Mack Bolan wasn’t walking the razor’s edge now

He was cutting his feet on the blade, and only his and Grimaldi’s skill could keep his blood from spraying the U.S. government in the fallout.

It was risky, and when Bolan called Stony Man Farm for an intelligence update and to inform Brognola that he planned to go to North Korea, it wasn’t to ask permission. Such a request would have been construed as nothing less than an act of war, even if the foray was in utmost secrecy.

The Executioner wasn’t a government employee, and there was a conspiracy summoning him into the depths of an enemy stronghold.

There wasn’t an option of survival.

He either succeeded, or the world would be drawn into a war that could explode into a three-way conflict with China.

Other titles available in this series:

Stalk Line

Omega Game

Shock Tactic

Showdown

Precision Kill

Jungle Law

Dead Center

Tooth and Claw

Thermal Strike

Day of the Vulture

Flames of Wrath

High Aggression

Code of Bushido

Terror Spin

Judgment in Stone

Rage for Justice

Rebels and Hostiles

Ultimate Game

Blood Feud

Renegade Force

Retribution

Initiation

Cloud of Death

Termination Point

Hellfire Strike

Code of Conflict

Vengeance

Executive Action

Killsport

Conflagration

Storm Front

War Season

Evil Alliance

Scorched Earth

Deception

Destiny’s Hour

Power of the Lance

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Ballistic Force

Renegade

Survival Reflex

Path to War

Blood Dynasty

Ultimate Stakes

State of Evil

Force Lines

Don Pendleton’s

Mack Bolan®

Contagion Option

To Bobbi, as always.

This book never could have been done without you.

We must dare to think “unthinkable” thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about “unthinkable things” because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

—J. William Fulbright,

March 27, 1964

In my War Everlasting, I have been forced to see the unthinkable put into action by the unconscionable. To contain a catastrophe, sometimes the options are to lose an entire city than to lose a nation, but as long as there is still a breath in me, my option is to lose myself to save a city.

—Mack Bolan

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

The body plummeted through the sky and crashed with a dull, sickening thump into the dry grass. More bodies followed as the transport plane made a slow, lazy circle over the field.

The team had done this a hundred times before, and the men, dressed in black, took to the field.

The bodies were hollowed-out cattle, their bellies distended with packages. Some clinked with the heavy ring of metal, while others were stiff pillows of compressed powder. Two of the cows were filled with rolls of rifles, wrapped in plastic and cushioning foam.

“Looks like Christmastime for the gang,” a man dressed in black mentioned as he pulled the weapons from the body cavity of the slaughtered animal. “Must be twenty rifles here.”

“Chatter,” another replied quietly.

The first fell quiet, admonished with a single word. Sound carried, and even though their helicopter had scanned the area for miles with infrared and radar, they still worked in hushed, professional silence to ensure their private, midnight endeavor went undetected.

In the darkness, none of the men in black used regular white lights. Occasionally they would flash on a low-powered, low-signature red light, but only for a moment. In the empty field, there was too much risk of strangers noticing.

They had been doing this for years and hadn’t been caught.

One man spoke among the group. “Leave a souvenir for the conspiracy theorists.”

The others nodded and as they dragged a dozen carcasses off the field, they left one lying in the dried grass.

One man pulled a small butane-lighter-like device and burned a brand into the carcass. He worked from memory, knowing which ranch they were on.

The rest of the team took out folding rakes and went over the entirety of the field before returning to the helicopter. The branding artist backed his way to the helicopter, obscuring his tracks, leaving no trace that anyone was ever there. The long, padded skids of the transport chopper rose from a patch of hard, rocky soil and sparse grass leaving little clue of the vehicle’s presence.

The presence of the gutted cow would obfuscate the situation handily. No one would suspect their smuggling ring, in business across several decades, was in operation. Not when investigators were hampered by crackpot theorists who blamed slaughtered cattle on aliens or top-secret Army surgical teams testing surgical lasers. The truth was at once mundane and would shock the world should it ever get out.

But the men in black, as they left the gutted, cauterized corpse in the field, wouldn’t be responsible for that leak in secrecy.

The dark helicopter rose into the Utah night, its Kevlar hull minimizing its radar signature to that of a sparrow, sideways speakers reflecting the sound of the rotors at a right angle to the original racket to dampen the noise to a thrumming whisper. The stealth bird swung lazily back toward its home base.

It was business as usual.

CHAPTER ONE

The Gulf of Thailand, twenty miles out of Pattaya

It was business as usual for Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner, as Jack Grimaldi raced Dragon Slayer low over the Gulf of Thailand, so low that the sea spray pelted the windshield. The high-tech combat helicopter was loaded to the gills with electronics and weaponry to give Bolan the kind of edge he needed when fighting impossible odds. The war bird had been designed specifically for the soldier’s crusade against the forces of evil. With encrypted communications, wireless satellite computer links and sensors that could pick up anything across the spectrum, Dragon Slayer could find almost any target. Laden with rocket and grenade launchers, and the awesome .50-caliber GECAL multibarreled machine gun, the helicopter could destroy even a small column of tanks.

Grimaldi held them low over the water, about five feet between the belly of the sleek bird and the tops of the tallest waves. With speakers that reflected the sound of the bird’s own rotor slap at ninety-degree angles to the original sound, the normal thunder and roar of the helicopter was muffled to little more than a low hum. This was a stealth insertion on a freighter loaded with contraband from Thailand.

The ship was on course for North Korea. The freighter was registered to Liberia, which enabled it to travel around the world without more than a second glance. Sometimes that registry also covered illegal operations, but since major corporations profited from both tourism and “under the counter” transportation of goods, powerful sponsorship kept governments from looking too closely at the problem.

Mack Bolan wasn’t the government. He wasn’t a civil servant with a license to kill. Certainly, through the Sensitive Operations Group at Stony Man Farm, he had official backup in the form of intelligence, a gunsmith and occasionally two of the best covert strike teams on the planet. Still, the Executioner considered them just that—backup. He enjoyed his camaraderie with the warriors and support crew at Stony Man, but he was his own man, with his own resources and his own crusades. Even Dragon Slayer had been funded from the massive war chest that Bolan had accumulated, the spoils of countless wars against organized crime. While the aircraft was assigned to Stony Man Farm and was registered to the United States Justice Department by the Federal Aviation Commission, the Executioner didn’t let taxpayer dollars fund his arsenal. Instead, the sleek aircraft had been funded from money “donated” by gangsters, drug dealers and terrorists.

Where the donors had been sent, they wouldn’t ever need money again.

“Coming up on the freighter. ETA thirty seconds,” Grimaldi said over Bolan’s LASH radio.

“Smooth ride as usual,” he told the pilot.

Grimaldi smiled. “Well, the last time the lady was flying in Thailand, she took a pounding. She’s proving to Daddy that she can handle this.”

Bolan grinned, then opened the side door. He’d have to get out quickly. Even with a radar signature the size of a hummingbird, and making not much more sound, the rotor wash would be noticeable to anyone on the freighter’s deck. In addition, the helicopter itself wasn’t invisible, despite its dark-colored hull. The ship’s running lights would betray Dragon Slayer’s presence in a heartbeat.

He gripped the sides of the door opening as Grimaldi popped the helicopter up and over the rail. With a surge of muscles, Bolan leaped to the deck, landing in a crouch, then rolling into a somersault as Grimaldi dipped the helicopter back and out of sight. The drop was fifteen feet, but Bolan was strong and agile, and he allowed momentum and supple movement to absorb most of the shock.

As soon as he hit, Bolan drew his Beretta 93-R, folding grip snapped down, sound suppressor in place.

On a data screen in the passenger cabin of Dragon Slayer, he’d kept an eye on infrared blobs, humans walking the decks, memorizing where his enemies were on this ship. According to the scanners, there were twenty-five people on board in various compartments.

That didn’t count the containers in the hold. Infrared scans had trouble going through both the hull and the tractor-trailer containers in the hold, but there was a definite heat signature that caught Bolan’s attention. He was here on the advice of an old ally in Thailand who had said that the ship was smuggling people to North Korea. Bolan had pulled a few strings to get Dragon Slayer delivered, because he knew the sleek high-tech aircraft could possibly be needed to get wounded or dying bystanders back to shore.

Bolan had engaged the slave trade in Thailand once before, and had dropped a brutal ax on its neck. The trade still existed and thrived, because the Executioner had been able to take out only one mastermind of the insidious child slavery ring and his organization—the San United Army.

Still, he had his ear to the ground, and when he had the opportunity, he’d stop by and give the flesh peddlers a taste of long-delayed justice. With a crusade against the forces of terrorism and crime that went on around the world, Bolan couldn’t be everywhere at once. But when he arrived, he made up for lost time.

“Anyone catch sight of me?” Bolan asked over his radio.

“Nobody moving your way, no one taking up arms against you,” Grimaldi answered. “You don’t exist.”

Bolan pressed his lips tightly together. “Good, I intend to keep it that way for a while.”

Sliding through the shadows, clad in his skintight blacksuit, Bolan slipped between cargo hold lids and containers on the deck.

With every trailer, he paused and pressed a small cup against the container. The cup contained sensitive electronics that amplified sound and fed it through his LASH radio. The hands-free unit would tell him if there was anyone inside breathing or moving. Whispers would be as clear as straight to his ear. With a quick look over his shoulder, he’d listen for a few minutes, then move on.

He heard the rattle of machinery in most of the containers, metal jostling against metal. He wasn’t certain if it was farm machinery or crates of rifles, but whatever it was, it wasn’t in need of immediate attention.

“We’ve got movement on the bridge,” Grimaldi warned, and the Executioner slipped deeper into shadow, Beretta 93-R at the ready. Dragon Slayer hovered silently, back a full klick, but the Stony Man pilot could keep a close eye with telephoto lenses and other advanced surveillance gear.

Bolan, nearly invisible, looked toward the bridge. A pair of gunmen exited the bridge, being ordered around by the captain, a swarthy man who looked to be from the Mediterranean. The guards were Asian, and they didn’t look happy to be ordered around. The Executioner knew that their mission would be urgent, simply because of their weapons and how quickly they were dismissed by the irate man in command. Bolan closed across the deck, cautious not to let the enemy know he was there.

The guards reached a stairwell that led to the hold, and paused. One lit a cigarette and started to speak in Vietnamese, a language Bolan understood all too well.

“That Italian idiot thinks he can push us around like he owns us…” one man said.

“He’s Greek, not Italian.”

“Greek, Italian, they’re all hook-nosed bastards who think because they have round eyes they can see everything better than we can,” the first man muttered. “I left Dhom Phoc for this?”

“Hey, would you rather live on a commune?” the other man asked. “Pham, we’re making money here.”

Pham tossed away his cigarette, the butt bouncing off the toe of Bolan’s boot as he stood in the shadows. “Yes. Money. I have to remember that. Besides, it’s better than being blown out of the water by the Chinese navy for being pirates.”

The second smuggler laughed. “Don’t worry. Once we get the cargo back to Korea, we’ll be transporting drugs and booze as usual.”

Pham shrugged. “If you say so. Come on.”

They started down the steps and Bolan gave them a few moments lead time before he strolled onto the deck, walking with purpose as if he belonged there. He followed the two Vietnamese smugglers down the steps, Beretta 93-R holstered under his arm. Still, he had the pommel of his forearm knife resting in his palm, ready to slice flesh and draw blood with a simple flick of the wrist.

The two Vietnamese sentries chattered and continued to complain about the Greek man in charge, unaware that they were being followed. Out at sea, with no one around for miles, sailors tended to think that they were immune to intrusion.

One of the Vietnamese looked back and spotted Bolan, and the soldier lifted his hand in a half wave before turning into the first hatchway he could find. The sentry waved back to Bolan and called out something in an unintelligible effort at Italian. The Executioner poked his head out the hatchway and responded in his own Italian.

“What did you say?” he asked, keeping his body and the suspicious-looking blacksuit and battle harness out of sight behind the doorjamb.

The Vietnamese paused and thought hard about what he needed to say. “I said, nice night.”

Bolan smiled. “Wouldn’t know. I’ve been belowdecks all evening. Where are you going?”

The other Vietnamese translated for his less articulate friend, then answered.

“The captain sent us to bring up a couple of girls for some after-dinner entertainment,” the second one said.

Bolan kept the anger out of his face and nodded. “Oh…great.”

“Yeah, I know. Getting that greasy bastard’s leftovers sucks,” the Vietnamese with the better Italian answered.

“We aren’t supposed to be sampling the merchandise,” Bolan mentioned.

“It’s not like the Koreans are going to know anything’s missing. Most of these girls are professionals, so it’s not like the clients are going to expect virgins,” the guard responded.

Bolan shrugged. “Yeah. Well, when the North Korean military brass end up with the clap, you can explain that to Kim Jong-il.”

The chatty guard stepped closer to the doorway. “What?”

Bolan sighed. “Didn’t know that the captain had the gift that keeps on giving?”

The Vietnamese guard looked to his friend and exploded rapidly in his native tongue. “Oh dammit! That greasy Greek gave us the clap!”

The second one’s face paled. “You’re kidding!”

“This guy said the captain has…” The sentry paused and looked back toward Bolan. “Wait…I haven’t seen you bef—”

Bolan reached out and slammed his left hand tightly around the guard’s throat, cutting off whatever else he had to say. The forearm knife dropped into his other hand and launched like a dart. The Executioner’s throw was true, the sharp spike of steel imbedding deeply into the second man’s chest, a gush of blood squirting in a long, lazy, crimson arch.

The wounded guard gurgled, trying to gain his breath, but several inches of steel had pierced his lung, making speech difficult as the organ flooded with blood.

Bolan’s captive enemy struggled to break his grasp, forgetting about his guns. Panic had overtaken the smuggler, and if he had his wits about him, he would have reached for any of his weapons, or even one of Bolan’s pistols, and ended his torment—and the Executioner’s intrusion—with a pull of the trigger. However, fingers like steel savagely crushed his windpipe and jugular, making the Vietnamese resort to primitively hammer against Bolan’s forearm. Given the big man’s musculature, it was akin to trying to punch through a thick oak tree branch.

The Executioner pulled the Beretta and shot his captive’s partner through the forehead, finishing the man’s suffering before his lung completely filled with blood and he drowned. Then he pushed the suppressor between his adversary’s lips and grated in the man’s native language, “You make a sound, you die, even slower than your friend.”

He eased the pressure on his captive’s throat, and the man nodded.

“How many are in the hold?” Bolan asked, pulling the gun back so his hostage could speak.

“We started out with one hundred, but four died already,” the guard said.

Bolan pushed the Vietnamese’s head hard against the unyielding bulkhead. The result was that the pirate’s almond-shaped eyes crossed. “How did they die?”

“Two were already sick…another cut her wrists…and the last one…Captain Tinopoulos beat her to death.”

Bolan’s jaw locked as he put a stopper on his fury. He needed more answers. “How healthy are the rest?”

“They’re still in good shape,” the sentry said. “But some are seasick. At least, they’re throwing up, and they have a fever. We had them belowdecks for two days before we set out.”

Bolan knew it wasn’t seasickness. If these young victims were being sent to Korea, then that meant they were discards from the Thai sex slavery trade. Many of them were probably suffering from heroin or opium withdrawal. The Thai flesh peddlers often used drugs as a very short leash to keep their slaves under control. “Take me to them.”

The guard nodded. “My name is Pham…”

Bolan squeezed his throat more tightly. “I’m not interested.”

Pham coughed and sputtered, “Sorry.” Finally, Bolan released the pressure.

“Shut up,” Bolan said. “You’re not going to get any sympathy from me by telling me your name.”

Pham’s lips pulled tight. “But—”

“You joined in on raping these girls…”

“They’re just pros—”

Bolan’s fingers tightened and Pham’s eyes widened in horror as his feet left the deck. The pressure on his throat was enormous, not only from the crush of the Executioner’s grasp, but the weight of his own squirming body. Pham’s fingers dug into Bolan’s forearm, trying to pry it away to relieve the force of his own mass on his windpipe. “They never chose this life. Not that someone like you would care.”

Bolan let go and Pham crashed to the floor. The guard reached for his weapons, but somewhere along the line, probably in one of those moments when the air was being squeezed out of him, the tall, grim avenger had disarmed him. He crawled on all fours when Bolan stepped on his ankle, pinning him between two hundred plus pounds of muscle and sinew and crushing steel grating. Pham grit his teeth to keep from crying out. Bolan’s hand laced into the Vietnamese’s hair and yanked him up to a kneeling position. “I can find the hold myself. I don’t need a tour guide.”

Pham whimpered. “All right…all right…”

Bolan let go and Pham crawled to his feet. He walked with a limp, but by now, his spirit had been broken. Pham had no will to escape.

“Give me the knife and drag your dead friend into this cabin,” Bolan ordered.

Pham obeyed without a hint of protest. He pried the blade out of the corpse and handed it, pommel first, to Bolan. The soldier put the blade back in its quick-draw forearm sheath.

The Executioner wasn’t a cruel man, but he was practical. A display of just how much pain he could inflict was often enough to prevent an enemy from pushing his luck. It also had given the big warrior the opportunity to vent his rage somewhat.

Bolan had encountered sex slavers before across his career, from Las Vegas to Bangkok, and all points in between. He’d begun his crusade when his teenage sister had been pressed into prostitution by an organized crime group, and the fallout had resulted in his family exploding from within. Those who profited from adults were already scum, but it took a special kind of evil to engage in selling and destroying the innocence of adolescents and children. Bolan still thought of Cindy as a kid, even though she was in her late teens when she’d been forced into “the life,” so this was one crime that the Executioner felt very close to. Though the world was too big for the Executioner to focus on any one brand of evil, he had been lucky enough to get a tip from an ally in Thailand about a large shipment of slaves being shipped to another nation. Bolan figured that he’d deal himself in for this hand. It wouldn’t take long out of his War Everlasting, and he didn’t have any urgent, upcoming missions right now.

It was time the underworld learned once more that trading in human lives was a fatal mistake.

Pham limped along, sufficiently cowed. Since Bolan had demonstrated facility at understanding two of the languages the young man spoke, he doubted Pham would try to warn his friends in another language. Instead, he went silent, sullenly walking what he expected to be his final mile. Bolan wouldn’t have any compunctions if the young smuggler stopped a bullet, but someone would have to live to spread the word to the underworld that an executioner still stalked those who traded in flesh. Every battle Bolan fought, even though it was a very secret war, left a footprint, spreading fear and terror among those who didn’t fear the law.

“Play your cards right, Pham,” Bolan told him in Vietnamese. “I need a messenger to tell the world what happened here. You might just limp away with only a broken ankle.”

After seeing what happened to his partner, Pham considered a broken ankle a small price to pay. As they reached the hold, Pham stopped and looked back at Bolan.

“There are already guards on shift here,” Pham said. “We were just supposed to pick up a couple of girls.”

Bolan nodded. He took Pham’s rifle, dropped its magazine and emptied the chamber. He flicked on its safety and stuck the magazine back in. “It’ll take you too long to cock and get this rifle ready to fire. Don’t even think about it.”

Pham nodded. “I told you, because I don’t want to stop a bullet.”

“Good idea.”

Pham led the way into the hold where the guards were playing cards and smoking cigarettes. The smell of Turkish tobacco assaulted Bolan’s nostrils and he saw several more men of Western European heritage as well as a couple of Asians. Apparently, the Greek and Italian crewmen were sharing some of their vices with their Oriental counterparts. One Asian puffed on a Turkish cigarette, blowing smoke rings as the others laughed.

Shielded by Pham and staying in the shadows, Bolan hadn’t been noticed yet as the Vietnamese smuggler limped along toward the group.

“Hey, the captain wants us to bring up a couple of girls,” Pham called.

“What happened to your foot, Pham?” the smoke-ring-blower asked.

Pham shrugged. “Stupid. I slipped on a step coming down.”

“And Coy?” the ringmaster asked.

“Cap sent me,” Bolan answered in Italian.

One of the Italians squinted through the shadows. “Who—”

Bolan answered with a 9 mm bullet through the Italian’s forehead, his brains exploding out the back of his skull. The others were frozen in shock at the gory death of their compatriot.

Pham swung his rifle around and smashed the smoke-ring-blower across the jaw with its butt, then tossed aside the relatively useless weapon, dropped to the deck and curled up into a ball as Bolan cut loose, flicking the Beretta to burst mode. The Vietnamese sentry had bought the Executioner another heartbeat, and Bolan charged hard into the breech, tribursts of 9 mm slugs chopping into two of the Asian crewmen before they could grab their rifles. Corpses flopped to the floor, weapons clattering atop them when two swarthy Greeks lunged at Bolan.

The Executioner got off a burst into the gut of one of the sailors before the other tackled him, hands clamped around Bolan’s forearm and the Beretta tumbled away. He snaked his foot behind the Greek’s ankles and pushed hard with his forearm, toppling the hapless smuggler to the floor. With a pivot, Bolan buried his heel into the downed smuggler’s solar plexus and pulled his forearm knife. The fallen Greek vomited blood as shattered ribs slashed through his lungs.

A third man, an Italian, reached for the Beretta holstered on his hip, but being only a stride away, the Executioner speared him under the chin with the wicked forearm knife. Sharp steel tore through soft flesh, tongue and the roof of the goon’s mouth before coming to a halt in his brain. Dead on his feet, the gunman toppled backward. Bolan scooped the unused handgun out of the corpse’s insensate fingers and turned the pistol against a third Asian who rushed at him in a blur of speed.

Before Bolan could pull the trigger, a hard kick rammed his forearm. The 9 mm slug speared into the chest of a fourth sailor who was still trying to make sense of the melee, despite the revolver that was clenched in his fist. Bolan whirled with the force of the kick and dropped to one knee. His other leg swept out like a broom and caught the Asian across the knees, hurling him to the floor. The Executioner brought up the Beretta with both hands and fired two bullets into the downed martial artist before he could recover, both slugs smashing through his belly and tearing up into his rib cage.

The wounded man with the revolver coughed up blood and cut loose at the Executioner, but wounded and confused, his gunfire flew wildly. Pham yelled out and wrapped his arms around the sailor’s legs, throwing his balance off even more. Bolan snapped off three shots into the gunman’s head. The slugs crushed bone and burrowed into gray matter.

The hold fell eerily silent.

The Executioner retrieved his machine pistol and holstered it. He lowered the hammer on the handgun in his fist and walked over to the Vietnamese captive. He tapped his toe against Pham’s thigh.

“You can let go. It’s over,” Bolan said.

Pham looked up, eyes bloodshot, forehead damp with sweat. Hair was matted against his bronzed skin, and he took a deep breath.

“Thanks for the assistance,” Bolan said, and helped Pham to his feet.

“I don’t want to die,” the smuggler explained.

Bolan looked at the pommel of his knife poking out the jaw of his third opponent, and considered the blade buried too deep to retrieve easily. He left it pinioned through the skull of the smuggler like some form of cannibalistic shish kebab. The man Pham had hit with the butt of his rifle hadn’t moved, and Bolan felt for a pulse. There was nothing, and the Asian’s neck rolled with nauseating ease on the floor at the slightest touch.

“Broke his neck,” Bolan told him.

Pham shrugged. “Eh. The bastard kept stealing my cigarettes.”

Bolan shook his head. He looked at the containers and from the infrared scans of the ship, he knew which ones were occupied. He didn’t have an accurate map, but it was a good place to begin.

Then he paused, looking into the darkness. The musky scent of livestock filled the air and he realized that half the containers that had registered heat were full of cattle.

“Livestock?” Bolan asked.

“Yeah,” Pham said, limping along. “I don’t get it, either. You’d think the Koreans would find an easier way to get hamburger meat.”

Bolan frowned and looked at one of the livestock cars. An animal looked at him from within, large brown eyes blinking lazily in response. The soldier frowned. “These aren’t Thai livestock.”

“I know,” Pham replied. “It’s weird. All kinds of cattle in Africa and the Middle East, even in Southeast Asia, and the Koreans want European or American stock.”

Bolan looked at the limping smuggler. There was a long moment when Pham looked at the loaded revolver in a dead man’s fist, before stepping away. The Vietnamese smuggler had gotten the hint. One man against several, and he’d come out with only a few bruises, despite being disarmed at one point. If Pham had any fight left in him, he was reserving it for anyone who was going to screw up his survival, not the tall wraith who killed with bullets, blades and bare hands.

“Come here, Pham,” Bolan said.

The sentry limped over as Bolan pulled a plastic cable tie from his harness.

“Turn around and hold your wrists behind you.”

Pham nodded and Bolan pulled the cable tie firmly, but not painfully, around the Vietnamese man’s wrists. “You don’t want the girls to notice me?”

“If there’s any fight in them, they’ll take it out on you,” Bolan said.

“And I’m your messenger,” Pham replied.

“Yeah.”

Pham swallowed. “And you’re going to break my ankle.”

“It’ll keep you out of the way,” Bolan replied. “Your dues for the pain you’ve caused.”

Pham nodded. “Thanks.”

Bolan leaned in close. “If we ever meet again, and you’re still on the wrong side, you won’t get a third chance.”

With a stomp, Bolan snapped Pham’s ankle.

The Vietnamese guard’s teeth ground against each other, but he reminded himself that he’d gotten off easy. He’d see the sun again. Coy and the others wouldn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

Park City, Utah

Stan Reader looked up the tree-lined snow trail, cold air biting his cheeks. He took a deep breath, flexed his feet in his ski boots, then lurched forward, taking long loping strides to get up to speed.

Reader cut a narrow path through the powdery snow, little rooster tails puffing up as he moved along. He bent back a pine branch and let it go, leaving a cloud of fine flakes in his wake. Reader then settled into his long, usual pace, ignoring the bounce of the stainless-steel Model 63 .22-caliber rifle against his back. The Taurus 63 was a relatively new rifle, and one he wouldn’t normally use in biathalon competition, but this was just a day for exploring new woods and plinking his rifle at impromptu targets, deftly keeping to the narrow trail between trees. Trunks rolled lazily at his slow, cross-country skiing pace, and Reader lost himself in the moment, his long lean legs and his ski poles swinging in a steady, repetitive motion. This was a one-man sport, and it allowed Reader to get some exercise while freeing his consciousness for other thoughts, such as complex physics formulas or mathematical equations. At various points, he would stop, unsling the rifle and take aim at a small target. On an official course, it would be a five-inch steel plate, and he’d have had to foster his endurance so that his breathing and heartbeat wouldn’t throw off his aim of the sensitive .22 target rifle.

