back into service for undercover operations.
After he woke up, the soldier downed a cup of coffee and pulled a brown valise from the seat next to his. Setting the case in his lap, he popped it open and withdrew a sealed mission folder that Brognola and Price had prepared for him.
Tearing open the seal, he pulled out a handful of papers and began leafing through them. He found a biography on Jennifer Rodriguez first. The picture of the FBI agent that Bolan had seen in the War Room was pinned to the front of the packet. The woman was a stunner. Her black hair spilled well past her shoulders in loose waves. Her eyes were a deep brown, and bore a striking intensity. She obviously was a beautiful woman, but Bolan had no trouble imagining a man twice her size squirming under her gaze.
The soldier removed the paperclip holding the papers and the picture together. He set aside the picture and studied the file. Rodriguez was a first-generation American, the daughter of a Mexican couple who had moved to the United States a year before her birth. Her father, Vidal, had moved to the U.S. to take a high-level job as an industrial chemist while her mother worked as an accountant for the same company.
As Rodriguez grew up, she proved to be a natural athlete and highly intelligent. She ran track while also making dean’s list as a pre-law student. Once she was accepted to law school, she quit competitive sports and focused on her studies.
Her parents had hoped she’d focus on corporate law. Instead she’d joined the FBI. With her ability to speak English and Spanish, she’d been assigned to the Los Angeles office, where she was mentored by Fred Gruber, that office’s special agent in charge. Gruber, who was on the cusp of retirement, and his wife, Kate, had taken the young woman under their respective wings and provided her with a surrogate family. The report noted that Gruber, who’d retired a few years later and started a second career as a private detective, had been killed in Monaco three months ago in a mugging.
Bolan didn’t believe in coincidences, especially in his line of work. He guessed that Gruber’s death had, on some level, played a role in Rodriguez volunteering for her latest undercover assignment. The soldier didn’t necessarily believe she’d come here looking to avenge Gruber’s death. Judging by her record, the woman was a pro and focused like a laser on her mission. There was always the chance, though, she’d visited the location of Gruber’s murder or some other landmark associated with his last case so she could connect with him, some way, one last time. It was a very human thing to do. Had it been the thing that had tripped her up and betrayed her identity? It was possible. Maybe Bolan would have a chance to ask Dumond.
Right before she’d gone off the grid, Rodriguez had contacted her mission controller. The guy, a Fed named Peter Kellogg, said she’d used her secure phone to call him from her hotel a few hours after she’d arrived in Monte Carlo. It was twenty-four hours before she’d been set to meet with Dumond for the first time. She’d planned to get some sleep and then have a look around Monte Carlo, maybe hit the beaches, since she wasn’t a gambler.
When she missed her next check-in call, Kellogg had gotten worried and eventually realized she’d disappeared.
Bolan set down the papers and drank more coffee. It was possible, he supposed, that Dumond hadn’t been involved in her disappearance. Maybe she’d fallen victim to a random crime, a robbery or rape turned to murder, for instance. It was also possible, the soldier realized, that she’d turned on her government. Those theories were plausible. The way Bolan saw it, though, the smart money still was on her being nabbed by Dumond for some reason. That made finding the Frenchman Bolan’s first priority once they hit the ground.
The guy apparently had done well for himself. According to a CIA file, he had not one but three houses sprinkled throughout Monaco. Two agency psychologists had labeled him as moderately paranoid, which explained why he moved between the various houses on almost a daily basis, never sleeping under the same roof more than a single night. It also might mean the guy had become suspicious of Rodriguez with little reason other than a chronic short circuit in his brain that made everyone look like an enemy.
Shifting in his chair, Bolan again pushed aside his questions about why Dumond did anything. Getting into the arms merchant’s head and understanding his behavior only benefitted Bolan to the extent it helped him find the missing FBI agent. Anything beyond that was distraction, one that could lead him down a wrong path and cost Rodriguez her life.
Price had checked with some of her former colleagues at the NSA. Dumond and his lieutenants apparently had gone silent within the past twenty-four hours. No calls or emails via the guy’s known numbers or email addresses. The key word, Bolan knew, was “known.” If he had an encrypted line the various intelligence agencies didn’t know about, it was possible he’d circumvented their surveillance.
Bolan skimmed the rest of the intelligence report. Dumond’s organization apparently was fairly big. In Monaco alone, he kept a fairly large contingent of muscle, at least a couple dozen.
The arms dealer had maintained enough contacts in the French government to buy himself a pass with the authorities in Monaco.
The French connection didn’t surprise Bolan much. Nearly half the population of that country, located on the Mediterranean Sea on the southern coast of France, was French and French was the official language. Bolan guessed Dumond was greasing palms in the French and Monacan governments. That was a key to building a criminal empire—put the government in one pocket and the business community in the other, and pillage at will.
Bolan noticed what he was thinking and a smile ghosted his lips. At times, he had to remind himself that most people were decent and honest, good people trying to get by. He spent so much time hunting the savages of the world—mobsters, rogue spies, corrupt dictators—it was easy to forget who he was fighting for.
He didn’t consider himself an idealist. But he was a soldier, a defender. As such, he needed to know he was fighting for a just cause. Otherwise he became a hired gun, a violent man, running from fight to fight, without reason. He would become a murderer instead of a soldier and Bolan couldn’t stomach that.
The soldier believed in what he did. He made no apologies for his methods. In his experience, brute force needed to be met with brute force. He needed to find the arms trafficker and free Rodriguez. The numbers were falling fast; hours had slipped away.
So he’d hit Monaco with a vengeance and accomplish his mission. Or go home in a body bag. In his life, in his War Everlasting, those were the only two options for Bolan.
* * *
WHEN BOLAN ARRIVED at the safehouse, he found Agent Peter Kellogg waiting for him.
Bolan had met a lot of FBI agents and none looked like the man who answered the door. By the soldier’s reckoning, the guy stood a few inches under six feet tall and looked wiry. However, he answered the door clad in torn jeans, a black T-shirt and cowboy boots. His long silver hair was pulled back from his face in a ponytail, and his salt-and-pepper beard was long and unkempt. The handle of a Glock 19 peeked above the waistband of his jeans.
Before Bolan could ask, Kellogg showed him his FBI credentials. The soldier flipped open a leather wallet containing a forged Justice Department ID featuring his Matt Cooper alias. Grimaldi, who was traveling as Jack Williamson, also showed the guy an alias ID.
Kellogg nodded, stepped back from the door and gestured for the men to enter the house.
“Well,” Kellogg said, “now that we’re done sniffing each others’ ass, you guys want some coffee?”
Both men said they did. Kellogg gestured with his chin at a door. “There’s the living room. Your buddy
