smoking steel into his face.
The redhead squirmed across the carpet, her hands clawing for her own fallen submachine gun. Bolan pressed the muzzle of his second weapon against her cheek and pinned her head to the floor. “One more move and I’ll turn your head into applesauce. You understand?”
The woman nodded, her eyes streaming and wincing as her lower lip split beneath the pressure of the submachine gun.
Bolan backed the weapon off her mouth. “Who are you?”
She glared up at Bolan in red-eyed defiance. Bolan reached into his jacket and clicked open his phone. He pressed a preset number and Assistant Director Finch answered on the first ring. “You have reached MI-5. This is Assistant Director Finch.”
“We spoke earlier today.”
Her voice replied curtly. “Yes.”
“I have something for you. In my room.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, you should send a team down here. You have three suspects.”
The redhead stared up in alarm. She was part of a four-man team.
“They’re suffering from various broken bones and contusions,” Bolan continued. “One at least appears to be of South African extraction.”
“South African?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” Finch registered genuine surprise. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“I’ll have a team there in ten minutes.”
“I won’t be here.”
“I’m not entirely surprised.”
Bolan was about to hang up when Finch spoke. “You’re to be arrested on sight.”
“I’ll call you later.” Bolan clicked off. He didn’t have much time. “You.” He pointed the BXP back at the woman’s head. “You’re coming with me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CIA safe house, London
“Running the prints now, Striker.”
Bolan had taken the woman’s fingerprints and faxed them to Kurtzman. She sat on a chair with her hands cuffed together in front of her and her ankles bound to the front chair legs with plastic zip restraints. The gun Bolan had held in his hand during the ten-minute drive to the safe house had kept the woman docile. Bolan had washed out her eyes with water. They were still red-veined from the gas and still glared bloody murder at Bolan.
Kurtzman got back to him almost instantly. “I have a hit on the Interpol database.”
The woman went rigid on the chair.
“What have you got?”
The computer whiz hit a key and a police photo of the woman popped up on the screen. “Sylvette MacJory, born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Attended Strathclyde University and received her degree in computer science. In 2005 she was accused and convicted of cybernetic crimes in the U.K., including identity theft and criminal hacking into the databases of several major U.K. financial institutions. Sentenced to five years, sentence reduced to two years probation and public service. Current residence in London. No further criminal record.”
Sylvette’s face clouded with rage.
“So who are your South African friends?” Bolan asked.
“Piss off, Yank!”
“You should try to come up with something more original than that.”
“You’re no cop, then.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re holding me illegally. I want my lawyer.”
“You’re right. I’m not a cop, and you’re not being held.” Bolan clicked open his phone and punched a button. “You’ve been abducted.”
MacJory swallowed with difficulty as her position became more clear to her.
Assistant Director Finch answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Did you get the package I left you?”
“Yes,” Finch admitted.
“I have another.”
There followed an appalled silence. “Listen to me. You really must—”
“Her name is Sylvette MacJory. You’ll have her in your files. Felony computer hacker. She was attempting to get into my laptop.”
“Did you know we detected pepper spray within the room?”
“She tried to get into my laptop,” Bolan reiterated.
Finch tried a different tack. “You shot one of the suspects twenty-two times. He survived only because he was wearing body armor.”
“I shot him twenty-two times precisely because he was wearing body armor and I knew you would want him alive.”
“Mr.—”
“The large one out in the hall is South African. Did you get an ID on the other two?”
Bolan was pretty sure she would have hung up had she not been attempting to trace the call. The NSA satellite Bolan was bouncing his signal through made that a losing proposition, but it would take the MI-5 communications people a little while to figure that out. Finch let out a long, grudging breath. “You’re correct. The large one is Ruud Heitinga, South African citizen, as is the other, one Kew Timmer.”
“You get a bead on the man inside?”
“He was a bit of an anomaly. His papers say he is a French citizen named Guy Diddier. All of them have clammed up, however, call it a hunch, but I found Monsieur Diddier most un-Gallic in his behavior.”
Bolan was swiftly coming to the conclusion that Assistant Director Heloise Finch had earned her hunches the hard way. “So what did you do?”
“I called in a favor with French intelligence and ran the name. Diddier is a French citizen, but not by birth.”
Bolan’s intuition spoke to him. “He served a tour in the French Foreign Legion.”
Finch seemed pleased. “That is correct. He was originally an American citizen by the name of Gary Pope. He served four years in the California National Guard’s 223rd Infantry Regiment. Somewhere along the line, he got the romantic notion of joining the Legion. Once he’d been accepted, he took advantage of the Legion’s opportunity of identity change and after serving his tour successfully he accepted French citizenship.”
“Any line on the two South Africans?”
“Not yet, but I have every faith they are veterans
