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Sudan was composed of wide-ranging deserts and steppes north of Khartoum, and tropical jungle just below the twelfth parallel to the south. Its coastline ran along the Red Sea, with Saudi Arabia just across the water. Northern Sudan was rumored to be one of he hottest areas in the world during the summer, with temperatures rising to 125 degrees and higher.
At least two-thirds of Sudan’s eighteen million inhabitants were of mixed Arab and African blood, which had been superimposed over more ancient ancestors who were Hamitic. Such racial mixing was to be expected considering Sudan’s geographic location, especially from Khartoum northward. The southern three provinces of the country were inhabited by true Africans, mostly of the Dinka tribe.
Bolan opened his eyes as soon as Makkah said, “We are here.” He saw that the man was trying to turn down an alleyway behind a more modern building. Leaning on the horn, the airport police captain waved his other hand wildly through the open window to his side, trying to coax the pedestrians crossing the alley on the sidewalk to break up and let him through. When this didn’t work, Makkah let out a long string of what the Executioner had to believe were curses in some Arabic dialect he didn’t understand. When hitting the red lights and siren proved no more effective, the captain drew his .357 Magnum Taurus revolver from his shiny Sam Browne belt, transferred it to his left hand, then stuck it out the window and fired two shots into the air.
This demonstration of firepower produced the desired break in the crowd, and Makkah turned into the alley. Bolan did his best to lower himself farther in his seat and reached up, ostensibly rubbing his forehead with both hands but in reality trying to shield his face.
The Executioner had already had far more exposure to the public than he felt comfortable with. And he made a snap decision to make some major changes to his appearance as soon as he was finished inside this building.
Makkah pulled the car into a parking spot that read Police Only. “You are ready?” the captain asked as he pulled the keys from the ignition.
Bolan nodded and opened the door to his side. What he was about to do was simple. At least simple in theory.
A Washington Post journalist named Ronnie Cassetti had somehow gotten between a CIA informant and his U.S. handler. The two men who had murdered the informant in Cassetti’s presence—and tried to kill the American writer—had been taken into custody by Sudanese police. Fearful for his own life, Cassetti had turned a white envelope over to a CIA officer stationed at the American Embassy. The envelope contained some kind of mysterious limerick, which the CIA operative suspected contained important encrypted information.
Unfortunately, the snitch’s handler had been an older man, about to retire. Since his last encounter with the informant, he had suddenly keeled over with a heart attack and died.
And the limerick code was not known by anyone else in Khartoum, Washington or anywhere else in the world.
The CIA had opened a case. The President had caught wind of the details and ordered the Agency to take its cues from a man named Brandon Stone who would be taking charge of the investigation.
Bolan closed the car door and followed Makkah through a back door into the building. It seemed to him sometimes that he had more names than a heavyweight boxing champion. Mack Bolan, the Executioner, Matt Cooper and Brandon Stone were only a few of the appellations under which he sometimes went.
This time he would be Special Agent Brandon Stone.
T HE BUILDING THAT HOUSED the Khartoum office of the Sudan National Police might have been of more recent structure than many of the ancient wood-and-clay edifices the Executioner had seen on his drive with Captain Makkah. But the inside was every bit as dirty and unkempt as downtown Khartoum itself. Trash littered the hallway down which Makkah now led Bolan. And the walls were a dingy, begrimed gray from cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke. And from somewhere in the building, Bolan’s well-trained nostrils picked up the faint scent of burning marijuana.
Someone, somewhere behind one of the closed doors, was smoking dope, maybe on duty.
The Executioner didn’t let that bother him. He hadn’t come to Khartoum to make piddling little arrests of marijuana users, even if they were cops. He had far bigger fish to fry, and he was about to begin cooking by stepping right into the middle of the pan.
Makkah led him through several turns before stopping at a paint-chipped door at the end of a short side hall. The airport captain seemed to hesitate for a moment as he raised his fist, the collar of his uniform blouse suddenly becoming too tight. Pulling it away from his throat with his other hand, he finally rapped lightly on the wood.
