of the men inside the next room went, the Executioner had to remind himself that he was in a part of the world where torture had been used, and accepted as just another part of life, since the dawn of time. Urgoma might be Western-educated but he had been born, and had grown up, here in North Africa. It was impractical to think that the man would have vaulted, head-first, into the twenty-first century in every area of life.
“Tell me one thing before we go back inside,” Bolan said, leaning an elbow against the wall next to the door.
“I will be happy to do so,” Urgoma said. “What do you wish to know?”
“Did you learn anything from Sims? Anything the CIA might have found out that you, yourself, weren’t aware of?”
Urgoma frowned and the wrinkles in his forehead extended up onto his bald pate. “He did let one thing slip,” the colonel said.
“And that was…?” Bolan asked.
“I cannot remember exactly how it came up,” Urgoma said. “But I gather that the CIA has been following the progress of Sudan’s nuclear program closely.”
Bolan nodded. Every Third World country on the planet seemed to have a nuclear program in progress these days. Although they all claimed it was to harness energy for nonviolent purposes, in many cases, Sudan being one of them, it was the equivalent of cocking a loaded gun and then handing it to a child. But there was no point in saying anything more on the subject at this time. So he simply filed the information away in the back of his mind for future use. Somehow—he didn’t know in exactly what way yet—this so-called passive nuclear-energy program was linked to the two men in the interrogation room and the shipment of plutonium coming into Sudan to which they’d already admitted.
“Tell me more about this rogue operation,” the Executioner said.
“I would if I knew more,” Urgoma said, “but they are very secretive. Also, very violent in the way they view the Ethiopians who are encroaching on our borders. They would not be against just sending in troops and killing everyone who stepped over the line from Ethiopia to Sudan, I do not believe.”
“Do you think they’re tied into this plutonium shipment in any way?” Bolan asked.
Urgoma shrugged. “I cannot say,” he told the Executioner. “But it is hard for me to imagine that any group of my own fellow countrymen—regardless of how unhappy they are with the current Ethiopian government of the CUD rebels—would go to such extremes.”
“I’ve seen far worse extremes in my time,” Bolan said. “I think it’s a possibility we need to keep in mind. This plutonium is most likely going one of three places. The Ethiopian army, the CUD rebels or to this rogue element within Sudan.”
Urgoma just looked at him. The expression on the colonel’s face told Bolan he still hated to believe it was a possibility.
“And, I think,” the Executioner went on, “the answer to that secret—the who, why, where, when and how—lay somewhere in the limerick which the Sudanese CIA informant handed off to the young American reporter. Now. Let’s go back inside and try a new line of questioning, shall we?”
The colonel opened the door and again ushered Bolan in first. The look on his officers’ faces showed confusion as he gave them their orders to follow Sims in Arabic. But they nodded and quickly left.
Bolan sat down across the table from the two blood-soaked men. Quickly, he surveyed the damage to both faces. It wasn’t as bad as it had looked at first—certainly nothing permanent. “Colonel,” he said over his shoulder, “do you have someone who can get these men some towels? They’ll need a little medical attention, too.”
Urgoma lifted the phone receiver from the table and spoke into it. A few minutes later, another officer carrying a first-aid kit entered the room. The Executioner and the colonel waited silently as the officer slid rubber gloves over his hands, then dotted and dabbed at the cuts and bruises on both faces with cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol. Both men winced as the alcohol stung their wounds.
After applying several small bandages here and there, the man with the first-aid kit turned to Urgoma, nodded and left the room again.
The “good cop, bad cop” technique was the oldest trick in the book, the Executioner knew. But the stage had already been set so he decided to take advantage of it. “Do either of you speak English?” he asked the two men wearing the bandages.
Both heads nodded. “A little,” the man with the mustache said.
“Good,” Bolan said. “Then we’ll speak English. If there’s any misunderstanding, Colonel Urgoma can translate and help us out.”
The heads nodded again.
“I’ve got a few questions for you,” the Executioner said. “And I’d like you to answer them. But even if you don’t, you’re not going to get hit anymore. Do you understand that? Is that clear?”
The two men turned to look at each other in confusion. They obviously weren’t used to such kind treatment, and couldn’t quite figure out what Bolan was up to.
Then the clean-shaved man turned back to the Executioner. “If we do not answer, and you do not hit us, then what do you plan to do?”
Bolan shrugged. “Just get up and leave, I guess,” he said. He glanced at the door. “You’ll both be held on murder charges, so I’ll know where to find you if I decide I need to come back.”
The two men in the bloody suits turned to each other yet again. They suspected that more officers with leather gloves and saps might take this big American’s place if he left unsatisfied, and it showed on their faces.
“What do you wish to know?” the man with the mustache asked.
“First, why did you kill the old man?”
“To get the envelope, of course,” the clean-shaved man answered. One of his bandages covered part of his upper lip, and it caused his words to come out with a slight lisp and a slur that sounded as if he’d been drinking.
“What did the envelope contain?” Bolan asked. He knew about the limerick, of course. But he wanted to know if they did. And there was always a chance that if they did, they’d also know the code to break down the words and make sense out of them.
“We did not know what was in the envelope,” the man with the mustache replied. “And we still do not know. We had only just learned that the man who was carrying it was an informant, working for your CIA.” He glanced toward the corner where Bill Sims had stood earlier, then back to the Executioner. “May I ask you a question?” he said.
“Certainly,” Bolan said.
“Are you CIA, too?”
“No,” Bolan said promptly.
The answer seemed to satisfy the man, and he visibly relaxed.
“What happened to the envelope?” Bolan asked. Again, he knew. But he wanted to know if they did.
“Just before we shot him, the old man gave it to a very young man,” the clean-shaved man said. “He was American. Or maybe European. But somehow, I did not get the impression that he was a CIA man. Perhaps that was because of