Off to his right, another figure lurched into view, keeping pace with him. It was Kirby Graham, his best friend from college and the military. The big, brawny FBI agent skied alongside Reader for about thirty yards before they spotted an outcropping.

“Race ya, Stretch,” Graham said.

Reader smirked and increased the pace, loping along, arms digging in with the poles to spread the effort of motion to all of his limbs. Graham was bigger, so he had a longer gait that could drive him faster, but Reader, despite being tall, was lean and gangly enough that his wind resistance was lower. Reader sliced ahead of Graham, then cut around the outcropping. There was a dropoff, and the biathlete slashed through the powder for thirty feet. Since gravity was doing its thing, Reader allowed his limbs to relax as he plummeted down the slope at full speed, only switching and altering his balance to keep from crashing into pine tree trunks in his path. Landing upright on crosscountry skis was a testament to his skill.

Stan Reader was a polymath. By age twenty-four, he’d earned degrees in four different sciences, was a pilot and had managed to be an alternate on the Olympic biathalon team. Reader had put his scientific knowledge to good use in the United States Navy, serving on a nuclear aircraft carrier as an engineer. During his military career, the brilliant young man had also become an expert marksman with both handguns and rifles, competing against Marines and Navy SEALs in both sponsored competition or just shooting for cases of beer.

Graham, one of the Marines Reader had competed against, grumbled that Stan would never need to buy another alcoholic drink for the rest of his life, thanks to everyone who had lost to him. Graham had been an F-18 jockey, spending the early part of his career risking his life enforcing the Iraqi no-fly zone and splashing four MiGs before being signed on for the Navy Blue Angels. After that, Graham mustered out and joined the FBI as a special agent. But it wasn’t competition that had forged their friendship.

Reader had been a sixteen-year-old geek in college, easy prey for bullies and frat boys. Graham had been a football player in danger of losing his scholarship. They were unlikely roommates, the skinny, nerdy Reader and the big, gruff Graham. But, Reader had helped focus Graham’s studies, putting him on the honor roll. And nobody wanted to give Reader any trouble with a brick wall like Graham as a guardian angel. It was Graham who’d introduced Reader to skiing in New York state, and to rifle shooting. The biathalon was a wonderful mix of the two sports Reader fell in love with. Long, quiet hours, in quiet serenity across snows, punctuated by a display of marksmanship for five shots, and then moving along. If only someone could combine this sport with Star Trek, Japanese monster movies and professional wrestling, he’d have been in absolute heaven.

Graham had graduated with honors and repaid his college education in the United States Marine Corps. Reader, by contrast, had joined the military simply because he’d thought it would be a challenge. Both men had served on the same carrier, which cemented their friendship.

Now, Special Agent Graham was on station for the FBI in Salt Lake City, and Reader had officially come to Park City to engage in the Nordic Games. Reader had a job to offer his friend, something that could challenge the brawny pilot and get them working together.

The ski weekend was a time to play catch-up, and a chance to engage in friendly competition. Graham might not have been a multidisciplined scientist, but he was one of the few people who could push Reader, not only in discussion, but in physical competition. By all rights, Reader considered Graham his brother, and the big FBI agent felt the same way.

Graham eventually came to a halt beside his friend. His skin was wind-burned and red, but a wide smile split his face. “Fantastic.”

“Weren’t nothing.”

“You’re really starting up your own company?” Graham asked.

Reader nodded. “Just a little something to make good use of my talents.”

Graham pursed his lips. “So what do you need a dumb ex-fighter jock like me for?”

“We need a pilot and a head of security, and I need my brother by my side,” Reader explained.

“You just want someone to keep you out of trouble, Stretch.”

“My aim is to get into trouble, a lot,” Reader retorted. “And then to fix a few problems on my way back out of it.”

Graham took a deep breath. “I’d love to help, but I’ve got a case going on.”

“Maybe I can help?”

“The FBI doesn’t look kindly on agents calling in non-contracted experts,” Graham responded.

Reader grinned and reached under his parka.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Graham responded.

“Since when have you known me to have much of a sense of humor?” Reader replied.

“So you know about the case?” Graham asked.

“There’ve been sightings around Dugway Proving Grounds. There’s nothing solid, but it could be attempts by foreign governments to penetrate security,” Reader said. “By the same token, Chinese military technology is showing up in the hands of local Korean street gangs.”

Graham nodded. “Weapons and communications equipment, yeah. And the government wanted you to take part?”

“Dugway Proving Grounds is one of the nation’s major storage facilities for biological and chemical weaponry, and the sightings of unknown aircraft suggests a potential for enemy stealth capacity. The FBI and the military have both been concerned, but any full-fledged response would garner too much attention,” Reader explained.

“And how did you hear about this?” Graham asked.

“Dugway UFO watchers have their own BBS, and their sightings came to my attention,” Reader replied. “It took only a little bit of digging through the Defense Department’s mainframe to verify these sightings and put the high command on alert, but you know how the Pentagon moves.”

“Yeah. By the time they come up with a security or tactical solution, the war’s been over for twenty years,” Graham grumbled. “You embarrassed the Pentagon into putting you on this case?”

Reader nodded. “I also noticed that you were handed this investigation because you and your partner are on the Department of Justice shit list.”

“Yeah. We embarrassed the DEA into giving up one of their witnesses who was responsible for the murder of an FBI agent. So, we’re stuck looking into the crap cases, working the phones for the Secret Service for when the Man comes around,” Graham answered. “Hell, we’ve even been assigned to try to find a way to get undercover into the Amish Mafia.”

Reader raised an eyebrow. “The Amish are in Pennsylvania.”

“That last bit was a joke, Stretch.”

Reader shrugged. “I’m here to take you away from all this. I can even hire your partner, Rachel.”

“We wouldn’t want to give up our pension,” Graham replied.

Reader chuckled. “Graham, if it’s a pension or health benefits you’re worried about, don’t worry. I’ve got it all covered.”

Graham frowned. “And you think this isn’t just some UFO case?”

“There have been enough rumbles out in the whisper stream that there is something deep and dark. All it takes is to scratch the surface,” Reader replied. He held out his hand. “I want you on my team, Graham.”

The big FBI agent took his friend’s hand. “All right.”

Stan Reader and his friend headed back to the Park City lodge. As they turned, Reader caught the flash of light on glass out of the corner of his eye. A shadow disappeared behind a pine tree, clumps of snow crashing onto the unmarked powder.

He wondered who would be so interested in a scientist and an FBI agent having a ski weekend.

Gulf of Thailand.

IT TOOK BOLAN SEVERAL minutes to convince the people in the cargo containers to stay put. There were too many armed killers on the upper decks, and if they started exploring, they might discover Pham and take out some revenge on the pirate. As far as the Executioner was concerned, being terrified and battered was sufficient punishment for the Vietnamese smuggler. Besides, Pham would be his messenger to the Thai underworld.

Finally, the former slaves were convinced to stay in the hold. The pile of dead smugglers exuded a wave of dread that the young Asians wouldn’t want to pass by. Some even stood back as puddles of blood continued to seep from the bodies.

Bolan liberated a shotgun from one of the dead guards, then filled his pockets with spare shells. Their AK-47s were fairly effective weapons, but in the confined spaces of the ship, a single blast of buckshot would prove more effective. The 12-gauge was made for up-close and dirty work.

The sounds of the blazing battle had drawn attention. As soon as Bolan had snapped Pham’s ankle, he heard the ship’s phone ring, trying to reach the guards in the hold. Bolan let the phone ring, knowing that the response would attract enemy forces.

As he headed to the hallway, he spotted furtive movements at the end and tucked against a bulkhead. Shielded by a steel girder, he leveled the 12-gauge around the corner. As soon as he spotted a solid shape, Bolan triggered the shotgun and a savage storm of buckshot ripped into the enemy.

Screams of panic and horror filled the corridor, and Bolan racked the pump on his gun and looked at the attacking force. The first man was down, his chest ripped apart by the shotgun blast. Two more behind him were pinned by the corpse. One screamed, covered in blood, clutching his chest in pain. The other tried to push his dead and injured partners aside, cursing them angrily. The Executioner fired again. The thug’s skull burst apart under the brutal blast, and his corpse flopped to the floor.

The injured sailor wailed even more loudly in horror, covering his head with his arms as if to preserve his life. Bolan ignored him and pumped the shotgun again, aiming at another gunman who had sprayed the bulkhead with rifle fire. The girder Bolan had hidden behind protected him, the heavy steel bouncing bullets away. With a pull of the trigger, the soldier launched another wave of shot, and the rifle fire stopped for a moment. The muzzle poked out again and erupted, spraying wildly before he ducked back.

The wounded sailor suddenly fell silent. His scalp had flipped forward like a wind-blown toupee, brains and blood splashed across the wall. Bolan heard a cry of dismay as the remaining hardmen realized that they’d just killed one of their own. The Executioner took the time to reload, then leaped across the trio of corpses and took cover closer to the intersection where his enemy was hidden.

One of the guards leaned out with a handgun to get a better shot at Bolan, but the shotgun roared again, its payload gouging out a generous chunk of flesh and bone. The gunner slumped lifelessly to the ground, dark eyes staring glassily at nothing.

That was enough for the rifleman. Bolan heard the panicked sound of retreating feet. The soldier slung the shotgun and drew the Desert Eagle in one smooth motion as he hurled himself into the intersection. The fleeing rifleman heard the Executioner hit the corridor wall and tried to turn to bring his rifle to bear. Bolan triggered his .44 Magnum pistol first, a heavy slug smashing through the man’s shoulder, detonating the joint as if it were a grenade. It continued to plow through his neck and destroy vertebrae in its wake.

The gunner’s corpse flopped, his head bouncing limply on the deck.

The handgunner’s radio crackled on his belt and Bolan scooped it up. The captain was cursing in Italian, wondering where the hell his men were.

“They’re all dead,” Bolan replied in Italian. “You’re welcome to join them.”

He then hit the mute button on the radio and contacted Grimaldi. “Blind them. Anyone tries to get off the ship…”

“I got it, Sarge,” the Stony Man pilot responded. “Nobody but you and the cargo are getting off the ship.”

“I’ve got one messenger to send back to Thailand, too,” Bolan amended. “Give these flesh smugglers something to dream about while I’m gone.”

“Dream, or scream?” Grimaldi asked.

“Their choice,” Bolan replied. “Check their communications. It’s a mishmash of Italian and Oriental languages.”

The Executioner relayed the radio frequency to his pilot.

“Got it,” Grimaldi replied. “Oh, man. They’re burning up the airwaves. I guess when the shooting started, they put out the call for help.”

“Help? To whom? They wouldn’t call the harbor patrol or the navy, there’d be too many questions to answer,” Bolan mused as he dumped his partially spent Desert Eagle magazine, feeding it a few loose rounds to top it off. He reloaded and stuffed some shells into the shotgun.

“I don’t know. I’ve been listening on various frequencies and…radar contact, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered.

“Radar contact?”

“Yeah. Big and coming up under the water. It just showed up. It looks—”

“A submarine,” Bolan growled, and he headed to the stairwell. He paused only long enough to grab the fallen gunman’s rifle and its spare ammo. He slung the weapon over his shoulder on the run, keeping the big Desert Eagle ready to greet anyone who appeared in the stairwell, trusting the shorter length of the handgun in such close quarters.

“Yeah,” Grimaldi said. “I’m running an IFF radar check on it.”

“Probably a Soviet-era sub,” Bolan said into his headset. He paused as he neared the top. “I don’t hear any welcoming crew topside…Jack?”

“No, the entrance to the hold’s all clear,” Grimaldi informed him.

“Keep hanging back and watch out for the submarine. It might have an antiaircraft gun. Soviet 12.7 is more than enough to damage Dragon Slayer,” Bolan stated.

“I know that. Don’t worry, I have TOW missiles locked on the sub,” Grimaldi replied.

“Cripple it and knock out its defenses if you can,” Bolan replied. “I want to be able to figure out what’s going on here. And that sub has all the answers I need.”

“All right, Sarge. I’ll trust your instincts.”

Bolan made it to the deck and transitioned to the dead pirate’s rifle, a Krinkov. A stubby, foot-long-barreled version of the classic AK-47, it was more of a submachine gun than a full-powered rifle, but even without the extra muzzle length, it packed an awesome amount of firepower, throwing .30-caliber slugs at 800 rounds per minute. With three spare magazines, the Executioner was able to hold off a small army.

There was a shout up on the mast, and Bolan spotted three gunmen near the bridge. Their attention, however, was directed off the starboard rail. They had to have seen the submarine as it breached. Bolan shouldered the Krinkov, leveled his front sight and milked the stubby rifle’s trigger.

One of the guards was swatted off the rail, his limp corpse dropping to the deck where he landed in a jumble of twisted limbs. Another collapsed, holding his gut, and Bolan realized that his aim was off. The short-barreled rifle wasn’t as accurate as a full-size AK-47, and that meant that he’d need to adjust his aim for targets as distant as the bridge sentries.

The third one, uninjured, brought his weapon to bear and sprayed the deck next to the Executioner. In the shadows and darkness, he had only Bolan’s muzzle-flash to go on, and the soldier had already shifted position after his first burst. He held his aim high and ripped off another burst. He’d been intending to hit the smuggler in the stomach with the salvo, so he aimed at a spot just above the man’s head. Instead, bloody blossoms of gore flowered on the thug’s thighs and he crashed to the walkway. Bolan cursed, wishing he’d had an opportunity to get a feel for this Krinkov’s sights. He reloaded the stubby rifle, then slung it. Pulling the Desert Eagle, he charged toward the bridge.

Bolan knew exactly where the big .44 Magnum pistol would put its bullets at any range out to 200 meters. He’d reserve the Krinkov for close-quarters mayhem.

Bridge officers threw open the hatch to the command center and cut loose with their own handguns. The Executioner still had ten yards of deck before he reached the steps to the bridge, so he blasted away with a salvo of 240-grain hollowpoint rounds. The devastating slugs crashed into the chests and faces of the pair of officers, smashing the life from them with brutal force. One corpse slid down the steps toward him, but Bolan grabbed the railing, vaulted over the limp form and continued up the stairwell.

Off the starboard bow, a powerful cannon opened up and Bolan hit the deck as shells smashed into the ship’s superstructure. Huge holes, larger than the soldier’s own fists, were punched through the bulkhead, and he knew that it had to be a 20 mm antiaircraft cannon from the submarine. Heartbeats later, a thunderous explosion sounded overboard.

Jack Grimaldi and Dragon Slayer had the Executioner’s back, so Bolan continued on toward the bridge. Another blast resounded on the water as the ace Stony Man pilot slammed another TOW missile into the submarine, this one most likely directed at the screws of the sub. With Dragon Slayer’s computerized targeting systems, and a database of thousands of oceangoing craft, Grimaldi was able to target the enemy submersible where it was most vulnerable, leaving it bobbing and as helpless as a bathtub toy, rather than a deadly threat, or allowing it to escape into the Stygian depths of the ocean at night.

“Sub’s crippled. You’re right, it’s Soviet design,” Grimaldi announced.

“Black market, no doubt,” Bolan returned. He holstered the Desert Eagle, and brought up the Krinkov. He had no time to play with the remnants of the smuggler crew, so he emptied the full magazine into the bridge. A blast of 7.62 mm ComBloc slugs pierced sheet metal and blasted through the confined cabin. Screams of horror filled the air as Bolan reloaded and burned off a second magazine into the command center. He let the empty Krinkov drop to the deck and entered, his shotgun leading the way.

As soon as his shadow fell across the door, a pistol cracked and Bolan ducked. He triggered his shotgun at the muzzle-flash and heard metal clatter on metal.

Captain Tinopoulos glared at the Executioner, his chest and shoulder torn by the shotgun blast. Blood had splashed messily up into his beard, and his handgun lay where it had fallen.

Bolan looked around at the rest of the bridge crew. There had only been two left in the cabin beside Tinopoulos, and they slumped across their consoles, slaughtered by the Executioner’s autofire. Blood dripped to the deck in a drumlike patter.

“You planned on meeting the North Koreans?” Bolan asked in Italian, hoping the wounded captain could recall that language.

“Bastard…” Tinopoulos snarled, blood frothing on his lips.

“You don’t have much time left,” Bolan told him. “But if you want, I can make those last moments hell.”

Tinopoulos spit a glob of blood at the Executioner. It stained his blacksuit. “We can talk in hell, when my allies bring you down.”

Bolan shook his head. “The submarine’s crippled. Listen…”

Tinopoulos lifted his head, and in the quiet cabin, the rip-roar of Dragon Slayer’s automated Gatling guns rolled through the open hatch. Tinopoulos nodded and looked at the Executioner. “The Koreans are dying…”

“You don’t owe them anything,” Bolan told him. “Who were they?”

“They had money to spare. We’ve been sending them bodies, human and cattle, for the past five years,” the Greek captain rasped. “We’d officially rendezvous east of the Son Islands, but they told me that they’d shadow us in the Gulf of Thailand.”

“Why there?” Bolan asked.

“To inspect the cargo. Take what was priority,” the captain answered. His speech was slurring. “Then we went the rest of the way…to the Yellow Sea…”

“And was there anything priority on this trip?” Bolan asked.

Tinopoulos sneered. “No…just women and cattle…”

Bolan racked the shotgun’s slide, but the Greek smuggler had already spoken his last words. One last gush of blood drooled from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes stared blankly into oblivion.

“Jack?” Bolan asked.

“They tried to unload amphibious troops,” Grimaldi answered. “But the lady and I took care of things.”

“I heard,” Bolan stated. “Give me a quick sweep of the ship. See if there are any hostiles still moving.”

“Just the cargo in the hold,” Grimaldi stated. “Want me to call in the carrier?”

“Not until I’ve had a good look at the sub. But land on deck. Save your fuel,” Bolan suggested.

“Gotcha, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered. “You’ll need more than what you’ve got for a submarine penetration.”

CHAPTER THREE

Salt Lake City, Utah

Special Agent Rachel Marrick pulled her car to a halt and took out her cell phone again. She brushed aside her silken brown hair and put the phone to her ear. Her soft, hazel eyes scanned the street under a furrowed brow as she tried to reach her partner. “Kirby, you bastard. Where are—”

“Is that any way to talk to your partner?” Kirby Graham said over the other end of the phone.

“So, you finally decided to pick up?” Marrick asked.

“I was halfway down the side of the mountain when I got your first call. What’s up?”

“A Korean street gang just hit a bank and took hostages,” Marrick told him. “Where are you now?”

“On the road from Park City. SLC SWAT in place?” Graham asked.

“Yeah,” Marrick answered. “But it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to move for a while yet.”

“I can be there in a half hour,” Graham responded.

“I keep forgetting your trunk is loaded with SWAT gear,” Marrick responded. “Be careful.”

“You want me to be careful, or do you want me to get there in time for the festivities?” Graham asked.

Marrick rolled her eyes. “Just don’t kill any other drivers.”

Graham chuckled. “On my way.”

Marrick sighed and checked the .40-caliber Glock in her hip holster, and was about to double check the backup .38 she wore underneath her armpit when the windshield starred violently. The woman crouched deeper into the driver’s seat and stared at a fist-size hole in the glass. The driver’s door opened, and she nearly drew and fired when she saw a policeman in full uniform.

“They’re shooting at everyone who drives up,” the big, brawny black cop said. “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to warn you.”

Marrick looked up the side of the building.

“We tried to spot the sniper, but there’s either more than one, or he moves quickly,” the cop explained. Marrick noted that his name was Cage. “They’re playing with us until the hostage negotiator gets here.”

Marrick grimaced. “Sounds like a fun party. We got all the entrances sealed?”

“Alleys and the rooftops are covered. No way they can escape,” Cage said.

Marrick crawled out of her seat and slammed the door, joining the cop behind cover. “Anyone hurt?”

“Security guard’s corpse was dumped outside. They left his .38 in its holster. They didn’t need it,” the police officer replied. “Tore the shit out of my car and my partner’s got two bullets in his legs.”

Marrick took a deep breath as she saw the carnage wrought on the Salt Lake City squad car. It was perforated hundreds of times, and both front tires were flat. The hubcaps had been torn off by the brutal salvo that had crippled the vehicle. Smoke poured from dozens of holes. “What the hell weapons do they have?”

“I didn’t have much time to see what they were cutting loose with,” Cage answered. “But it didn’t sound like anything American.”

Marrick tilted her head.

“I was a SAW gunner in the Gulf war,” Cage replied. “I know what an M-249 sounds like, and an M-60, too. This wasn’t either of those, and it sure wasn’t an M-16.”

“Russian?” Marrick asked.

Cage shrugged. “We’ve got the two bullets from my partner’s leg. Maybe you could make it out better.”

Cage guided Marrick across the street to an ambulance that had parked out of view of the five-story bank. The windshield of the vehicle had been pockmarked with several slugs, but the paramedics had pulled it out of the line of fire.

“No respect for medics,” Cage mentioned. “These are just punk kids.”

“Punk kids with enough firepower to make the front end of a Crown Victoria into a screen door,” Marrick corrected.

“Luke?” Cage asked, looking in the back.

A blond police officer lay on a cot. His leg was swathed in bloody bandages, and a saline bag was draining into his arm.

“Hey, Danny,” the wounded cop muttered. Marrick read his badge name. Rand. He looked her over and smiled through his discomfort. “Who’s the cutie?”

“Special Agent Rachel Marrick, FBI,” she introduced herself. Her ears burned under her shoulder-length cape of hair, as she hated being called a “cutie.” She’d have thought that her position as an FBI agent, complete with the business-suit look would have commanded respect. She didn’t mind being hit on as a petite, sweet young thing in her off hours, but this was work. “Danny told me that you got a couple souvenirs from your first contact.”

Rand nodded. “Roy’s got them.”

A dark-haired paramedic handed her a plastic bag. “He told me to save them.”

Marrick nodded and took the bag. “This is evidence.”

“Yeah. Still, maybe I’d like to get ’em back someday,” Rand explained.

Marrick looked at Cage.

“It’s a cop thing,” the black cop replied. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh. Don’t worry, I’ll see what paperwork I can pull,” she stated. She looked at the bullets.

“They look like .22s,” Cage mentioned. “But hell, the gun didn’t sound like any 5.56 mm that I’d ever run into.”

“And it didn’t sound like an AK?” Marrick asked.

“Nope. I heard my share of those,” Cage replied. “More than I’d like.”

Marrick frowned. “The Russians use a 5.45 mm round. Very similar to our 5.56.”

“Yeah,” Cage replied. “When we went head-to-head with Saddam the first time, he was still using good old ComBloc ammo. I heard they still were, our second trip through Baghdad.”

“Doesn’t mean much,” Marrick replied. “The Russian black market is flooded with the newer AK-74s, and ammunition. The Commonwealth of Independent States is hemorrhaging top-of-the-line military equipment as fast as they can build it.”

Cage nodded. “Which is why none of it sounded familiar. So, we’ve got what? Russian Mafia supplying Korean street gangs in Salt Lake?”

“Part of why I’m here,” Marrick replied. “You’re sure they’re Koreans?”

“They sounded Asian,” Rand said. “And called me a few names in some kind of language. It wasn’t Chinese, though.”

“You speak Chinese?” Marrick asked.

“I lived with my dad in Hong Kong,” Rand replied. “My guess, they’d have to be Korean.”

Marrick frowned, then got out her cell phone.

“What’s going on?” Cage asked.

“I’ve got another agent coming in. I want to let him know about the welcoming presents these punks are giving out,” Marrick returned.

“Yeah. I’ll tell you, firsthand, they suck,” Rand replied.

Marrick took the call.

“Graham, here.”

“How soon you gettin’ here?” Marrick asked.

“I’ll be there.”

“Park two blocks back. There are snipers in the upper levels,” Marrick warned.

“Snipers?”

“They’re marking their territory. Any vehicle pulling in gets a bullet through the windshield.”

“How many are there?” Graham asked.

“Can’t tell, but enough to hold the Saturday crowd in a bank lobby and spare enough people to man the upstairs windows. We’re thinking maybe two, three snipers. I nearly caught a slug, but S.L.P.D. is saying that these punks are just playing,” Marrick explained.

“Hope I’m there before playtime’s over and they decide to get serious,” Graham replied.

“I hope so, too,” Marrick answered. “I just can’t see how we’re going to get anywhere with this bunch. The building’s tied up tight, and with the firepower they’ve got, we’re pretty much looking at a long standoff.”

“So, maybe I can get back to the slopes and report in Monday morning?” Graham quipped.

“If my weekend’s going to suck, so is yours. I don’t care who’s in town,” Marrick retorted.

“Yes, ma’am!” Graham responded.

Marrick looked back at the bank as her partner hung up. More vehicles were arriving, including other agents from the local office. She debated whether to give them a warning as they passed the perimeter, but held her tongue.

Since the other agents in town wanted to treat her like a leper, let them squirm as a Korean sniper put a bullet in their windshield. She turned her attention to the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sniper.

The Gulf of Thailand

THE EXECUTIONER descended on the cargo crane from the deck of the smuggler’s ship to the superstructure of the submarine in the water. He held on to the cable, resting his feet against the base of a large iron hook that had gear from Dragon Slayer attached to it. Grimaldi lowered him down to the conning tower.

The gear settled on the deck, and Bolan hopped off to release it from the hook. Grimaldi pulled it back up.

Bolan opened the first of the two duffels and pulled out a strap of grenades, hanging it around his neck and one shoulder. He adjusted the bandolier, making sure the blasters he wanted to use were easily drawn, then took out a Fabrique Nationale P-90 submachine gun. The stubby little chopper was ideal for close quarters work, and held a 50-round magazine. He slung the weapon, then filled his harness with a half-dozen .50-round magazines.

The second duffel had several canvas packaged blocks. Bolan slung the spares over his shoulder, then unwound one of the packages. It looked like a spiderweb, made out of thick putty, with an electronic device in the center. Bolan stuck the putty to the conning tower hatch and activated the center device. He stepped out of range, then pulled out a radio detonator.

The breaching charge, while explosive, wouldn’t disperse its detonation like a regular bomb. Instead, the putty would focus its force against the hull. No shrapnel would fly back toward Bolan, but the concussion could harm him. The detonation cord would explode more slowly than regular plastic explosive, acting more like a cutting torch, and would peel apart steel easily. Bolan thumbed the detonator to life. There was a soft woomp, and metal clattered on the hatch. Bolan plucked a concussion grenade from his harness and swung around to the opened hatch. He dropped the flash-bang through the hole and turned away. There were screams of panic as the men inside the control room recognized what had happened, but they were cut off by a fierce crack.

