an arcing hook kick. This one fell as if he’d been poleaxed.
The Mantis retrieved his dart, wiped the blood on the dead man’s jacket and replaced the dart in his vest. The shiny Walther PPS lay a few inches from the second agent’s fingers. The Mantis picked it up. Some fancy English letters, TNT, were engraved on the slide. He would give Chong’s .380 to the master, but why not take something for himself? It would make a nice souvenir. He pocketed the pistol, grabbed the bundled overcoat and took out his cell phone.
Master Chen answered after the first ring. “All is well?”
“All is well,” the Mantis said.
“It grieves me that you encountered unexpected trouble.”
“It was nothing,” the Mantis said as he surveyed the scene with satisfaction, “that I could not handle.”
* * *
BY THE TIME they got close to the British embassy, Bolan’s eyes were stinging from driving the truck with no windshield. His cell phone rang and he glanced at the screen: Crissey.
“Turn left at the next corner, will you?” the Englishman said. “I’ve got a couple blokes standing by with a truck so none of our omnipresent embassy watchers see us bringing that wretched van inside.”
Bolan watched as Crissey’s car made the quick left turn. Pulling in after him, Bolan found himself on a semidark side street. Ahead he saw a parked truck with Chinese lettering on the side and an open back end. He parked next to the truck and got out. Three men rushed over to the van and began removing the crate. He gave them a hand, and in about sixty seconds they had it transferred to the new truck. They took the trussed-up prisoner next. The man was still unconscious but would hopefully awaken and give them some good intel. If not, Bolan was sure Stony Man could put the guy on ice somewhere.
Crissey had been standing a few feet away holding his cell phone to his ear. He turned to the three new men. “Would one of you be so kind as to dump the van down the way?” he said. “And do take our friend and his little package to the designated drop point at your leisure.”
The other men nodded and hurried away.
Bolan watched as the truck with the prisoner and the crate drove off down the street, followed by the damaged van. He figured the Brits were perfectly capable of getting whatever was in the crate to a safe location for further review as well as interrogating the prisoner. The Agency could tag up with them later and decide if the Iranians had bought the real deal or not.
Bolan looked at Crissey, who still stood holding his cell phone with a worried expression on his face. “What’s up?”
Crissey heaved a sigh. “We’ve lost contact with two of my men—the ones who followed the Chinese with the briefcase.” He bit his lower lip. “They haven’t called in and I can’t seem to raise them.”
“Let’s go find them,” Bolan said, heading for the Englishman’s car.
Crissey nodded and hurried to the driver’s side. As Crissey drove to the warehouse district where they’d left the other two agents, Bolan felt his satellite phone vibrate. He took it out, glanced at the screen and answered the call with “Don’t you ever sleep?”
Brognola’s deep chuckle came from the other side of the world. “Hell, it’s zero-eight-fifteen here. Time for my midmorning snack while I get ready to watch Let’s Make a Deal.”
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?” Bolan asked.
“You must be psychic.” Brognola’s laugh came through clear as a bell. “I need to run something by you, but how did the mission go?”
Just then Crissey pulled past the empty car the two MI6 agents had been driving.
“Hal, hold on,” Bolan said. He reached for his Beretta with his other hand.
No one else was in sight. Crissey swung the car into the alleyway and proceeded slowly down the narrow route.
“Striker, you still there?” Brognola asked.
The headlights shone over a pair of legs extending out from behind a row of garbage cans.
“Bloody hell,” Crissey said.
“Let me call you back,” Bolan said into the phone.
It was almost four in the morning by the time Bolan and Crissey transported the two dead agents, Thomas Norris Trent and Peter J. Helmsworth, back to the British Embassy. Searching and clearing the rest of the warehouse had been tedious, but necessary, as well as erasing any trace that MI6 had been involved. Not finding Trent’s weapon had drawn the process out further, and finally the threat of a nascent sun forced them to abandon their search. They left the rest of the mess for the Hong Kong police. When they finally sat down in a small room next to the embassy cafeteria, neither man had much appetite, but both needed a cup of strong coffee. They’d been up for more than twenty-four hours straight. The Brit was holding up pretty well, Bolan observed, maintaining a bit of the traditional stiff upper lip, but the Executioner could tell the man was deeply affected by the deaths.
“Did you know those men well?” he asked, taking a sip from his mug.
Crissey nodded. “Tom Trent and I have been here on assignment for the past year and a half. Before that we did a tour in Afghanistan.” He forced a smile and dumped some more sugar into his cup. “After that one, we thought coming here would be a bit of a vacation.”
Bolan said nothing. He knew that dropping your guard on any assignment, no matter how benign it looked, could be a fatal error. “At least they’ll be buried in home soil.”
Crissey nodded again. “I do wish we could have found Trent’s pistol. I would have liked his father to have it. It was a stainless steel Walther PPS. Quite the good gun. Had TNT engraved on the slide in fancy script.” Crissey smiled wistfully. “His initials. Made quite a joke of it.”
“Think his killer took it?” Bolan asked.
Crissey shrugged. “Most likely, but perhaps that’s preferable to the Chinese finding it and being able to trace it back to us.” His brow furrowed. “Trent was no neophyte. He knew his stuff.”
Bolan considered this. Trent had apparently had his neck broken. There was also a large dark spot on the right side of the dead man’s jaw, although Bolan hadn’t taken the time to examine it closely. At least it appeared Trent’s death had been quick—no needless suffering.
Bolan drank some more coffee and stood. “I have to make a call.”
“Certainly,” Crissey said, also standing. “I’d better check in myself.” He showed Bolan to an adjacent room and left.
Bolan punched in the digits of Hal Brognola’s number on the satellite phone. He answered on the second ring, sounding as gruff as ever. “About damn time you called back. What, you enjoying the Hong Kong nightlife, or something?”
“Not hardly,” Bolan said. “I was helping our friends at MI6 clean up a little mess. They
