LITMIR.BIZ

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without the distraction of all the firepower whizzing past us, I wouldn’t have gotten to know Makkah very well.” He paused, taking in a breath as he watched Urgoma’s forehead furrow into a frown. “He and his men didn’t even show up until most of the fight was over.”

      Now Urgoma’s frown became one of disgust. “I am not surprised,” he said. “The man is assigned to be in charge of the airport. But he must spend much time here, as well. He is a coward. Nor do I trust him. He is what you Americans call—” the burly colonel frowned once more, this time looking up at the ceiling for the right word before he brought his eyes back down “—a slumbag?”

      Bolan smiled at the man’s attempt. “You’re close,” he said. “The term’s actually scumbag. ”

      “Ah, yes,” the colonel said, clasping his hands together. “I have heard that many times in your American movies.

      “Now, if you would please, Brandon, we have captured the two men who killed your government’s informant by shooting him in the back.”

      The Executioner stiffened for a moment. Such open discussion of one government working clandestinely within the borders of another country was all but unheard-of.

      Urgoma was, indeed, honest. Maybe too honest for his own good.

      “The two men are being interrogated even as we speak,” Urgoma went on. “One of your CIA officers is also here.” The smile he gave Bolan held both mirth and a tinge of sadism. “He is observing.”

      Bolan started to speak but Urgoma cut him off. “Please,” the colonel said, holding up a hand. “I have always been a good judge of character, and my intuition about you tells me you are a realist like myself. And between men like us, there is no reason to play games. So let us lay our cards on the table, so to speak. Everyone knows that CIA agents work out of your American Embassy. It is that way all over the world. We accept that fact.” He paused and laughed. “And as I am sure you are aware yourself, we have our men who do the same spy-work using the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.”

      Bolan smiled. Yes, Captain Abdul Urgoma was a realist, and obviously didn’t like wasting time any more than the Executioner did.

      Bolan was liking this stocky man more and more as he got to know him.

      ‘So,” Urgoma said, “let us go see if my men have learned anything new since I left the room to answer this door.” He nodded toward the splintered wood where Makkah had exited, then turned and started down another short hallway.

      Bolan followed. “That last statement,” he said as they walked. “It implies that you’ve already learned something. Care to share it with me?”

      Urgoma continued to walk but twisted his head as he did. “I am afraid we have not learned a great deal,” he said. “And my men have been extremely…well, shall we say, persuasive? ”

      The Executioner knew exactly what that meant. Beatings. Or other torture. Or both.

      When Bolan didn’t respond, Urgoma went on. “But what we have learned, I sincerely believe, is of the most extreme importance.”

      “And that would be…?” Bolan asked, letting the sentence trail off to become a question.

      Colonel Abdul Urgoma stopped in his tracks. He was several inches shorter than Bolan, so to look him in the eye he had to tilt his chin upward. He did so now. Then, taking a deep breath, he said, “We have learned that someone is about to ship a large amount of plutonium into Sudan.”

      The Executioner stared back down into the dark brown eyes. So that was why he’d been sent by the President to Sudan.

      Urgoma had been right.

      Suddenly, the investigation had taken on a whole new level of importance and urgency.

       2

      Bolan heard a sharp cracking sound as Urgoma opened the door, stepped back and ushered him into the interrogation room. As he walked through the opening, he saw the head of a man wearing a lightweight tropical suit snap backward. The suit was white.

      Or at least it had been at one time.

      As he entered the room, the Executioner saw the bloodstains covering the light material of the man’s jacket. It looked almost as if it had been tie-dyed. So did his head, for that matter. Bumps and bruises of every color and description covered his face, and a good deal of once-red blood had already dried into dark brown crusts, telling Bolan that the beating had been going on for some time.

      The Executioner stopped just inside the door. The room was even more grungy than the rest of the building, with candy wrappers and other papers littering the floor. Cobwebs grew in every corner, and from the ceiling a spider was working its web down toward the table behind which the bloody man sat.

      But the man the Executioner had just seen punched wasn’t alone. Next to him sat another, equally beaten face. In contrast to his clean-shaved partner, this man wore a thin, carefully manicured mustache. But it was due for a shampoo. Blood had seeped from the nostrils above it and matted it wetly against his upper lip until it looked as if it had been soaked in some sort of setting gel. And this man’s lightweight suit—similar to his partner’s—was in no better shape, either.

      Two uniformed Sudan National Police officers were in the room, and they both turned toward the door as it opened. One, a tall, lanky man exhibiting more Arabic than African heritage, wore black leather gloves. It had been he who had just delivered the punch, and now he smiled at Urgoma as the colonel closed the door behind them.

      The other SNP officer’s hands were bare. But from the fingers of his right extended the weighted end of a leather-covered sap. The black leather was as shiny with blood, mucus and other body fluids as the bloody mustache.

      A third man, smoking an unfiltered cigarette, stood in the corner next to a table that held an old black rotary telephone. Like the beaten men at the table he, too, wore a suit of light color and material. But it was spotless, and the man wearing it smiled as if he were enjoying a good movie, stage play or opera.

      The CIA man, Bolan had to figure. For a moment, a rush of anger flooded over the Executioner. The anger was directed at the Sudanese National Police but even more so at the CIA operative who stood by, excitedly watching this torture, and knowing he would never be held responsible because the Sudanese were the actual torturers.

      If for nothing but pragmatic reasons, the agent should have learned through his training that torture was never called for. First and foremost, physical torture wasn’t a reliable way to obtain the truth. Men being beaten told those beating them whatever they thought was most likely to halt the beating. Sometimes that was the truth. Other times it wasn’t.

      Bolan turned to Urgoma. “Can I see you in the hall for a moment?” he asked.

      “Certainly.”

      “You, too, my friend,” the Executioner added, turning toward the CIA agent.

      The CIA man dropped the butt of his cigarette on the floor and ground it out with the heel of his shoe.

      Bolan opened the door. “Tell your men to take a brief break, will you, Colonel?”

      Urgoma nodded, turned toward the table and said something in Arabic. The other two uniformed men nodded, then walked to the wall and leaned against it, both pulling their own cigarettes from shirt pockets.

      When they were in the hallway with the door closed again, the Executioner turned toward the CIA man. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

      “Sims,” the man said, still grinning. “Bill Sims.” He paused for a moment, the smile staying on his face but turning more sarcastic than happy. “And you must be the hotshot superagent we got the call about from our director. The one who’s so damn good we’re supposed to just follow him around like puppy dogs.”

      “It sounds like you have a smart director,” Bolan said. “One who listens to the President.”

      Sims

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