Bolan had known physical giants who had been weak and as easily intimidated as lambs. Now here was a guy in a wheelchair, whom Bolan sized up immediately as probably one of the strongest, toughest, craftiest men he had ever confronted.
Sure, Bolan had seen his kind before. A cannibal. Blood brother to the Mafia dons that Bolan had deceived during his previous "life." A guy whose driving wheel was the lust to exploit and gain for his own ends, no matter what the cost to others. That lust was fueled by a strength of will that would only be conquered by death.
And somehow General Nazarour knew that Bolan had brought Carol Nazarour back to the grounds.
How much else did he know? Bolan wondered.
Finally he responded to Nazarour's query regarding the general's wife.
"Why not ask the lady herself?" Bolan grunted. "I'm not here to play question and answer, General. Nor to take orders. I'm here to protect your ass until dawn." He glanced across the room at the second Iranian. "Rafsanjani. I want you to take me on a tour of the house, then take me to your security chief."
Rafsanjani paused, looking at General Nazarour.
The general seemed to be considering something. Then he nodded and some of his coldness thawed. He seemed to Bolan like a jungle animal relaxing. But an animal of prey nonetheless.
"Forgive me, Colonel. Perhaps I was a bit presumptuous. But I would ask you to consider my situation and not 'stonewall' it, as you Americans amusingly say. My life is at stake here. You are a military man. I am a military man. I observe signs of a struggle about the knees of your slacks. I must know what I'm up against. Have you engaged the enemy?"
Bolan changed tactics, too. It would do no good to alienate Nazarour. The odds tonight were already stacked.
"I engaged someone," Bolan nodded. "Some men tried to abduct your wife. I intervened."
The general's face remained impassive. "Were they Iranian?"
"Not that I could see. We shot it out over in the Canal Park. I killed six of them."
Nazarour's eyes blazed. "You might have learned something from them," he snapped. "You could have questioned them."
"I had no choice. Any idea who they were?"
"None. Unless they were working in connection with this assassination team."
"That's not very likely," grunted Bolan. "From what I've heard, this team doesn't need any help. Now if you'll excuse me, General, I'll be about my business."
Rafsanjani stood by the door, holding it open for Bolan but with his eyes on Nazarour.
Nazarour read the unspoken question and nodded. "Show him everything he wishes to see," he instructed his aide. "And send my men in here."
"Yes, General."
Bolan stepped out into the corridor, and Rafsanjani followed, easing the study door shut behind him. Bolan glanced up and down the hallway. There was no sign of Carol Nazarour.
"How did the general know that Mrs. Nazarour and I came back together?" he asked the aide.
Rafsanjani's eyes were cold as polished marble. "The general is master of this house," he replied coolly. "My allegiance is to the general. I owe him my life. I would do anything for him." Here he paused for effect. "Please wait, Colonel, while I see to the guards. Then we shall begin our tour."
The old house was as much a museum as a residence. It had been modernized, of course, in all the necessary ways. But the renovation was so skillful and so complete that Bolan found Rafsanjani's tour of the premises to be almost like stepping into the past. Civil war decor graced one room, while another room was furnished in a turn-of-the-century motif. And above it all hovered emanations of still something else.
Something decadent.
Bolan and Rafsanjani were at the southwest corner of the house, checking the metal mesh that secured a pantry window, when Bolan gave voice to his thoughts.
"Tell me," he said conversationally, as he and the secretary were leaving the pantry toward the stairway to the second floor. "Do you ever pick up certain...certain vibes, living in this place?"
Rafsanjani permitted himself a thin-lipped smile. He seemed to see Bolan in a new light. "My respects, Colonel. You are a man attuned to the metaphysical planes of existence. There is indeed an... aura about this old house." The Iranian spoke almost reverently. "Perhaps it is the evil that the house has absorbed from its inhabitants over the past century."
"When was it built?"
