Renegade Agent (10 page)

Of course, the real destination was never the one that was registered, but one of Edwards's warehouses instead.

The weapons business is highly profitable.

Edwards marks up the goods three or four hundred percent, depending on the buyer and the merchandise." Toby shook her head, almost sadly. "I got to know the guy a little, Mack. He is one of the most frightening men I've ever met, because to him it's as if it's just an exercise in deception and wheeling dealing, a game at which he has grown expert. He knows intellectually that people are dying because of it, but emotionally he is completely aloof."

It was the ultimate ego trip, sure. The notion that the world is composed of You and Everyone Else, because no one can touch you in deceit and manipulation. Except Edwards was wrong: he would be touched all right, and touched hard.

"I think Edwards has also received seed money from some of the wealthier terrorist groups. We know that before he began to set up his spy net, eyewitnesses placed him at the scene of several high-level meetings among Arab radical factions. At least a dozen European assassinations have been pinned on them in the past two years, and one or two of the earlier ones may have been Edwards's personal work. Now some of those groups are anteing up seed money."

"So it all ties in."

"Even more than we thought," Toby added. "It turns out that Edwards even has quasi-official status. Nominally, the reason he is in Tripoli is to train a class of Libyan intellectuals in espionage technique, and to design and start up an intelligence agency for Khaddafi. Of course, Khaddafi knows this is a cover for Edwards's own ambitions, but he doesn't particularly care. He'll be one of Edwards's best customers, and he'll even get a discount."

Bolan pressed in the Jag's dashboard lighter and fished out a cigarette. "I figured he's using Wheelus as a base."

"That's right," Toby confirmed. "His primary communication and computer data-bank facility is there, and his own planes fly out of the old base. He's also got his largest illegal-weapons warehouse there too, in an old quartermaster corps facility ( and right now it's filled with inventory."

"Can you sketch me a layout of the base, Toby?"

"You bet, Captain Grim."

She found paper and pen in the sedan's glove box and began to rough out a schematic as Bolan asked, "How long before Edwards misses Hansen?"

"I'm not sure. Hansen wouldn't necessarily check in just to tell Edwards we had reached Wheelus, not unless something was wrong. But there's a good chance that the next one of Edwards's group to pass this way is going to recognize those two wrecked cars, investigate, and blow the whistle. It's still pretty early; with luck we might have a couple of hours."

"That could be all we need."

Toby looked across the seat at him and frowned, like she already knew the answer to the question she was about to ask.

"Now wait a minute, Captain Incredible. Are you thinking of taking him on by yourself?"

"Toby, Frank Edwards can't be touched through official channels. Technically, he hasn't been charged with any crime by American authorities, because to do so would open some top-secret cans of worms. Technically, he's outside the reach and authority of our law, anyway. Technically, no American agent or law officer has any official status in Libya."

"Yeah," Toby Ranger said sarcastically, "and technically, the Mafia never existed. If you go strictly by the book, that is."

"Which is why..."

"Which is why," Toby interrupted, "we're going by the book you wrote. It's just like the bad old days, isn't it, Captain Tough? Hit "n" git the hellfire storm, all of it. Call it "Blitzing the Baddies, by Captain Death.""

Mack Bolan did not smile.

"I'll need intel, Toby. With cars and bodies littering that field, we could go on the heartbeat any second."

"Mack, with that arm the chances...." She bit at her lip. You did not start thinking chances at a time like this.

"The layout at the villa," Bolan pressed. "Number and positioning of security layout, anything else you can give me."

Toby sighed. "You got it, Captain Stubborn." But then her wry smile turned into a pained drawn expression, as if all the tension of the past six months of living undercover, acting a role for the Oscar Award that was life or death, had finally become frighteningly real to her. "Mack," she said, in a voice gone suddenly little girl. She leaned across, and he let her come into his arms. There was nothing sexual about it; it was the need of two people to feel for a few moments a human touch, in the midst of the all-too-inhuman world in which they found themselves so often. He felt the warm wetness of her tears soaking through the elastic material of the blacksuit.

"It's okay," he told her in an incredibly soft voice.

"Damn it," Toby sobbed, and Bolan knew she was referring to nothing and everything. "Just damn..."

Very too quickly the moment was over. So few, those moments, so far between ( and so essential.

As essential as the need to stop Frank Edwards.

Toby was sitting across the seat again, her eyes red but dry. "I'm ready," she said, calmly, levelly.