Words in Arabic came from the other side of the door, and Makkah reached out and tried to twist the knob. When it wouldn’t budge, he knocked again, speaking in Arabic himself this time.
A second later a click sounded, then the door swung wildly open, and a burly man with coffee-colored skin and wearing a uniform similar to Makkah’s glared out at the captain. Though the man was bald on the top of his head, a thick matt of black hair grew over his ears and on the back of his head.
Makkah visibly shrank, and the Executioner noted that instead of captain’s bars on the collar of the burly man’s shirt, he wore the markings of a colonel.
The bald-pated colonel glowered at Makkah for another second, then turned his attention to Bolan. Immediately his composure changed. He smiled widely, his lips seeming to stretch across his entire face. “So,” he said with the formal English indicative of a British public-school education, “may I assume that you are Special Agent Stone?” He stuck out his hand.
Bolan felt the firmness in the man’s handshake and, for reasons as mysterious at this juncture as those behind his dislike of Makkah, suddenly felt as if he was finally meeting a man who could be trusted. While he couldn’t always explain his own instincts—even to himself—he had learned to trust them over the years.
The Executioner couldn’t discount one other fact that probably played a role in his instant trust. The colonel obviously shared Bolan’s contempt for Makkah.
“I’m Stone,” the Executioner said as he dropped the strong hand. “But there’s no need for formalities here. Just call me Brandon.”
This seemed to please the colonel. “Then I will be known to you as Abdul,” he said. “Although for future reference, should you need this information, my official title is Colonel Urgoma.”
Bolan nodded.
Urgoma stepped back and waved for Bolan to enter. But when Makkah tried to cross the threshold, a stocky forearm shot out and a big palm rammed against the captain’s chest. “Thank you for your assistance, Captain Makkah,” the colonel said, “but your services are no longer required. You may return to the airport.”
Makkah’s caramel-colored skin took on a slight tinge of gray. He saluted, turned on his heel and walked off without saying another word.
Urgoma closed the door and the Executioner found that they were in some kind of outer office. One desk and one desk chair was all he could see in the room. There was probably a presently absent secretary who worked there.
“Did you speak much with the captain?” Urgoma asked in a low voice.
Makkah was long gone by now, so the Executioner had to assume there were other men in adjacent offices whom Urgoma didn’t want to hear the question.
“No,” Bolan said in the same low voice. “Not a lot. We were too busy shooting men wearing unmarked green fatigues to grow real close.”
Urgoma nodded. “Ah, yes, the greenies,” he said. “So I heard. Please accept my sincere apology. Bullets are hardly the way to welcome a guest into the country. Particularly a guest who has come, at our request, to help us.”
Bolan stared deeply into the man’s eyes. Unlike the phoniness that Makkah generated, Urgoma appeared sincerely sorry for what had happened at the airport. “Well,” he said in response, “even without the distraction of all the firepower whizzing past us, I wouldn’t have gotten to know Makkah very well.” He paused, taking in a breath as he watched Urgoma’s forehead furrow into a frown. “He and his men didn’t even show up until most of the fight was over.”
Now Urgoma’s frown became one of disgust. “I am not surprised,” he said. “The man is assigned to be in charge of the airport. But he must spend much time here, as well. He is a coward. Nor do I trust him. He is what you Americans call—” the burly colonel frowned once more, this time looking up at the ceiling for the right word before he brought his eyes back down “—a slumbag?”
Bolan smiled at the man’s attempt. “You’re close,” he said. “The term’s actually scumbag. ”
“Ah, yes,” the colonel said, clasping his hands together. “I have heard that many times in your American movies.
“Now, if you would please, Brandon, we have captured the two men who killed your government’s informant by shooting him in the back.”
The Executioner stiffened for a moment. Such open discussion of one government working clandestinely within the borders of another country was all but unheard-of.
Urgoma was, indeed, honest. Maybe too honest for his own good.
“The two men are being interrogated even as we speak,” Urgoma went on. “One of your CIA officers is also here.” The smile he gave Bolan held both mirth and a tinge of sadism. “He is observing.”
