12

"Did Grimaldi give any indication as to where the car's owner might be located?" asked a weary Brognola.

"None," said April Rose. "He and some of General Wilson's men tracked the transmitter to a blue Saab abandoned in downtown Munich. There's already a police report showing the car was stolen in Frankfurt. So that lead is dead."

Hal moved over to the computer terminal and stared at the blank screen. "Can't this damn thing tell us anything?"

"Not yet." April followed him to the screen. "Jack thinks that Mack is still near the Alps someplace, probably in the foothills. That's where Jack first encountered the jamming device. It wasn't until the car drove out of the jammer's range that he picked up its signal again."

"So we've lost him. Completely. Striker is totally on his own."

She gave a sharp look. "He's been there before."

"What about Grimaldi? Should he go back to take another look-see? Mosey around?"

"Negative, according to Jack. He doesn't want to blow Mack's cover. He is just going to sit tight in Munich and do what we're going to do. Wait. And hope."

It was a new role for Mack, no doubt at all. A new game, a new gun or two, a new kind of death-death on foreign soil with no backup of any kind. New, every which way you looked at it. He'd been there before, but not like this.

The uncertainty actually stimulated Stony Man's head fed. Striker could cope with anything that Europe could throw at him. Hal knew that for a fact.

The German terrorist philosophy was a situational one. Tactics and targets changed according to the fall of the chips. Modern Europe went for that kind of moral relativity, had done since the sixties. And Bolan was a master of the situational response. He had damned near invented it. The new Colonel John Phoenix, disguised as a morally awash U.S. Army colonel stationed in Germany, was the ultimate quick-change artist of all time. Hal had no doubts whatsoever.

Inside it all, Bolan would always be Bolan.

13

When Rudi swung open the garage's side door, a long spear of sunlight sliced through the dark room that caused its occupants to wince from sudden brightness.

He shoved Mack Bolan through the doorway.

A naked light bulb dangled in the middle of the dark room, casting a dim shadowy light, maybe 40 watts at most. But the small group of prisoners huddled around that pale light as if it were a blazing fire.

"Be good," Rudi said in a thick German accent, punctuating the threat by whomping his log into the wall of the garage. The room echoed with a loud thump. He laughed again and left the room. Bolan could hear the heavy iron bolt sliding into place on the other side of the door. Within a few seconds Bolan had identified all four of his fellow occupants.

"Are you all right?" asked Babette Pavlovski, the Czech gymnast. She took a few hesitant steps closer, but stopped at the edge of the bulb's curtain of light like someone at the edge of a dark and forbidden forest.

"Yeah. Thanks. How about you folks?" Bolan studied her. She was tall for a gymnast, nearly six feet, but all of it looked solid sinew. Her thin blond hair was pulled back into a tight bun, making her look older than the thirty years he guessed her to be. She wore a maroon running suit with white piping up the legs and sleeves; the suit was smudged with dirt and grime.

He noted how she moved with an animal's ease, as if she were in complete control of every muscle in her body.

"You must forgive the accommodations," she said ironically, "but our hosts are less than considerate." She pointed to a dark corner of the room where Bolan could barely make out the form of a small squat object. "That's the toilet. A plastic bucket with no lid. We share it. But don't worry, they empty it once a day."

A tall muscular young man with curly brown hair and a bushy mustache took a step toward Bolan. His voice was angry and mixed with fear.

Bolan recognized him as Udo Ganz, the German skier who had captured two golds in the Olympics six years before. "What are you?" Udo asked with a halting German accent.

"A sergeant in the United States Army."

"No, no," he shook his head impatiently.

"Your sport. What is your sport?"

A short, thin oriental man stepped directly beneath the hanging light bulb. He wore jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Above his lip was a pencil thin slash of a mustache. Bolan could have recognized him without having been warned of his kidnapping: Mako Samata's martial arts studios were advertised all over Europe. "There is no practical use for football skills here," he said in a French accent, making the immediate assumption of Bolan's elective recreation.

"What do you mean, practical use?" Bolan asked. "What use do they have for you?"

The martial arts master released a sardonic laugh. "You will see soon enough, my friend."

"Don't mind him," Babette sighed. "He likes to play the inscrutable oriental. Too many Charlie Chan movies."

Bolan looked past the three of them at the burly man hunkered down on his heels, hugging his knees. He was just beyond the light, his face partially obscured. "What about him?" Bolan pointed.

"That's Clifford Barnes-Fenwick, the Welsh archer. A silver and a bronze." She lowered her voice. "Used to do trick shooting for a while." At that the silent man looked up and Bolan could see his haggard face. And the softball-size knob over his right eye. The bruise surrounding it was a nasty purple-yellow-black. But even worse was the nose, which looked as if it had been slammed by a locomotive. Most of it was pushed to one side at an impossible angle. Crusted blood clung to the edges. The injuries made it difficult to judge, but Bolan figured him to be near fifty, easily the oldest of the group.

"What happened to you?" Bolan asked him.

The big Welshman stared at Bolan a few seconds, then lowered his head back to his knees.

"That fat gorilla did it," Babette explained. "Cliff wouldn't do what they asked, so Rudi clubbed him with the log. You've seen the log?"

"What is it that they want you to do?" Bolan persisted.

"Well..."

"Hold it!" Udo Ganz interrupted. "We don't know anything about this man. He could be bad news."

The leggy blonde raised her eyebrows.

"What, a spy, Udo? For what purpose?"

Bolan cut in. "Maybe some introductions are in order. Then we can fill each other in on what the hell is going on around here. I'm Sergeant Edsel Grendal."

The others formally introduced themselves in turn, all except the Welsh archer who remained huddled at the edge of the light. Each recounted the details of their kidnapping experience.

Except Bolan.

He asked one more time. "What exactly do they want from you?"

"Knowledge," Mako said, his hands erupting in a series of expert lightning slashes.

"That's what we think, anyway," Babette qualified.

"Explain."

"All they make us do every day is to practice routines while they all stand around and watch. Mako, here has to do a sneaking through the woods routine, surprising two guards and disabling them for real with a couple of his fancy chops."

In the few moments he had been in the tiny garage, Bolan had noticed the icy teeth of the cold nipping at his skin. The temperature could be no more than a few degrees above freezing in this dark hovel. "How do they expect you to survive here?" he asked.

"They don't!" Udo barked, desperation in his voice. Bolan noted the man's creeping hysteria and filed away the information.

"They don't keep us in here all the time," the lady gymnast said. "We're only locked up when we aren't practicing. At night they allow us to sleep in a preheated cabin. By then the exercise and cold have worn us down even if we could escape, we wouldn't have the energy to go anywhere."