Death Run by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page A

the Feds?" Bolan asked.
    "I don't think they asked for federal assistance, but the FBI has already involved itself." Kurtzman said.
    "That's just one more thing I have to worry about," Bolan said. "I'd say there's a fifty-fifty chance that the Feds will uncover the al Qaeda connection. If they do, they're just going to get in the way of finding the plutonium. Any chance you could misdirect them, Bear?"
    "Striker, you know that would be wrong."
    "Meaning you can do it?"
    "Piece of cake."
    "Good. Could you get Barb on the line?"
    Kurtzman passed the phone to Stony Man's mission controller.
    "What do you need, Striker?" Price asked.
    "I need some security on the Anderson kid. Do you have any blacksuits you can put on it?" Blacksuits were operatives, often law-nforcement officials, who had been through advanced training at Stony Man Farm, though they never knew exactly where they had received the training. This training helped them better perform their jobs, and in return they often assisted Stony Man operatives in the field.
    "I'm one step ahead of you," Price said. "I've already sent one of our best men in the area, a former detective with the San Francisco PD named Delbert Osborne, to guard Anderson."
    "Thanks, Barb. That's one less thing I have to worry about."

5
    The maître d'at Masa's Restaurant, a nice eating establishment on San Francisco's Nob Hill, led Bolan down to the Wine Cellar, the restaurant's private meeting room. Musa bin Osman had wanted to meet in his suite at a nearby hotel, but Bolan had insisted on taking his potential business partner out to dinner. Most likely bin Osman knew that the soldier was just trying to evade whatever trap he might have planned by meeting in a public place, but the Malaysian business man couldn't protest too vehemently without giving away his intentions.
    Bin Osman arrived with an entourage of four men who seemed uncomfortable in their bespoke suits. These hard-looking men seemed like they'd be more at home in prison jump suits. They were definitely not cut from the same corporate cloth as bin Osman, and they said little while Bolan and bin Osman went through the motions and discussed the details of CCP Petroleum possibly sponsoring Team Free Flow Racing. The Executioner had studied the intricacies of sponsoring a MotoGP race team on the flight from Qatar, and he proved remarkably adept at portraying a racing fuel sales rep.
    Not that he expected bin Osman to buy a word of it. Bolan was certain that the Malaysian knew every detail about what had transpired in Qatar. The real reason he and bin Osman attended the meeting was because they wanted to size each other up.
    "I'm glad you could make it to dinner tonight, Mr. Cooper," bin Osman said, "given the adventure you had at the track today. The television portrayed you as some sort of superhero."
    "I got lucky," Bolan replied. "I remembered my military training."
    "Were you with Special Forces?"
    "Just a run-of-the-mill grunt," Bolan said. "I did have some sniper training, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary."
    "Ah, a sniper," bin Osman said. "Retired, I hope."
    "Correct, and more than a bit rusty, but when I saw the attempted kidnapping, I was still able to do what I needed to do."
    "You seem more than capable," the Malaysian said.
    Bin Osman continued to grill Bolan throughout dinner. By the time he'd finished his dessert, the Executioner had no doubt that bin Osman intended to kill him. And maybe he would, but not before Bolan retrieved the plutonium. And if this turned out to be the Executioner's last mission, he intended to take bin Osman with him into the next world. When he looked at the man sitting across from him at the table, he saw something he'd seen far too many times in his life — pure evil.
* * *
    Musa bin Osman needed to size up the American before having him dispatched. He'd learned that Cooper was not affiliated with CCP Oil, though he would not have learned that going through proper channels. Whoever had