The Executioner dropped through the hatch, the P-90 in his fist.

Koreans clutched their burned eyes or their shattered eardrums, stunned by the force of the explosion. Bolan clubbed one of the submariners across the jaw with the stock of his weapon and dropped him to the deck. It took only a few moments for Bolan to knock out the remaining conscious crewmen. That would hold them until he could use the plastic cable ties in his harness to restrain them.

A hatch shifted and Bolan braced behind the doorjamb.

It opened partially, a gun muzzle poking through. Bolan was to the side, out of sight, but his P-90 was primed and ready to greet the newcomers.

A Korean sailor stepped through the hatch, talking to his partners. Bolan didn’t understand what he was saying, but he recognized the lilt of confusion in his voice. The Executioner speared him with a powerful kick and hurled him to the deck.

Panicked cries filled the air as Bolan lurched into view. The P-90 blazed to life, and its payload of 5.7 mm flesh-shredders made the hatchway into a no-man’s land of supersonic death. Bodies tumbled in a mad rush to escape the big soldier’s salvo, but the .50-round magazine had enough ammunition to give everyone who had been poised to retake the bridge a deadly kiss.

The opening burst lasted only three seconds, but the quartet of Koreans in the hatchway leaked from forty fatal wounds. Bolan changed the depleted magazine for a new one, and checked on the stunned sailor on the deck.

Bolan’s kick had caught him in the kidney, and as he’d bounced off a control panel, his forehead and nose had been split by unyielding metal and plastic. The Korean’s face was a bloody mask, and he was curled on the deck, insensate to his surroundings. The soldiers spared a moment to bind his wrists and ankles with cable ties, waiting for the next wave of defenders to show up.

“How’s it going, Jack?” Bolan asked over his headset.

“The carrier’s choppers are still fifteen minutes out. That’s all you’ve got to mop up the sub.”

“It’ll have to do,” Bolan told him.

The Executioner pulled another stun grenade, armed the bomb, and hurled it into the depths of the corridor beyond the bridge. It bounced, and he was rewarded with more cries of panic. Bolan turned away and let the stunner do its job, releasing a deafening and blinding thunderclap. In the confined quarters of the submarine, it was like being struck in the head with a sledgehammer. He rushed into the corridor and found three men lying on the deck. One clutched bloody ears, while the others clawed at their burning faces. Another tough sailor still stood. One of his ears leaked a slick of blood, but his eyes were clear, and the gun in his hand swung at Bolan.

The P-90 ripped him from crotch to throat, and the gunman collapsed. Bolan kicked the down sailors’ guns away from them. He’d taken the time to memorize the layout of the Koreans’ black market submarine, and knew what lay beyond the next hatch. It was where the submarine’s two levels were connected by a stairwell. Bolan reached into his bandolier and withdrew a fragmentation grenade. He thumbed out the cotter pin and held the detonator spoon in place.

With a push, the next hatchway opened. The juncture was empty as far as Bolan could see, but he guessed that defenders waited at the bottom of the steps. Bolan threw the fragger through the hatch and it bounced down the stairs, detonating violently before anyone could react. He surged through as the next hatch opened. Gunmen had been lying in wait, but the Executioner was ready for them, 5.7 mm slugs sizzling out his P-90’s muzzle at 800 rounds per minute. Two defenders collapsed through the joinway in bloody heaps as he reached the top of the stairs. Down on the next level, Bolan spotted a tangle of gory body parts at the bottom. A choking cough wafted up the steps, informing him that there wouldn’t be any immediate arrivals from that flank.

Bolan pulled another flash-bang and hurled it through the hatch.

One Korean leaped out to avoid being caught in its blast, and instead, he stopped a flesh-eating cloud of high-powered bullets. The dead sailor tumbled headfirst to the deck with boneless grace.

The stun grenade detonated and gave the Executioner a window of opportunity to hit the upper hatchway. He spotted one sailor, struggling to stay in the fight, but Bolan retired him with a point-blank burst. From what he’d read of the submarine’s stats, the vessel needed at least twenty men to run easily. Adding in shipboard security, Bolan had thirty enemies to take out. So far, he’d gone through almost half that number. With Grimaldi’s report about blasting a boarding crew with Dragon Slayer’s miniguns, he figured only about ten were left to oppose him. Bolan set up a grenade with a tripwire in the open hatchway, then turned back and went to the lower deck, heading for the engine room. He had another charge designated for the main boiler to scuttle the sub, allowing him to avoid being in the middle of an international incident. The North Koreans would turn the capture of their submarine into a global spectacle and demand the return of their sailors. At the very least, it would ramp up tensions between North Korea and the United States, and with the state of its nuclear program, such a loggerhead would turn into a lethal conflict for South Korea and perhaps even Japan.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, Bolan heard a resounding crash above. Charred flesh rained down the stairwell, informing him that his quick booby trap had done its job. Whoever was lying in wait for Bolan’s retreat had stumbled into the grenade’s tripwire. The soldier paused for a moment, waiting for further motion.

He was rewarded by a head poking out of a side hatch.

The Executioner swung up his P-90 in a lightning movement, high-powered 5.7 mm slugs smashing through the Asian’s face, destroying it in a cloud of blood and splintered bone. A muzzle poked around the hatch and Bolan backed up the steps. Sparks flashed on the metal below his feet, and Bolan crouched deeper, hammering out another burst that caught the enemy’s gun and plucked it from his hands.

Footsteps sounded as a man covered in bloody wounds lunged through the booby-trapped hatchway. The Korean spoke in an odd tone, unintelligible to Bolan, but the intent was clear. Armed with a handgun as a club, he lurched toward the big American, intent on killing the man who’d mutilated him. Bolan readjusted his aim, but the handgun butt knocked his barrel side.

The Executioner let go of the P-90 and grabbed the blood-slicked arm of the injured sailor. With a twist, he hauled the wounded man down and onto the steps with a sickening crack. Neck broken, the bloody Korean stopped thrashing and slid lifelessly to the lower deck. Bolan vaulted over the corpse, drawing his Desert Eagle.

He checked the room where the two gunmen had first encountered him, and except for several bunks and personal items, there was only one sailor inside, clutching the severed hand that had been chewed off by the P-90’s burst. The injured sailor wildly eyed Bolan, too terrified to move. The Executioner knew there wasn’t any fight left in him, so he continued on to the engine room.

Gunfire greeted Bolan immediately, and he ducked to one side. He holstered the big Desert Eagle, plucked a pair of stun grenades from his bandolier and launched them simultaneously. As soon as he threw them, he took the instant before their detonation to feed the depleted P-90 another magazine. The moment the double thunderclap shook the engine room, he ducked through the hatch, submachine gun leading the way.

Blind and stunned, the defenders of the engine room provided little hindrance to the Executioner. He set the breeching charge on the side of the boiler.

“Jack?”

“You’ve got eleven minutes, Sarge,” Grimaldi informed him.

Bolan set the timer on his detonator and stuck it in place.

A hand gripped his ankle and Bolan tripped over the shocked defender’s grasp. The Executioner twisted his boot free from the stunned Korean and regained his balance. Once his freed foot was firmly planted, he used the heel of his other boot to smash down violently on the sailor’s jaw. Bone shattered with the force of the kick, and the sailor slumped to the floor, dead.

A second Korean fought to get to his knees, and Bolan kicked him in the stomach and used the butt of the P-90 like a hammer to finish the man. He didn’t have much time, and he needed to hit the captain’s quarters. With doomsday numbers ticking down, Bolan exited the engine room and spotted two sets of legs stomping down the stairs.

Before they could come down the steps far enough to see the Executioner, he cut loose with the FN submachine gun, catching them at groin level. Bullets plowed through soft tissue, severing arteries in their violent passage, while others hammered into heavy pelvic bone. The two defenders screamed and toppled down the steps, their bodies landing in a tangle. Bolan milked off two more shots, one into each head, then raced forward, vaulting the corpses.

He was halfway up the stairs when someone slammed into his back and drove him against the hard metal steps. The Executioner struggled to shake the Korean off his back as tightly knotted fists pummeled his neck and sides. Only Bolan’s battle-hardened musculature and his combat harness blunted the bone-breaking force of his attacker’s punches. That gave him a moment to jerk himself upright and flip the unsecured sailor off his back.

The Korean toppled to the deck and clawed for the handgun in his holster. Bolan, still stunned by the sudden and savage attack, lurched up the steps and flipped over the top stair. As his body disappeared behind the upper deck, a bullet sliced the air, barely missing him. The sailor cursed at him in his native language, but the Executioner used the duration of his tirade to recover his wits and get his second wind. The P-90 had been torn away by the Korean’s sudden attack, so he reached for his .44 Magnum pistol.

Bolan saw a gun frame pop up out of the stairwell, and he kicked his way through a hatch to the next compartment before he was sliced apart by his own weapon. High-powered bullets clanged on metal, one slicing across his shoulder. It was a shallow scratch, but it reminded the soldier that his enemy was to be taken seriously. He flicked off the Desert Eagle’s safety and braced himself. The Korean sailor appeared at the top of the steps, P-90 in one fist, the handgun in the other.

Bolan tripped the mighty Magnum pistol’s trigger and a .44-caliber slug cored through the defender’s chest. The Korean collapsed to his knees, vomiting blood. Glassy eyes looked in disbelief at the Executioner, and sticky red lips tried to form words. Bolan punched another slug through the round, pale face, and then stepped forward to retrieve his submachine gun. He cut back through the bridge and located the captain’s cabin.

It was a mess, and he found torn maps in the trash receptacle. A box of matches sat on the desk, several matchsticks lying broken where the captain failed to light them. Presumably the captain was one of the last of the defenders that Bolan had encountered. He looked at the personal computer on the captain’s desk, and saw that it was in the process of deleting its files. Bolan shut off the computer, then pulled out his combat knife to open its main casing.

The hard drive sat like a silver brick in the center of the motherboard, and Bolan cut its IDE cables and wrenched it off the silicone-and-plastic board. The drive itself was as solid and strong as steel, so he stuffed it in an empty magazine pouch on his harness. Though the captain had been deleting all of its files, Stony Man Farm had data recovery software that could bring back any information that had been erased. It wouldn’t be difficult, and it would give Bolan a better understanding of why the Koreans were smuggling human beings and cattle into their country.

“Sarge?” Grimaldi asked over the radio.

“Still here,” Bolan answered.

“It got quiet,” the pilot explained.

Bolan looked at his watch. “I’ve got eight minutes before the carrier arrives. Lower the crane and I’ll be topside.”

“Gotcha.”

“We’ll head back to our airfield and process what’s on this hard drive,” Bolan told him. “Looks like I uncovered a lot more than people smuggling.”

“A black market submarine and cattle? I don’t doubt it,” the pilot quipped. “’Round and ’round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.”

Bolan left the captain’s quarters, wary for remaining defenders. But even as he did, he knew that Grimaldi was right. What started as a simple smuggling intervention had just turned into the potential for a nightmare.

Business as usual for the Executioner.

CHAPTER FOUR

Salt Lake City, Utah

Kirby Graham handed Rachel Marrick a cup of coffee as they waited at the perimeter of the bank standoff. Rachel took a sip and looked at Stan Reader, who was riffling through his luggage.

“So, who’s he?” Marrick asked.

“A friend from college,” Graham replied. “Actually, best buddies. We even went into the service at the same time. We worked together a few times there.”

Marrick smiled. “So why did he want to come to a bank robbery on his vacation?”

Graham handed her Reader’s temporary badge. “He’s a contracted asset to the FBI.”

“Contracted asset? Like a consultant?” Marrick asked.

“Yeah,” Graham stated. “Technical adviser on cases involving high technology. He used to be an engineer on a nuclear submarine. When he got out, he had a position as a professor of nuclear physics, but that got way too boring for him. He applied for a private investigator’s license and signed on as a civilian contractor for several federal agencies.”

“Private eye?” Marrick mused. “Still sounds kind of nerdy.”

“Well, he uses a lot of big words when little ones will do, but only around people who understand that kind of stuff,” Graham explained.

“I noticed that he’s packing, too,” Marrick mentioned, seeing the butt of a revolver poking out from under Reader’s jacket. “I hope he knows how to shoot.”

“Part of the U.S. Navy Marksmanship team for a year,” Graham replied. “And he’s taken courses at Gunsite, Thunder Ranch and the Lethal Force Institute.”

Marrick raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. So, why is he hanging out with us?”

“He’s scouting for people to work in his new company,” Graham answered. “He needs field assistants.”

Marrick nodded. “Assistants.”

“As in, he’s looking to hire you, too.”

Marrick shrugged. “You told him about the federal pension plan, right?”

Graham smiled. “You’d be surprised what Stretch has put aside for his retirement.”

Marrick looked at the lean scientist. “If he can make it worth giving up a federal pension, then why the hell aren’t we on the plane out of here with him?”

“He’s checking out the Dugway incidents,” Graham responded. “Because he knows I’m not going to let that case lay down and die.”

“He’s gonna put up with your stubborn ass until this is finished?” Marrick asked.

“He’s used to it,” Graham replied.

Reader returned with a small object that looked like a digital camcorder. “All right, this might help.”

Marrick looked at the device as Reader handed it to her. “What is it?”

“Take a look at the bank,” the scientist told her.

Marrick held up the device and blinked a couple of times as she saw the world cast in green. Walls and the ground appeared as misty, indistinct shapes, while people resembled yellow and red columns of flame. “Infrared?”

“I’ve miniaturized the components of the device. Take a look through that squad car,” Reader directed her.

Marrick turned to look at the trio of cops on the other side of the vehicle before putting the infrared imager to her eyes. The car disappeared into the same translucent, smoky outline on the green screen, and she was looking at the cops. She could see their guns as distinct outlines, breaking up their red and yellow images. She lowered the transmitter and looked back at Reader.

“I modulated it so that you could see concealed weaponry on their persons,” Reader answered. “The resolution’s not good enough to make out what brand, but you can make a general outline guess.”

Marrick nodded in approval. “You put this together?”

Reader shrugged. “I looked into others’ research and modified it for better portability. Relatively.”

Marrick handed Reader back the infrared scope. “Yeah. It feels like it weighs ten pounds.”

“Nine point six, without the power supply cables and belt battery,” Reader informed her. “Could be useful in a squad car trunk once I get it to the point where it can be cheaply mass produced.”

“How much did you put into it, Stretch?” Graham asked.

“Three million or so,” Reader replied, blushing sheepishly.

“For an advanced mathematician, you suck as an accountant,” Graham muttered.

Reader chuckled and adjusted his infrared scope. He turned it toward the bank and zoomed in on the upper floors. “Two snipers up there.”

“We figured three,” Marrick responded. “We should report this to Special Agent Lieber.”

Reader lowered the camera and swept the lobby. “Four men with assault rifles in the main lobby, and looks like about twenty hostages. Kirby, you know rifles better than I do.”

The Fed took the camera from his friend and looked at the lobby. “Kalashnikov design, basically. You’re right, though. The resolution sucks on these.”

“Magazines look off,” Reader stated.

Graham focused the lens, frowning. “Yeah. AK-47s have deeply curved magazines, but these are straighter, like AK-74s, or a similar 5.45 mm design.”

“You said that the Korean street gangs are utilizing top-of-the-line Soviet equipment?” Reader asked, accepting the scope from Graham.

“That’s what I figured. Here…I have samples of some of the bullets they took out of a wounded cop,” Marrick replied.

Reader handed off his scope and pulled out a pair of glasses with multiple lenses hinged against them. “Is the officer all right?”

“Yeah. He’ll be in surgery to repair the damage to his leg, but he won’t lose the limb,” Marrick responded.

“Presumably because the bullet’s velocity was lessened by intervening surfaces,” Reader replied. “Looking at the scratches on this bullet’s jacket, it had gone through something heavy and ferrous, not the sheet metal of a car door.”

Graham took the glasses from Reader and looked at the bullets in the plastic bag. “Show off.”

“High-velocity 5.45 mm armor-piercing ammunition,” Reader mentioned.

“Yeah, I see the tungsten cores. Since when do street gangs need that kind of firepower?” Graham asked.

“Tungsten cores?” Marrick asked. “I thought you needed Teflon to make an armor-piercing bullet.”

“Teflon on a tungsten-core bullet keeps it from chewing up the guns shooting it. Other than that, the really dangerous material is the heavy tungsten core, which is harder than any other metal,” Graham stated.

Marrick nodded. “So they were Teflon-coated?”

“At least on the tip before they were scoured clean by interaction with the engine block,” Reader responded. “Interestingly, though, the Commonwealth of Independent States don’t use that type of ammunition.”

“Why not?” Marrick asked. “Isn’t it the best?”

Reader took a deep breath. “The former Soviet Union doesn’t have the money to make large amounts of ammunition out of tungsten, both for the base resource metals, which are highly expensive, and the machine tooling necessary to form the bullets. It’s cheaper to use standard steel cores, even though they have a smaller penetration coefficient.”

Marrick nodded. “Who does make a lot of tungsten-core ammo?”

“This is customized ammunition,” Reader responded. “There are several smaller firms that deal with individual, specialized military units. I could narrow it down with about a half-hour’s search to see who makes 5.45 mm ammunition, but off the top of my head, I’d have to say we’re talking Eastern European production.”

“So, black market, which is Russian mafiya, but not Russian military,” Marrick concluded.

Reader scanned the building again with his scope. He looked at the upper floors and stepped past the perimeter.

“Stretch!” Graham growled, pulling his friend back.

“The snipers aren’t up there,” Reader replied. “Something’s going on.”

He lowered the lens to look at the lobby, his jaw clenching. “Kirby.”

Graham looked at the cops on the perimeter who had been paying attention to them. “What’s in the lobby?”

“The gunmen are backing out,” Reader answered. “But, you said the whole building’s cordoned off.”

“Right. The alley has a tactical team at either end. They got in there under ballistic shield cover,” Graham replied. He reached under his jacket, pulled out a Colt .45 and snicked off the safety. “Stretch, we don’t have permission to move in.”

“Damn, it can’t see through the street,” Reader said. “The Koreans are disappearing downstairs, into the basement.”

The scientist unplugged his scanner and set it on the ground. He quickly shrugged out of his battery pack and let it clunk to the asphalt, then ran toward the bank doors. Police ran out to intercept Reader, but Graham’s FBI blazer and his outstretched hand held them up.

Reader reached under his sweatshirt and drew a revolver, taking one side of the bank entrance.

Special Agent in Charge Lieber rushed forward, bellowing for Graham to hold his ground as Salt Lake police officers stacked behind him and Reader.

“Graham! Stop!” Lieber shouted.

Graham looked at Reader. “If we get into a firefight in the lobby…”

“We won’t,” Reader answered.

“So why do you have your gun out?” Graham asked.

“We might get into it in the sewers,” Reader replied. “Or wherever they came out.”

“Sewers?” Graham asked.

Reader kicked the lobby door, and with the violent opening, screams from hostages filled the air. “Everyone stay on the floor!”

“Police!” Graham echoed, following on his friend’s heels. Police officers swarmed into the lobby, spreading out and looking for hostile enemies.

“Graham!” Lieber’s voice followed.

Reader didn’t stop as he crossed over the prone figures of frightened hostages. Graham followed closely after and they reached a door marked Employees Only.

“Let me take the point, Stretch,” Graham replied. “I’ve got my armor, you—”

Reader lifted his own sweatshirt, displaying a shiny blue ballistic nylon shell covering his stomach. “It’s a new design I’ve been working on. Will yours stop 5.56 mm?”

Graham grinned. “Yeah, it will.”

He kicked the door open and charged through. Off to one side, a stairwell stood open and he took two long strides toward it before stopping short, teetering. Reader grabbed the back of his armor and tugged him back before he fell forward.

“Trip wire,” Graham warned.

Reader hopped over it and knelt by the device. “Crude. A grenade in a tin can.”

He snicked out his knife and snipped the fine string. “You got a paper clip?”

Graham handed it to him and Reader fed the metal wire into the hinge. The scientist took it out and pocketed the minibomb. “Okay, it’s safe, Kirby. Call the others in.”

Graham turned and bellowed through the door, “They went this way!”

Reader chuckled. “Who needs bullhorns with you around?”

Graham grinned and followed his friend down the stairs. The two men were cautious for any more trip wires, but the gang had to have anticipated one booby trap would slow down any pursuit.

They hit the basement running, their boots slapping concrete. The Salt Lake SWAT team was still clomping down the steps as Reader and Graham continued. When they turned a corner in the basement hallway, they saw a gaping hole in the foundation wall.

Graham’s sharp eyes noticed the demolition charges ringing the entrance and he grabbed Reader like a rag doll. The big ex-football player hurled them both back behind the cover of the intersection as the shock wave cracked down the hallway, hurling stones at bullet-like velocities.

“Thanks, Kirby,” Reader said, his head ringing.

Marrick was among the SWAT cops who finally showed up. “What the hell happened?”

“They cut us off,” Graham snapped.

“Must have used low-velocity explosives to cut that entrance hole. That’s how they got the whole gang in here,” Reader added. “Then when it was time to—”

“We have to get out of here, sir,” a SWAT officer interjected. “The building’s foundation has been compromised.”

Reader shut up and joined the exodus from the bank. As they reached the lobby, they saw that the hostages were already being moved out, but broken glass rained outside the windows. The large panes looking out onto the street were cracked, and Reader and Graham could both see a huge crack through the ceiling. Plaster filtered down through the newly made fissure.

“Hurry up!” Reader shouted.

The SWAT cops were already past, and Marrick and Graham were bringing up the rear.

“Anyone on the upper levels?” Reader asked.

The last of the SWAT cops, a lieutenant who believed in “first one in, last one out” leadership, paused. “I was going to send a team up the stairs, but when the explosion sounded, I told them to pull back. Did you see anything on that crazy camera of yours?”

“Just the snipers, and they were already gone,” Reader replied.

The SWAT commander nodded. “Get going. I want this place cleared—”

That’s when the roof came down in a choking cloud of dust. All Reader could hear was the cry of his best friend, Graham.

“Stretch!”

Pattaya, Thailand

AS SOON AS THE AIRCRAFT carrier’s helicopters loomed into radar range, Bolan and Grimaldi had taken off. They hovered in place long enough to watch the enemy submarine break apart. Bolan had made sure that it was only a diesel engine, and not a refurbished sub with nuclear power. His simple breaching charges were enough to turn the diesel engines into a bomb powerful enough to split the vehicle in two. Battered Korean survivors had been dumped into inflatable rafts and set adrift to explain what the hell they were doing in the area. Meanwhile, one less black market submarine patrolled the globe’s waters, snapped into two pieces and its ruined innards dumped to the bottom of the Gulf of Thailand.

At the airfield and Bolan’s temporary forward base in-country, he hooked up the severed IDE cables to a Stony Man laptop slot and had Aaron Kurtzman and the cybernetic team go over the hard drive via satellite uplink.

“Get some sleep,” Kurtzman told him. “It’ll take awhile to get what we need off the drive.”

“Will do,” Bolan answered. He made certain that their hangar was secured first, cleaned his pistols, slid the Desert Eagle under his pillow and went to sleep. Grimaldi had already sacked out after making sure that Dragon Slayer was in working order.

SEVEN HOURS LATER Grimaldi was up, having dry cereal and coffee as his morning meal, when Bolan joined him. “Mornin’, Sarge.”

“Any word from Aaron yet?” Bolan asked.

“Nope,” Grimaldi answered. “Want some grub?”

“I’ll make it myself once I change,” Bolan answered. The hangar hadn’t been equipped with a locker room that had a shower, so Bolan grabbed some clean clothes and a couple of towels and washed in the sink, scrubbing himself.

Bolan poured himself a bowl of dry cereal and helped himself to some coffee. Without a decent refrigerator, milk was out of the question. He supplemented his sparse grub with an apple.

It was boring, waiting, but the Executioner spent the time focusing on what he needed to do. He looked over maps to keep himself sharp on the area, and after refreshing his navigational knowledge, listened to radio reports to keep abreast of international news.

Three stories into the report, he listened to information about a Korean street gang who had robbed a federal bank in Salt Lake City. They’d escaped through the sewer system, and had set off an explosion that collapsed part of the building. Authorities were still trying to figure out the actual identities of the robbers, but promised swift arrests and resolutions.

The mention of the Korean street gang stuck in the Executioner’s mind. The prostituted young women were being shipped to North Korea in some form of trade. They were traveling concurrently with American and European style cattle, not common to Southeast Asia.

He’d heard plenty of rumors and stories over the years about UFOs and cattle mutilations around northern Utah, at a place called Dugway Proving Grounds. He remembered the actual facts about Dugway simply because several years ago there had been a leak of anthrax that had killed hundreds of heads of livestock in the area, and could have wiped out thousands of civilians if the winds had shifted during the containment breach.

Dugway was one of those places that remained on Bolan’s radar. He’d encountered dozens of efforts by foreign governments and terrorists to invade American bioweapons institutes across his long and bloody career. The Executioner had also encountered Chinese crime gangs abroad who did the dirty work of Communist Chinese intelligence services on more than enough occasions to never rule out the possibility that a group of common street punks could be working for a “higher” purpose.

North Korea was involved in smuggling humans and livestock, and there was talk of a mystery package from the captain of the freighter. And now, there’d been an incident involving a high-profile bank robbery and Korean street gangs in the backyard of one of the largest bioweapon containment breaches in recorded history.

It added up to a strange combination that orbited Bolan’s mind. When he got on the line with Kurtzman, he’d have to bring it up.

The laptop beeped. The monitor switched to a communication panel and Aaron Kurtzman’s voice came over the line. “Striker…”

“I’m on,” Bolan replied, activating the laptop’s built-in microphone. “What’s up?”

“You hear about the possible Korean street gang involvement in a Salt Lake City bank robbery?” Kurtzman asked.

“Yeah. That got your attention, too?” Bolan commented.

“It hit some of my buttons. I noticed something strange, too, in the livestock on its way to Korea,” Kurtzman answered.

“Rancher brands from near Salt Lake City?” Bolan asked.

Kurtzman didn’t sound surprised by Bolan’s wild guess. “You looked at them and recognized the brands?”

“Nope. Just a stab in the dark,” Bolan replied. “Any thoughts on if they could have been faked?” Bolan asked, getting back on topic.

