Splinter Cell. Don Pendleton

see who could pull out the most bags in the shortest period of time. By the time it was over, a second bellman had come down a concrete ramp with a rolling luggage rack, and all three began piling Bolan’s and Paxton’s bags onto the glistening stainless-steel bars.

      The Executioner paid the driver, adding a tip sufficient enough to bring a smile back to the man’s face. Then he and Paxton followed the blond bellman up the steps to the Amstel’s front doors. Bolan didn’t like letting their luggage out of his own control, but he could see no way around it at this point. Besides, he reminded himself, each suitcase that contained “sensitive” items was secured by a sturdy padlock. There was no reason for the cabdriver, the blond bellman or the other uniformed man who had brought the cart down the ramp to suspect their luggage contained anything more lethal than adding machines and laptops.

      Once inside the lobby, the blond bellman escorted them past a grand staircase and into the Amstel Mirror Room lounge. The walls were, as the name of the room suggested, covered in reflective glass, and men and women in tuxedos, white ties and tails, and the most elegant of evening dresses were using the mirrors to their fullest, showing off their finery.

      “I gotta tell ya,” Brick Paxton whispered out of the side of his mouth, “this beats the hell out of being covered in talcum-powder sand all day and taking a bath with baby wipes in Iraq.”

      Bolan just nodded as the bellman ushered them to the front check-in desk, then stepped back and bowed. “Mr. Cooper and Mr. McBride,” he said, “Pietre is already taking your luggage to your suite.” His smile widened as he stood motionless in that practiced way that bellmen at finer hotels all over the world developed. It was Bolan’s cue for another tip, so he reached into his pocket once more.

      Again, the man who had helped them seemed thoroughly satisfied.

      An older concierge in a tasteful black suit appeared at their side. “If you would, sirs,” he said with a sweeping gesture. “I will show you to your suite.” Without waiting for an answer, he strode off, leading them toward a bank of elevators at the end of a short hall.

      Bolan smiled behind the man’s back. Top hotel officials had their moves down as well as any good counterterrorist team, he reminded himself. Just as many of them as possible got in on every act so everyone could receive a tip.

      A few minutes later they were on the fourteenth floor and heading down the thick carpeted hall. The door to suite 14307 was already open, and the man the blond bellman had called Pietre was just finishing unloading their bags.

      The concierge opened the curtains and let in the lights of the city. It was a beautiful view, and had the Executioner been in Amsterdam for pleasure rather than to locate and rescue a nuclear scientist being held by terrorists, he was certain he would have appreciated it. As it was, he simply reached into his pocket, pulled out enough money for two more tips and said goodbye to the concierge and the bellman with the luggage rack.

      As soon as the two men had gone, Bolan and Paxton carried the suitcases containing their clothing into separate bedrooms, then met back in the living room and took seats on facing wooden love seats. The Executioner glanced around quickly. The way they had come in was also the only way out. He didn’t like that. But there was little he could do about it. The fact that the suite itself was as elegantly furnished as the Amstel’s downstairs areas made little impression on him one way or another. He had slept in beds built for kings. And he had slept without a blanket or pillow in the same sands of Iraq Paxton had mentioned earlier. He couldn’t have cared less about luxury.

      He was here to do a job, to save a man’s life. The life of a man more than capable of building a nuclear bomb.

      By doing so, Bolan would save the lives of countless others.

      The Executioner leaned down and pulled his equipment bags to the front of the love seat. After opening all of the padlocks on his luggage, Bolan unzipped the innocuous-looking suitcase nearest to him and pulled out a custom-made Kydex and ballistic nylon shoulder holster. Inside the Kydex was his Beretta 93-R, the long sound suppressor already threaded onto the 9 mm barrel. The pistol came out of the holster with a clicking sound, and the Executioner pointed it toward the carpet as he pulled the slide back far enough to see the gleaming brass cartridge casing already chambered. Letting the slide fall back forward, he pressed the ejection button on the side of the weapon and pulled out the magazine. It, too, was filled with RBCD Performance Plus ammunition. The special subsonic rounds stayed just under the sound barrier, assisting the sound suppressor in keeping each 9 mm bullet as quiet as possible. And the bullets themselves, round nosed rather than hollowpoints, were total fragmentation rounds that penetrated solid material like a machinist’s drill but exploded as soon as they hit anything water based.

      Like a human body.

      Satisfied that the pistol had not been tampered with since he’d handed it over to Brognola to secrete in the diplomatic pouch, Bolan reholstered the weapon and slid his arms into the shoulder rig. Next he checked the two spare 9 mm magazines in the Kydex carrier under his right arm. They, too, were filled.

      Finally Bolan turned his attention to the Kydex sheath mounted under the magazine carrier. Extending just below the spare 9 mm boxes was a Ka-bar fighting knife.

      Bolan drew the knife from its sheath. Slowly he rolled up the sleeve of his white shirt and shaved a short section of hair off his arm. The weapon was razor-sharp, and ready.

      Across from Bolan, the Army Ranger pulled out a shoulder rig not dissimilar to Bolan’s own. Constructed of the same hard plastic Kydex and black ballistic nylon, the only differences were that the shoulder system was equipped with two holsters rather than one. And in those holsters, Bolan saw a matched pair of black-parkerized Colt Commander .45s.

      As Paxton began his own weapons check, Bolan turned back to the suitcase at his feet. The next item to appear in his hands had become something of a trademark for the Executioner. The .44 magnum Desert Eagle was a huge pistol that had been developed more for hunting and long-range silhouette shooting than combat. And, indeed, it would have proved to be a poor choice as a fighting pistol to most men. But Bolan was not most men, and he had the hand size required to manipulate the safety and other features of the big gun, and the strength to handle the massive recoil the way most men would handle a .22.

      Again, he checked both the chamber and magazine in the Desert Eagle. Then the pair of extra magazines. Satisfied, he stood and slid the holster through his belt, letting it come to rest on his right hip. He clipped the magazine carrier on his opposite side, just behind where the Beretta’s sound suppressor hung. He watched Paxton slide into his double .45 rig, then reach down into his bag and pull out a short dagger. The blade was invisible inside a brown Kydex sheath, but the handle had been made from some strange material that was an off-white—almost yellow—color with darker brown slots running from pommel to hilt.

      Bolan slipped back into his coat, covering his guns and knife.

      “Your knife handle,” Bolan said, his eyes on the strange-looking blade now clipped to Paxton’s belt on the side. “The grip. Cactus?”

      The Army Ranger nodded. He drew the knife in a reverse grip and extended it cactus-end first.

      “The light cactus keeps the weight down,” Paxton said. “Besides that, it has another special meaning to me.”

      Bolan looked up from the dagger, curious.

      “It was a birthday gift from Phil. He had it made for me from some guy in Texas.”

      Bolan nodded his understanding as he examined the double-edged weapon, noting the deep Damascus whorl patterns on both sides. The blade was approximately four inches long, and the whole thing couldn’t have weighed more than a few ounces. He handed it back.

      “What have we got as far as bigger stuff goes?” Paxton asked as he, too, now stood to put his jacket back on.

      Bolan took a step away from the love seat and lifted a larger, heavier bag. Carrying it to the coffee table in the middle of the living room, he set it on top and unzipped it. Reaching inside, he pulled out a long, odd-looking pistol with a huge tubular drum magazine attached to the top.