Bolan started to speak but Urgoma cut him off. “Please,” the colonel said, holding up a hand. “I have always been a good judge of character, and my intuition about you tells me you are a realist like myself. And between men like us, there is no reason to play games. So let us lay our cards on the table, so to speak. Everyone knows that CIA agents work out of your American Embassy. It is that way all over the world. We accept that fact.” He paused and laughed. “And as I am sure you are aware yourself, we have our men who do the same spy-work using the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.”
Bolan smiled. Yes, Captain Abdul Urgoma was a realist, and obviously didn’t like wasting time any more than the Executioner did.
Bolan was liking this stocky man more and more as he got to know him.
‘So,” Urgoma said, “let us go see if my men have learned anything new since I left the room to answer this door.” He nodded toward the splintered wood where Makkah had exited, then turned and started down another short hallway.
Bolan followed. “That last statement,” he said as they walked. “It implies that you’ve already learned something. Care to share it with me?”
Urgoma continued to walk but twisted his head as he did. “I am afraid we have not learned a great deal,” he said. “And my men have been extremely…well, shall we say, persuasive? ”
The Executioner knew exactly what that meant. Beatings. Or other torture. Or both.
When Bolan didn’t respond, Urgoma went on. “But what we have learned, I sincerely believe, is of the most extreme importance.”
“And that would be…?” Bolan asked, letting the sentence trail off to become a question.
Colonel Abdul Urgoma stopped in his tracks. He was several inches shorter than Bolan, so to look him in the eye he had to tilt his chin upward. He did so now. Then, taking a deep breath, he said, “We have learned that someone is about to ship a large amount of plutonium into Sudan.”
The Executioner stared back down into the dark brown eyes. So that was why he’d been sent by the President to Sudan.
Urgoma had been right.
Suddenly, the investigation had taken on a whole new level of importance and urgency.
2
Bolan heard a sharp cracking sound as Urgoma opened the door, stepped back and ushered him into the interrogation room. As he walked through the opening, he saw the head of a man wearing a lightweight tropical suit snap backward. The suit was white.
Or at least it had been at one time.
As he entered the room, the Executioner saw the bloodstains covering the light material of the man’s jacket. It looked almost as if it had been tie-dyed. So did his head, for that matter. Bumps and bruises of every color and description covered his face, and a good deal of once-red blood had already dried into dark brown crusts, telling Bolan that the beating had been going on for some time.
The Executioner stopped just inside the door. The room was even more grungy than the rest of the building, with candy wrappers and other papers littering the floor. Cobwebs grew in every corner, and from the ceiling a spider was working its web down toward the table behind which the bloody man sat.
But the man the Executioner had just seen punched wasn’t alone. Next to him sat another, equally beaten face. In contrast to his clean-shaved partner, this man wore a thin, carefully manicured mustache. But it was due for a shampoo. Blood had seeped from the nostrils above it and matted it wetly against his upper lip until it looked as if it had been soaked in some sort of setting gel. And this man’s lightweight suit—similar to his partner’s—was in no better shape, either.
Two uniformed Sudan National Police officers were in the room, and they both turned toward the door as it opened. One, a tall, lanky man exhibiting more Arabic than African heritage, wore black leather gloves. It had been he who had just delivered the punch, and now he smiled at Urgoma as the colonel closed the door behind them.
The other SNP officer’s hands were bare. But from the fingers of his right extended the weighted end of a leather-covered sap. The black leather was as shiny with blood, mucus and other body fluids as the bloody mustache.
A third man, smoking an unfiltered cigarette, stood in the corner next to a table that held an old black rotary telephone. Like the beaten men at the table he, too, wore a suit of light color and material. But it was spotless, and the man wearing it smiled as if he were enjoying a good movie, stage play or opera.
The CIA man, Bolan had to figure. For a moment, a rush of anger flooded over the Executioner. The anger was directed at the Sudanese National Police but even more so at the CIA operative who stood by, excitedly watching this torture, and knowing he would never be held responsible because the Sudanese were the actual torturers.