“Brands aren’t national secrets, Striker,” Kurtzman responded. “Anyone with a good search engine would be able to pick up samples of all these brands. You’re thinking what?”

Bolan’s jaw tensed. “Dugway, livestock and anthrax all had one point in time where they were linked.”

“Yeah, that caught my attention, too,” Kurtzman answered. “We’re sitting on the information about the cattle brands and conducting covert inquiries about any cattle rustling.”

“Anything?” Bolan asked.

“Just that a rancher found another mutilated cow as of last week,” the Stony Man computer genius replied.

Bolan’s brow furrowed. “Any photographs?”

“I’ll transmit them to your laptop.”

“How good is the resolution?” Bolan asked.

Grimaldi winced and gave a yelp as he looked at a cow head, its lips seared away to expose bare teeth. “Good grief!”

“Good enough,” Kurtzman answered.

“Sorry,” Grimaldi replied.

Bolan looked at the carcass a little more closely. “Interesting.”

“What?” Kurtzman replied.

“The soft tissue was all excised—lips, organs, eyes…”

“Yeah. Same as always.”

“And bloodless. No mess on the ground,” Bolan added.

“Standard operating procedure with all these mutilations,” Kurtzman responded. “No clues left behind as to how these things were slaughtered on scene, and yet no blood was found.”

“And if you were a homicide detective, what would you conclude?” Bolan prodded.

“That the animal was slaughtered somewhere else and brought to the ‘crime scene,’” Kurtzman stated. “But these are animals that should have been missing in the morning.”

“Allegedly,” Bolan responded. “After all, cows are cows.”

“There are some distinguishing marks, and the brands…”

“Aaron, what was the age range among the livestock found on the freighter?” Bolan asked.

“Various ages, and various stages of marking. Striker, what are you getting at?”

“This makes a good smoke screen,” Bolan stated. “If people are wondering why one animal was brutally mutilated in a manner that leaves no forensic evidence, they might not be looking at something else.”

“Like contraband inserted in the carcass’s body cavity?” Kurtzman replied.

“More than one carcass, likely,” Bolan stated. “It’s an open field, right?”

“So, the one missing animal…”

“Would be matched up to a body that, after all the mutilation, would be as identical as possible,” Bolan stated.

“Some corpses have been described as outsize for the missing animals, as if they’d been mutated…”

“Or it was just an animal with similar fur patterns as the smaller missing cow. Hollowed out with its soft tissue missing, it would look like something could have deformed the animal,” Bolan explained.

“You take all the fun out of conspiracy theories,” Kurtzman mumbled.

“I’ve yet to run into a conspiracy that was fun,” Bolan retorted.

“Usually because they’re out to kill you,” Kurtzman added.

“There’s that,” Bolan replied. “Smuggling from Korea to Utah…but not the other way around?”

“Perhaps the exports from the area are of a more subtle means,” Kurtzman mused. “Though, that explains why the bank robbers were armed with 5.45 mm ComBloc ammunition.”

“Five point forty-five?” Bolan asked. “Usually street gangs use either stolen National Guard M-16s, in 5.56 mm, or AK-47s smuggled up from Central and South America, in 7.62 mm. That’s still cutting-edge equipment. How’d you find that out?”

“FBI agents at the scene figured it out after they tore apart a police car,” Kurtzman explained. “I’m sending what reports we have. Unfortunately, any other forensic analysis is going to be put on hold since half the bank collapsed.”

“The hostages?”

“Alive and well,” Kurtzman informed him. “The FBI and police rushed the bank as soon as the robbers disappeared into the basement. They evacuated everyone before the building came down.”

“Anyone hurt?” Bolan asked.

“A SWAT commander suffered a broken collarbone and three broken ribs, and an FBI contract agent took a whack on the head, but they’re okay.”

Bolan nodded. “Who was the contract agent, one of our blacksuits?”

“No, but he’s a friend of one of our irregulars, Kirby Graham,” Kurtzman stated. “I don’t know if you met…”

“Close Quarters Combat training in hazardous material environments, three years ago,” Bolan stated. “It was a refresher course for me as much as it was for them.”

“Good memory,” Kurtzman complimented.

“It helps in this business,” the Executioner replied. “And the contract agent?”

“Old college buddy of his, Professor Stan Reader.”

“I’ve heard of him, too,” Bolan stated. “Buck Greene and I have wanted to vet him for the blacksuit program, but he’s just a shade too high profile to fit in with the Sensitive Operations Group. Nuclear physicist and a professional biathlete, among other things.”

“Get in touch with Graham,” Bolan stated. “If Reader’s up to it, I’d like them keeping the Farm informed of everything on Utah’s end of things.”

“You’re not coming back here?” Kurtzman asked.

“I’ll be taking the scenic route, Aaron,” Bolan told him. “I hear that North Korea is quite pleasant at times like this.”

“And what time is that?” Kurtzman asked.

The Executioner took a deep breath. “Blitz time.”

He signed off and prepared for his infiltration of North Korea.

CHAPTER FIVE

Salt Lake City, Utah

“Now take it easy, Stretch,” Kirby Graham admonished as Stan Reader pulled on his shirt. “You took a good clobberin’ when that bank fell on you. You’re lucky to have had such a short hospital stay.”

Reader glanced at his old friend. “You know I bounce back pretty well. Once you showed me that a few knocks won’t kill me…”

He stood and fought off some momentary dizziness. “Lieber still mad at you?”

“He’d take a potato peeler to my ass and dip what’s left over in lemon juice if he could,” Graham replied. The Fed smirked.

“So what’s so funny?” Reader asked.

“Seems I had an old boss call in some favors to cover me,” Graham stated.

“An old friend? Wasn’t me, Kirby,” Reader said.

“No, not you,” Graham replied. “I did a little hush-hush security work at an installation a couple years back.”

“CIA?” Reader asked.

Graham shrugged. “Never really could tell. But I know I have the Justice Department watching out for me. Even though Lieber has me and Rachel in the dog house, there’s nothing they can really do to us with my guardian angel.”

“So you really don’t need me to bail you out?” Reader concluded, looking a little crestfallen.

“Aw, come on, Stretch, you know I’d join you in a heartbeat,” Graham stated. “Even if we were just running a garage or a greasy diner.”

“Kirby, you’re sheep-dipped. Maybe by the CIA, maybe by someone a little more covert. You think they’ll let you gallivant all over the world with me?” Reader asked.

Graham shrugged. “They gave me a ring while the doctors were still running X-rays on you. They’re interested in having you pitch in here.”

“Me?” Reader asked. “And you told them I’d help? You know, I have some morals, Kirby.”

“Yeah. These guys that have me sheep-dipped, they’ve got some morals, too.”

Reader frowned. “What do they want?”

“To keep them informed of our progress in this investigation,” Graham said. “Their usual resources are busy, but one will be here soon enough.”

“Resources,” Reader repeated. This time it wasn’t dizziness, but nauseous dread. “Is that what they call ‘assets’ now?”

Graham looked defeated at the implication. “This isn’t the Company, Stretch.”

“And whoever we catch isn’t going to be outsourced to Egypt to be tortured?” Reader asked.

“No way,” Graham stated.

Reader’s lips were drawn into a tight line as he considered the identity of Graham’s mystery controllers. There had been a few cues in what his friend had told him that they were of a covert nature, and extralegal. The Justice Department wouldn’t bypass Special Agent in Charge Lieber to tap a low-level agent to get all the dirt on an investigation. And Lieber would tell the Justice Department whatever it wanted to hear.

It also had to have been a small organization from the mention of its resources being previously occupied. If that was the case, then it couldn’t be the CIA, since the Company had thousands of agents and operatives inside and outside the United States that they could call upon for assistance. Graham pinned his involvement with these people as stemming from a covert security posting a few years back, so they had the resources to legally employ law-enforcement operatives, but not use them as these “resources.” He regarded Graham for a moment.

“All right, Kirby. I’ll help out,” Reader stated.

A small organization, utilizing a network of law enforcement, and perhaps even ex-military men to supply it with intelligence and information outside conventional channels intrigued the polymath. It was one way to slip the fetters of interagency petty rivalries, without being a form of monolithic bureaucracy such as the Department of Homeland Security had proved itself to be. Perhaps he’d have an opportunity to learn more about these mystery men. If they were behind similar skullduggery as the “School of the Americas” or the “Air America” torture transports to Egypt, then Reader would bow out and try to salvage his friend Graham from their dark ways.

Either way, Reader already had one mystery to solve, and there was no way his intellect would allow such a puzzle to remain unanswered.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

HAL BROGNOLA RUSHED into the War Room as fast as he could, out of breath thanks to his race from the helipad.

“Has he crossed yet?” he asked.

Barbara Price shook her head, watching the transponder on the enlarged map. Grimaldi was still some distance away from North Korea. “They aerially refueled Dragon Slayer just a few minutes ago when they hit the Tushima Strait.”

Brognola inhaled deeply and watched as the helicopter wended its path slowly north. “If the Koreans or the Chinese catch wind of this…”

“Mack sanitized Dragon Slayer, and we have his and Jack’s cover identities ready for a system purge if anything goes wrong,” Price explained.

“I know procedure,” Brognola grumbled. He took out a cigar and clamped it between his teeth, working out tension as he ground the butt. “We’ve gone over it too many times before.”

Price let her boss blow off some steam. When it came to Brognola’s friendship with Mack Bolan and Jack Grimaldi, there were few ties stronger in the world. The thought of having to sever all ties with the men and allow them to fall into enemy hands galled the head Fed. She knew that all three of them would move Heaven and Earth should the others fall into trouble. That kind of loyalty could become a liability to the Sensitive Operations Group at Stony Man Farm, but so far, they had weathered every storm.

“It’s just a routine invasion of a hostile, sovereign nation, Hal,” Price said, ignoring the irony of her own statement. “Jack and Striker have done this hundreds of times before.”

Brognola’s jaw clenched, and Price knew that he was remembering every time the warrior and his pilot had been captured or injured. Price did everything in her power to keep such memories at bay, but even though she had been the mission controller at the Farm for years, there was no way she could match the depth and breadth of Brognola’s relationship with Bolan.

“Why are they approaching from the East Sea?” Brognola asked. “That wasn’t in your briefing.”

“Aaron cracked the hard drive Bolan recovered from the Koreans’ submarine. They were en route to Wonsan to look up a General Chong.”

“Anything on that yet?” Brognola asked.

“We have NSA satellites checking the area out, but no obvious activity so far,” Price responded. “Jack’s going to drop him off and then pop back down to a naval observation craft we’ve got parked offshore in South Korean waters.”

Brognola frowned. “Make sure they don’t get too close. Just remember the Pueblo.”

Price nodded. She knew of the U.S. naval intelligence ship that had been seized by aggressive patrol boats from the North Korean navy, decades ago. It had been a black eye to the United States, and another incident, with a high-tech prize like Dragon Slayer on board, would turn Southeast Asia into a powder keg.

Mack Bolan wasn’t walking the razor’s edge now. He was cutting his feet on the blade, and only his and Grimaldi’s skills could keep his blood from spraying the U.S. government in the fallout.

It was risky. And when Bolan called Stony Man Farm for the intelligence update and to inform them that he was going into the enemy nation, it wasn’t to ask permission. Such a request would have been construed as nothing less than an act of war, even if it was in utmost secrecy.

The Executioner wasn’t a government employee, and there was a conspiracy summoning him into the depths of an enemy stronghold.

And he either succeeded, or the world would be drawn into a war that could explode into a three-way conflict with China.

Brognola chewed on his cigar, reminding himself to breathe as he watched Dragon Slayer close with the Korean coastline.

Tongjosun Bay, North Korea

IF THERE WAS ANY POINT where the Executioner would have had the option of turning back, they’d long passed it as Jack Grimaldi skimmed the helicopter along at more than 200 mph, its belly only a few feet above the bay, racing parallel to the coastline toward the crook of its elbow. Bolan was dressed in black, simple peasant clothes stuffed into his waterproof backpack. A Beretta 93-R knock-off made by the Red Chinese NORINCO company nestled in his underarm holster, loaded with a flat-based 15-round magazine. A second holster rode on his right hip, but that would disappear completely under baggy pants and a jacket. The big man tilted his head back and placed in the brown contact lenses that masked the piercing cold blue of his eyes, then tested the feel of the semihardened prosthetic appliqués to the orbits of his eye sockets, to duplicate the epicanthic folds of an Asian. He checked the mirror, and his dark-tanned face and Asian eyes made him appear less likely as an American intruder. Bolan’s command of Korean was sketchy at best, though, and he was too large and powerfully built to make a convincing Korean. However, with his paperwork, a much better knowledge of simple Chinese, and his mastery of Vietnamese, he would be able to pass himself off, for a few moments, as a Chinese citizen of ethnic Vietnamese descent. He’d be treated like a third-class citizen if he was noticed.

“It’s pretty thin, Sarge,” Grimaldi said.

“Thicker than what we usually have, Jack,” Bolan replied.

“You sure you don’t want to pop back to Pattaya and load up with some AK-47s with grenade launchers?” Grimaldi asked.

Bolan patted the Beretta knock-offs in his holsters. “I have more than enough for this. I’m on a quiet probe, not a full-fledged invasion. If the North Koreans figured out we were on to their smuggling operation…”

“Yeah,” Grimaldi replied. “Nothing on our scanners, and nobody’s lit us up with surface-to-air missile radar.”

Bolan’s lips were drawn tight as he opened the side door. Dragon Slayer’s stealth capabilities were second to none. There was no sound from the rotors as it blazed along. Infrared baffles, a Kevlar-coated hull, and dark paint robbed the enemy of its ability to make a visual identification of the phantom war bird. Without running lights and operating under starlight scopes, the aircraft was a shadow that sliced over the water. Anyone seeing it might take it for a UFO…

That brought Bolan back to the mutilated cattle. He had encountered enemies with stealth helicopters before. Untrained observers had taken them for unidentified flying objects, and assumed them to be alien visitors.

You don’t get more alien than me in North Korea, Bolan mused mentally. He tensed as he continued his internal countdown, settling his goggles over his altered eyes.

Dragon Slayer flared to a halt, centrifugal force struggling against Bolan’s nylon harness, trying to hurl him out into the gulf. As the momentum bled off, Bolan unsnapped and launched himself out the side door, spearing into the water in a graceful dive.

Grimaldi spun the stealth helicopter away, automated mechanisms closing the side door.

No words of encouragement were necessary, and none were spoken.

Instead, the Executioner swam for the shore, fifteen yards away. No boats floated in the darkness, and nothing moved on the beach. If North Korean forces were perched in wait beyond the tree line, rifles trained on whoever would come from the surf, they would cut Bolan apart effortlessly.

It was a risk that Bolan was willing to take. Something stirred behind the Bamboo Curtain, a monster that reached its tentacles from Thailand to, possibly, North America. Finding its heart would give the Executioner the opportunity to kill it, or at least to slow it so that Hal Brognola could mobilize Stony Man Farm and the United States government against whatever insidious plot lurked in America’s backyard.

Bolan padded up onto the sand and crossed the beach, his waterproof backpack bobbing on his back. He was free and clear, for now.

Unfortunately, getting into North Korea was only the beginning.

He still had miles to go before he reached the smugglers’ destination.

Bolan nestled in a copse and changed into his peasant gear and a wide-brimmed hat to further obscure his western appearance. A fast check of his disguise prosthetics, and he knew that he was in business. The Beretta pressed against his ribs under the baggy, shapeless gray jacket, its twin cinched against his hip under his belt.

But those were only to come out when he found the heart of this operation, if he got that far.

Throwing the sack over his shoulder, and leaning against the walking stick, Bolan stooped enough to seem a full foot shorter and began his march toward the smugglers’ destination. It was a simple disguise, making him enfeebled and bent with age. His paperwork, battered as if it were twenty years old, would pass a cursory inspection, and his knowledge of Southeast Asian languages would carry him even further.

It had been a long time since the Executioner had disappeared among the teeming masses of the Orient, but he still knew all the tricks of role camouflage that had proved a far more effective weapon than a handgun or a sniper rifle.

As prepared as possible, Bolan disappeared into North Korea.

“WE’VE GOT TROUBLES, Doctor,” General II-Raye Chong said into the phone.

“We, General? You’re the one discussing things on an open line.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. Our ship out of Thailand was intercepted by the United States Navy.”

“And your submarine disappeared without a trace. Yes, yes, I know,” the doctor responded, seeming bored and tired.

Chong grimaced at the dismissive tone. “We’ve been out of communications with the submarine, yes.”

“You would think that if they spotted U.S. Navy helicopters around a ship smuggling your latest round of experiments, they would have retreated to a safe harbor and contacted you.”

Chong felt his cheeks heat with anger.

“And there were no reports that the submarine was captured, even on the most sensitive of communications,” the doctor responded. “I know. I checked.”

“So, what now?” Chong asked.

“We presume that your operation has been compromised,” the doctor answered. “But, even if they did recover any intelligence from the submarine, there is nothing tying you and your smugglers to me here.”

“But—”

“And it’s highly unlikely that you’ll end up having an enemy visit you in force,” the doctor stated. “You’re safe in Korea.”

“And if someone is coming?” Chong suggested.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “At most, a handful of intruders into your territory. You should have sufficient forces to deal with them.”

“Doctor…”

“You truly are determined to try my patience, aren’t you?” the doctor asked.

“You know something about what I’m going to run into, don’t you?” Chong asked.

“I know everything, General,” the doctor returned. “That is why I am not some overdressed, desk-bound pencil pusher with delusions of adequacy, and you are not at the heart of this operation.”

Chong took a deep breath.

“Careful, General, we wouldn’t want you to get too upset. You could drop dead of the most innocuous ailments,” the doctor replied. “At least, that’s what the coroner would make of my skill.”

Chong’s spine chilled at the thought. He’d seen how the doctor had been able to strike down enemies miles away. Chong and several of his underlings had met with the man once. When the doctor returned to his home base, thousands of miles away, the doctor had informed the general and his staff of their vulnerability to his whims via a conference call.

At the utterance of the word “whim,” Lieutenant Sung had suddenly fallen into a fit of seizures. Foaming at the mouth, the Korean thrashed on the carpet, unable to cry out in agony as the doctor described how Chong and the rest of his staff had been implanted with subdermal, remote-control devices. Each contained a highly lethal biotoxin that became untraceable within moments of the victim’s expiration.

Sung lasted fifteen minutes, puking and twisting violently on the floor before he died.

Fifteen minutes that had to have felt like an eternity in hell.

“Remember, General. Deal properly with me, or I shall become very, very cross,” the doctor informed him.

Chong cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

“Excellent.” Chong could hear the doctor’s smile as he spoke.

The strange doctor gloated on the other end of the phone line, and there was nothing that General Chong could do to stop him.

He had entered into the bargain with the man to forge his own destiny, free from the Beloved Leader who seemed determined to hurl the world into chaos.

Instead, Chong knelt before a new master who cherished the power of life and death as if he were a sorcerer.

“If you are going to receive visitors, General, I advise you to be prepared now. They should arrive within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If you can, call in all the high-tech surveillance and all the best soldiers you have access to,” the doctor advised. “I’ve lost several friends to the kind of opposition that can make a submarine disappear without a trace.”

Chong tilted his head. “So soon?”

“If they’re not in the country already, they’ll be there by dawn,” the doctor informed him. “And they will arrive invisibly, but with enough force to level your base.”

“Is there no one you can send to aid me?” Chong asked.

“Not presently,” the doctor replied. “But, please, feel free to kill yourself before falling into enemy hands. Because if you do become a prisoner, I can guarantee that it will be the longest, and last, fifteen minutes you’ll ever spend.”

Chong clenched his eyes shut, his throat closed off as he restrained his scream of rage and terror.

“Have a nice day,” the doctor replied, hanging up.

“I am in hell,” Chong said as he lowered the receiver to its cradle. “As the Americans say, I have made my deal with a devil, and now that deal has come due…and I am in hell.”

His moment of calm frayed at the edges as his hands began to shake. His eyes snapped open and he picked up the phone and hurled it, wires snapping as he tore it free from the desk. Its shell smashed on the wall, splintered plastic and shattered electronics raining to the floor in a shower that Chong immediately realized was nothing more than a futile display of his impotence.

If he succeeded, surely the Beloved Leader and the government would learn of the enemy’s intrusion into his base, and he would be brought under investigation. That investigation would result in imprisonment, and the doctor would come through on his threats of extermination.

If he failed, he faced an unknown force that would destroy everything he fought to protect, and perhaps face torture at enemy hands.

Chong’s secretary entered the office. “Sir?”

Chong smiled at her. “I’m sorry, Mi. Could you summon my staff?”

“It’s one in the morning, sir.”

“It’s vital,” Chong told her. “Tell them…”

He looked at the shattered telephone.

“Tell them that it’s the doctor’s orders. They will come.”

Mi looked at the general, confused. She eyed the destroyed phone, then left his office. A brief glimpse of her face showed him pale, tight fear.

Chong felt a moment of pity for her. Mi had been a loyal assistant, and a skilled, amorous mistress. It would be a shame if she were harmed in the fallout.

But if it were a choice between his own life and hers, Chong knew exactly who mattered the most to him, and her corpse would provide as able a shield as any other’s. He had to cut his losses.

SHE WAS KNOWN as Mi Qua to General Chong, but she was known as someone else to Dr. Kent Stevens, the man Chong had just spoken with. She was born Clarice Mi, in San Francisco, and she was Stevens’s mole.

She made certain that she got through to all of Chong’s men, the transmitter in her personal phone forwarding recordings of each call back to Stevens. She pitied Chong, played so easily for a fool. While Stevens had been working on a device similar to what the general feared, subdermal implants that could be set off by remote control, releasing lethal toxins within minutes, it was far from perfected. The prototype barely had a range of thirty feet, let alone capable of transmitting across the globe.

It didn’t matter, though, to the relatively insensate Korean conspirators under Chong.

They never realized that Mi was there, other than as attractive window-dressing. They dismissed her as anything more than Chong’s secretary and sex toy, and when Stevens initiated his proclamation of doom upon the hapless Sung, she simply thumbed a lever on her lighter, launching a biodegradable sliver of concentrated biotoxin into the flesh at the back of the man’s neck.

However, as far as the Koreans were concerned, Stevens had managed to implant unstoppable doom under their flesh. They lived at his largess, and that insured their loyalty.

Anything less would result in death.

Mi smirked and felt an ounce of pity for the conspirators, but the heady rush of being in total control of their lives washed away that jot of guilt over fooling them.

Chong’s usefulness was coming to an end. Stevens had finished with the Koreans a long time ago, and with the code word he had dropped in his conversation with the general, Mi was prepared to clean house.

After that, she had her own means of getting back to the United States. She’d be happy to be out of this armpit of the world.

She couldn’t be happier to be done with this place.

CHAPTER SIX

Salt Lake City, Utah

Rachel Marrick would be happy to be done with the autopsy. She looked at the body of the security guard on the table, the flesh peeled back from his ribs, and was glad for the strong menthol paste under her nostrils.

“You can see where the bullets struck bone and deflected violently after impact,” the coroner stated. “I haven’t seen wounds like this since the original Vietnamera 5.56 mm rounds.”

“Tumblers,” Kirby Graham intoned. “That’s what we called ’em back before the switch to the newer ammo in the Marines.”

“Yes,” the coroner stated. “They strike fluid mass and destabilize violently.”

“Hitting bone only makes the disruption worse, doesn’t it?” Stan Reader asked. He leaned closer, making certain his mask and his paper cap were firmly in place so as not to contaminate the corpse. As it was, the collapse of the bank had introduced enough foreign matter into the body. “I’ve read studies of dissatisfaction with the newer ammunition due to its less potent penetration and terminal performance in flesh.”

The coroner plucked a round from the dead guard’s chest. It was a slender sliver, less than .22 inches wide. “This round missed bone.”

Reader held up a tray for the coroner and the physician dropped the spent round in the metal bowl. Marrick watched as Reader took a caliper to the bullet.

“It’s 5.45 mm,” Reader announced. “You were correct, Agent Marrick.”

“Imagine how thrilled I am,” Marrick replied. “It still doesn’t get us any closer to finding his murderer.”

“I’m curious about another point,” Reader stated. “None of the video footage recovered from the bank was readable.”

“The bank hostages described them as carrying what looked like a small motor,” Graham noted.

“We assumed it was something to do with the vault itself, but they simply had the bank staff open the vault,” Marrick responded.

Reader frowned. “What about the bank’s computer records?”

“The mainframe was in the basement,” Graham stated. “We can’t access anything through landline connections, and we’re pretty sure that once we dig out the hardware, it’s going to be scrap.”

“And erased,” Reader added.

“A portable electromagnet?” Marrick offered.

“A possibility. To someone unversed in such technology, it would appear to be just another motor,” Reader said.

Graham frowned.

“They were wearing full masks,” Marrick added. “But they tossed around enough Korean, and they were all small and wiry…”

“But they were far too organized and capable for a simple street gang,” Reader finished.

“I’ve got a couple of leads I can follow,” Graham stated.

“The street gangs themselves?” Reader asked.

“There are enough rivalries between them that someone might want to let us know what’s going on,” Graham said.

“They’re usually pretty closedmouthed,” Marrick mentioned.

“I just introduced them to some of my ever-lovin’ charm,” Graham replied with a wink.

Marrick glanced at Reader. “That means…”

“That means Kirby scares them more than their traditions,” Reader interjected. “You forget. I know my old buddy pretty well.”

Marrick glared at Reader. “I know. He is my partner. Just remember, invite me to the wedding.”

Graham looked at Reader, then shuddered. “I’m not that desperate.”

She looked at Graham, still bristling. “Do you think that we can really get anything out of the gang scene? I mean, the Salt Lake P.D.’s Asian Crimes task force is trying to get their own leads on this case.”

“I plan to see what they find out, too,” Graham told her. “Unless you want to go check things out at the station. That’ll free me up to do some snooping.”

“And who gets to babysit the egghead?” Reader interjected.

Graham chuckled. “Feel up for some clobberin’ time?”

Reader glanced to Marrick. “Agent Marrick?”

She held up her hand. “The less I know, the better. I can’t put anything in my report that I don’t know anything about.”

“Plausible deniability,” Graham said.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Reader quipped.

“Just don’t get him killed,” Marrick warned.

“I’m sure I can handle myself,” Reader stated.

Marrick looked at the pair as they exited the morgue.

