Face Of Terror. Don Pendleton

to the new light, as he took the seat next to Bolan. He continued to squint as Brognola looked up, frowning slightly at Bolan.

      “Where’s Jack?” the big Fed asked.

      “I put him in charge of overseeing the Lear’s restocking,” Bolan answered.

      “You can fill him in while you’re in the air,” Brognola said.

      Brognola glanced at the man with the white beard and hair. “First, I’d like to introduce Mr. John Sampson.”

      Sampson leaned across the table and shook hands with both Bolan and Jessup. Bolan introduced himself as Matt Cooper. Jessup used his real name.

      Brognola spoke again. “Mr. Sampson’s reason for being here, and his role in this mission, will become apparent as we go.” He looked back down at the open file in front of him and said, “So far, this group we’re interested in has been responsible for seven bank robberies in the Midwest, three kidnappings—with two of the victims found dead even though the ransom was paid—and they appear to have a Mexican connection for both cocaine and heroin. That deal you just broke up, it was—”

      “I wouldn’t say we broke it up,” the Executioner interrupted. “The guys with the money got away.”

      “At least the dope won’t hit the street,” Brognola said, using almost the identical words Jessup had chosen back in the Oklahoma panhandle. He cleared his throat and then continued. “The third kidnap victim is the daughter of a Georgia state senator,” he said. “The FBI’s negotiating her release even as we speak.”

      “A release that won’t happen until she’s dead,” Bolan said.

      “That’s what the two earlier kidnappings would suggest,” Brognola came back.

      “How much are they demanding, Hal?” Bolan asked.

      “An even million.”

      Jessup let out a high-pitched whistle.

      “Are we sure that all these crimes—the drug deals, robberies, kidnaps—can be attributed to the same group of men?” Bolan said.

      “Reasonably sure,” Brognola said. “In all of the bank jobs they wore Nam leaf cammies and black ski masks. There’s enough similarities in their method of operation inside the banks to tip the scales that way, too. Some variance in height and weight descriptions, skin color on their hands and such. But that’s to be expected.”

      The Executioner nodded. He knew that if a hundred people watched the same crime go down, you’d get a hundred different versions of the story. The human mind played tricks on the average citizen who encountered the unusual life-or-death situation, and investigating officers had to take such things into account.

      “The primary link, though, is that everyone at the banks—and I mean everyone— agreed that they spoke a foreign language when communicating with each other. Most thought it was Arabic but weren’t sure.”

      “Arab terrorists are always the first to come to mind these days,” Bolan noted. “It doesn’t mean that they aren’t Arabs. But it doesn’t mean that they are, either.”

      All of the heads around the table nodded their agreement. Then Brognola said, “And when they shouted out orders to the customers, it was in broken English and heavily accented.”

      “Broken English is easy enough to fake, too,” Bolan said. “Not that I’m discounting the possibility that they’re Arabs of some kind. Just playing the devil’s advocate here.”

      “I know,” Brognola said, nodding.

      “What about the negotiations on the kidnappings?” Jessup asked.

      “Same thing,” Brognola said. “All done in broken English, with a heavy accent of some kind. There’s another kind of strange aspect to these abductions, though,” he added.

      “And it is?” the Executioner said.

      “They haven’t warned the parents about going to the police. Fact is, they’ve ordered them to. Told them they wouldn’t negotiate any ransom or releases with anyone except the FBI.”

      “That does sound a little off the wall,” Jessup said.

      “Maybe not,” Bolan said, shaking his head. “These men—Arabs, Iranians or whoever they actually are—were trained someplace and trained well. So far, I’d put their skills right up there with our own Special Forces.”

      Brognola looked a little surprised. Bolan, he well knew, was former Army Special Forces himself, and now he was comparing these robbers, kidnappers and murderers to other men like himself.

      Bolan directed a weary smile at his old friend. “Don’t take that wrong, Hal,” he said. “All I’m saying is that as well as being more-than-competent fighters, they’re smart. And they know that while the FBI will be trying to catch them, the Feds won’t pull anything stupid that puts the victim in further jeopardy. They’ll ask for an FBI agent to deliver the money, too, is my guess. Because the Feds’ first concern is getting the girl back safe and sound. Fathers—now, that’s a different story. They aren’t trained for situations like this, and holding up under this kind of pressure is just flat-out impossible for most men. The kidnappers know if they deal with a father or husband, or any other family member, they’re dealing with a loose cannon. Their behavior is completely unpredictable while the FBI agent’s isn’t.”

      The room went silent for a few seconds, then Brognola turned toward the man with the white hair and beard. “Now, let me tell you exactly where Mr. John Sampson fits into all this.”

      “You want to cut out that ‘Mr.’stuff, please?” Sampson said. “We’re all in this together, and I don’t see any of us wearing military uniforms anymore.”

      Brognola gave the man a weary smile. “John was 101st Airborne in Nam,” he said. “Served two tours. Then he went to work in the oilfields of Iran for two years—that was back when the shah was still running the show—before coming back here and starting his own oil company. He sold the oil company a few years ago and became a professor at George Washington University.”

      “So what do you teach, John?” Jessup asked. “Geology or something?”

      “Not even close,” Sampson said. “Linguistics.”

      “John noticed some discrepancies in the way some of the bank robbers spoke,” Brognola cut in. “He just happened to be one of the customers in one of the banks when it was robbed.”

      Sampson nodded. “What I did learn, and what I can tell you, is that they weren’t Arabs. Or at least they weren’t speaking Arabic. It was Farsi. Most definitely Farsi.”

      Bolan studied Sampson’s penetrating stare. Finally, the man with the white beard sat back in his chair again. “And I can tell you another thing,” Sampson said. “Farsi was a second language with them.”

      “How could you know that?” Jessup asked.

      Bolan knew the answer, but he let Sampson explain it for Jessup’s benefit.

      “Because,” Sampson said, “while they were fluent in the language, a lot of it was what I’d call textbook Farsi. Way too formal for actual speech. You know how people who learned English in a classroom instead of growing up with it talk? It was sort of like that.”

      “Iran and Iraq are next-door neighbors,” Bolan said. “It’s not that unusual for people from both countries—especially along the border—to speak both languages.”

      “You’re right,” Sampson said, turning back to the Executioner. “But these bank robbers all had really strange accents—the likes of which I never heard when I was living in that part of the world. And believe me, I traveled all over Iran. I still couldn’t place their accents.” He paused long enough to lean back in his seat and cross his arms. “And there’s one other thing,” he said.

      Bolan, Jessup and