to use CCP racing fuel. To create the character of Cooper, Bolan, who spoke decent Russian, spent the night studying the recent history of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.
The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) formed the MotoGP class, motorcycle racing’s most prestigious racing series, for the 2002 season. Originally FIM had dictated that 990 cc four-strokes raced in the class. When those motorcycles became so powerful that their performance outpaced the limits of tire technology, the FIM lowered the displacement limit to 800 cc for the 2007 racing season.
Darrick Anderson, an American rider, dominated the first three seasons of MotoGP, but problems with alcohol and other drugs had destroyed his career. He’d disappeared for several years, but this year he was back. Bolan had Darrick’s name at the top of the list of people he planned to interview, since Darrick was Free Flow Racing’s top rider.
Posing as Cooper’s assistant at CCP’s American branch, Barbara Price, Stony Man’s mission controller, had arranged meetings with representatives from several MotoGP teams. Most top teams were already supported by major oil companies so the story was that CCP targeted smaller teams. Since MotoGP teams didn’t get any smaller than Free Flow Racing, it only made sense that Cooper would meet with them first. Price set up a meeting with Team Free Flow Racing’s general manager Jameed Botros.
Bolan arrived at the Free Flow Racing garage complex in the Losail paddock fifteen minutes before his scheduled meeting with Mr. Botros but found the area deserted. The doors were open, so he let himself inside, hoping to find out where everyone was, but the garages were empty. The Executioner walked toward a wall covered with television monitors and realized why the complex was empty. From several different angles the monitors showed Darrick Anderson’s lifeless body being loaded onto a helicopter. Bolan could tell things didn’t look good for Mr. Anderson.
He looked around the building and saw several containers identical to the ones he’d seen in the warehouse the previous night. He activated the GPS locator in his cell phone and saw that the container he wanted had to be either in the very back of the garage complex or behind it. He made his way to the rear of the complex without finding the container.
He punched a button that opened one of the overhead doors in the back wall and went outside, where he found the container he’d tagged with the homing device still secured to the bed of a truck trailer. He examined it and saw that the seals applied to the container in Pakistan still hadn’t been broken.
Bolan turned around and found himself face-to-face with a man dressed as a member of the Qatar security force, though the dagger in his hand was not standard-issue for the force. Bolan hadn’t heard the man approach because of the noise generated by the barely muffled motorcycle engines that permeated the entire Losail facility. The officer lunged at Bolan with the dagger, its tip contacting Bolan’s rib cage just below his left armpit. Because the Executioner had moved back the moment he saw the blade coming at him, the dagger barely penetrated his skin.
Bolan brought his left elbow down on the attacker’s arm, snapping both the radius and ulna bones in his forearm. The man fell beneath the force of the blow. Bolan reached around with his right hand and caught the knife as it fell from the attacker’s disabled hand. The man lunged forward and in an instinctive reaction Bolan sliced upward with the knife, catching the man several inches below the navel and cutting all the way up to his rib cage.
The man staggered backward and fell, clutching his midsection in a failed attempt to hold in the intestines that poured from his eviscerated abdomen. Bolan knew this man most likely was not a cop. Cops didn’t try to assassinate strangers with daggers, especially Qatar’s security force officers. He was certain that the man he’d just gutted was a criminal posing as a security officer.
Bolan pulled his Beretta from his shoulder holster and asked the man, who was dying too slowly to avoid intense suffering, “Do you speak English?” He received no answer. The man had entered a state of shock and wasn’t able to respond. Bolan estimated he would be dead within minutes.
He holstered the Beretta and began searching the body for some identification but stopped when he heard movement behind him. He spun around just in time to see a steel pipe swinging toward his temple. Then the lights went out.
The Persian Gulf
The Executioner knew he was on a boat the moment he regained consciousness. From the sound of the muffled diesel engines and the carpeted floor on which he lay, he guessed he was on some sort of pleasure craft. The musty smell of the carpet told him it was an older boat. He heard at least two people conversing in Arabic, but otherwise he deduced very little information about his current situation. What felt like duct tape covered his eyes and mouth. His hands were bound behind his back and his feet were tied together tight, presumably with the same material.
His head hurt almost as much as his broken rib, but the soldier suffered in silence. He didn’t want his captors to know he was awake. Though he didn’t speak Arabic, he’d picked up some phrases here and there and was able to glean some information about his captors, most importantly that they were Saudis, not Qatarians.
They were angry Saudis. Apparently the man that Bolan had sent to visit Allah back at the racetrack had been one of their brethren. This virtually eliminated the possibility that he’d killed a law enforcement officer, since Bolan knew Qatar didn’t hire Saudis for its police force. Qatar had a dark side when it came to its discrimination against immigrants, especially Saudis, because of the poor relationship Qatar had with its giant neighbor to the west. The two countries had only recently settled a border dispute that had simmered for almost two decades.
Bolan could hear the sound of other boats over the angry conversation between the Saudis. Because he couldn’t hear the telltale industrial noise of the Doha Port, he guessed that he was either in the Doha Harbor or the Old Harbor area. As he listened, the sound of the other boats grew more distant, which meant they were leaving the harbor and heading out to open water. Bolan didn’t know how long he’d been out, but he guessed that it was no longer than an hour, and probably less.
Bolan lay immobile until the Saudis began to kick at him, gently prodding him at first, but getting progressively harder.
“Wake up!” one of the men shouted in English.
Bolan felt the duct tape rip away from his eyes, taking half his eyebrows with it.
“You’re not dead yet!” The man ripped the tape away from Bolan’s mouth with the same force he’d used to remove it from his eyes.
Bolan looked around the cabin of what seemed to be a sport fishing boat and estimated the craft to be thirty-five to forty feet in length. Looking out the cabin windows, he saw land on the starboard side, which meant that they were heading south.
In addition to the man who’d waxed the soldier’s eyebrows with duct tape, two other men sat on a threadbare lounge, looking down at him. An AK-74 rested on each of their laps. The scar-faced thug who’d removed the duct tape wore the desert-camo uniform of a Qatar security force officer, but the AKSU-74 machine pistol slung around his neck and shoulder indicated he was an imposter—the well-funded Qatarian forces carried top-shelf European weapons, not twenty-year-old Russian sub machine guns.
The man whose patchwork face looked like it had been launched through a dozen windshields, grabbed Bolan and hoisted him up onto a stool by the galley counter. The two goons took a roll of duct tape and taped Bolan’s ankles to the stool’s pedestal, then gave his wrists another round of tape, tightening up the soldier’s bonds. This put him in an awkward position; it took all his effort to remain upright on the stool, leaving him completely vulnerable.
“So tell me Mr. Cooper,” the scarred