She didn’t doubt for a minute that they knew how to handle themselves. She only hoped that they didn’t make too much of a mess.

READER RODE SHOTGUN as Graham drove. He had settled himself into a light trance, meditating. His mind expanded beyond the limits of his body as he emptied his consciousness of all thought.

Graham had seen the meditation exercises before. At first he had been concerned about his friend, but after a while, he attributed it to his friend’s brilliance and awesome talents. The mental shutdown allowed him to organize his thoughts on a subconscious level, to the point where he could awaken from his trance and come up with a leap in logic that would seem almost astronomical.

Graham drove in silence. Reader had been upset about the thought that his covert guard assignment had put him in the league with torturers and assassins. While he didn’t know much more than the name of the top-secret farm—Stony Man, in the Blue Ridge Mountains—he did know that the men who were vetted to become blacksuits were people of strong moral caliber.

If violence was required, they wouldn’t shirk their duty to use it to prevent American citizens from coming to harm. He’d been involved in a couple of small operations, working as backup for either Striker, the one-man army, or one of the two teams that were employed by the Farm. The details of exactly who he’d worked with were sketchy. He didn’t have names.

But he did have knowledge of the teams’ operations. The blacksuits were kept aware of current operations, in case they were sent as backup to help the big guys kick some butt. Usually, Graham’s time had been served as security. On two occasions, he’d been sent into the field, as security for a forward base in one instance, or as part of a cleanup operation in a hazardous material environment in the other.

It was dark and secret work, but they were under strict orders not to involve civilians.

Reader’s doubts could have been allayed if he’d been a part of the blacksuit operation. He’d have seen that torture was only a last, desperate resort, and used only against the most blatantly guilty. Truth drugs were used in other cases, and Graham had been subjected to Scopolamine treatment to be vetted for the program. They asked him about his views on such matters, grilling him hard for signs that they were recruiting a closet psychopath who sublimated his killing urges to gain more training.

“Kirby,” Reader said, nearly jolting Graham out of his own skin.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Reader apologized.

“Warn a guy next time you come out of zombie land, Stretch.”

Reader chuckled.

Graham cast a glance at his old friend. “So, what’d your meditation tell ya, buddy?”

“That I should have trusted you not to be the kind of man who sends suspects to Saudi Arabia to be hung by their thumbs.”

“Hell, Stretch…”

“I know. You could have told me that. I just needed to examine all the evidence myself,” Reader replied. “Everything I know about you simply didn’t jibe with the Air America program.”

“I want to tell you about it all…” Graham began.

“You’re not at liberty,” Reader stated. “I’m on a need-to-know basis. If someone higher up the ladder wants to let me in on this operation, they will. Until then, my mental efforts will be focused on the mystery at hand.”

Graham smiled. “Thanks, Stan.”

Reader shook his head. “You never have to say thanks to me, Kirby.”

“So what does the bank robbery have to do with the UFOs spotted around Dugway?”

Reader frowned. “Obviously, computer records were available at the bank that would have disclosed who was financing the security probes at the facility.”

Graham nodded. “In two-dollar words, the money trail of the snoopers leads to the bank.”

Reader shrugged. “However, the electromagnet would have been used on any and all tape backups in the mainframe.”

“That wouldn’t have affected DVD-based backups.”

“No, but the explosion would have dropped the roof on any optical media, crushing, warping or otherwise rendering it useless,” Reader stated.

“They also could have had a team sent after the CDs and DVDs storing that info,” Graham added.

“Most likely, if this team were covering up its tracks,” Reader mentioned.

“So we’re back to square one,” Graham grumbled.

“Even if the gangs have no information for us, the very lack of data is evidence of a direction we should be searching in,” Reader said.

“What they don’t know might kill us, though.”

Reader tilted his head. “I’ve never known you to turn your back on a good scrap, Kirby.”

“Yeah. And this’ll be a pretty good one.”

Reader nodded.

“Simply because I got you on my side,” Graham noted.

Reader grinned. “Thanks.”

Graham pulled the car over as they reached a restaurant in Korea town. He didn’t have to check to feel that his Special Response Pistol was locked and cocked in its holster and its backup, a Glock 23, was on his ankle. “You packin’?”

Reader nodded. “Before I joined you at the morgue, I obtained replacements for my confiscated weaponry.”

Graham chuckled. “Yeah. You’re packin’.”

Reader sighed. “Sorry, Kirby. Ten-dollar words when a simple yes would do.”

Graham killed the engine. “You wouldn’t be the same old you if you said ‘ain’t’ and ‘yeah.’”

Reader was about to answer when the windshield was struck with a salvo of bullets that turned it into a sheet of spiderwebs.

Graham ducked out the door, .45 in hand. Reader was nowhere to be seen, as he’d snaked out the other door.

Bullets slammed into the asphalt beneath Graham’s feet, plunking against the sheet metal of the car.

“Well, the good news is…” the Fed said, flicking off the pistol’s safety. “If they’re trying to kill us, we’re on to something.”

He only hoped that he’d live long enough to learn what it was.

Wonsan, North Korea

THE EXECUTIONER’DISGUISE held. There was no doubt that it would. The prosthetics were of a tougher, more durable material than that used in standard stage makeup, and the spirit gum compound was water- and sweat-proof, yet breathable so that he could wear them for at least a week at a time. The brief dunking the eye folds took in Tongjosun Bay didn’t affect them.

The contact lenses were also soft and breathable, yet turned his ice-cold blue eyes into dark, smoldering orbs. He could sleep in them for up to thirty days before discomfort set in.

He plodded along with his walking stick, stooped over, no one paying him any attention. He was just an old man, hunched over with age and too many experiences. An unnoticed face in the crowd. He was darker and craggier than the smooth-faced Koreans around him in the port city, but he didn’t look like an American. They simply assumed him to be some foreign national.

A pair of police officers on a street corner finally noticed him. One stepped forward and asked for papers from the “elderly” Bolan.

Bolan apologized in the smattering of Korean that he knew and presented his old, battered paperwork to the cop.

“What’s your business here?” the cop asked.

“Visiting my son-in-law,” Bolan answered.

The cop sneered, then handed Bolan back his papers. It was obvious that the Korean cop was disgusted at the thought of a fine Korean man marrying a Chinese citizen, let alone one who wasn’t even Chinese, but Vietnamese by birth. Asian racism was common in the Orient. Every race scorned the other in varying degrees. Certainly, different nations tolerated each other as allies against common enemies, but contempt always lay beneath the surface. The cop waved him off, as if he were convinced that Bolan would defecate right on the sidewalk like an untrained dog.

Knowing the rampant bigotry, Bolan figured that the cop actually did assume that “the old Vietnamese fool” would actually perform such a vile task in public.

“Move along, old man,” the cop snapped. “Don’t cause any trouble.”

“No, sir,” Bolan replied, nodding and grinning.

So far, so good, Bolan thought. He continued on to where the submarine’s hard drive had revealed the covert craft would have unloaded. He reached the harbor and leaned against his walking stick.

The waves swelled on the surface, a few cresting enough to produce a whitecap before crashing against the rocks. Freighters and junks bobbed where they had been moored for the evening.

No submarine pens were in evidence, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He doubted that the North Koreans would have a fleet of undersea craft within easy view of the rest of the world.

He scanned the shoreline and noticed a large pier, lost amid the huge hulks of two ancient, barnacle-laden and rusty ships. Bolan narrowed his eyes. The two huge craft looked out of place, rundown and ill preserved. The old boats were shielding prime shoreline in a heavily built-up area. Bolan walked toward them.

The two ships were huge, and the soldier didn’t have a doubt as to their true purpose. They probably hadn’t left the shoreline in years, serving as shielding against prying satellite radar and infrared scanners. They were the perfect cover to keep unwanted American eyes from seeing the submarines nearing the surface, slip in under the two old hulks and into a waiting underground wharf.

By the time he reached the pier, it was two hours after sunset. Curfews had driven people home, and Bolan had gone from a slumped-over old man to his own lithe, nimble, shadow-hugging form. The walking stick was laid amid some crates, out of sight. He wouldn’t need it now, but he might have use of it later.

A military shore patrol passed by in a clean, well-running Jeep. Bolan took care to note their weapons: top-of-the-line AK-107 rifles, brand-new 5.45 mm weapons, even more advanced than the standard AK-74. He briefly considered the bank robbery in Utah, and wondered if the “robbers” had similar weaponry. In the darkness, he remained a wraith, letting the soldiers pass by unmolested.

The Jeep paused for a moment as it sat between the two rusting hulks. One of the soldiers brought a high-tech Motorola radio to his lips, checking in undoubtedly to a central command.

New weapons, good vehicles, and top-of-the-line electronics told the Executioner all he needed to know. If this wasn’t the submarine pen, then it was something of equal covert value. In cash-strapped North Korea, such equipment was in short supply, which gave Bolan another clue as to the origin of this operation.

Someone else was in charge. Even North Korea’s fledgling nuclear program was utilizing fifties’ era atomic technology.

More than just cattle and humans were being smuggled into North Korea.

The Jeep rolled on and Bolan slipped from the shadows. He pulled the swim goggles from his pocket and placed them over his eyes. He pulled his flashlight and affixed a red filter over the end cap, then slid over the rail.

The harbor’s water enveloped the Executioner, but he had a lungful of air, and he clicked on the waterproof flashlight, bathing the murk ahead of him in dull red. The filter would keep the light from being seen from too far away, the red wavelength of the spectrum being notoriously weak. With the cover of night, the pier, its ships and the dark water, no one would notice him.

Kicking powerfully, he sliced through the murky darkness, finding a huge gap in the cleft between the two rusted keels. Bolan dived toward the gap, his eyes making out straight banks of concrete that formed a collar around the entrance. Smooth walls ran on into the depths of the tunnel, and Bolan turned back and broke the surface of the harbor, sucking down a deep breath.

Swimming into the pen would be one certain way to catch the conspirators unaware, but he didn’t have scuba tanks, and it would require more time than he could hold his breath to reach the end.

The Executioner, however, was undaunted. Though it had been some time since he’d engaged in casual sex in the field, he always carried a few foil-wrapped condoms with him. In the Army, he’d learned that a condom was good for more than protection against disease and unwanted pregnancy. When rolled over the muzzle of a barrel, it kept mud and dirt from jamming up the rifle. A condom had many other uses.

Bolan unwrapped one condom and blew into it, inflating it with four or five deep breaths. Stretched into a long, semiopaque tube, it now became an air bladder. He took out a paperclip and clamped it over the neck, making certain not to puncture the stretched rubber. He sucked down a breath, then plunged into the depths of the harbor.

The submarine access tunnel was wide and long, and Bolan had to pause three times, exhaling carefully through his nostrils, then clamping his lips to the end of his improvised air bladder to take in a lungful. The condom was half deflated by the time he’d advanced far enough through the tunnel to rise to the surface. Bolan kicked upward and broke the surface, breathing in fresh air.

The tunnel was still dark, only faint amber work lights illuminating the far end of a massive cave. Bolan released the last of the air from his makeshift air bladder and pocketed it. He’d refill it when it was time to exit, or find another path out of the sub pens.

Bolan killed his flashlight and swam slowly, careful not to splash and cause too much of a disturbance. If he was spotted now, he’d be easy prey for any guard force protecting this conspiracy.

Granted, Bolan would put up a good fight, but the element of surprise would be lost.

As he reached the underwater pier, he noticed that there was one submarine parked in its berth, but there had been room for two others. The Executioner had already accounted for one U-boat, but that meant that another of the seacraft was crawling in the oceans. He’d transmit the information to Stony Man Farm if the opportunity arose.

He wondered if the sub berth had been in use or if it was an extra, set up for visitors.

With the knowledge that the North Korean arm of the conspiracy had outside sponsors, that was likely. He crawled up one of the support struts after making certain no trip wires adorned the post. As he exited the water, he drew one of his Beretta knock-offs, thumbing the hammer back and flicking the selector to 3-round-burst mode.

Bolan took an extra moment to fix a suppressor to the muzzle of his machine pistol. He was ready for anything. The lamps didn’t cast light on the water, but a driveway led from the loading dock to a man-made cavern off to one side. The way the ground swelled toward the mouth of the cave, Bolan knew it was an inclined road, leading to the surface. Whatever the false front of the loading bay was, it would have proved invisible to satellite and aerial reconnaissance. Only the knowledge that the enemy had submarines had given the Executioner a clue that this facility even existed.

Bolan turned and jumped aboard the berthed craft, scrambling up its black, beetle-like back until he reached the conning tower.

Someone spoke in sleepy Korean, and the closest that the Executioner could translate was “breakfast.” It was a question, and presumably the man on watch was expecting to have breakfast delivered in bed.

Moments later, his face appeared in a hatch, and the sleepiness disappeared in a silent mask of shock. Before he could cry out, Bolan served him a full meal of slugs in the mouth. Brains and skull fragments exploded down the sailor’s back and he tumbled into the control room. The suppressed autoburst was no louder than a polite cough, but the Executioner had started the fight, and he had to make certain that no one else was aboard the submarine. Or if they were, they had to be put out of commission quickly.

Bolan knelt beside the corpse and checked its pockets. He heard nothing else in the submarine, but still spent a few minutes examining the craft from stem to stern, the silenced machine pistol leading the way.

Satisfied that the vessel was abandoned except for a single watchman, Bolan headed to the engine room.

He took a moment to open one of the fuel reservoirs and let the thick, pungent rough fuel splatter across the deck at his feet. He located a small container and filled it, forming a path all the way back to the control room. He needed a second trip to refill the container to ensure that he had enough diesel to thoroughly soak the control room. The Executioner took several minutes with the container to pour more of the thick, greasy diesel over engines and control panels, letting the seepy runoff dribble to the floor, forming flammable streaks up the sides of control surfaces.

Bolan crawled up the ladder to the conning tower deck, then lit a waterproof match and dropped it into the large puddle in the center of the floor. He closed the access hatch.

The diesel wasn’t volatile enough to explode, but with the engine and control rooms’ most vital equipment soaked with fuel, the fire he started would render the old Soviet craft difficult to use. The fire would also make it difficult for the submarine’s crew to determine how their watchman died.

Satisfied that he’d crippled the second craft, Bolan eased into the water by the pier to remove the stench of petroleum from his boots and skin. Returning to the dock, he crawled out, pausing crouched at the edge. He let himself drip dry, not moving until he was certain the facility was still quiet.

Two men walked lazily through the area toward the sole, lit prefab building at the other end of the cavern. They were carrying boxes.

The breakfast club, Bolan recognized. He stalked across the submarine pen slowly. Landline wires ran up to a conduit pipe that were no doubt connected to above-ground communications services. These wires ran to the lit shack, identifying it as the communications post for the facility. If he took command of the comm center, he’d be able to isolate this branch of the conspiracy.

The arrival of the two with the food and coffee gave Bolan a confirmation of at least three men in the communications shack, more likely four minimum.

He wondered how many of the enemy were present in the facility, but there was only one way to find out. Bolan padded up to the communications shack and gently loaded the partially spent Beretta.

Whoever was still alive after the shooting stopped would give him the answers he needed.

The Executioner kicked open the shack door, Beretta leading the way.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Salt Lake City, Utah

Stan Reader snaked almost bonelessly out of the shotgun seat as soon as the windshield was smashed by a salvo of enemy gunfire. His Scorpion revolver slid into his hand easily, and he twisted behind the protection of the wheel well.

Bullets pocked into the asphalt in front of him and he poked the flat, slab-sided revolver barrel around the corner. The polished surface acted like a mirror, and he was able to locate the enemy snipers quickly. He lowered the barrel and sought Kirby Graham in the next moment. There was no sign of him, which was good news.

If he was down for the count, Reader would have seen his corpse sprawled in the street.

Instead, the Fed was safe. Reader thumbed back the hammer on the Scorpion, a finely made revolver capable of utilizing whichever cartridges that could fit into a .357 Magnum cylinder, its extractor star capable of holding anything from .380 Auto to 9 mm to .38 Special with equal ease. He popped up and aligned the sights of the Scorpion on the sniper’s roost, the enemy’s position memorized from the momentary flash in the reflection on the custom barrel.

Reader tripped the trigger and a thunderbolt ripped out of the four-inch barrel before the enemy rifleman could adjust to the scientist’s sudden appearance. At more than 1300 feet per second, the 125-grain slug plowed into the Korean sniper and hurled him into the depths of the building.

“Kirby!” Reader called.

“I’m fine, Stretch,” Graham answered. “Keep your head down!”

Reader poked his muzzle around the corner and spotted what had prompted Graham’s warning. Two more Koreans, armed with assault rifles, perched in a doorway. They caught the flash of metal off Reader’s Scorpion, and one of them cut loose with a prolonged burst. Reader ducked back behind the wheel well as the car shook under the enemy onslaught.

Over the staccato chop of assault rifle fire, Graham’s .45 thumped twice, loudly, and the gang member’s attack was suddenly cut short. The other gunner opened up, and Reader heard his friend curse and growl, ducking back under cover. Reader rushed from the cover of the damaged vehicle to the rear of a parked van, snapping off two quick .357 Magnum rounds at the doorway where the remaining rifleman cut loose.

The two shots drove the would-be murderer back behind cover, and Graham’s SRP chugged out two more deep-throated cracks, but two rifles opened up in the doorway again.

“I only winged him,” Graham advised.

Reader didn’t acknowledge his friend’s announcement as he plucked the empty cases from his revolver. He opened a pouch on his belt and thumbed out three new cartridges. He loaded them in gently and carefully, then snapped the cylinder shut. He thumbed back the hammer partially and rotated one of the new rounds right under the firing pin, locking the hammer back with one soft tug.

“Fire in the hole!” Reader shouted as he poked around the rear of the van and launched his shot.

On top of the .357 Magnum charge, Reader’s bullet rocketed with blinding speed. When it stuck the top of the doorway, the slug disintegrated on impact. At first, the two gunmen had to have thought it was a panic shot, missed completely in the course of a wild gunfight.

Then the truth settled on them in the form of vaporized capsicum concentrate powder. One of the riflemen staggered out into the open, screaming in pain, his AK spitting lead into the hood of a parked vehicle.

Graham cut loose with his .45, dropping the blinded and agonized rifleman with two hits to the pelvis. The gunman collapsed in the street, his rifle forgotten amid the sudden additional pain of his hip being shattered by twin heavy-caliber slugs to the burning flame in his eyes and nostrils.

Reader and Graham reached the gunman Graham had wounded with his initial burst of pistol fire. Graham tore the rifle from numb hands as Reader attended to the other wounded man.

“Neat trick. What did you do?” Graham asked, putting a plastic cable tie around his prisoner’s wrists.

Reader folded the other man’s arms behind his back and did likewise. “I simply created a concentrated mix of epoxy and capsicum powder in the 250-grain range and placed it atop an intermediate charge. Upon contact with a sufficiently dense surface, the round would disintegrate and create a cloud of soft-membrane irritant that would fill an area as large as a doorway.”

“Tear gas bullets. Right,” Graham answered. “What happens if you just plunk one into someone’s chest?”

Reader glanced to his friend. “Against bone, it would result in a fragmentation radius of six inches. Against muscle and organs, it penetrates thirteen inches with deformation to point-six-five-inch diameter.”

“Ouch,” Graham muttered.

“Obviously, it’s only meant for barricaded opponents behind secure cover,” Reader stated. “But like most less lethal solutions, caution must be taken into con—”

“Right. Be careful. Just because it’s a tear-gas bullet don’t mean it won’t kill someone,” Graham answered. He scanned inside the building. “Nobody else is coming out to be a welcoming committee.”

Reader picked up an AK and looked at it. “AK-107 rifle. Latest Kalashnikov design to be successfully marketed.”

Graham holstered his .45 after reloading it and picked up his prisoner’s rifle. He fished a couple of spare magazines out of the wounded gang member’s jacket. “Sure as heck ain’t standard street-punk fare.”

Reader reloaded his confiscated weapon and stuffed another spare magazine into his jacket pocket. “Obviously outside influences are at work here. Be careful.”

Graham winked one glittering blue eye and entered the building, Reader hot on his heels.

Wonsan, North Korea

THE KOREANS WERE CAUGHT completely off guard when the Executioner burst through the door, and Bolan made a snap decision to take some prisoners. There was a good chance that these men spoke enough English, or some other language that Bolan understood, to provide him with answers. The fact that their hands were full of coffee cups and food instead of guns also granted him a moment to act in a less than lethal manner.

With a hard snap of his wrist, he rammed the butt of his pistol into the jaw of the closest Korean, spraying teeth and blood across the room. The hapless sentry’s head flopped back violently, and he crashed across a table strewed with maps and paperwork, sheets fluttering like leaves in a hurricane as his insensate form plowed through them.

The punch bought Bolan another heartbeat’s worth of shock and dismay, and he pushed swiftly on the heels of his audacious entrance with a fast kick to the side of another man’s knee. Bone snapped loudly, and the second guard’s leg twisted in a manner that it was never meant to. Bolan followed up with a piercing elbow in the neck as he continued his charge through the communications shack. The Korean with the broken leg crashed to the floor face-first and landed with a sickening crunch. The soldier didn’t spare an instant in his assault, knowing that the doomsday numbers were falling away rapidly. Instead, he hooked his forearm hard up under the chin of the third man in the room.

The clothesline attack lifted the Korean off his feet and launched him against the fourth occupant of the shack before he could fumble for his holstered sidearm. Bolan pivoted and brought his heel down on the fourth guard’s groin with an impact that elicited an earsplitting wail of agony.

That was probably the end of Bolan’s stealthy soft probe, but another step brought him in close enough to cuff his heel across the loudmouth’s jaw and to snap-kick him into unconsciousness.

The third man clutched his throat, wheezing and stunned by the sudden assault, and Bolan reached out with his empty hand, screwing the muzzle of the sound suppressor under the Korean’s chin.

“Speak Chinese?” Bolan growled in Cantonese.

“Yes,” the Korean answered. “Some.”

“How many more men in the facility?” Bolan asked, loosening the pressure on the man’s windpipe.

“One in the submarine and two more shifts of guards in the main hut,” the Korean answered nervously.

Bolan looked at the window of the commo shack. “Off shift.”

The Korean nodded. “Not much to do here. We’re not expecting a visit for another day.”

“The second sub?” Bolan asked.

“And a visitor,” the Korean said. “We’re expecting a delivery from overseas.”

Bolan’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”

“We don’t speak with the delivery crew. They just drop off crates, and we load them onto the trucks,” the guard answered.

Bolan lowered the Beretta, then jammed his thumb under the man’s ear. He knew the pinch would increase the blood pressure in the Korean’s head dramatically, and after an instant, a blinding headache screwed the Asian’s face into a mask of agony. “Where do the trucks go?”

“Inland.”

Bolan looked at the mess of maps on the floor, then shoved the Korean toward them. “Show me.”

The Korean understood the implication and with shaking, nervous hands, pulled a map from under his unconscious partner and spread it on another table. Bolan kept the Beretta in hand, an unspoken threat hanging in the air that he would make the guard’s death slow and painful if he attempted to betray the soldier’s presence. Nothing was noticeable out the window, the main hut remained quiet. The fourth man’s squeal of pain hadn’t raised an alert, yet.

Bolan’s luck was still holding. If the Korean was convinced that he wasn’t an American, then so much the better.

The guard pointed nervously at the map of the countryside and Bolan glanced at it. It was thirty-five miles out of town, in what looked like one of the rare bits of farmland that had been co-opted by the North Korean military.

“What’s there?” Bolan asked in Chinese.

The guard shrugged and shook his head. “Trucks. Whatever comes off the submarines.”

Bolan frowned, then turned the stunned sentry around and rapped him at the base of his neck with the butt of the Beretta. The man slumped limply to the ground, and Bolan spent several moments, binding and gagging the four unconscious guards. It wouldn’t take much of an effort for them to break free, but Bolan wasn’t going to murder helpless men. He took a wastebasket and threw their side arms into it. They were armed with Vektor 9 mm pistols, more Beretta copies, except these were from South Africa. Bolan experimented with one of their magazines to see if it would be retained by the NORINCO knock-off, and it worked. Bolan stripped the pistols of their clips and pocketed them, adding to his arsenal. He cleared their chambers and pocketed the extra rounds. They didn’t have any spares, so Bolan left the wastebasket of stripped pistols under the desk. Unfortunately, no rifles were present in the communication shack. This would put the Executioner at a disadvantage.

He wondered if he could find the enemy’s armory when a light out the window caught his attention.

A half-dozen guards appeared in various states of dress, groggily clinging to their rifles. Bolan pivoted and shot out the light in the communications shack, then hit the floor.

A curse in Korean reached his ears, and Bolan realized that he’d have no chance to secure an enemy rifle before going through the conspirator’s guard force.

He thumbed the Beretta’s selector switch to burst mode and unscrewed the suppressor on the muzzle.

The soft probe had turned hard, but Bolan wasn’t dismayed.

It was simply business as usual.

Salt Lake City, Utah

KIRBY GRAHAM SWEPT each doorway he passed, expecting more hostile Koreans ready to greet him with a salvo of automatic fire. Instead, his AK went unfired as no lurking assassins lunged out of the woodwork. The only thing that met him was the coppery scent of freshly spilled blood. Graham entered an apartment and saw that the living room was strewed with corpses, and he took a deep breath. “Damn.”

Reader entered and looked at the scene, his face twisting in conflicting waves of anger, disgust and sadness.

Graham knelt and felt the throat of a kid, black eyes staring glassily toward the ceiling. He came away from the youth’s neck, blood covering his fingertips. He gently turned him over, seeing two bullet holes in the base of his neck. His jaw set hard, as he thumbed closed the kid’s eyes. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old.

“Seems like someone else anticipated our line of investigation,” Reader said numbly.

“They didn’t have to kill kids, damn it,” Graham swore. A teenage girl had been thrown across the back of a sofa, her clothes pulled halfway off. The view hit Graham in the chest like a Magnum slug, and he knew that whoever had staged this massacre had taken their time, willing to make it look as though a rival gang had taken the local gang-bangers off guard. The girl’s dark hair was caked with dried blood, her face a mass of bruises.

She hadn’t died easily. She wasn’t even twenty, and Graham closed his eyes, knowing that her short life had come to a horrifying end. He looked toward the front.

“No, Kirby,” Reader said, anticipating his friend’s thoughts. “No. You’re better than they are.”

Graham’s face twisted in anger.

