim expression. “Did the sprinkler system activate?”

      Dorao shook his head and shrugged. “The system was turned off.”

      “I’d like to see that area, Inspector,” Bolan said.

      “I will show you.”

      “That say what I think it says?” Grimaldi asked, pointing to the wall.

      Bolan nodded. “Allah akhbar. Arabic. God is great.”

      There were more crime scene technicians taking pictures inside the first office, which had apparently been an administrative section. The floors and walls showed the burned, black arches of an accelerant. A large pile of ashes sat near a series of file cabinets, the drawers of which had been left standing open. The computer monitor had several bullet holes spider-webbing the screen.

      Bolan pointed to the pile of ashes. “What do you make of that?” he asked.

      Dorao raised an eyebrow and then shook his head. “I try to make no assumptions until I have examined all of the evidence.”

      They moved to the other office, which had belonged to Mr. Chevalier, the company president. More blood stained the desk in the anteroom, where the secretary’s body had been found. A similarly damaged computer was on the floor next to her desk. They walked through a door into Chevalier’s office. The back of the leather chair behind the mahogany desk showed a series of bloodstained holes and more blood was centered on the paper blotter on top of the desk.

      “The bodies of Monsieur Chevalier and his personal assistant were found in this room,” Dorao said.

      Bolan glanced around. “You said that all of the computers in the building were damaged?”

      The inspector nodded. “Most of them. As I told you, two were left unharmed but were infected with some sort of virus. This one also had a bullet in it. Interesting, isn’t it?”

      Bolan and Grimaldi exchanged glances. Before they could ask anything further, Dorao’s cell phone rang and he answered it. Bolan tried to follow the one side of the conversation as best he could, but the inspector didn’t say much and his French was much too rapid. As he terminated the call and lowered his hand, his nostrils flared and he stared at the two Americans.

      “Bad news?” Grimaldi asked.

      “Perhaps so, perhaps not,” Dorao said. “More bodies about five kilometers from here.”

      Private Learjet

      Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

      THE TALON GLANCED at his watch and assumed the police would have discovered the bodies in the Chevalier Institute by now. His plan had been perfectly executed, right down to the final details. Smiling slightly, he wondered if the additional bodies had been located yet. It would have been safer to dump the rifles into a well or canal, but the tight time schedule and the possibility of someone seeing him had prohibited it. As it stood, the chances that the authorities would eventually see through the terrorist ruse was a strong possibility. But no matter. The media would immediately pick up on the Allah akhbar scribbled on the wall and that would take precedence. By the time everything was sorted out, the whole incident would have faded from the news.

      And he would be retired and lying on a beach somewhere, the Talon thought.

      Tying up loose ends had delayed his departure, but it could not have been avoided. Recalling how the bodies fell, he felt a twinge of regret as he thought about leaving the Heckler & Koch pistol. It had such a smooth trigger pull, and the higher sights allowed quick target acquisition with a silencer. The added benefit of the trimmed grip allowed for such a nice, tight feeling as the weapon recoiled. It was an almost erotic feeling. But such dalliances were counterproductive and at times even dangerous.

      The Talon recalled a former associate, a German, who’d developed a misplaced and almost perverse affection for his favorite pistol, a SIG Sauer P-220, keeping the gun after it had been used in several assassinations, and even going so far as to name it Adolph.

      The perversion, and the gun, proved to be his undoing when two police officers caught him and matched the ballistics, tying him to the murders.

      Since the Talon had assisted the German in two of them, and knowing that anyone who would be stupid enough to affix a name to an inanimate object could not be trusted, the only option was to kill the man, which he did. A long-range shot to the head as he was being escorted from the jail building to the car had resolved the problem, just as eliminating the hired thugs who had helped him with the Chevalier Institute had provided a similar resolution. He did feel a twinge of regret about Henri Lupin, however. He had been the best passport forger in the game. But all of this fell under the heading of necessity: the importance of tying up all loose ends.

      After all, this was to be his final assignment.

      He stretched and contemplated retirement on a beach or an island in the Caribbean surrounded by beautiful, sun-tanned bodies and icy-cold drinks in frosted glasses.

      But those fantasies were best left for another time. He had much work ahead of him, and all of it challenging.

      One of the two flight attendants, a pretty black woman in a gold-colored uniform with a Stevenson Dynamics patch above her left breast, walked to his seat.

      “Would you like something to drink, Mr. Holland?” she asked, using the name on his false passport.

      “Sure,” he said, affecting his American accent. “Ah, what time will we be landing?”

      “About 8:00 p.m., sir,” she said, her smile unwavering.

      “Okay, I guess

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