"Some five years before your Civil War. In 1855. The general had me thoroughly research the title of the house when we moved here earlier this year. There is new money and there is old money in Potomac, or so I am told. This house goes very far back in time. Much has happened within its walls."
"Much that was evil?"
"The man who built the house was an arms manufacturer," said Rafsanjani. "A profiteer. He went on to make a fortune by selling his wares to both sides of that conflict. The building was renovated around the turn of the century by a gentleman who was adept in financial maneuverings in the areas of railroads, oil fields, and coal mines. A subsidiary corporation of a major oil company now holds the title. Yes, I would venture to say that much evil has transpired between these walls during this past century. Many souls have been bartered for."
"And your soul, Rafsanjani," Bolan said quietly, his eyes carefully scrutinizing everything as they walked, "what of it? Has it been sold to the devil?"
This brought only another thin-lipped smile. They had reached the second-floor foyer. The stairway had been widened to provide space for a motorized conveyor equipped to handle a wheelchair. Rafsanjani moved briskly toward a door at the head of the stairs, acting as if a brief metaphysical discourse had never occurred.
"This is the general's room," he announced as he opened the door and stood aside for Bolan to enter. "I would request that you give it an especially detailed examination..."
Bolan gave a thorough inspection to the general's bedroom. The window faced the front yard of the house. A skilled commando — as the men in Yazid's group undoubtedly were — would have no difficulty scaling the wall below the bedroom window and gaining access that way. There was no other means of outside entrance, and the general would be safe enough up here if there was a guard to protect the stairway and upper foyer — and the entire exterior.
It took Bolan and Rafsanjani only seventeen minutes to complete their security check of the house, but it was a thorough job. Bolan had inspected every room, every nook and cranny in that old pile of brick.
Except for one.
The door to Carol Nazarour's room was locked. No one responded to Rafsanjani's discreet but distinct rapping on the wood panel. And Rafsanjani claimed not to have a key.
"My orders are never to disturb Mrs. Nazarour unless it is under the most extreme conditions," the aide explained. They were waiting for a response that was not forthcoming.
"Have you seen her since she came back into the house?" asked Bolan.
"I have not."
"Has the general spoken with her?"
Rafsanjani's hooded eyes became wary. "I do not know. As I explained earlier, Colonel, my allegiance is to the general. This is purely a logistical alliance between you and us. Do not involve yourself in analyzing the relationships that confront you here, Colonel. We will separate in a few hours, never to see each other again. Mrs. Nazarour's room is identical to her husband's. That is all you need for our purposes tonight." He turned away from the door. "Let us continue...."
"Relax, buddy," Bolan replied. "If the lady needs privacy, that's all right with me. I'll be around if she wants to talk to me later." He made sure he was close to the door and speaking loudly.
A simple mission. Uh huh.
As he and Rafsanjani moved on to the next room, Bolan found himself formulating a theory about Carol Nazarour and those hoods who had tried to become kidnappers and ended up dead men in the C&O Canal Park — and about the man Nazarour's wife had been on her way to meet. The man Bolan had seen gunned down.
If Bolan's theory was correct, then Carol Nazarour's intentions and allegiance would be a crucial factor in the general's safety tonight.
Bolan hoped like hell that the lady had been listening behind that bedroom door. That she would make contact with him.
The blonde was a beauty. Of that there was no doubt.
But Bolan wondered what else Carol Nazarour was.
Where would her allegiance rest when the coming battle was raging? Would she be friend?
Or foe?
He had doubts about her capacity for what might be called civilized behavior. She seemed to have bartered her integrity for a lousy price already. Though it was not yet possible to be sure of that.
But about the civilized behavior of the non-nationals in this place he had no doubts whatsoever. All politeness was show. Gentility was a sham. The true nature of these exiles was barbarous: for them, life was cheap — unless it was their own.
"Any other hidden access to the house?" Bolan asked Rafsanjani. "A bricked-up rear porch, or conservatory, greenhouse?"