“If you kill them, they win,” Reader continued to admonish.

“So what?” Graham snapped. “They’re not going to attend the awards ceremony.”

Reader held Graham back from the doorway. “We need to find out what they know.”

Graham’s head swam crazily as Reader’s deceptively slender arms proved to be too hard for even his slablike muscles to burst through. He let the rifle hang limply in his hand and took a deep breath. “We’re ruining the crime scene, Stan.”

Reader guided him out into the hall, his arms going from restraining to supportive. “We’ll find out who’s responsible, Kirby.”

Graham nodded, his lips drawn tightly. “They probably didn’t leave much for the crime scene team to go over.”

“Undoubtedly,” Reader agreed. “Are you all right?”

Graham glared at his friend. “What do you think?”

Reader nodded. “I can—”

“I’ll help,” Graham interjected.

Reader pursed his lips, then waved for Graham to follow him to the second floor.

Graham spotted the sniper who had tried to kill them. He was sprawled in the middle of a living room on the second floor, his chest caved in by Reader’s .357 Magnum slug. The wound was horrific. “They figured that we’d be coming.”

“This was likely a trap set for our benefit,” Reader agreed.

“What’d you hit this guy with?” Graham asked, checking the corpse of the sniper.

“A standard Mag-SAFE round,” Reader replied. “Relatively simple, but effective.”

Graham fought off the urge to stomp the dead sniper’s face into a gooey mush. Already dead, he wouldn’t have provided enough cathartic retribution, and it would be more difficult to determine who the murderer was. The brawny Fed turned away and continued to look through the second floor, but after a few minutes, he realized that the entire building had been swept clean. Anyone who had been in residence was dead on the floor below.

They’d been executed, not murdered. And the girl had been raped before her murder. It was enough to make Graham’s muscles tighten up to the point where he was afraid that he would implode from the tension.

“Kirby.” Reader spoke up.

Graham turned and noticed that there was a small rifle case set up in the room. He looked at it.

“They couldn’t go around without gun cases,” Graham stated. “Utah’s pretty lax on firearms laws, but open carry of assault rifles is pretty—”

“Look at his rifle,” Reader stated. “Look familiar?”

“Yeah. A standard garden-variety Ruger mini-.30.”

Reader looked at him with his usual “catch up with me” expression.

Graham clenched his eyes shut. “A Ruger mini-.30 uses the same ammunition as an AK-47.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the rifle barrel had been doctored to resemble a Kalashnikov’s rifling pattern. With one dead FBI agent killed by a typical Korean street thug…”

“It’d suck all the normal resources reserved for the bank robbery into figuring out which of these punks did the dirty deed,” Graham affirmed. “While that went on, whoever was working this end of the cover-up was going to finish his job without interference.”

Reader nodded.

“Trouble is, they didn’t expect us to be so hard to kill,” Graham stated.

“I picked this off one of the Koreans downstairs,” Reader said. He held up a .22-caliber revolver with a blood-flecked stainless-steel barrel. “High-capacity. Holds nine shots. Using the base of a victim’s skull, and with the low power of a .22 Long Rifle slug…”

“Quiet enough not to draw the cops in too soon,” Graham concluded. “They were going to stake us out here.”

“So they knew who your contacts in the Asian gang community were,” Reader added.

“You know we’re being watched,” Graham said. “I had the feeling when we were skiing, but I thought maybe it was some journalist watching you cut some fresh powder.”

“I know the journalists in the extreme sports community and they would have been more open,” Reader stated. “My presence here raised some flags, even though I am only present by coincidence.”

“So this ain’t just Korean street gangs. This is something bigger and nastier,” Graham mused.

Gunfire cracked in the street and Graham and Reader rushed to the window. Shattered glass drove them back. The ceiling sprouted bullet holes from assault rifles.

“We were so concerned with the question at hand that we dropped our guard,” Reader stated.

“All this rifle fire’s going to draw the cops soon enough,” Graham muttered. “But I’m not looking forward to getting 9-1-1 backup.”

The house shook, a huge crumpling sound rolling up the stairs toward them. Instants later, hot air rushed over their faces.

“They’re not going to allow us the opportunity to be rescued,” Reader commented. “Another demolition device. Most likely incendiary.”

“Torching the evidence,” Graham snapped. He looked at the window. “Think you can hit the roof of one of those parked cars out there, Stretch?”

Reader looked confused for a moment, then Graham shoved him toward the window. As soon as Reader was through the shattered pane, the big Fed launched himself, as well, AK-107 still in hand.

Outside, their ambushers attempted to cut them down as they leaped from the burning building, but they fell too quickly. Graham roared, holding down the trigger on his captured rifle, spraying the gunmen in the streets before he slammed into the roof of a parked car, the impact tossing him to the sidewalk, separated from the AK.

Wonsan, North Korea

AS ENEMY RIFLE FIRE tore into the communications shack, Bolan raced along on all fours. He speared through the doorway, his blacksuit blending into the darkened depths of the cavern. Even so, his bulk attracted attention and a short burst of bullets chased him behind the cover of the building. Bolan poked the Beretta machine pistol around the corner and milked out two 3-round bursts that caught one of the Korean guards at stomach level. The rifleman folded over and smashed into the cave floor with a messy splash. That caught the remaining five gunners’ attention to that corner, giving the Executioner a second to reach the opposite side of the shack, drawing his second Beretta and flicking that to burst mode, as well.

Still distracted at pinning down the intruder, spreading out to flank the tiny shack to get around behind them, the gunners were caught unaware as salvos of high-velocity slugs chopped into them. Three collapsed instantly, cored by Bolan’s chattering machine pistols. The other two scrambled, trying to split up and avoid their judgment. They focused on the corner of the shack to cut off their enemy from his avenue of retreat, but Bolan did the unexpected and leaped farther into the open.

Hitting the ground on his chest, Bolan ripped off another storm of 9 mm slugs into the face of one of the remaining Korean soldiers, bursting his skull. A flap of scalp waved like a grisly flag as the guard slumped to the floor. Bolan rolled and triggered more shots into the other Korean, but the 9 mm slugs only clipped the gunner’s thigh.

The sentry collapsed, but he continued to hold down the trigger on his weapon, a bullet creasing Bolan’s back. Pain shot through the Executioner, but he knuckled down and emptied the last of both Beretta magazines into the wounded killer. Nine rounds shredded the Korean’s chest, dumping him unceremoniously in the center of the darkened cave.

Bolan ran over the numbers mentally. Four men in the communications shack, one on the submarine.

Five men made up this shift, and the six who came out to rush him were from the combined two remaining shifts, which meant that it was likely there were at least four remaining gunmen in the hut. Instead of gathering up the rifles from the dead, Bolan held his ground, reloading the emptied machine pistols with fresh magazines.

A light appeared in a window of the hut, sweeping the six dead men that Bolan had dropped. There was a long moment as the lamp tried to spear the darkness, but the soldier was just out of its range. He held his fire. Popping off a shot would have produced a muzzle-flash that would call enemy rifle fire, but to equip one of his pistols with a sound suppressor would have robbed the weapon of the power and range to be effective. Instead, he waited.

After thirty seconds, one of the remaining Koreans started a reconnaissance by fire, sweeping the shadows on full-auto. Bullets sparked wildly, but they didn’t go near Bolan. Once the firing stopped, he rolled to where the bullets struck as the cone of light tried to reach as far as the splash of bullets. Finally, the Executioner was rewarded with a bath of illumination as he slumped limply on the ground. Blood glistened on his back from the nick he received. He performed an accurate impersonation of a dead man, and the hut doors opened, gunmen racing out. His hooded eyes picked up five sets of feet running toward him.

The light was off him, but they had flashlights, flapping and wavering, not focused on him. With his Berettas in his hands, he was perfectly laid out—seemingly dead, but ready to spring his trap.

When they got within twenty feet, Bolan cut loose with both machine pistols, full-auto bursts ripping into the last of the Koreans. Caught flat-footed, assuming that Bolan was dead, the remaining guards were chopped into lifeless meat.

Bolan rose. His back hurt from where the bullet had sliced it, but the bleeding wasn’t bad. He could deal with it at his leisure, especially since no enemy rifle fire came from the hut. He walked over and grabbed a dead Korean’s rifle just to be sure, pocketing a couple of spare magazines.

Water burbled behind him and Bolan turned, watching something bob to the surface in the middle of the cave’s lagoon.

It wasn’t a submarine. It was the size of a barrel.

Recognition hit like a freight train.

Bolan didn’t know how long he had, but there would be only a few moments before the thermobaric explosive went off.

Bolan knew full well that a thermobaric bomb the size of the barrel would burst initially, diffusing large amounts of highly flammable fuel throughout the cavern. If the sudden, all-permeating cloud of toxic fuel didn’t suffocate him, the subsequent ignition spark from the charge would prove lethal. The cloud of vaporized fuel would combust instantly, with the force of a train car full of high explosives. The atmosphere in the cavern would disappear in a heartbeat, human flesh consumed and reduced to ash, the subsequent shock wave from superheated air expanding, then collapsing in on itself reducing anything else to rubble. Even if Bolan could find a fox hole or a protective bunker, it would be useless. That wouldn’t even include the roof of the cavern collapsing under the powerful blast wave.

It would bring down the entire submarine pen in a single flash of devastation.

There was one Jeep by the barracks, but even if there were a key in the ignition, he didn’t know how long it would be until the fuel-air explosive would go off. Cutting underwater might put him right in the lap of those deploying the explosives, and being submersed would be no protection from the superheated fireball.

Bolan took off running, knowing that it might already be too late.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Salt Lake City, Utah

Kirby Graham rolled off the hood of the car and threw himself flat against the asphalt as enemy rifle fire chopped angrily toward him. He clawed at his holster and got out his .45, knowing that against the onslaught of a pair of AK-107s, he was in the hole. He wore body armor, but it was lightweight, and against the high-velocity 5.45 mm penetrators, it might as well have been tissue paper stretched across his chest.

An automatic rifle chattered behind him and Graham spun, aiming his .45 before realizing that the lean figure of Stan Reader was in motion, hosing down the ambushers with his confiscated AK-107.

It didn’t take more than a moment for Graham to pop up, moving in the opposite direction as his old friend, safety snicked off, tritium front sight a flash of green intersecting the chest of one of the two killers. Graham triggered his weapon twice, and the murderous thug flopped backward, ribs crushed by the double tap of .45-caliber thunder.

Reader stitched the second rifleman with a blast of 5.45 mm slugs, and as soon as the battle had resumed, it was over.

A van peeled out down the street, laying a patch of rubber, but neither man could see its license plate, let alone catch up to it.

“White Ford panel van,” Reader said. “They obscured the license plate.”

Graham turned toward his car and saw that the engine poured smoke out through the sieve that was its hood. “Trashed our wheels.”

“We’ve lost them for now,” Reader said. He looked at their bound prisoners, their heads splattered with fresh blood. “And we lost the killers.”

Graham glared at the dead men and shrugged. “Remind me to give a damn about them later.”

Reader nodded. The images of the murdered occupants of the apartment were still fresh in his mind. Sirens wailed in the distance, and Graham got on the phone, calling in the fire department to control the blaze started by the firebombs. He realized that his arm was bleeding from where a shard of glass had slashed it. He grimaced and Reader pressed a handkerchief against the wound.

“You okay?” Reader asked. “You took a nasty tumble.”

“I was gonna ask the same about you. After all, I threw you through the window.”

“All that skiing gave me some pretty good aerial reflexes. I tucked and hit the roof of that van and bled off velocity with a somersault before coming to a halt behind cover.”

“Figured you’d bounce back without an ache,” Graham said.

Reader rolled his eyes as he secured the compress. “I didn’t say without an ache. I just controlled my descent with minimal impairment.”

Graham nodded and let Reader take a seat on the bumper of the van.

Salt Lake cops and firemen showed up in their attending vehicles.

There was a brief moment of confusion on the faces of the cops, but Graham had both of their confiscated rifles propped away from them. He regretted getting his fingerprints all over the weapons, ruining their use as evidence, but considering that the murderers who owned them were dead, and beyond prosecution, it wasn’t a major loss.

He looked at the burning apartment. The murder victims inside were incinerated, making forensic identification difficult, if not impossible.

And there was a van driver who had gotten away. He’d have provided them with more answers to this strange little conspiracy if they’d caught him, but for now, there was nothing they could do. Reports had to be filed, and the shootings investigated.

It would be a mess. “Some days, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed,” Graham stated.

Wonsan, North Korea

BOLAN TUCKED behind the communications shed as he spotted two more shapes breach the surface of the underground lagoon. Divers had accompanied the thermobaric device, probably to set it up. A third and a fourth man rose from the water, armed with suppressed rifles, scanning the darkness.

All the men had exchanged swim goggles for night-vision devices, thus pinning Bolan in place.

Tension gripped the Executioner as he realized that the two security men for the demolitions team were going to notice his handiwork sooner or later. The rifle in his hands would give him an edge against them, especially since Bolan’s vision had become accustomed to the dim light of the underground submarine pen. However, that advantage would disappear quickly with the bright muzzle-flash of the AK-107 in his hands.

He briefly considered switching to one of his sound-suppressed pistols, but at this range from the water’s edge, he’d lack the power and accuracy to ensure a killing shot, especially if the gunmen wore body armor.

Bolan’s breathing dropped to shallow inhalations and exhalations, so soft that they could barely be heard. The two gunmen at the pier reacted as they spotted the strewed corpses of ten Koreans in the middle of the cavern.

“Someone got here first,” one said in English.

“Hurry up with that Daisy Cutter,” the other told the two demolitions men. “We might have company.”

“This is going to take some time,” retorted one of the first pair of divers. “Get in touch with our sub.”

“Already on it,” the first man stated. He spoke into a radio unit.

Bolan slid out of sight slowly. They spoke English, and they sounded like Americans, which only confirmed to him that this conspiracy didn’t have its heart in North Korea.

Obviously, the encounter with the smugglers and the first of the Korean submarines had pushed the conspirators on the other side of the Bamboo Curtain to cut their losses. The thermobaric explosive—a Daisy Cutter in American military parlance—was just short of a nuclear explosive in terms of raw destructive power. The existence of the cover submarine pen would cause too much trouble for their end of things, so the American conspirators were cutting their losses. The Daisy Cutter would obliterate any evidence there was a link to outside allies.

That meant that the other facility would be compromised and scheduled for elimination soon. Once more behind the eight ball, the Executioner would need to work quickly to trace the path up the food chain. Bolan shouldered the AK-107 and took aim at the two gunmen scanning the darkness. He needed to take them out fast.

“Gun!” one of the riflemen shouted as he dived to one side. Bolan ripped a burst into his partner before the man could react. The enemy gunner spun in a death dance as 5.45 mm slugs speared through his flesh, tearing body armor and tumbling violently through muscles, organs and blood vessels.

Autofire lanced at the Executioner as he ducked back.

The two demolitions men hurriedly continued their work and as Bolan whipped around the far corner, he spotted that the quicker of the two security men had sought cover behind a short stone post at the end of the pier. Bolan sent a quick burst of fire his way to keep his head down, when he noticed that the enemy’s rifle had a stubby, fat pipe under its barrel. The blunt, wide-mouthed barrel swung around the corner as the gunman stayed safely behind the cover of the stone pillar.

Bolan cut and ran, moving as swiftly as he could. A grenade slammed into the communications shack. One half of the building was reduced to splinters that sizzled wildly through the air like shrapnel. Bolan hit the ground before the chewing cloud of shattered wood crawled over him. A few patches of exposed skin stung as tiny needles of wood plunked into him. The heavier debris had more momentum, and thus flew past him, moving with enough force and velocity to have ripped him to shreds if he hadn’t flopped to the ground.

Bolan rolled onto his back and opened up with his AK-107 again as the distinct chatter of an M-16 erupted. The stone pillar sparked as Bolan’s 5.45 mm slugs ricocheted away from it. With a kick, Bolan rolled out of the way of a blast of return fire that would have sliced him in two.

The Executioner rolled into a crouch behind the half-collapsed remnants of the communication shack and reloaded his weapon. He looked back at the Jeep and knew that he’d have to make a run for the vehicle. The shell of the destroyed shed would give him concealment for about half the distance if he kept to the proper course. Exploding to his feet, he raced toward the Jeep, keeping the half-destroyed comm center between him and the enemy gunman. After a few seconds, rifle fire chopped at his heels and Bolan poured on the speed, cutting left and right in a serpentine path that kept the enemy gunman from anticipating where his target would end up next.

At least until Bolan got closer to the Jeep.

The rifleman reloaded rapidly, but in that brief moment of changing magazines, Bolan had two seconds of open ground to cover. He was three steps from the vehicle when the first of the gunner’s shots exploded in the air, but the soldier leaped across the hood, sliding across it then dropping behind the vehicle’s wheel well. Bullets rattled against the chassis.

Bolan fired under the body of the vehicle, sweeping the enemy gunman at foot level, but the hardman ducked back behind the stone pillar. Nothing hit. Bolan hauled himself up to the driver’s seat and noticed that the Jeep didn’t have any keys in the ignition. It would take too long to hot-wire the vehicle, and doing it would expose him to enemy fire.

A hollow thump sounded in the distance, and Bolan whirled and threw himself away from the Jeep. Moments later, a 40 mm grenade detonated against the vehicle’s far fender. Bolan glanced back to see the hood peeled up into a Mohawk, the wheel nearest to him folded under by the explosive force of the grenade.

So much for that set of wheels, Bolan figured. He glanced around and spotted a motorcycle. A key ring glimmered in the light of one of the few operating lamps. It was out of sight of the enemy rifleman.

Bolan scrambled toward the motorcycle, emptying the AK-107 on the run. Brass tumbled from the breech as he kept the enemy gunner’s head down. When the rifle clicked empty, he was already behind the nearby garage and he discarded the useless weapon.

He checked the gauge on the motorcycle as he fired it up. The needle whirled to the full position, and Bolan kicked the motor over. A grenade crashed on the far side of the garage as the gun-toting diver continued to hammer away at the Executioner. The 40 mm grenade probably did horrendous damage to the other side of the building, but nothing reached Bolan as he revved the engine. The sound of the motorcycle had undoubtedly alerted his opponent to the fact that he was on his way out.

Sheets of automatic fire ripped the wall in front of him, which made him hold his position for a moment. The demolitions men might not be as skilled with rifles as their friend, though Bolan couldn’t count on that. At the first ebb of the torrent of bullets, Bolan hit the throttle. The Kawasaki burst from cover, racing toward the ramp to the surface.

Gunfire chased the Executioner, fragmented bullets bouncing off the tarmac and stinging his shins and calves as the enemy shooters tried to home in on him. Weaving and gunning the engine, Bolan threaded his way through the hapless riflemen’s efforts to tag him. As he hit the ramp entrance, he opened up the throttle in fifth gear and the Kawasaki popped up on its rear wheel as power surged through the drive train. He sailed along on the back tire for nearly fifty yards as a grenade blast sent a wave of hot air and blunted concussive force chasing uselessly after him.

Bolan struggled to hold the bike steady as he raced up the incline, the explosion having unsettled his balance slightly. At the speeds he was moving, he needed all the focus he could get, and he finally straightened into an arrow-like run to the top of the ramp.

That’s when he saw that the doors leading to the surface were clamped down tight. Bolan skidded the motorcycle to a halt, then looked down the six hundred yard slope.

The enemy gunman stood at the bottom of the ramp, out of range for his rifle. But the gunner stood there nonetheless, rifle at the ready, watching Bolan. A charge, even on the speedy motorcycle, would just run him into a flurry of rifle bullets long before he got into close enough range to fight back. Bolan dismounted the motorcycle and looked at the huge doors, then looked back at the rifleman who eyed him through binoculars.

Finally, the rifleman backed off from the ramp entrance. That meant that the Executioner had only a handful of minutes to get below. He figured that if the divers were on sea sleds, they’d be out of the submarine pen within thirty seconds once the rifleman got into the water. The long, underwater tunnel would provide enough protection for them to detonate the fuel-air explosive without personal harm.

But in the meantime, the ramp tunnel would be turned into a funnel for superheated gas and shock waves.

Bolan looked at the small access panel and twisted its handle. It was out of sight of the bottom of the ramp, so he didn’t want to call attention to it in case the rifleman scooted two hundred yards closer to try to take pot shots at him. He twisted with all of his strength, but it was locked firmly.

He had only a small packet of plastic explosives with him, more like an afterthought than an actual supply, and he unwrapped it from its waterproof packaging.

Bolan wouldn’t have long to blow out the lock and he hoped the small packet of explosive putty would prove strong enough to cut through the metal of the access door.

Salt Lake City, Utah

DETECTIVE RONNY KHO lit a cigarette and sighed as Rachel Marrick went over what the Asian Crimes Task Force had shared with the FBI.

“Listen, Rachel, we don’t have bubkes on this mess,” Kho stated as he tapped some ashes into a small green-rusted copper plate with a similarly green Buddha sitting on its rim. “The gangs are more into home invasion than bank robbery. Especially with that kind of precision timing and using enough explosives to knock down a building.”

Marrick shrugged. “The robbers spoke what the hostages thought was Korean, Ronny.”

Kho nodded and rolled his eyes. “But everyone wore masks and, like you and the officers on the scene described, they had newfangled AKs, not the old-school 47s that most bangers pack.”

Marrick looked at her notes, then brushed at something on her blouse. “I just—”

“You didn’t get it,” Kho told her.

Marrick looked down at the odd fleck on her chest. It seemed to glow bright red….

She dived to the floor a moment before the back of her chair exploded as a bullet pierced it. Kho hit the deck, pulling his Heckler & Koch .45. Marrick’s Glock was in hand, as well, as she looked around. The window of the office was shattered.

Cops at the desks in the main squad room had also dropped to the floor. A few uniformed officers poked their heads around the doorjamb, crouched low.

“You guys okay?” one asked, trigger finger resting on the frame of his pistol, just above the trigger.

A red dot burned on his shoulder and Marrick fired a quick shot into the wall beside the door before a second sniper bullet stabbed at the flinching cop. Marrick’s fire had driven the policeman back behind cover before the assassin could claim his life. Her round had struck plaster and woodwork, and stopped cold. She doubted, after seeing what the bullet had done to the chair back, that even his body armor would have stopped the rifle slug.

“Cripes!” the cop shouted. “Watch—”

“The assassin lit you up!” Marrick shouted. “Nobody in that doorway, or I’ll shoot you personally!”

The cop gulped audibly. “You saved my life.”

“Buy me a coffee later,” Marrick offered as she crawled under the window. Kho followed her.

“What do you think?” Kho asked. He rapped his knuckles on the wall. “Think the brick’s enough to stop that guy?”

Marrick shrugged. “The snipers at the bank had steelcored bullets, according to Reader and my partner.”

“So he could chop through the brick, but it’d take time,” Kho stated. “And we’re pinned here.”

Marrick grimaced. “He’s not going to stick around for long, though. Not with a whole station full of cops sitting here.”

“The fact that he even took a poke at you while you were here…” Kho began.

Her cell phone interrupted the Asian Crimes detective. She took the call.

“Rachel, we were just ambushed where a few gang members lived,” Graham said. “Are you—”

“Under sniper fire,” Marrick answered.

“We haven’t found out anything, and they’re trying to kill us,” Graham noted. “Be careful. They’ve got some heavy firepower.”

“Yeah,” Marrick said, looking at the destroyed chair. There was a hole the size of her fist in the padding. She could imagine what the bullet would have done to her chest. “Just be careful.”

“You’re the one getting shot at now,” Graham told her.

“Yeah, but I’m nice and safe behind a brick wall,” Marrick answered.

A jet of smoke tore through the broken window and sailed into the office. She and Kho were blinded and deafened by the roaring cloud as it thundered through, and then, from the choking haze, a shock wave hammered into them.

Screams filled the air and Marrick winced as she was pelted with splinters and chunks of broken wood.

“Jesus!” Kho gasped, waving smoke from his face. His other hand clutched his cheek where a stapler had bounced off it, splitting the flesh open to the bone.

Marrick blinked, her eyes burning from the exhaust of the LAW rocket. She’d been at a demonstration of the antiarmor weapon, and remembered catching a face full of exhaust when one had been fired. She grabbed Kho’s shirt and dragged him to his feet. Kho resisted, but Marrick didn’t have time to explain as she coughed up exhaust fumes. Eventually, the Vietnamese cop put one foot in front of the other and followed her through the doorway as a second detonation struck the wall they’d been nestled against only seconds before.

They hit the shattered squad room just as the blast shoved them from behind. A chunk of brick glanced off Marrick’s head and she tumbled across the broken body of a police officer. Half-blinded, she felt around and recoiled in horror as she felt the torn flesh and charred shirt of the dead cop.

“Oh, God…” Marrick whimpered, rolling off the corpse. She looked around and saw Kho lunge for her. The two of them rolled to one side as bullets struck the cratered floor of the squad room.

On the far side of the settling debris cloud, they saw the laser light of the scope flicker through the cloud for a few minutes before cutting out.

“They must have run out of rockets,” Kho muttered, coughing. “I saw the beam.”

“Thanks,” Marrick said.

“Shit, you’re the one who dragged me from ground zero of the second blast. We’ll call it even.”

Marrick nodded. The pair made it to the entrance of the squad room. “God…there was a dead cop on the floor.”

The hallway was packed with stunned and dismayed officers.

“There were only Mahoney and Walsh in there. The rest of us evacuated once the rifle bullets started cutting into the squad room,” someone said. “Mahoney was the one who almost got shot.”

“Where is he?” Marrick asked.

“Here,” Mahoney groaned. “I took a drawer in the gut.”

The cop’s shirt was open and he had a huge livid bruise on his chest where his body armor had saved his ribs from being crushed. His face was bleeding from shrapnel.

Marrick took a deep breath. “Oh, no…”

Mahoney winced, as much from regret as from pain. “Walsh was the only one killed.”

Marrick rested her head against the wall, guilt washing over her. “They were after me.”

“Sister, you saved two cops today,” another cop said, squeezing her shoulder. “We’ll catch the bastard who pulled the trigger on that rocket launcher. And he’ll be lucky if he lives to see a trial.”

Marrick’s lips pulled taut into a thin line.

She wished that she could believe that it would be so easy, but even though she could see the all-prevailing tentacles of a monstrous conspiracy around her, cutting to its heart would only get deadlier and messier from here on out.

