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CHAPTER ONE

There was simply no way he could pass himself off as an Iranian.

First off, he was far too tall. He might claim to have come from one of the Elburz Mountain tribes; their men often grew to well over six feet. But he would still be noticed, and it would require explanation. And the fact that he didn’t speak the language pretty much put a damper on explanations of kind.

Besides, his size wasn’t the only discrepancy that would acquire justification. While he was dark-skinned, he wasn’t dark enough, and he had no other Arabic or Persian features to offset that fact. What it boiled down to was that he looked exactly like what he was—an American of mixed descent, primarily Eastern European. So if he intended to operate in Tehran, he would have to play on that theme, and the best cover story he could come up with was that he was one of the many Russians who had found their way to Iran after the iron curtain ceased to exist. His size and face would suggest such a background. And the long gray overcoat and black Russian rabbit hat he wore would aid him.

Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner, kept his eyes in front of him as he walked casually down the sidewalk of Iran’s capital city. No, he thought as he neared a stand where a bearded man was hawking pottery, trying to infiltrate Tehran, especially Tehran’s underground, as a native would have been a big mistake. As he passed the stand, the man called out to him.

The Executioner smiled, shrugged, pointed to his lips and shook his head. “Nyet Farsi,” he said in a Russian accent.

The thick odor of curried rice and boiled lamb drifted out from a doorway just past the pottery stand and Bolan glanced inside as he passed. Two men stood behind a counter spooning food into white cardboard containers. One had the dark hair and skin that was common to the natives. But the other looked as Caucasian as Bolan did.

The Executioner smiled as he moved away from the small restaurant. Up and down the street, in any direction he looked, he saw men and women of obvious Persian and Arabic descent. But scattered among the brown faces and raven hair were others of lighter skin. Some, Bolan knew, were Persians themselves—exhibiting the Aryan genes that had mixed with Turks and Arabs to create a new race long ago. He had considered trying to pass as one of these men, but the fact that he had no knowledge of the language had stopped him once again.

The Executioner walked on. Far more often than the last time he’d been in Iran, he saw men and women in more Western dresses. The women wore no veils, and here and there even a baseball cap and T-shirt could be seen. While the country had hardly returned to the openness of free trade and travel it had enjoyed before the Islamic revolution of the late 1970s, the country was beginning to emerge from the shroud of oppression.

As long as he kept pretending to be Russian, a part he had played many times over the years—he should have no problem locating the address circled on the map of the city in his overcoat pocket.

As Bolan stepped around several children playing on the sidewalk a light snow began to fall. Ahead of him, above the buildings, he could see the white-capped mountains that seemed to stand guard over the city. At their peak was the cone—shaped Mount Demavend, a mysterious sight that seemed to appear in the distant corner of his vision no matter where he looked.

Stopping at the next corner, the Executioner pulled the map from inside his coat. He glanced down at it, then up at the street signs. The apartment he was looking for should be in the next block. Returning the map to his coat, he stuck his left hand into the hand-warmer pocket at his side. His right slipped into the other coat pocket, the fingers curling around the grip of a Smith & Wesson 625-10.

Bolan walked on, his index finger slipping inside the guard but staying away from the trigger for the moment. He had chosen the Scandium .45 ACP revolver to accompany his usual pistols for two reasons. First, it was so light it could be carried in a pocket without creating a telltale sag. But the other reason was just as important. Half of the two-inch barrel was inside the frame, leaving only one inch sticking out of the front. Not just a snub nose, the 625-10 was almost a no-nose. It fit neatly in the pocket and could be gripped, aimed and even shot through the coat if necessary without an adversary even knowing it was there.

The Executioner’s thumb ran along the smooth back of the hammer where the spur had been ground off. The 625-10 had been altered to double-action only. There would be no cocking it to single action for precise shooting. But precise shooting wasn’t why the big-bore wheelgun had accompanied the Executioner to Iran. He was far more concerned with the weapon snagging on the draw or the hammer getting caught in the lining if he had to fire with the gun still in his coat.

