Lethal Compound. Don Pendleton

had done little to stop the Southwest Asian heroin trade, but many routes had been closed, many drug warlords had been toppled. The situation was in flux and there were vacuums to be filled. The Chinese underworld and the mostly off-the-leash venture capitalists were always looking for opportunity, and with the U.S. and coalition forces in a state of occupation in Afghanistan, having one of the richest and most influential men in America on your side could smooth smuggling matters considerably.

      Kurtzman read Bolan’s mind. “The Pentagon is thinking the same thing, but I don’t buy it. A man who willingly lost millions in the gem trade over his moral issues just isn’t the guy who’s going to set himself up in the international trade in junk. He doesn’t need the money. I just don’t buy it.”

      Bolan had to admit that he didn’t, either. He’d only spoken to Eckhart for a few seconds but the vibe was wrong, and if Gary Manning said Eckhart seemed to be a stand-up guy, Bolan was willing to trust the big Canadian’s instincts.

      Okay, lets get back to archaeology. Dr. Klein and Nancy Rhynman both specialize in the ancient Greeks. Why would Eckhart be consulting them about Tajikistan? Bolan glanced at the map on his computer screen. That’s three thousand miles off course.

      “It is a conundrum,” Kurtzman admitted. “You’re just going to have to take the meeting and then you can tell me.”

      You have gear in place for me? Bolan typed.

      “A man is going to meet you when you get off the plane and give you a key. Take a cab from the airport. There’s a storage facility a few miles down the road. You’ll have a map, the key and the account number. The storage unit has a Land Rover parked in it and everything you asked for and everything else we could think of on our end.”

      Thanks, Bear, Bolan typed. Anything else pertinent?

      “Yeah, I took Manning’s info and found our Gurkha. Lalbahadur Rai reached the rank of havildar, which is the equivalent of sergeant in the British Army. He served with the British Brigade of Gurkhas C Company, Second Battalion, Parachute Regiment. He served with distinction and when it came time to re-enlist he opted to go to work in the private sector for the firm Global Risks. He served from 2005 through 2007. What he did there is company classified. We can find out but it will take a dedicated hack and some time.”

      That’s enough to start with. With any luck he and I are going to end up being allies, Bolan typed.

      “So you have a plan?”

      Yeah. Bolan checked his watch. Touchdown in London was another two hours away. I’m going to take a nap, eat the in-flight breakfast and then take a meeting with a billionaire.

      3

      London

      The Endeavor team meeting was in ten minutes. Bolan had gotten off the plane, ignored the man in chauffeur livery holding the sign that read Matt Cooper, met his Stony Man contact, gotten a cab, gone to the storage facility and geared up. Phillip Eckhart was the kind of man who did everything right. He didn’t go in for gold-plated toothbrushes and diamond-studded toilets, but he did insist on quality. The Stafford Hotel was not the fanciest in London, it lacked amenities like an in-house spa and gym and the rooms were not palatial. What the Stafford had was class and many travelers considered it the best hotel in London. The eighty-room Edwardian town house was centrally located on a secluded street with its own private access to Green Park and it had service in spades.

      Eckhart had been mildly surprised when the Executioner had walked into the bar and introduced himself as Matt Cooper. He had looked Bolan up and down like he might examine a new company’s prospectus and apparently liked what he saw. He told Bolan that his good buddy from Canada had recommended him highly and that was good enough for him. He’d handed Bolan a folder full of files and asked him to peruse it at his leisure before the private dinner meeting later.

      Back in his room Bolan examined each personnel file, scanned it and then e-mailed it to the Farm. Phillip Eckhart had hired himself his own private army. The men were from all corners of the globe, but so were Eckhart’s business contacts, and he had told Bolan each man came highly recommended from one respected source or another. Just as Bolan had himself.

      Bolan ran the files a second time. Each man had served in private military forces. If you had served in your national army with distinction, had a useful military specialty, or had the magic “Special Forces” moniker attached to your record you could earn, double, triple or even quadruple pay compared to regular military service. The opportunity to safeguard convoys, local royalty and political bigwigs, or bodyguard your occasional billionaire, could bring perks and social and business contacts beyond the wildest dreams of a regular serviceman.

      Bolan flipped through the files. Each one included a photo, a brief of each man’s service record and his nickname written over his picture.

      Vivian “Viv” Blackpool was an Englishman from the famous beach town of the same name. He had served in Her Majesty’s Royal Artillery. The file said he had been a forward observation officer. That meant his job was to creep behind enemy lines, find the enemy, radio back to the artillery and ground attack fighters and rain hell down on them. He’d won the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross in Afghanistan. He had a steel-wool-tight white man’s afro and a jaw like a lantern. Eckhart had written Scout on his file.

      Gobun Yagi had been a rugby player for team Kobe Steel. He’d served with Japanese 1st Airborne and been deployed to Iraq. Japan didn’t have official Special Forces but Yagi had qualified for the Central Readiness Force that was their closest equivalent. He was deeply tanned, had a shag haircut with strands of silver in it and he was grinning good-naturedly in his file photo. Eckhart had written C³ over Yagi’s photo with a red pen. C cubed stood for communications, command and control. Bolan knew that meant Yagi would be trained in battlefield communications with radios, computers and satellites. Bolan noted the warrior had also been a hand-to-hand combat instructor.

      The big American flipped to the next file.

      Yuli Simutenkov was a Russian who had served in his nation’s 10th Mountain Brigade. He had done two tours in Chechnya then deserted. Bolan had a hard time blaming him. He had then managed to smuggle himself to Paris and joined the French Foreign Legion. Eckhart had used a yellow highlighter to emphasize that while Simutenkov was ethnically Russian he had been born in the city of Shaymak, which just happened to be the most eastern city in Tajikistan. His language proficiencies were also highlighted. He spoke Russian and his native Tajik as well as Kyrg, Arabic, Mandarin, English and French. He was blue-eyed, blunt-featured and had taken up the Russian military in-the-field habit of shaving his head and then letting his skull and beard stubble grow to same length. In his photo he was smiling in a not particularly friendly fashion with a hand-rolled cigarette dangling out of his mouth. Some of his teeth were gold, some were silver and some were missing. Eckhart had written Interpreter over his picture.

      Bolan raised an eyebrow at the next photo. You didn’t hear about Hungarian mercenaries very often, but Zoltan “ZJ” Juhasz was a combat engineer who had served attached to the Hungarian 88th Rapid Reaction Force in Afghanistan. With his wavy black hair, arched eyebrows and Vandyke beard he looked like a Napoleonic Hussar, or Satan, or maybe just a man from Eastern Europe who enjoyed playing with explosives a little too much. Eckhart had written Demo Man!!! over the Hungarian’s head.

      Bolan turned the page. Gilad Shlomo Gideon, or “Giddy” had served ten years with the Israeli Field Intelligence Corps. They were tasked with collecting combat intelligence in real time during battle, which meant that there was probably very little in the way of modern warfare the man had not seen or done. He was a wiry-looking guy with curls even tighter than Blackpool’s. Medic was scrawled above his picture. Bolan frowned. Interrogation was written below it. As a battlefield intelligence man Bolan suspected Gilad was skilled in keeping the wounded alive long enough to give up the goods.

      He flipped to the next page. Pieter Van’s blond hair was almost white and his fair skin turned to saddle leather by years of fighting under the African sun. He had been a South African SAS commando and his resume read like a travelogue of every African trouble spot in the last twenty years. He’d