And yet.
And yet behind that veneer of easy confidence and untroubled directness lurked another force altogether.
He could feel it on this chill mountain morning.
It was a darkness. It was something disarmingly strong.
It was a visible danger emanating from this big man. Morganslicht did not like it at all.
9
Jack Grimaldi dipped the small helicopter down for a closer look at what the commotion was about.
He checked his map for bearings, decided he was about ten kilometers past Fussen, about ten from Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Bavarian Alps stood like Prussian guards between the German and Austrian borders, looming impassibly high in the distance. He hoped he could locate Striker's signal soon. He had little desire to fight the treacherous, twisting air currents that swirled around those mountains. Except that Jack Grimaldi would do anything for Mack Bolan, and death be damned.
The Bell dropped five hundred feet in seconds, the better for him to get a closer look at the two men fighting in an open field. One of the men stopped just as he was about to throw a punch into the face of the smaller man and looked up at the helicopter. The smaller man did not bother to look up. He took advantage of the distraction to dig a sharp blow into his opponent's hefty stomach. The bigger man doubled over, clutching his middle, allowing the other to club him across the face with both hands clasped together. Jack decided it was nothing but a personal matter, certainly nothing to do with the Sarge or his mission. Just as he was about to pull away, he saw the reason for the fight. A beautiful, buxom girl ran out from behind a bush and hugged the smaller man, covering his face with grateful kisses. As the bigger man writhed on the grass, the happy couple looked up at Jack and waved a thanks. He grinned and waved back, swinging the chopper back up into his surveillance pattern.
It was nice to see the good guys win sometimes, he grinned. Which was exactly why an ex-contract pilot for the Mafia was out combing the hills and valleys of southern Germany with a map and a radio receiver tuned to a highly refined frequency, sent out by a tiny transmitter designed and built by one Herman "Gadgets"" Schwarz, the resident Thomas Alva Edison of Stony Man Farm.
Grimaldi had been following the transmission since Bolan had activated it inside the Saab.
Jack had kept the chopper at its maximum distance of eight kilometers so as not to tip off Bolan's new buddies... But he had lost them somewhere here in the mountains. Apowerful jamming signal had cut him off completely. "Stay hard, Sarge," Grimaldi had said aloud. "But stay alive." Then a faint but distant beep-beep sounded in his headphones. He maneuvered the chopper until he found the strongest signal. The doctor finds the pulse, he thought happily. And so he manhandled the throttle for maximum speed.
10
Bolan did not move. Not an inch. Not a breath. He kept his hands in plain sight and studied Thomas Morganslicht's shouting, contorted face.
Nope, he'd never met this man before; a quick sortie through his photographic memory had revealed that much and no more.
So the big guy stayed cool, looked appropriately confused, waited for an explanation of why that 9mm Luger was waving menacingly in his face.
"Thomas!" Tanya snapped, stepping toward him. "Was ist loss hier?
"Yeah, buddy," Bolan asked. "What is the matter?"
Thomas Morganslicht looked at the two dozen or so of his faithful who had gathered around to investigate his hollering, and he could see the mixture of curiosity and doubt in their bovine expressions. He knew that the amount of their loyalty was based on the sum of their collective experiences of fear, and therefore he aimed to unsettle them all with a shrill threat or two in the direction of the American.
Thomas holstered his Luger and laughed. It sounded like a stick scraping cement. "Just a little test of courage, Sergeant Grendal," he said, wiping the chill sweat from his forehead. "Like you have in your American universities. Fraternity, uh." He turned to his sister. "Wie heist das?"
"Initiation."
"Ja. Initiation."
He smiled.
Tanya looked at her brother with concern, but forced a hearty laugh. Several of the gathered group chuckled amiably and began to disperse. Rudi the bear did neither. He had been staring at Bolan with something more than contempt, perhaps even more than hate.
Occasionally one of his thick cracked lips would curl up into a half-snarl, displaying his repulsive teeth and gums. He tapped the hunk of wood methodically against his leg. Bolan glanced around the hardsite as if he were taking in some charming scenery.
By the time his eyes had swung back to the front porch of Thomas's cabin, he had estimated the personnel strength at about thirty, mostly armed with East German copies of the Soviet Makarov pistol. He had also determined that the hostages were being held in the locked garage a few cabins down, where two armed men stood guard. He had also noted the dried blood on the end of Rudi's log.
"Perhaps we should step inside?" Tanya urged her brother. "We have much to discuss."
"Yes, of course. But first, Rudi must search you, Sergeant Grendal. It is merely a, uh."
"Formality?" Bolan offered.
"Right. A formality."
"This better be a hell of a fraternity." Bolan leaned up against the wall of the cabin as Rudi frisked him roughly, occasionally using the wood club to prod.
Bolan endured the search for concealed weapons silently. He had planted Gadgets's transmitter within the Saab, rather than on his person.
He would need that transmitter. It was Grimaldi's means for locating the scene of action in order to pick up the hostages.
Rudi finished up his search and gave Bolan one last prod with his log. "Just this," he growled, tossing, the Beretta to Thomas.
"Clean of heart, pure of spirit," Bolan laughed, turning around. He smiled at Thomas and Tanya in turn, but let his smile rest on Rudi for a few extra seconds.
In those seconds, although his expression did not change, Bolan conveyed a silent message, a promise of things to come.
The driver, Hans, came out of one of the cabins, a mug of steaming coffee cupped in both hands. "Was noch?" he asked Thomas.
"Unload the weapon and drive the car to Munich. Wait there for further instructions."
Thomas then opened the cabin door and waved Bolan in. "'Shall we, Sergeant Grendal?"
Bolan entered the cabin without looking back at the car. Within a few minutes the transmitter would be on its way to Munich, with Jack Grimaldi following close behind, pursuing a signal and waiting for a coded message. Well, yeah, the Executioner had been alone before. Maybe he preferred it that way.
11
Jack Grimaldi flew the chopper with one eye on the sky and one on the maps spread out next to him. He had not eaten since yesterday afternoon, and was only now paying attention to the grumbling sounds of his stomach. "Easy does it," he said to his stomach. "Dr. Grimaldi has a nice big dose of sauerbraten waiting for you. Just a few more miles." He had followed the signal for almost thirty kilometers now, and there was no doubt where it was heading. The driving was slow and steady. Not like on the way down from Frankfurt, when the car had rocketed along the Autobahn at 150 kph. No, this driver was in no hurry, he had no major drive ahead.
Grimaldi nodded his head and smiled. In a few minutes he would be able to set his babying down and phone in the target area. Within an hour the hotspot would be pinpointed and surrounded with ground support.
Grimaldi would be at his receiver and waiting for the final countdown from Striker. Yeah, within an hour, all their forces would be concentrated on the car's destination.