Bolan crossed the street and walked on, passing another sidewalk stand selling miniature paintings. Yet another peddled intricately inlaid wood crafts. Like so many other housing areas in Iran’s capital city, a brownstone wall ran along the sidewalks. Behind the wall, villas and apartment houses were jammed together so tightly that they practically became one giant, sprawling building.

Periodically he passed a numbered entryway through the wall. Most of the well-worn wooden doors were closed. A few stood open and through them he saw large flat areas of muddy earth. Come spring these mud patches would turn into flower gardens, sprouting a wide variety of exotic plants in a multitude of colors. But at the moment, only a few dead stalks from last summer’s crops remained, and here and there a thin tree sapling that had shed its leaves weeks earlier.

The Executioner came to the number 11637 and stopped. The door was closed, which didn’t surprise him. Set into the wall was an intercom. Keeping his right hand on the revolver in his pocket, he lifted his left and pushed the button next to the speaker.

A moment later a voice answered with words he didn’t recognize.

“Please accept my apologies,” Bolan said in Russian. “I do not speak your language.”

The man on the other end of the intercom evidently spoke no Russian, and had to guess at Bolan’s words as the Executioner had guessed at his. “Do you speak French?” he asked in French.

“Oui.” Bolan answered in that language. But he made sure to do so with a thick Russian accent.

“What do you want?” asked the voice, now that they had found a common means of communication. “Identify yourself.”

“Rotislavsky,” said the Executioner. “Leon Rotislavsky.” He paused, waiting, remembering the lightning-like events of the past few hours. Two CIA agents had finally learned the identity and last known address of Anton Sobor—a.k.a. Russell James—the former Soviet mole who had left the United States and begun selling his expertise in biochemical warfare to terrorist groups in the Mideast. Further investigation through an informant in Tehran had confirmed the address as a safehouse for the Muslim extremist group, Hezbollah. The snitch had also insinuated that Sobor would know where various weapons of mass destruction—WMDs—were hidden. These weapons were biological and chemical agents Sobor himself had developed for various countries. As far as the CIA knew, no nuclear or “dirty bombs” were involved.

But that didn’t make the situation any less urgent. Sarin, Tabun, VX, or even the older mustard gas of World War I fame could be sprayed from crop-dusting planes and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Biological cultures such as anthrax, small pox or even bubonic plague were even more deadly, and easily spread if released in large metropolitan areas. Another problem was the size of the weapons, particularly those of the biological nature. The cultures could be transported in small, airtight containers that could be hidden almost anywhere.

The CIA informant had also informed his interrogators that there was a rumor going around that many of the hidden WMDs had come from Saddam Hussein himself just before the U.S. and Great Britain took over Iraq. But now, the surrounding countries had grown fearful that they might be invaded next. And they were adding their own mass-murder mediums to the mix.

The CIA agents had reported to their superiors at Langley, who in turn had told the President, as the Man had ordered them to do. But the President had then surprised the Central Intelligence Agency by ordering them to hold off acting on the tip.

Then the Man had called on America’s top-secret counter-terrorist organization, the sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm.

The Farm, in turn, had called in the Executioner.

After a long pause, the voice somewhere inside the wall said, “We know no Rotislavsky.”

“Perhaps you do not,” Bolan replied, again in heavily accented French. “But Anton Sobor does.” His hand tightened slightly around the grip of the .45.

“One moment,” came back over the speaker.

Again, Bolan waited. The real Leon Rotislavsky had been another Soviet mole implanted in the U.S. banking industry to assist in sabotaging the economy. He had recently come forward one step ahead of being discovered, and in return for total amnesty spilled all he knew. Rotislavsky hadn’t mentioned Sobor, but he had had little time to do so. Before the name Russell James even came up the Russian had suffered a massive coronary and died.

