18
In the distance, the STOL was taxiing toward them, maybe another three or four minutes away, Bolan estimated. Otherwise, the airfield in Bethesda belonged to the players in this drama. According to previous arrangement, Hal Brognola was holding his men in check at the entrances to the field until he was contacted by Bolan or saw Bolan go down.
Bolan did a quick scan of the four people who were lined up before the Mercedes, facing him.
General Eshan Nazarour sat in his wheelchair. The passenger quarters of the Mercedes evidently were equipped to accommodate it. He was swathed in a heavy blanket against the morning chill. He was trembling with rage.
"I insist that you allow me to leave on this aircraft, Colonel Phoenix," he snarled, with a nod toward the approaching STOL. "I appreciate your assistance. But your assistance is no longer necessary nor warranted. I must demand..."
Bolan did not hear him out. He looked at Carol Nazarour, who stood between her crippled Iranian husband and Abbas Rafsanjani.
"Here's where you get off, lady," Bolan told the blonde. "If you still want to."
Carol started forward. "Thank you, Colonel. I'd be more than happy to..."
One of Nazarour's gnarled hands shot out from under the blanket and clasped itself around his wife's nearest wrist.
"Not so fast, my precious," he hissed. Then, to Bolan, "Any previous agreement that you and I may have had, Colonel, is null and void. My wife displeased me greatly a while ago when she called you from that restaurant and told you of our plans."
The STOL was drawing closer along the short airstrip. Bolan hoped that it carried only a pickup detail for Nazarour, that no one in the STOL would cause trouble. He did not want the situation to bother Hal and his men at the perimeter unnecessarily....
He turned his attention to the general. He lifted the .44 and sighted in along a straightened arm at the man in the wheelchair.
The Executioner was not bluffing when he quietly said, "Release her, general, or I will blow your brains all over this airfield. Do as I say."
From a few feet away, Minera advised Nazarour in a stage whisper, "This guy is not bullshitting you, general. I'd say leave the lady behind."
"Sound advice," chimed in Rafsanjani.
Carol Nazarour was through being a passive observer of her own fate. She yanked her wrist from Nazarour's grasp, and he did not stop her.
"Let me go, you filthy pig!" she said vehemently. "I spit on you and what you are!"
And that is exactly what the hot-eyed blonde proceeded to do. The spit caught Nazarour squarely in the left eye. He reached up to wipe it away as his wife stalked over to stand beside Bolan.
Bolan looked at Minera. "You just gave the general some real good advice," he told the security chief. "Now I'll give you some. Take it if you want to live." He nodded at Nazarour. "Don't put anything on the line for this guy, Minera. He's a bigger hood than you are, and he doesn't give a shit if you live or die. If you want to get out of this thing, all you have to do is turn around and walk away. You killed one of your own men last night for the general because the guy was messing with the general's wife. Tony should've been smarter or more careful, but he was Mafia just like you are, so this time around, you get away with it. If you stay, I kill you. I'd rather not, after all we went through last night. But the choice is yours."
Minera looked at Bolan. He looked at the mighty .44. He saw the expression, or lack of expression, in those frigid eyes.
He stalked off without a backward word or glance.
Which left Bolan and Carol Nazarour facing the general and Rafsanjani.
The STOL was some fifty yards away. Its approaching noise caused Bolan to raise his voice when he addressed Nazarour.
"I guess that about wraps it up, general. Except for the matter of who tipped off Yazid in the first place that you could be found in Potomac. And who arranged the arms smuggling.
"That would be the same person who planted the cyanide canisters in the gatehouse so that Yazid's men could break in so easily. The same person who killed your brother last night."
General Nazarour had been busy scanning the entrances to the airfield and the unmarked but obviously government sedans that were parked there. He looked back at the awesome American before him. His voice lost none of its animal strength as he raised it above the rumble of the approaching aircraft.
"The man who betrayed me is dead, Colonel Phoenix. He was my brother. Rafsanjani killed him."
Rafsanjani stepped closer to the general, offering a visible show of solidarity. "I saw Dr. Nazarour acting suspiciously," he said to Bolan. "I followed him out of the house to the pool. He had a pocket radio of some kind. I came forward to question him. He whirled and attacked me like a madman. He fought. I killed him."
"My brother was a weak, loathesome person," sneered the general. "It doesn't surprise me, his betraying me as he did. Promise him drugs, and he would do anything."
"You should know," growled Bolan. "But it wasn't your brother who was pulling dirty tricks behind your back. It was Rafsanjani himself."
Rafsanjani's face twisted with surprise and rage.
Bolan read fear there too.
"What manner of madness is this?'' The Peter Lorre voice carried a taut edge, was less sibilant.
But nothing fazed General Nazarour.
"What is the basis of your accusation, Colonel Phoenix?" he asked bluntly.
"Process of elimination mostly," Bolan announced, not taking his eyes off Rafsanjani. "I can't see Carol having the contacts to get word back to Tehran on where they could find you. Even if she had, you kept too close a watch on her for that. You knew about her escape tunnel. You knew about her lover. You even had Rafsanjani on top of her tonight when she tried to call me, even with all the pressure of being on the run as you were. So it wasn't Carol.
"And it wasn't Minera," he continued. "If Minera had set the thing up, he sure as hell wouldn't have put his life on the line as he did tonight in Potomac."
"And what of Medhi?" asked Nazarour. His voice was still emotionless, but he had about him the attitude of a man listening to and weighing Bolan's every word.
"Medhi did not betray you," said Bolan. "He was too dependent on you for drugs to ever break away. And he died heroically. He suspected Rafsanjani of informing on you. He warned me to beware of a traitor in your ranks. He wanted to protect you at all times, general. That is, he wanted to protect his drug source.
"But he wouldn't tell me names because I guess he was afraid of Rafsanjani, too. He probably went up to his room and got himself junked out. But instead of relaxing him, the junk just made him more paranoid. He must have decided that telling me about the traitor was not enough. He ended up stumbling outside again, looking for Rafsanjani with a stiletto. He was out of his league. Rafsanjani killed him instead."
The general turned slowly in his wheelchair and looked up at the man before him. "I await your denial, Abbas."
Rafsanjani only glared at Bolan. He seemed wound in on himself, ready to explode outward, sizing his options.
"He can't deny it," Bolan growled. "It's all true. He has access to your funds, doesn't he?"
Nazarour's eyes did not leave Rafsanjani. "Abbas handles all of my finances. I trusted him implicitly."
"Then that's his motive. He's greedy. He waited until the last minute. Then he contacted Tehran. And part of his price for fingering you was that he specify exactly when the hit was to be made. That allowed him to plant the cyanide canisters to nullify your security."