Already, one Salt Lake cop was dead, and from the sound of Graham’s voice, there were other casualties. She shook her head, fighting off her dread and guilt. Kirby and Stan were counting on her to keep it together.

The conspirators weren’t going to get away with murder.

Not anymore.

CHAPTER NINE

Wonsan, North Korea

Bolan didn’t have enough explosives to tear apart the metal access door on the main gates, but he could do some damage to the hinges and handle. He wadded his sparse supply around the hinge bolts and at the base of the handle, setting three pencil detonators in each of his mounds. He then backed off, pulling the motorcycle aside to keep it from being damaged if the door should fall away.

After five long, nerve-racking seconds, the three blobs of plastique detonated, shattering the hinges and tearing the handle off the door. It sagged, resting on the locking bolt connected to the frame, but there was a large hole over the guts of the lock. Bolan used his Ka-Bar fighting knife as a crowbar and wrenched the bolt to one side. The door, weighing almost a hundred pounds, shoved him back a few steps as it gave in to gravity’s pull, but he grabbed the sides and dragged it out of the way. He looked back down the ramp and heard the preliminary crump of the thermobaric releasing its vaporized fuel.

Bolan had only moments before the spark detonated the lethal cloud, and he righted the motorcycle. Its engine still rumbled, and he threw himself onto the seat, tripping the throttle. The Kawasaki skidded in a tight circle, and he launched forward through the doorway. One of the handlebars struck the side of the door frame, and nearly hurled him off balance, but Bolan recovered and veered immediately out of line from the doorway. In the next heartbeat, a streaming jet of burning-hot flames tore through the open doorway, singeing his hair and drying out his damp clothes.

A moment later, the huge metal door buckled under the thundering shock wave, but Bolan had already accelerated to sixty miles an hour, tearing across the small warehouse. A couple of Korean guards spotted him on the motorcycle and started to say something when they saw the huge mushroom of dust and debris blowing through the vent in the large dock doors.

Bolan lowered his head and continued toward the open loading dock as the hurricane-force wind buffeted his back and elbows. To slow down was to be picked up and hurled like a toy by the sudden gust of atmosphere escaping the collapsing cavern. The Kawasaki launched off the lip of a dock, and he sailed thirty feet before the wheels struck ground again and bounced another five feet. When it came down a second time, the bike gripped the concrete and yanked the Executioner along at ninety miles an hour. The warehouse behind him shuddered, windows exploding under the escaping shock wave, shards of glass spraying like diamond snowflakes.

Bolan cut to a hard right and applied the brakes, killing the throttle on the Kawasaki once he’d gotten a safe distance from the warehouse.

It stood, hemorrhaging dust from its depths, a cloud wending up lazily into the sky.

One second slower and he would have been caught by the blast wave. He didn’t have any hope for the warehouse guards, and he knew that he wouldn’t have survived the deadly hurricane. Already, the warehouse roof sagged as support struts, torn loose by the explosion’s force, left it a limp dome of collapsing metal and scaffolding. After a few more moments, the building imploded, girders poking up. Bolan looked around, the shock wave had shaken all the buildings in the area.

Bolan fired up the Kawasaki again and remembered the map route that he’d gotten from the man in the communications shack. He paused for a moment, regretting that those he’d shown mercy to were dead, murdered by the conspirators. Though his title was the Executioner, the murders of unarmed and unconscious prisoners wasn’t part of his morality.

The enemy demolitions team had no doubt escaped, leaving Bolan with only one course of action—find the bioweapons testing base and find out what its owners knew before the conspiracy removed it from the equation with the same finality as the submarine pen.

Bolan accelerated to 100 mph, spinning onto a highway that would take him to his destination, and a rendezvous with a North Korean general.

MI WAITED IN THE LOBBY for General Chong’s staff to arrive. Her lighter rested in her pocket, even though she wouldn’t need it right now. She wanted all of them in one place to eliminate them. Still, it was reassuring. The clothes she wore, snug and conforming to the soft, sensual curves of her body, would have revealed any pistol, although her long black hair covered the handle of the knife taped between her shoulders. The lighter could launch a sliver of solidified toxic chemical into an enemy up to thirty feet away.

The lighter was designed to hold fifty such slivers, its small fuel reservoir a compressed gas launcher. After that, it was disposable. But Mi trusted that she’d never need all of its remaining shots. She’d only launched one of the deadly little darts of biotoxin, and she doubted she’d need more than six when Chong and his staff were eliminated.

She would then leave the meeting room, climb into the closest Jeep and race to the coast where Stevens’s submarine would send a raft to pick her up.

Mi would disappear, and she’d return to civilization.

At least, that was the plan.

She remembered a wise man’s saying that a plan only survived until it was put into action.

If things hit the fan, then she’d have to improvise her way out.

Her cell phone rumbled in its holster, and her brow furrowed. She plucked it out.

“Mi.”

“Met up with the man in black. Plan scotched.”

The phone went dead and her neck tingled. The man in black was someone Stevens had informed her about. Some associates of the doctor had encountered this mystery man and had been taken down. With their loss, Stevens’s plans had been set back, but not completely eradicated. However, no plot the doctor hatched went on without the possibility of this stranger’s interference.

And now he was here.

Mi frowned and continued to wait for Chong’s co-conspirators, plotting her means of escape. The submarine pen had to have been destroyed already, and news of its loss would soon reach the general’s ears. One didn’t detonate a fuel-air explosive underground and not attract attention. The pen was supposed to be destroyed as soon as Mi gave the signal that Chong and his staff had been assassinated.

To be contacted meant that they had to detonate prematurely.

The North Korean military would be investigating, and they would eventually remember their old cold-war era underground pens for an unbuilt submarine fleet. Once they realized something was up with their old covert facility, they would come to the “meat processing plant” to look in on their other top-secret facility in the Wonsan area.

Chong and his staff would be taken prisoner and interrogated.

North Korean torture experts were some of the most terrifying thugs Mi had ever heard about. She’d studied under one who’d defected to Stevens’s organization, and she knew full well that Chong would crack like a brittle eggshell. Once that happened, the whole operation would be compromised.

Mi looked at the lighter and knew she’d fall prisoner to the North Koreans if they reacted with their usual brutal efficiency. She’d break, too, but it would take longer, and she’d go through hell before they’d gotten anything out of her. The lighter would give her a fifteen-minute agonizing death with one biotoxic splinter. She mused about firing more than one shot into herself. Perhaps a larger concentration of the toxins would kill her more quickly.

Anything to escape the torturer’s greedy, tearing grasp.

No, that would only be her last resort.

She had her job to do, and she would try to meet up with the submarine to return home.

But she kept the suicide option in reserve.

Salt Lake City, Utah

KIRBY GRAHAM SAW Rachel Marrick, looking as if she’d been battered. Her brown hair was disheveled and her face was crisscrossed with minor cuts that had been cleaned. She was just another rumpled, spindled face in the crowd of dismayed policemen and civilians who milled around the police station in the wake of the assassination attempt. He rushed up to her, and Marrick gave him a brave half smile.

“Rough day?” Graham asked.

Marrick chuckled, a tear crawling down her cheek. Graham clasped his large hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. She nodded. “There’s a dead cop because they wanted me dead.”

Graham frowned. He wasn’t about to one-up her with the tale of the murdered youths and the young woman who had been raped. He understood her guilt, though. She kept a strong front, despite the single tear. “We’ll find them, Rachel.”

Marrick nodded, her lips still screwed into a smile that Graham knew she didn’t feel.

Stan Reader flexed his back after getting out of the car that they’d borrowed. He rested his hand on his lumbar region, then nodded.

“What happened?” Marrick asked.

“I tossed him out a window,” Graham replied.

“Yeah, he got on my nerves, too, but…” Marrick said, resorting to a quick joke to take her mind off her problems. She noticed the bandage on Graham’s thick biceps. “You’re cut.”

Graham nodded. “Well, I followed him out the window.”

Marrick looked at him for a moment, exploring his deep blue eyes. Graham tried not to lose himself in her hazel gaze. “How bad was it?”

Graham’s lips tightened. “You’ve had enough drama for today.”

Reader walked up to them, remaining silent. Even though Graham joked that his friend didn’t have the strongest of social graces, he had enough decorum to hold his tongue while the two partners were talking. Graham wondered how much Reader knew about his feelings for Marrick, then dismissed the thought.

“We should retire to a more appropriate location,” Reader suggested.

Marrick raised an eyebrow. “Saying we should get a room?”

“I have one,” Reader commented. “I meant a more discreet location to compare notes.”

Marrick looked at the squad car that Graham and Reader had driven up in. “We’ll take my car. What happened to the Curb Bomb?”

Graham chuckled at the reference to his old battered Buick. “Well, it hasn’t blown up yet, but its race has been run.”

“I probably could build a new engine for it,” Reader mentioned. “Maybe upgrade its electronics and replace the rusted and bullet-pocked body panels with alternative composites…”

Graham shook his head. “Let it rest in the junkyard.”

“But it was your official vehicle—” Reader began.

“Lieber gave it to Kirby as punishment,” Marrick explained. “Except he didn’t realize that Kirby was a better mechanic than the guys in the motor pool.”

“Oh,” Reader replied. “Well, considering its damage, it’s no longer suitable for government duty. I should pull some of my favors and have it delivered to New York where I have my office and laboratory.”

“Stretch, let it go,” Graham said. “I mean…”

He pointed toward the crushed wall.

Reader nodded. “I was just trying to distract you.”

Graham nodded and Marrick shrugged.

“Right,” she said. “Where are you staying?”

“Park City,” Reader answered. “I own a condo near one of the resorts.”

Graham smirked. “He probably has a setup there that would make the Batcave look like a hole in the wall.”

Reader nodded at Marrick’s car. “It should be suitable for our purposes.”

Marrick led the others to her ride. “Next time throw him a little harder out the window. I actually understood that right away.”

Wonsan, North Korea

IT WAS NEARING DAWN as the Executioner pulled the Kawasaki closer to General Chong’s base. It looked for all the world like a meat processing plant, complete with cattle in pens. However, whatever went on in the slaughterhouse didn’t involve hammers or bullets to the brain.

While North Korea’s nuclear weapons development program was quite advanced, its chemical and biological capabilities were far less extensive according to various intelligence agencies. Trade between North Korea and nations with stronger biochemical production plans, like Syria and Libya, had been watched closely. China, one of Korea’s strongest trade partners, had also withheld the secrets of man-made and natural toxins from the Koreans because they had no desire to have those weapons turned against them.

Bolan knew, whatever was the plan of the conspiracy, it wouldn’t begin in this nation, not with the destruction of the submarine base.

He hid the motorcycle in some bushes. Its fuel tank was nearly empty, and it would only be deadweight from now on. Any transportation he’d need, he’d get from the covert base.

The sky was a dark gray now, the sun struggling to crawl up over the horizon. He’d have a half hour before the false dawn was replaced by open sunlight.

A car wound its way up the road and Bolan tucked into a roadside ditch, doing his finest impression of a clump of lifeless foliage. The headlights washed over him, but the driver paid no notice.

Every instinct in the Executioner informed him that this was a member of the conspiracy. The car was too new, too well-tuned, and to be driving at this time of morning, before dawn even broke on the horizon, there had to have been an emergency meeting.

Only ten minutes had passed since the thermobaric explosive had detonated, so he doubted that this meeting of minds was called on account of the underground base’s demolition. Another car was visible in the distance, down the road, far enough away that Bolan felt secure in rising and cutting through the forest huddling around the meat processing plant. Both Berettas had their sound suppressors affixed, and their loads were topped off.

He’d have to acquire a rifle inside the base, but it wouldn’t take much of an effort.

His goal was the meeting, however. Cutting through the bodyguards would be his priority, getting to the general and his staff before the conspiracy eliminated them.

Bolan could feel the countdown collapsing in on itself as his mind raced to figure out how his phantom enemy would strike next.

MI QUA HELD THE DOOR, nodding her head as Major Huan and his entourage stepped through. She smiled gently for the man, his assistants and bodyguards. She might as well have been a brass doorstop, however. The guards paid little attention to her except when a flash of soft, smooth cleavage poked out of the neckline of her black bodystocking.

Huan continued the hushed conversation he had held on the ride up, nattering on like a sexless drone. It was too early, and the unspoken threat of Dr. Kent Stevens was too prevalent for them to even entertain more than a brief moment of lustful lingering. Mi smirked, not minding in the least as her thumb ran over the smooth surface of the deadly little toxin launcher.

One press of the firing stud and Huan’s face would darken, swelling up as his blood vessels constricted. His tongue would bloat, and foamy spit would burble from his lips as his eyes shot through with red lightning. Death would come, mercifully, after fifteen minutes of strangulation and suffering.

It was no secret that Huan was more interested in the fresh-faced youth who followed him at his elbow, a military academy page who was still in his junior year.

Finally, the last of Chong’s crew pulled up in a convoy of vehicles.

Captain Pei.

“Almost late for your own funeral, you senile bastard,” Mi mumbled. The cars wended lazily up the driveway, coming to a halt in the last of the parking available for Chong’s staff.

She took a deep breath and dismissed her irritation, once more nodding, smiling, and holding the door for the old fool and his band of leeches, bowing just enough to show the old coot one last hint of the pleasures of the flesh before she gave him a splinter full of agony.

Pei smirked as he looked at her.

“Hello, darling Mi,” Pei said. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine, sir,” she answered, not looking him in the eye, but holding her head just enough so that the old lecher was able to drink in the curves of her supple, athletic body. “And you?”

“Ah, you know me,” Pei answered, resting his withered hand on her hip. “I’m keeping up appearances.”

He gave her young flesh a graceless squeeze, and his bodyguards chuckled as the old captain grinned. Mi fought off her revulsion at the senile bastard’s violation, because to give in to her feelings now, she’d have killed him on the spot, Stevens’s plan be damned.

It was enough to have that limp-dicked old bastard Chong pawing at her, trying to get his tiny member stiff enough for any form of intercourse. But Pei’s wandering hand made her skin crawl in a way that she couldn’t take enough showers to get rid of the feeling of disease creeping along her flesh. Mi smiled, her eyes still cast to his feet, and Pei chuckled, walking along to his doom.

She wanted to be done with all of this mess before the man in black arrived.

Mi Qua wondered if she was too late.

THE FENCE PROVIDED little defense against Bolan and the wire cutter attachment on his knife. An electrified fence would have attracted too much attention, especially around a simple meat processing plant. Instead, General Chong and the North Korean government counted on near total secrecy and alert guards as a wall of defense. The fact that the Korean peninsula was impregnable to all but the most determined intruders also bought them a buffer.

Westerners would be foolish to try to sneak through the heavily policed and guarded Communist stronghold.

Foolish, or superbly well-trained and equipped, Bolan corrected himself as he bent the fence back together and sprinted a short distance to cover. The sky grew lighter, the gray paling and tinging with the pink of the first rays of the sun stabbing over the horizon. He didn’t have very long.

Luckily, from the road, he was able to determine where the bigwigs were assembling, their cars amassed, slowly trickling in. Bolan figured from the last two sets of vehicles, and the size of the main office center’s lot, that everyone was present who was supposed to be. The meeting would soon start.

In the back of his mind, Bolan continued to weigh the possibilities of the elimination of this particular band of savages. Conventional weapons strikes, like a guided missile launched from the submarine, were possible, and they would handily kill everyone at the meeting.

Unfortunately, a missile blast would raise far more attention to the masterminds of the conspiracy than it would cut off. The destruction of the underground submarine pens could be explained as an earthquake, and the administration would do its best to cover up any hint that it had such a covert facility, hampering their own investigations into the mishap as well as obfuscating the conspiracy. A building, smashed by high explosives, however, would attract international attention. Outside agencies would be looking in on the scene, and any survivors would likely be snatched by foreign intelligence services, if the government didn’t capture them and subject them to “intensive questioning.”

Bolan shook off a wave of revulsion as he had encountered far too many victims of “intensive questioning” during his long career. Bodies destroyed to the point where they resembled no bipedal life-form on the planet, they often ended up living in a netherworld of mute suffering and agony after the monsters who operated on them finished, left to live and suffer as sentient, mutilated meat, quivering helplessly on a table for as long as it amused their tormentors. Too many times, Bolan had to end their suffering with one of his own bullets, releasing their souls from the hell they were left to flounder in.

Torture was a last resort that even Bolan had to depend upon from time to time, but even those tactics were survivable, and those he interrogated would go on to live their lives, if they weren’t killed immediately. The things left over from the “turkey” doctors that his enemies employed might survive, but without limbs, without eyes or the ability to speak or hear, fed through intravenous or nasal-gastro means, were only kept alive as cruel entertainment for the sick men who crafted them from once-living flesh.

A guard crossed Bolan’s path, breaking his contemplation. Though the Korean was jumpy, nervous at the thought of so many members of the base’s brass coming in at an unreasonably early hour, he hadn’t noticed the Executioner stalking in the shadows behind him. Bolan drew his knife, knowing that a silenced gunshot would pull down too much heat, no matter how soft the suppressed bullet sounded.

Besides, if things got truly hairy, he would need the Korean’s rifle.

With a panther-like lunge, he dropped on the guard. Six inches of black steel parted flesh, severing arteries. The guard thrashed helplessly in Bolan’s powerful grasp, but only for a few seconds; his aorta cleaved apart. The Korean slumped instantly, dead in the Executioner’s arms.

Bolan hauled the corpse to cover, sliding it beneath a garbage bin after stripping its rifle, ammunition and a spare pistol.

One enemy down. He wondered how many more there would be as the doomsday numbers flew by.

CHAPTER TEN

Kirby Graham clenched his jaw, knuckles whitening as he flexed his fists. That was all that Rachel Marrick needed to notice when she glanced in the side mirror. The sudden hardening of her partner indicated immediate danger.

“We’re being followed,” Reader said bluntly, looking out the rear window.

“They’ve been trading off,” Graham rumbled. “At least three vehicles, and they’re probably in radio communication.”

Reader quirked an eyebrow, then reached into his jacket. “If that’s the case…”

“They’ll probably be encrypted,” Marrick noted. “I don’t know how good your scanners are.”

Reader frowned as he pulled out a bulky-looking PDA. She wondered why he didn’t have a sleek little item like a Bluetooth device, when she realized that not only was this device probably of the polymath’s own design, but it likely possessed capabilities that outstripped her brand-new, FBI-issue laptop the same way that device outstripped a Pong console. Marrick kept her eye on the road, but the occasional glance into the back seat gave her an eerie feeling that her passenger was Mr. Spock with a tricorder.

Reader looked up. “Four in pursuit. Three rotating in orbits according to their patterns, with a fourth vehicle on a parallel road, coordinating the other three.”

“Nice to be wanted,” Graham said. “How’s the encryption crack coming?”

Reader continued to work his stylus on the screen, his dark eyes flashing with a focus and intelligence that Marrick felt wash off him like shock waves from an avalanche. “Another thirty seconds and I’ll be able to listen to their communications traffic.”

Reader plugged an earpiece into the hand computer and hooked it over his ear. A flat microphone hung snug to his jawline as he continued to tap rapidly with his stylus.

Marrick held her speed, forcing herself to drive casually. Graham opened his suit coat to provide easy access to the customized combat pistol in his holster.

“Just in case it gets messy,” Graham promised.

“They’re only conducting surveillance,” Reader announced. “Apparently our previous encounters with them have dissuaded them from further immediate—”

“Yeah. They’re shaking in their panties,” Graham interjected. “I figured that out.”

Marrick took a deep breath. “So, after failing to kill us…”

“Losing five of their own in the process,” Graham added.

Marrick shot Graham a hard look. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When we were safe and sound and relatively secure in my lodge,” Reader explained. “We didn’t think that mentioning further deaths in addition to your recent—”

“I’m not some fragile flower,” Marrick snapped.

“Sorry,” Reader answered. “It just didn’t seem appropriate.”

Marrick fumed as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel, then let out a breath. “No, it wasn’t. We were more worried about injured cops and one dead officer. But the hell with these chumps. If they die trying to kill us, it’s the least they can do.”

Marrick looked at the two of them. “You two are acting like dinosaurs from the fifties, thinking I’m so delicate that I can’t deal with you taking out a group of murderers. I strapped on a gun with my badge.”

“Sorry,” Graham said. “You just seemed to take—”

“That cop died because these assholes were trying to murder me,” Marrick replied, keeping her eye on the road. “I’m feeling guilty.”

She sighed, then gave Graham a slap on his arm. “And so are you. What happened?”

“One of the gang members’ kid brothers, and either a girlfriend or a sister. They didn’t leave much for me to recognize,” Graham began.

Marrick rested her hand on Graham’s thigh. “It’s okay. I get it. You were feeling brittle enough.”

“I’d thought that killing some of them would make me feel better, but it didn’t work,” Graham admitted.

“What will improve your disposition will be fully uncovering the source of this operation,” Reader stated. “Both of you.”

“Right, and you’re not feeling anything?” Marrick challenged.

Reader looked at his PDA.

“Stretch isn’t too good on admitting his feelings,” Graham said. “Usually when he’s retreating into bigger words and high technology—”

“Who made you an expert on my psychological condition?” Reader asked.

“You did. Across about fifteen years, in case you don’t remember,” Graham snapped. “You’re my best friend, and I figured you out a long time ago.”

Reader’s face reddened, then he looked at his PDA screen. “You’re correct.”

Graham stared at him for a long, tense moment, then chuckled. “He must think he’s paid by the syllable.”

Marrick took a deep breath as the tension lessened in the car. “Think we can pay attention to the bad guys instead of our own personal soap opera moments, then?”

“I never ceased my observations of their movements,” Reader returned, rolling his neck a little, tendons snapping to relieve stress. “They’re still on our tails.”

Marrick’s lips pulled tight. “Good. At least we know where they are.”

“And where to send the beating when they make their move,” Graham added, flexing one big fist.

Twenty miles outside Wonsan, North Korea

THE EXECUTIONER SLID through the darkness, cutting through shadows like a black wraith. The dead guard’s rifle hung on his back, his knife’s black-phosphate finish sucking in light instead of reflecting a giveaway gleam. He was a nightmare, stalking the leaders of the North Korean end of the conspiracy. The last fleet of cars was pulling into a halt in front of the office building.

Bolan raced toward a side entrance, using the bulk of a transport truck to disguise his movements. He paused as he stooped by the door.

Stealth would get him closer without incident, but given what had transpired at the submarine pen, the enemy might have an assassin already at work. However, he doubted it; the last of the North Korean officers had only just shown up. They would have to be eliminated all at once.

A bomb wouldn’t work, but some form of deadly weapon…

Bolan’s eyes narrowed. Dugway Proving Grounds not only stored biological weapons, but also lethal chemicals like nerve gas. His instincts told him that a chemical release inside the office building would do the job just as readily as a bomb. The meeting was undoubtedly a trap, and he wondered at the atmospheric seal of the building.

Opening the door, he noticed that there was no attendant breeze. At least the first floor wasn’t under negative pressure, which meant that the assassins might have localized their weapon. It only made sense.

The National Security Agency had pegged this “meat packing plant” as a biological weapons development center. Hence the need for cast-off hookers and livestock, Bolan assumed. They were test subjects, because the North Korean administration might actually take notice of increased numbers of political prisoners being killed in weapons testing, curious about the improved efficiency of a supposedly floundering bioweapon program. Naturally produced toxins would explain the deaths of everyone in the building, though it was doubtful that such a disease vector would be able to kill that quickly. That left nerve gas as a stand-in for the germ warfare.

Bolan had to diffuse the effort immediately, and he knew only one surefire method.

He unslung the rifle and flicked the selector to full-auto.

Two North Korean soldiers sitting at a desk smoked and laughed at each other’s jokes. Bolan sighted on the desk and opened up, bullets tearing into the sheet metal in a loud rumbling thunderstorm of autofire. The guards cried out in dismay, diving for cover as Bolan emptied the magazine and retreated. Their rifles cracked loudly, chewing walls in a display of panic that only increased the cacophony.

The whole bioweapon base woke up. Alarms sounded instantly, their wailing blares cutting through the sleepy moments of dawn’s break.

ZING HO, THE YOUNG MILITARY attaché accompanying Major Huan heard the gunfire as they were on the way to the meeting room. Major Huan planted his hand on Zing’s chest and pushed him to the side of the hallway, drawing his handgun.

“We’re under attack,” the major rumbled. His bodyguards had already drawn their submachine guns from under their ill-fitting, bulky trench coats. The rest of Huan’s staff was unarmed, dismay coloring their faces.

Zing’s face screwed up tightly. He wished he’d had a gun right now, if only to put a bullet in this abusive bastard’s skull. Sure, his bodyguards might burn him down, but with the major’s death, they would be under no obligation to grab his younger sisters and turn them into sexual slaves. Sexual slaves as Zing had become.

Huan pushed away from Zing and folded behind a wall of grim-faced, heavily armed bodyguards. Of course, the major was a coward, and he could pick up another young man at will.

“Get to the meeting room,” Huan ordered. “You should be safe there.”

The rest of the staff looked at each other in confusion, but Zing, his mind focused by contempt and rage, was tempted to just run for the nearest door and escape.

“Do it!” Huan snapped.

A bodyguard pulled the trigger on his submachine gun, perforating the ceiling and scattering the dismayed officers. Zing followed them until they were out of sight from Huan and his protectors, then slowed. The youth knew the staff members were the cream of the crop of the kind of sycophants who make up army officer staff teams—ass kissers and typewriter troopers who orbited men with any semblance of real power, hoping that a nicely typed report or a cup of coffee was enough servitude to keep them from real jobs on the front lines, looking over the demilitarized zones or planting minefields. The last combat training they received was all the way back in boot camp.

Zing wasn’t much better, but being beaten and violated by Huan had provided him a mental armor against panic. He stopped at the intersection of a hallway and watched carefully around the corner as his frightened comrades raced toward the meeting room, where armed bodyguards for the others on Chong’s board of directors stood.

The bodyguards offered one brief challenge, but driven to flight by the rattle of automatic weapons, the military leeches continued swarming to the protection of the meeting room. It didn’t help that the alarm killed any hope of understanding by drowning out spoken words.

Zing pulled away from the corner and clenched his shoulders tight as machine-gun fire ripped through the fleeing hangers-on. Bullets chewed the corner that the young page had nestled against, but nothing penetrated to strike him.

“Oh the hell with this,” Zing muttered. He looked around and spotted a stairwell, then ran for it. The door opened. A fire alarm added to the wailing alerts as he started down the stairs.