Until yesterday, there had been no reason to link him to James. And there was still no proof that the two men knew each other. But a hurried background investigation of the Sobor identity had suggested that Sobor and Rotislavsky had graduated together from the university in Moscow. Russian Intelligence—only slightly more cooperative than the KGB had once been—had confirmed that the two men had gone to school together. But they would admit to no more.

So, the Executioner realized as he continued to wait, maybe Anton Sobor knew Leon Rotislavsky and maybe he didn’t. For that matter, the man who had masqueraded as Russell James might not even still be in Tehran. But if he was, and if he had known Rotislavsky, maybe he would open the door to his old friend. If he didn’t, the Executioner would have to hope the name would at least arouse his curiosity enough to open the door anyway. If the latter was the case, however, the Hezbollah men he was hiding out with here in Tehran were likely to greet him with guns blazing.

Bolan took a deep breath and began unbuttoning his overcoat. No one had ever promised him this mission would be easy. In fact if it had been easy, it would have been given to somebody else.

A few minutes later the voice came back. “Tell us more about yourself,” it said. “Tell us how you know Anton.”

Keeping the Russian accent, Bolan said, “Look, it is cold out here.” Then, with an audible sigh of exasperation, he went on. “We went to school together in Moscow. I graduated in business. He studied the sciences. Then we both moved to America.” He paused again, then finally added, “Do I have to spell out the rest for you? Can you not figure it out for yourself?” He looked nervously over both shoulders in case surveillance cameras were trained on him, then finished with, “Who knows who may be listening to us at this very moment?”

After another long pause, a new voice came on. And this one spoke flawless Russian. “Leon, is that really you?” it asked.

Bolan felt the adrenaline start to build in his chest. The voice had the timbre of a native-born Russian. But was it Sobor? Maybe, maybe not. There were hundreds of former Soviets in Iran—ex-KGB officers, Spetsnaz and others. The man on the other end of the intercom could be anyone. Or it could be Sobor. And the former American mole might not know Leon Rotislavsky, and be setting a trap for him by pretending he did.

The Executioner stood where he was, still aware that a hidden surveillance camera could be aimed at him even now. He knew only one thing for sure: whoever the new voice belonged to, the man was interested, which meant Bolan already had one foot in the door.

“Yes, Anton,” Bolan said. “It is me. Now let me in, please, before I freeze my ass off out here!”

The door buzzed and the Executioner pushed it open. Stepping across the threshold, he found himself in another of the dead-winter flower gardens. A cracked concrete sidewalk led through the mud to the front door of a two-story dwelling, and as he started along it a burly man stepped out and walked toward him. A Soviet-made AK-47 hung from a sling over the man’s shoulder, the muzzle aimed at the Executioner’s midsection.

The man looked Iranian, with dark skin and curly black hair. He wore green BDU pants and black combat boots, but above the trousers legs he was all Persian. A multicolored woven caftan fell past his waistline and was cinched with a wide leather belt. Hanging from the belt was a well-worn and cracked military flap holster, the grip of what appeared to be a 9 mm Tokarev pistol clearly visible.

The Hezbollah hardman walked with a strange sort of “side step” as he approached the Executioner, his right side moving forward ahead of his left. Bolan wondered if the strange gait might not be the result of some past injury as he shifted the .45-caliber wheelgun in his pocket, aiming the stumpy barrel up at the man’s chest. The two continued to walk toward each other.

“Halt there!” the Iranian ordered.

Bolan froze in his tracks, his hands still in his pockets.

“Do you have identification papers?” the man with the Kalashnikov asked in broken French.

Slowly, the Executioner pulled his left hand from the hand-warmer pocket of his overcoat and reached inside the coat. Forgery experts at Stony Man Farm had provided him with an old Soviet passport that had been altered to include his picture and Rotislavsky’s name. He handed it to the man with the rifle.

The terrorist kept the barrel of the AK-47 aimed his way, clutching the pistol grip with his right hand as he took the passport with his left. He thumbed it open to the picture and looked down, studying the face. Then, frowning, he looked up. “This passport expired many years ago,” he said.