"Ah, the greenhouse," said Rafsanjani, his face lighting up. "Acute of you to mention it." The little man raised a forefinger and shook it at Bolan in mock admonition. "That is my favorite adjunct to the house, my personal play space. Mine alone.
"I shall show it to you because it will give me pleasure. It is in fact attached to the building, but there is no way into the house from it. It is accessible only from the outside. Come."
The two men proceeded downstairs and out through the front door. Bolan maintained his appearance of alertness, though he was endeavoring to pace his energy for the crisis to come. His reserves were already sorely taxed.
Around the back of the building stood a small greenhouse with a roof that sloped against the wall of the house itself. It was lit from within.
As they entered it, Rafsanjani pointed to a wooden hutch on the outside of the door. "Rabbits," he said simply. "My idea."
Inside the greenhouse, the humidity gave forth a rank odor of unusual plant life. Bolan surveyed the structure swiftly. There was nothing of interest to him there.
"These are exotic herbs I am growing," said the Middle Easterner in his whining voice. He intended to capture the American's interest in an obscure hobby. "The protecttion of them is everything to me. They are my sole existing connection with the homeland, apart from the general, of course."
He waved his small hand in a gesture of territorial power, his plants tall but slightly bowed in the artificial atmosphere. "I would not advise entering farther than this point," he added.
"No?" queried Bolan. He was becoming aware of a sinister delight in this unpleasant little man's attitude.
"It would not harm you lethally, but it will kill all vermin of lesser scale.'' Rafsanjani pointed to the slanting roof. "The metal bar crossing the roof there — it is emitting a silent scream!''
His eyes were now blazing with intensity. He was looking at Bolan with the gaze of a mad scientist. These people gave the big guy the creeps; he was beginning to feel alien in his own land.
"You have a sonar device at danger pitch there? Why?" he rasped. He was going to cut through this crazed man's crap with brutal force if need be.
"To preserve and protect, of course," giggled the Iranian. "Watch."
He stepped out of the greenhouse to the rabbit hutch, opened the hutch door and, clutching the animal around the neck, pulled out a piebald rabbit from its bed of straw.
Before Bolan could stop him, Rafsanjani flung the creature through the air. As it traversed the space beneath the bar across the roof, suddenly the animal plummeted to the ground. It was screeching eerily as it lay spreadeagled on the dirt of the floor. Then two streams of blood poured from the helpless animal's ears, and its eyes all but popped from its head. A sickening twitch or two and then silence.
It had been struck stone-dead by the invisible force of sound. Bolan was speechless. The act was wanton and disgusting, the sight of it was an ugly, nauseating thing.
But Rafsanjani was thirsty for more.
"Again?" he squealed as he moved toward the cage.
"Enough," shouted Bolan. With the side of his hand he chopped at Rafsanjani's arm as it reached for the cage.
The act paralyzed the cruel man on the spot. Far from dropping from the blow, Rafsanjani's arm sprung back and stayed outstretched, stiff with shock, as his jaw dropped and he stared at the spreading welt with watering eyes.
"Damn you," he gasped, shaking his arm and dancing about like a struck ape.
"Damn you," spat Bolan. He had no patience with indiscriminate animal killers. Self-defense he applauded, some revenge he could condone, but the careless arrogance of super-predator Man sickened him with its spoiled, idle abuse of the lesser creatures. "You touch another animal in that cage and I'll jam your face into the back of your head.''
He pushed Rafsanjani impatiently to one side, sending the dazed Iranian staggering along the pathway. He swung the wooden-framed wire door of the hutch wide open.
"I'm releasing these toys of yours," he said. "Better they face the danger of dogs and highways than your sick whims.
"They'll be a damn sight safer away from this place tonight anyway," he added. "You'll all be like scared rabbits when this invasion comes down. And frankly," he said, turning to offer Rafsanjani an open sneer, "I'm beginning to look forward to it."