East across the flat grassy plain, dirty gray fingers of dawn licked away the night sky.

Another day, and another long yard in the Executioner's endless Third Mile of War.

But Bolan nodded. He was ready as well.

Mack Bolan lay without breathing on the floor in front of the Jag's rear seat, his still form hidden beneath a rough wool blanket. The car cruised to a stop, and Bolan heard the sound of boot heels on pavement as the gateman came over, Bolan tensed, holding the charged Uzi in ready position. If Toby's cover had been blown completely off and the guard blew the whistle on her now, the scene was going to go rapidly hard.

"Accident?" The gateman's voice came from the rig's passenger side. Its tone was casual.

"Somewhere along the line," Toby replied just as lightly. "It was like that when I left Frank's place."

"A Jag, huh," he heard the gateman say rhetorically. "I haven't seen this one around before." Either the guy was looking for conversation to break up the monotony of duty ( or he was stalling for time.

"I guess Frank just picked it up. Probably at a discount because of the dent, if I know Frank."

The gateman laughed. "Frank knows the value of a buck, that's for sure."

"Just like the rest of us, huh?"

"Right you are, Toby. Listen, what's up?" In the background, Bolan could hear the Doppler effect of an approaching plane.

"That goddamned tag car was on its way to pick up some guy named Sid Bryant. That's probably his flight coming in now," she whispered to Bolan.

"Who is he?"

"Used to be FBI, but he's been freelancing around Europe and the Middle East for the past couple of years. Frank's never met him, I guess, but he'd got the credentials and recommendations."

"Coming in for the big meet?"

"No, that's just coincidence. He'll be there, I guess, but mainly Frank is just checking him out." Toby shifted the sedan into gear.

"Take it easy, Toby," the gateman called as she moved on into the one-time USAF base turned terrorist nerve center.

Bolan let out breath and loosened his death grip on the Uzi. He had changed out of the midnight suit and into light cotton twill slacks, a khaki safari shirt, and dark glasses. In the front right-hand pocket of the slacks was stowed a C.O.P. (compact Off-Duty-Police), Inc. SS-I four-barrel hideaway pistol, in .357 Magnum.

The Jaguar rolled to a smooth stop. From the sound of the engines as they were killed, the plane was close by. The Jag's door opened, slammed again.

"How they hanging, Toby?" a man's voice asked.

"Keep your mind on flying, Jerry." Toby's tone was just as bantering. "Are you Bryant?" she asked after a pause.

A different man answered, "That's right."

"Your chariot awaits, chum."

Both front doors opened, and the Jag's suspension shifted under the weight of Toby and Bryant. The car started up again, swung around in a U-turn. It slowed long enough for Bolan to hear the gateman's, "Later, Toby," then sped up again." "Welcome to Tripoli, Bryant," Toby said casually Bolan slipped out from under the blanket and rose silently to his knees, bringing up the Uzi.

Bryant had started to murmur a response to Toby's apparent pleasantry when the barrel of the Uzi drilled into the base of his skull. "You've got two choices, Bryant," Bolan said into the guy's ear, his voice sharp and cold as an icicle. "It you keep your eyes straight ahead and your hands in sight, you get a long walk back from the desert. If you even twitch, you get your brains all over the dashboard."

"I guess I've got a long walk coming up," Bryant said expressionlessly.

Understanding the enemy, in everything from motivation to method, was an invaluable aid, Bolan had learned ( it was the edge that kept a man living. So from the moment he had received in London from Aaron Kurtzman at Stony Man Farm the telexed precise of Frank Edwards's dossier, he had budgeted a significant portion of his available waking time while in transit to studying, analyzing, and extrapolating strengths, weaknesses, causality, technique. By applying his vast storehouse of experiential knowledge of the human animal, Bolan was able to virtually open the lid of the man and examine the works inside.

Frank Edwards, age 38. Born Manchester, New Hampshire, to Earl Edwards, grocery wholesaler, and Bernice Edwards, high-school teacher. Educated in public grammar and high schools; two-year letterman in football and track, vice-president of the student council, honor roll academically. B.A. degree from Yale University; dual major in history and political science, upper-level courses in psychology, sociology, Spanish, German. Four years army ROTC. Grade level of 73rd percentile, i.e. academically above average but not extraordinary.

The bare-bones outline of Edwards's post-graduate career went like this: Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, U.S. Army, assigned to military intelligence. Stationed in Saigon for twenty months during the height of the Vietnam War. Usual citations, honorable discharge six months before scheduled expiration of enlistment at administrative request, discharge rank of captain.

