Killing Game. Don Pendleton

threatened to burst apart with every bounce brought on by the man’s steps. The stub of a cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth, sending wisps of smoke upward into the air. Without bothering to greet them, the man in the filthy undershirt reached beneath the counter, pulled out a registry card and slid it across the slick top.

      Bolan registered them as Mr. and Mrs. Josh Murphy, of Enid, Oklahoma.

      The unshaven man dropped a key attached to a large wooden stick on the countertop and said simply, “Passports.”

      Bolan reached into one of the bags and pulled out a pair of the blue booklets. They had been made up for both him and Platinov by experts at Stony Man Farm, the top-secret counterterrorist installation with whom the Executioner sometimes worked.

      The man in the dirty clothing glanced at the pictures inside the passports. As the Executioner and Marynka Platinov moved toward the elevator, Bolan noticed him leering at the Russian woman’s buttocks as she walked.

      Platinov appeared to notice it, too. A slightly disgusted frown spread across her face.

      A few minutes later, Bolan unlocked a door beneath the number 307. Holding it open for Platinov, he looked in to see the sparsely furnished room. A threadbare brown plaid bedspread was stretched tightly across the twin bed, and a chipped wooden table and two chairs set against a wall. Other than that, the room was empty.

      “You always take me to the nicest places, Cooper,” Platinov said, dropping her bags on the bed.

      “Thanks, Plat,” he said simply. He dropped his own luggage on the ragged rug on the floor. But immediately, he picked up the canvas bag that contained what they had collected from the corpses at the safe house. Setting it on the table, he took a seat in one of the splintery wooden chairs.

      Platinov sat down across from him.

      Bolan unzipped the bag, then turned it over, dumping the contents onto the tabletop. Out came a wide variety of objects, from key rings and more hideout guns and knives, to folded papers, receipts, chewing gum wrappers, billfolds, money clips and broken cigarettes. One man had been a cigar smoker, and a leather cigar case carried three medium-sized cigars with Cuban wrappers.

      Bolan examined the cigars, careful not to touch the label, which might retain a fingerprint. Rising to his feet, he dropped the cigar and moved to the bed. From one of the black, zippered cases he produced a small fingerprint kit and a package of blank index cards. He returned to his chair.

      “Separate everything that might hold a print,” he told Platinov. “And get the laptop up and ready.”

      The Russian woman rose to her feet as Bolan unscrewed the lid off of a small bottle of black fingerprint powder. Setting it down carefully, he did the same with a bottle of white powder.

      The dark powder would be used on light-colored objects such as the keys. The white was for the cigars, the smooth leather cigar case and other darker items.

      Fifteen minutes later, the tabletop was covered with both white and black powder. But the Executioner had lifted seven full prints and fourteen partials from the items that had been in the terrorists’ pockets. Two of the best had come from the cigar case itself.

      “Is the computer up and running?” Bolan asked as he pressed the clear plastic tape of the last print onto its index card.

      “Ready,” Platinov replied. She took the stack of index cards he pushed across the table to her and began to scan them via the mini-scanner plugged into one of the laptop’s USB ports.

      Pulling his satellite phone from the front breast pocket of his blazer, the Executioner tapped in the number for Stony Man Farm. The call took several seconds to connect, bouncing off numerous satellites and running through various dead-end numbers to throw off anyone who might be trying to tap in to the call.

      It was a precaution that everyone associated with Stony Man Farm always took.

      Thirty seconds later, though, the Executioner heard Barbara Price’s voice on the other end of the call. “Yes, Striker?” she said.

      “Tell Bear I’m getting ready to send him seven full fingerprints and fourteen partials,” Bolan answered. “I want him to run them through AFIS. But he also needs to hack in to the similar systems in Europe. Especially France.”

      “Affirmative, Striker,” Stony Man Farm’s honey-blond mission controller replied. “Send them on.”

      Bolan shut the phone and dropped it back into his coat pocket, then reached across the table and took the laptop from Platinov. Then, one by one, he called up the files and e-mailed them to Stony Man Farm.

      Five minutes later, the laptop beeped and a mechanized voice said, “You have mail.”

      Bolan tapped the appropriate keys to open the e-mail from Aaron the “Bear” Kurtzman, Stony Man Farm’s computer wizard.

      When he had read the message, the soldier said, “We’ve got a hit. It leads to another safe house address.” He grabbed a large canvas-and-leather portfolio, which looked little different than a shoulder-carried bag any tourist or French businessman might have. Quickly, he unzipped it and pulled out a long, triangular-shaped canvas case with a zipper that ran three-fourths of the way around.

      “What is that?” Platinov asked as he dropped the case into his shoulder bag and turned back to her.

      “I could tell you—” he said as they started toward the door again.

      “But then you’d have to kill me,” Platinov finished the tired, overused cliché as she rolled her eyes.

      The Executioner chuckled as he led the way down the hall to the elevators, then pressed the down button.

      A minute later, he and Platinov were striding out of the lobby of the hotel and back to the Nissan.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Bolan kept the Nissan just under the speed limit as he and Platinov made their way toward the next safe house. He had just checked in with Stony Man and learned that what had begun as mere rumors that CLODO was working up toward some kind of large-scale terrorist attack had now been confirmed by two independent CIA informants. And while Bolan wasn’t, and never had been, employed by the CIA—or any other government agency for that matter—he did retain an “arm’s length” relationship with Stony Man Farm. And Aaron Kurtzman, the wheelchair-bound computer genius at the Farm, regularly hacked through all of the Central Intelligence Agency’s security safeguards to obtain the intelligence information the “spooks’” field agents collected.

      Word in the terrorism underground was that CLODO was building up to something big. Something, according to one of the CIA snitches, that would reputedly make the attacks on September 11, 2001 seem like a Fourth of July fireworks display by comparison.

      Bolan knew it was true. He could feel it in his gut. Though not rigged for war, he had adequate weapons for the hit. In addition to his pistols, he had brought along his TOPS SAW knife, which was sheathed at the small of his back. Platinov had slid into the double horizontal shoulder rig that bore her twin Colt Gold Cup .45 pistols. Inside her skirt, she had the other 1911 Colt .45, and several spare mags that would fit any of the three pistols.

      After crossing the Seine and traveling some distance, they arrived at a residential area of the city. While there were still lights on in a few of the house windows, the streets were devoid of pedestrians.

      Bolan turned onto the Rue de Jeanette as Platinov pulled a small flashlight from her purse and unfolded a map of the city. Frowning in the semidarkness, she asked, “Can you see any of the house numbers?”

      Bolan nodded. “There’s 1112,” he said. The Nissan continued to roll past the next house. “We’re at 1116.”

      Platinov nodded back. “Good,” she said. “We’re going the right way. It should be about three blocks farther down on the left.” She cleared her throat. “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me the game plan?” She glanced over her shoulder