If for nothing but pragmatic reasons, the agent should have learned through his training that torture was never called for. First and foremost, physical torture wasn’t a reliable way to obtain the truth. Men being beaten told those beating them whatever they thought was most likely to halt the beating. Sometimes that was the truth. Other times it wasn’t.
Bolan turned to Urgoma. “Can I see you in the hall for a moment?” he asked.
“Certainly.”
“You, too, my friend,” the Executioner added, turning toward the CIA agent.
The CIA man dropped the butt of his cigarette on the floor and ground it out with the heel of his shoe.
Bolan opened the door. “Tell your men to take a brief break, will you, Colonel?”
Urgoma nodded, turned toward the table and said something in Arabic. The other two uniformed men nodded, then walked to the wall and leaned against it, both pulling their own cigarettes from shirt pockets.
When they were in the hallway with the door closed again, the Executioner turned toward the CIA man. “What’s your name?” he demanded.
“Sims,” the man said, still grinning. “Bill Sims.” He paused for a moment, the smile staying on his face but turning more sarcastic than happy. “And you must be the hotshot superagent we got the call about from our director. The one who’s so damn good we’re supposed to just follow him around like puppy dogs.”
“It sounds like you have a smart director,” Bolan said. “One who listens to the President.”
Sims snorted. “What was your name again?” the CIA man asked.
“Brandon Stone. And I’ve got just one question for you.”
“Shoot,” Sims said.
Bolan stepped forward and shot a hard right fist into the CIA operative’s belly.
Sims doubled over as if he’d been cut in two.
The Executioner slammed the CIA man against the wall, straightened him back up and said, “What did you say your name was?”
Sims was red-faced and choking, trying to catch his breath. “Sims,” he finally sputtered.
“No, it isn’t,” Bolan said, and hit him in the abdomen again. “It’s Cash. Johnny Cash.” Grabbing a handful of the man’s hair, he forced Sims’s shoulder blades against the wall again. “Let me hear you say, ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.’”
“But my name’s—”
A third punch, this time in the sternum, caused the last remaining air to rush from Sims’s lungs. The Executioner’s fists were painful, and would probably leave Sims with some sore abdominal muscles the next day. But none of the Executioner’s blows would do any permanent harm.
Bolan waited while the vacuum in the man’s chest cleared, then repeated himself. “Say it. ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.’”
“Hello,” Sims said in a faint whisper. “I’m…John…ny…Cash.”
The Executioner stepped back a pace, then turned to Urgoma. “Do you get my point?” he said.
The colonel nodded. “I do,” he said. “Torture can make a man say anything you want him to say.” His face reflected no sign that he had taken the demonstration as an insult. Instead, he looked slightly embarrassed. And as if he had just learned a valuable lesson that he would put it to good use in the future.
Bolan reached forward and straightened Sims back up yet again. “Get lost,” he told the red-faced CIA man. “And don’t get in my way. I don’t want to see you again while I’m here in Sudan. Understand?”
Sims nodded, then staggered off down the hall.
“You are a very direct person,” Urgoma said, chuckling.
The Executioner nodded. “Do me a favor, will you?”
“Anything you like,” Urgoma said.
“Assign a couple of men to Sims. Make sure he doesn’t burn me.” Bolan paused for a moment, then said, “You understand the term burn? ”
“Expose you,” Urgoma said.
“Exactly,” the Executioner said. “I’ve already had too much exposure.”
“I will tell the men inside this room,” Urgoma said, nodding toward the door, “to change into plainclothes and tail Sims. That way, we will keep the number of my own men who know you are here down to a minimum.”
“Good thinking,” the Executioner said. “But is there some particular reason—some suspicion you have—to make you want to play this close to the vest?”
Urgoma lowered his eyes to the floor for a moment, then raised them again. “I have, for some time now,” he said, “suspected that there is a rogue element operating within the law-enforcement community and other governmental offices in Sudan. And I suspect they have a mole right here. In my own Sudan National Police.” He paused a moment, then said, “That is why our government called your President for help. We do not know exactly who can be trusted and who can’t.”
Urgoma was regaining Bolan’s respect quickly with his fast thinking, and the honesty he displayed even when it was embarrassing to him personally. And as far as the beatings 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.