Joined the Central Intelligence Agency on discharge, posted to Langley for training. Subsequent postings to Caracas, Malaysia, Belgrade, Bonn, Paris. Chief of Middle East Section, HQ in Beirut, when his service was terminated. Total agency service: fourteen years, four months. The anecdotal material that the Bear had appended to the dossier fleshed out the skeletal, and fairly typical, description of one agent's career ( and revealed that Edwards was hardly typical at all. The CIA, Bolan knew, was not some sort of arcane secret society, approaching potential agents in the dead of night, swearing them to secrecy and offering them a James Bondian life of excitement and high adventure. Sure, of necessity there was a certain covertness to the agency's activities, and the mental and physical prerequisites for agents were extremely rigorous, designed to screen out all but the very best. But the CIA hired much like any other corporation, interviewing applicants on college campuses for example, as openly as General Motors. Occasionally, if in the course of his work a field agent encounters a particularly promising candidate, he might recommend he apply. This was the case with Frank Edwards, who during his military stretch came in normal contact with the head of the CIA'S Saigon station. It was Edwards's successful application that led to his early discharge from regular military service. A senior CIA field agent is given a great deal of autonomy; that was the reason for the meticulous screening procedure through which Edwards passed with flying colors. Although an agent enjoys the resources of the world's finest intelligence agency, he is also expected to develop and exploit his own sources. His primary mandate is explicit, and he is often given specific assignments, but he may also act on his own initiative if the contingencies of the moment demand it. In the words of William Colby, one of the CIA directors under whom Edwards worked: "It is the function of an agent, in the proper use of the situation, to maneuver himself into a situation by his own wits." Quite simply, Frank Edwards made an excellent spy. He was intelligent, cool-headed, resourceful, imaginative. His natural personality was affable and outgoing; he genuinely enjoyed people and got along with those of every social stratum. He would physically courageous, and unflappable in a dangerous situation. On three occasions in his agency career, he had killed twice under pressure when operations had been bollixed or betrayed. In each instance he had revealed none of the hesitation of compunction that could get a man dead.

And yet, for the last five years of his service, this model agent had been exploiting his position and contacts to lay the foundation for his ultimate act of betrayal of his colleagues and country.

CIA psychologists had developed a theory to explain Edwards's actions. The world of espionage was incredibly complex, they pointed out.

Double-cross, betrayal, and deception were everyday components of it, so that the line between ally and antagonist could change position almost daily. In addition, the individual agent was only one small cog in the great intelligence machine; often it became difficult for the agent to relate the purpose of his operations to the greater scheme of his nation's interest.

As a psychological defense, even a competent and loyal agent perceived his work as an exercise in logic tics and intellect. Accepting as a given fact that he was working on the right side, he would then bring nothing but a cold precision to his operations.

There was nothing wrong with this, the psychologists pointed out. It was mentally healthy and stable, and served the agency's best interests. It became dangerous only when it was carried one step further, as Frank Edwards had done.

Edwards had rejected completely the link between his intelligence activities and the greater good.

Sure, he understood that as an agent of the CIA he was promoting the interests of the United States; it was just that he had decided that those interests no longer had anything to do with him. The operation ( the game ( became an end in itself. From there, the decision to operate solely in one's own behalf was not a large step.

"It would be erroneous," one CIA psychologist wrote, "to diagnose Edwards as mentally unhealthy. On the contrary, from a purely logical point of view, Edwards's behavior is entirely rational." Rational, maybe. But Bolan knew that the world does not revolve upon an axis of rationality. To coexist, people had to accept and embrace emotion as well-emotions like loyalty, commitment to something of worth, moral vision.

Instead, Frank Edwards had chosen a life of ethical vacancy, a commitment only to power and wealth with no thought whatsoever to those at whose expense he would prosper.

It was a hollow world that Frank Edwards had created for himself. And Mack Bolan meant to pop it open.

The chronometer on Bolan's left wrist read 0730:00, Tripoli time. Twisting the arm far enough to see it sent a faint ripple of hurt across the left side of his chest. It was another reminder that he would have to compensate for the less-than-full use of that arm. Everything had to go down exactly on the numbers, and there were no numbers to spare. This hit had to take out Edwards, but it would still have to be as soft as possible. Call it semisoft.

Call it the end of a traitor's megalomaniacal master plan.