He paused when he saw a tall, deeply tanned man with an assault rifle coming up the steps. Zing’s eyes went wide.

Bolan looked at the youth. “Speak Chinese?”

Zing nodded.

“Who’re you?” he continued, switching to the one language they more readily shared.

“I’m Zing Ho. I used to be Major Huan’s page,” the youth answered.

“Used to be?” Bolan asked.

“I’m hoping to hell that Huan stops a bullet,” Zing answered. “You’re here to kill him?”

Bolan shook his head. “For now, I need answers. But that all depends on who else I have to question.”

Zing weighed his options, staring into the big man’s eyes. The rifle’s muzzle was aimed at his heart. “Huan talks in his sleep. I keep my ears open.”

“I never said Huan wouldn’t die.”

Zing nodded. “I’m offering everything I know about what’s going on. But right now, the bodyguards are all in a panic. They just cut down the last of Huan’s staff as they tried to assemble in the side room.”

“The side room?” Bolan asked. “That’s where the entourages and bodyguards would stay while the big men got together?”

Zing nodded. “But with the racket going on, and from the way Huan’s guards mobbed up…”

“Running through the halls didn’t seem like the formula for a long life,” Bolan concluded.

“Yeah,” Zing answered. “I just want to get out of this mess.”

“I can help,” Bolan offered. He pulled out a Makarov he’d gotten off the dead sentry and handed it to Zing. “Know how to use that?”

Zing flicked off the safety, then checked the chamber. “Well enough.”

“Just don’t forget, I can always interrogate someone else about what’s going on here,” Bolan warned. His rifle didn’t waver from Zing’s heart.

Zing nodded.

“Stay put,” Bolan said. “You’re not set up for a firefight. Head up two levels and hide on the landing there.”

Zing listened to the big stranger. Despite the contact lenses and eye prosthetics, Bolan had reacted too viscerally to be a convincing Asian. The young Korean didn’t care, however. This stranger would be his ticket out of this hell hole. All he had to do was to weather this storm, and he wouldn’t have to worry about abusive majors ever again.

THE EXECUTIONER ROLLED through the door that Zing had used to enter the stairwell, rifle primed and ready. He had one small errand to make, to confirm how the elimination of General Chong and his lackeys was to occur. With a burst of speed, he reached the corner that had protected the young page.

Bolan switched to one of the few phrases he knew in Korean. “Don’t shoot!”

His voice bellowed over the ruckus of the alarms. With the volume, and the background interference, the enemy bodyguards wouldn’t have an opportunity to determine the poor quality of his accent. Bolan waved his hand and heard a bodyguard bark for him to show himself.

He stood, hoping distance would keep them from recognizing that he was neither Korean nor in uniform until it was too late. The corpses littering the hall, however, were a stark reminder that these men were willing to kill anyone who was a threat to them.

One issued a challenge as Bolan edged closer. The only answer he could provide was to swing up his AK-107 and cut loose with a long burst. Bullets stitched the first two bodyguards, tearing their chests open with gory efficiency. Their bodies tumbled and jerked backward, other gunmen scrambling out of the way as the Executioner’s explosive opening took them off guard.

One of them had the presence of mind to close the doors to the meeting room while another cut loose with a withering stream of bullets that drove Bolan behind the cover of a pile of bodies. The doors slammed shut in a heartbeat.

Bolan rose to his feet, then saw the meeting room doors shake violently. Over the alarm, he heard screams of terror emanating from the small hall. He approached the doors, then realized that the shaking had stopped instantly. He put his ear to the door and listened, but silence reigned on the other end. He touched the surface. The doors were thick, practically bulletproof, and there was a silicone seal between the doors that would keep air from entering or exiting. On the other side, the atmosphere was lethal enough to kill within moments.

Someone had set a blast of nerve gas to go off the minute the room was locked shut. Bolan stood back, realizing that it was too late for the poor bastards in the room. It had been his intention to spare anyone unarmed in the hall, as long as they didn’t put up a fight. Instead, the whole crew had been washed over with a lethal dose that didn’t discriminate between who was a threat and who was passive. Bolan’s shoulders sagged, and he turned from the instant abattoir.

He wanted justice, and answers. There was no justice in the way these men died, subjected to the horrors of their nervous systems collapsing. Bolan raced back to find Zing, hoping that the youth could lead him to the head honchos.

MI QUA TENSED as she heard the chatter of assault weapons ripping the morning silence apart in a torrential gunfight. She looked around, as confused as Captain Pei and his group.

The man in black was here. With the firefight going on, the armed protectors of the covert base would be roused. So much for the quick and easy way, she mused.

She pulled the lighter from her pocket.

“Mi, I’ll protect you,” Captain Pei said, stepping closer to her. One withered arm reached out to embrace her, and she launched a deadly sliver right into the wrinkled flesh of the old bastard’s throat. He clutched the fresh sting, then wrapped both hands around his throat.

The soft puff of the launcher didn’t register over the bellows of the alarms going off, and one of Pei’s bodyguards looked in horror as his boss suddenly seized up.

“Containment breach!” the bodyguard howled in fear. He dropped his gun and ran. No body armor or bullets could stop a lethal plague from killing him, and Mi scooped up the man’s fallen machine pistol in a swift movement.

Others had been frozen in confusion at the first guard’s panic, but one of Pei’s thugs was on the ball enough to realize that General Chong’s assistant seemed a little too eager to get her hands on an assault weapon. The bodyguard reached for his weapon, but Mi fired off a sliver that struck the man in the cheek. He winced, slapping the sting on his cheek, and continued to level his weapon at the impudent young woman who had grabbed the gun.

In the next heartbeat, the armed thug’s body betrayed him, muscles tensing tightly, blood pressure soaring as vessels constricted. The gun in his hand exploded with a shot, but tightening tendons and sinews had yanked the weapon to the ceiling. Mi flicked off the safety on her machine pistol and fired a point-blank burst into Pei’s third and fourth bodyguards.

The two men writhed and collapsed, organs chewed to useless pulp by a salvo of full-auto bullets, while the second of the bodyguards tried to cry out in pain and horror. Unfortunately, his windpipe was too constricted; only short breaths had kept him alive as he mewled and thrashed. The rest of Pei’s assistants, none of them combat troops, broke and ran, but Mi couldn’t afford witnesses. She grabbed the poisoned bodyguard’s gun and swept a staggering burst that cut them down as they fled.

Lifeless bodies tumbled, their blood seeping in puddles on the floor where their remains slid to a halt.

“Plan B,” Mi muttered in English. “Blow away everyone in my path.”

She rushed back to Captain Pei’s side, reloading on the run.

At least she had the satisfaction of seeing the captain’s mouth froth with thick, blood-tinged foam. His death wouldn’t be swift, but it was just punishment for pawing her with those withered, hateful fingers. For good measure, she kicked the man in the teeth, giving in to a hateful surge of vengeance.

“I hope you remember me in hell, you old bastard. And I hope you remember that your disgusting withered hands are the reason I sent you there,” Mi stormed.

She fed the machine pistol a fresh magazine and finished off whoever was wounded, then went after General Chong.

“WHAT THE HELL is going on?” Major Phar snapped as gunfire and alarms blared violently throughout the office building.

General Chong’s mouth stretched into a tight line and he pulled his handgun out. It was an old Colt 1911, one his father had gotten off an American GI during the war. It was a cherished heirloom in the Chong family, and the general had lovingly cared for the weapon, always keeping it loaded, and practicing with it often. Chinese NORINCO knock-off magazines and parts had kept it in fine working order. He thumbed back the hammer and leveled it at Phar’s face.

“We’ve been compromised, Major.”

“I—I didn’t do anything…” Phar sputtered, his eyes wide and round.

Chong sneered. “No, but you know enough about what we’ve been doing here.”

“Oh, God…” Phar muttered, an odd last epithet for a “godless Communist.”

Chong’s .45-caliber bullet smashed through Phar’s face, chunks of bone and soupy thick blood flying in a gory explosion. His face caved in, Phar’s corpse toppled backward with boneless grace, his skull vomiting brains as it struck the tiled floor.

Chong looked at Major Ran Gar and Colonel Hai Morg as they backed away from him. The two officers had counted on their bodyguards for too long, leaving their personal weapons aside because they were too heavy. They never expected General Chong, or any of the others, to snap and open fire on them, but the splattered mess of what used to be Phar’s head was mute testimony to their stupidity.

Gar rushed forward, hoping to catch Chong off guard, stabbing his hand out in a martial-arts strike. Chong tilted his pistol and fired, catching Gar under his arm with a heavy slug that smashed a rib to splinters before plowing a gruesome path through his right lung. Gar’s legs turned to rubber beneath him and he toppled haplessly to the ground, coughing up blood from his severed bronchial tubes. Gar clawed along the floor, gasping and wheezing on his own blood, trying to stop Chong, even though he was fatally wounded.

Chong coolly lowered the muzzle to the crown of Gar’s head, focusing the front sight in the middle of his balding pate. “So long, Ran. I actually could stomach your company. I’ll almost miss you.”

The Colt thundered nosily, and Gar’s shiny pate collapsed under 230 grains of copper-jacketed lead. The bullet crushed bone and spiraled through brain tissue, whipping them into a messy paste before ramming into the top vertebra of Gar’s neck, breaking it in two, but stopping between the halves of the split bone. The major slumped to the floor on his elbows and knees, folded up as if in prayer.

Colonel Morg held his chair between them. “Listen. Wait, Chong Raye…friend…”

Chong sneered and fired at the chair. Its heavy metal backing held under the single shot, but Morg stood back, still holding the furniture as a shield.

“Chong!” Morg pleaded. “Chong, we can both get away…”

“I’m going to communicate with the doctor that we have been compromised, but that I’ve eliminated everyone else who could betray him,” Chong said. “You know what happened to Sung.”

Morg clutched the chair more tightly. “I’ll take my chances!”

Chong fired two shots into Morg’s legs, and they flew out from beneath him. The colonel flopped to the floor, one knee blown apart so that his lower leg hung on via a slender strand of overstressed muscle and skin, his other thigh sporting a huge bloody splotch where the other round had struck. Morg’s pleas turned into wails of pain.

Chong shook his head and emptied the last of the Colt’s magazine into Morg’s head to shut him up. He dumped the empty magazine and fed in a new one, racking the slide to chamber a fresh round. He pulled out his cell phone, then thought about contacting the doctor right away.

He’d use a land-line connection from an underground bunker. Perhaps the submarine pen in Wonsan. That facility was well-protected, unknown, and the presence of the city above it would cut off the doctor’s radio signal to the lethal implant beneath his skin. He’d be able to speak to the mad scientist with impunity.

And, the submarine pen was a sophisticated enough facility that he could call in his own doctors to remove the implant.

A smirk crossed the general’s face and he lowered the hammer on the .45.

He might just get out of this alive. Certainly, he’d lost his position in the North Korean army, but he lived. He knew secrets, and he had his own covert resources.

It was time to go into business for himself.

But first he had to get to Wonsan…

“General Chong?” a voice asked in Chinese. “Drop the gun.”

He whirled, pulling the trigger on a .45 that wasn’t cocked.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Executioner held his fire, wanting to take General Chong alive. The fact that the man had lowered the hammer on his .45, rendering it inert, had also helped the soldier to hold his fire. Instead of stitching the North Korean with a burst of AK fire, he whirled the rifle around and smashed the black polymer stock across Chong’s jaw.

The Korean flew backward with the force of the blow, and the pistol tumbled from nerveless fingers. Chong scrambled on his hands and knees, spitting blood from a split lip. He looked desperately for the Colt, but Bolan wasn’t going to let up.

Looping a long arm around Chong’s neck, he hauled back hard, using the crook of his elbow as a noose. Chong’s hands flailed wildly for a moment, then Bolan jammed his knee against the small of the Korean’s back.

“Stop struggling or I’ll break your back,” Bolan snarled in Chinese. “I’ll leave your paralyzed body here for your masters to learn what deals you’ve made with which devils.”

That stopped Chong’s struggles, though he still sputtered for air until Bolan loosened his pressure on the man’s windpipe.

“The game is over for you, General,” Bolan whispered in his ear. “Your submarine pen has been destroyed.”

“By the Chinese government?” Chong gasped.

“No. By your American partners,” Bolan said.

Chong swallowed and sucked a breath through his still partially constricted windpipe. “He’ll use the implant…”

“Implant?” Bolan asked.

“He installed a device…in each of us…my staff…”

“If he’d done that, you’d have died a half hour ago, when the submarine pens were destroyed by a fuel-air explosive,” Bolan explained.

Chong let out a sigh of regret. “Then…”

“You’ve been had, General. But someone has killed most of your friends’ staff. Nerve gas of some sort,” Bolan told him. “In the alternate meeting room.”

Chong winced. “Then there’s someone…an insider…”

“That’s what I was thinking. He’s started wiping out everyone who’s in the know, and will get to you eventually,” Bolan said. “I threw a monkey wrench into the works by putting this whole place on alert.”

Chong shuddered.

“Yeah, you owe me your life,” Bolan taunted. “I ask only one thing in payment. Who’s your connection on the other side?”

“Dr. Kent Stevens,” Chong whispered.

Bolan shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“I’m certain it’s a cipher,” Chong replied. “But he also goes by the name of Mojo.”

Bolan’s eyes narrowed. Mojo was a man who was on the federal government’s Most Wanted list. A renegade scientist who saw humanity as a plague upon the Earth, he’d managed to not only rise in the ranks of the U.S. Army’s biological warfare command, but he also designed a series of deadly delivery systems for chemical means of destruction. He had been involved with Saddam Hussein when the Iraqi was looking for assistance against Iran. Mojo’s name had been lost, thanks to the assistance of one of his allies, a powerful information broker who could find enemy identities, or erase knowledge of anyone from existence. It had been only pure luck that Stony Man had destroyed the information broker a short while back when he tried to revive the Reich of the Americas.

The nihilist organization that Stevens had joined, however, had been responsible for enormous death and suffering, from Dulles International Airport to Iraq and all points in between. Bolan, Able Team and Phoenix Force had destroyed most of the organization in two savage battles, but there were still loose ends.

Mojo was one of them.

It seemed that the mad biochemist was looking to unleash Armageddon on his own. Had it not been for the combined efforts of Bolan and Able Team, the entire nation would have been swept under a tide of a botulinum outbreak. Bolan realized that it was Stevens who had whipped up such a lethal cocktail, or rather, obtained the biotoxin from one of his old stomping grounds.

Dugway Proving Grounds, the site of the deadly anthrax outbreak that killed thousands of sheep, once more loomed in Bolan’s mind.

“The cattle. What is their purpose?” Bolan asked.

Chong winced. “They have a few. We test some of his weapons on the cattle and cast-off, used-up whores from Thailand. The cattle are raised on a special farm in Thailand, because of their resemblance to those used in America.”

Bolan frowned. “They’ll be mixed in with American herds after being infected as carriers?”

“That was a long-range plan, but mostly we slaughtered them, removing most of the soft tissues, leaving only muscle, bone and meat. They wanted the carcasses, but they were already sterilized of external microbes,” Chong stated. “Even quarantined, though, the meat and bones had something else of use.”

“Smuggling?” Bolan asked.

“Yes. Used as cushions,” Chong said. “We’d ship them out, gutted and preserved.”

“With traces of biotoxin in their systems…no, you removed the organ and nerve tissue,” Bolan added. “But what else could they carry that would be worthwhile. No one would eat the meat from those carcasses willingly.”

“What do you think?” Chong stated, managing a wicked sneer through his pain.

“How long have you been doing this?” Bolan asked, continuing his questioning. But the state of the carcasses still worked in his mind. Stuffed with lethal toxins from bioweapon testing, then slaughtered and transported thousands of miles, their utility as beef would be given up. Even if they were ground into hamburger, cooking processes would kill any germs active in the meat.

“For years,” Chong replied. “We must have sent at least a thousand head to America, along with guns, gold and drugs in their body cavities.”

“What about the submarines? What were transported on them?”

Chong winced. “You’re breaking my back!”

“Answer the question, or I’ll leave you limp and half dead,” Bolan growled.

“We’d send toxin samples to the ranch in Thailand,” Chong stated. “Or back to the U.S. after they had us perform refinements in the laboratory here.”

“Anything else?” Bolan asked.

“Only cattle feed,” Chong replied.

“You make cattle feed here? This is a meat processing plant and cattle don’t eat meat…” Bolan said. He trailed off, suddenly putting it all together.

“We add protein byproduct,” Chong explained. “From the meat here, and from bones sent back to us via submarine from Mojo.”

Bolan’s eyes narrowed. “You add cattle to the cattle feed.”

The Executioner loosened his grasp on Chong and the general fell free, gasping for breath. He moved slowly, his muscles and back stretched to the point of snapping. Bolan kept his eye on the Korean as his mind raced.

Mad cow disease came to the surface in his memory. Officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy—BSE—it was a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cows, which was transmitted when livestock ingested material from other animals with recessive genetic disorders. The faulty genes, digested by the cattle, would then affect other genes, eventually resulting in neurological damage. It would take a couple of cycles of damaged animals entering the feed process to result in full-blown mad cow disease. The aberrant infection protein, called a prion, could easily be spread.

“How many years?” Bolan asked.

“The past twelve,” Chong answered, coughing. His hand neared the Colt .45.

Bolan let him edge closer, already gripping the butt of his machine pistol.

“And it takes only a few years to approach breeding age…” Bolan replied.

Chong looked back at Bolan. “He’s going to taint the world’s food supply with the mutant protein responsible for BSE and a dozen other neurodegenerative diseases.”

“Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” Bolan answered, “which is fatal to humans. The prions can be used to induce BSE or CJD.”

“And it’s as short a jump from bovine specific diseases to scrapie to infect sheep if you’re going by the mutant proteins route,” Chong began with a smile. He looked at the pistol on the floor, then edged away from it. “Either way, Stevens can use the prions to infect livestock and humans. He could create a worldwide famine, rendering cattle and sheep unusable as meat. And humans ingesting beef infected with the prions can develop CJD.”

“It would take a powerful network to bring this about,” Bolan said. “You provided this end of it.”

Chong looked at the Colt .45, then back at Bolan. “You’ll kill me anyway, won’t you?”

“Yeah,” Bolan said.

Chong looked back to the gun, then suddenly jolted as a rain of bullets tore through his chest.

Bolan dived to the floor, dropping underneath the scythe of lethal bullets that churned through the doorway, ripping out bursts from his own Beretta.

MI QUA HEARD TWO MEN talking in hushed tones inside the main meeting room. A handgun had thundered earlier, and Mi knew that it was Chong, with his big, nasty Korean War-vintage Colt .45, cleaning house.

General Chong was covering his bases, trying to make himself seem worthwhile to Stevens and at the same time protect him from notice. He feared the reprisal of the mysterious biochemist, and the false implant that he’d been warned about.

The trouble was that the alarms had awakened the entire meat processing plant/bioweapons development laboratory. It would take only a few moments for the North Korean military to learn that it was blacked out from communications by Captain Jaye on the submarine. There would be confusion, especially regarding the sudden earthquake in Wonsan caused by the demolition of the underground submarine base. But eventually, with the alarms, the North Koreans would learn that something happened. There were too many soldiers and technicians for Mi to take everyone out. Someone could possibly remember her, so she had to leave fast, but not before Chong was dead.

She wouldn’t need the lighter-sliver launcher. Biotoxin would have been a fitting end for the traitorous general, but she didn’t have the time to be cute. Sooner or later, the soldiers would get together hazmat suits to venture into the office building. Alarms on a bioweapon base meant the possibility of a containment breach, even in a building where no biochemical research was going on.

Mi spotted the man in black through the meeting room door. She pulled back and observed him quietly.

The strange wraith was deeply tanned, his eyes ridged with epicanthic folds, but he was too tall and powerfully muscled, out of proportion for anyone raised in Southeast Asia. And while the mysterious intruder’s Chinese was good enough to hold a conversation with Chong, who only peripherally understood the language, lapsing into English for more technical terms, Mi could tell that the intruder didn’t speak Chinese like a native. He could have been some other Asian national, but she doubted it. The only men she’d seen who were that tall and sturdily built, yet with no body fat, were men who grew up in America on excellent diets.

No, this man was Western.

She heard them talking about Chong’s imminent execution, and she knew that this would be her opportunity. The fool was giving him a chance to defend himself. He had to have gotten all of the information he could have out of Chong.

Mi triggered her machine pistol, sweeping Chong. The intruder ducked out of her path with lightning speed. Mi cursed herself, wishing she’d have taken the big man from behind, but Chong was such an easy target. Gunfire chopped the wall just above her shoulder, and she retreated, hammering out another extended burst to keep him down.

Mi ducked down the hallway, breaking to escape as more autofire chased her, this time concentrated assault rifle chatter. She’d have been torn apart had she stood her ground, the power of the AK-107 proving enough to rip through thin drywall without much effort.

She had to flee and to warn Stevens about the situation.

He’d warned her that eventually she’d come across a lone operative who could throw any conspiracy into disarray. Though he was one man, he was skilled, audacious and unconventional, making him impossible to set up a suitable defense against.

And he would be coming.

This was him, though Stevens had described him as an American, tall and craggy, with cold blue eyes. As she bounded down the steps, feeding a fresh magazine into her machine pistol, she realized that it was relatively easy to come up with temporary prosthetics that could change eye color and eye shape. He spoke enough other Asian languages to pass for a foreigner, and Stevens also mentioned that the man would have enormous resources at his disposal.

Quality, professional-grade makeup effects that could survive for a quick penetration into North Korea was obviously one of his enormous arsenal. She reached the first floor and broke across the lobby, and spotted men in biohazard suits waving at her from the other side of the glass doors. One leveled a rifle at her, and she realized that this was no way for her to escape. The few soldiers who were protecting the office center lay in the doorway, riddled with bullets, their corpses leaking on the floor. Their flesh had been charred, seared by the licking tongues of flame throwers in an attempt to seal off contagion.

She turned and raced away from the doors.

The bioweapon plant’s defenders were trained at containing quarantine breaches, and for the North Korean military, containment was a euphemism for “killing anyone trying to leave the perimeter.”

Mi Qua wasn’t ready to die.

She took cover in the guard kiosk, waiting for the big wraith in black to come out after her. Once both armed parties spotted each other, the ensuing firefight would give her a window to escape.

And maybe, just maybe, Mi could use the North Korean defenders to eliminate Stevens’s intruder. That would raise her value in the eyes of the biochemical mastermind, especially after the mess that had been made of her operation.

THE EXECUTIONER PAUSED at the bottom of the steps and fed the AK-107 its final magazine. He kicked open the door to the stairwell and saw a containment team in full gear, rifles ready to kill anyone attempting to escape this death-filled building. Bolan triggered the AK and dived to one side, 5.45 mm tumblers ripping into one of the armed men in the biohazard suits. The Korean jerked violently, torn apart by half a dozen slugs before Bolan reached the cover of a corner.

Enemy slugs thundered into the wall he huddled behind, and Bolan wished that he’d had access to a grenade or a launcher. Instead, he’d have to deal with the enemy gunmen, one kill at a time, and during the fatal melee, he’d be giving other responders time to move in and back them up. The stairwell door inched open slightly, and Bolan spotted Zing. The Executioner poked the rifle around the corner and let the assault rifle chatter to knock down two more of the containment force. Their suits, designed to protect against microbes, were a weak defense against armor-piercing bullets that shredded through rubber and human flesh alike.

The guards collapsed, and Bolan charged the stairwell, shoving Zing back in and onto the steps.

Bullets hammered the door behind him, but it held.

That wouldn’t last long.

“What now?” Zing asked.

“Improvise,” Bolan answered.

He looked up to the first landing and found a fire extinguisher. He grabbed it and inspected it. The writing was in Korean, but the symbols were of a universal form. This was a compressed CO2 version of an extinguisher, exactly what he needed for his plan. He shouldered his rifle and pulled the very last of his plastic explosives. Zing waited beside him.

“Stay here,” Bolan ordered. “This is going to get nasty.”

Zing nodded and Bolan set the detonator in the putty.

The compressed carbon dioxide was under tremendous pressure, held in by the metal casing of the extinguisher. While his plastic explosive would prove relatively useless when thrown by itself, producing light and noise without attendant power, the C-4 he had tamped in a ring around the center had the power to breech the shell. One small imperfection, and the device designed to save lives would instead transform into a deadly grenade as compressed CO2 burst to escape, turning the metal casing into a shower of lethal splinters.

Bolan set the detonator on a five-second delay, then threw open the door and launched the extinguisher with all his might. The red metal canister hit the ground and bounced three times before coming to a halt in the doorway. The soldiers at the entrance opened fire, but all they hit was the door and surrounding walls, ignoring what seemed an impotent gesture.

Then five seconds was up on the detonator.

Even through the door, the explosion was loud and jarring. Bolan opened the door, Beretta machine pistols in both hands. The Koreans at the entrance of the office building were scattered. A dozen lay dead, crushed by the explosive shock wave and shredded by shrapnel launched at high velocity. Others cried out, wounded by fragments of the casing or the heavy bulletproof glass that had shattered under the overpressure of the detonating fire extinguisher.

There were three men, unwounded, but jarred by the detonation. They struggled to recover their senses, bringing their weapons to bear, but the Executioner’s guns were out and tracking even as he assessed the damage of his improvised bomb. Three-round bursts ripped out from the twin Berettas, chopping into the trio of gunmen, hurling them into oblivion on the tips of high-velocity slugs.

One wounded Korean struggled to raise his handgun, and Bolan shot him in the head, the triburst exploding his skull like an overripe melon. Stringy blobs of brain flew across the tile floor as his corpse flopped. The Executioner scanned the other wounded soldiers; none of them moved, not daring to incur his wrath.

“Zing!” Bolan called.

The young Korean page appeared, his Makarov low and at the ready. When he saw the carnage wrought by the fire extinguisher, he paled for a moment, but regained his composure.

From his vantage point, however, he was able to notice movement in the security kiosk.

“Look out!” Zing shouted on instinct, not wanting his ticket to freedom killed.

As Mi Qua rose, machine pistol chattering, she sent out a scything burst that sliced the air above the diving Executioner. She swung the weapon toward the young Korean.

Zing raised his own gun and opened fire, but not before bullets chopped into him, whirling him.

Bolan fired before he even hit the floor, his Berettas stabbing 9 mm rounds into the treacherous assassin. One burst tore through her chest, while another cracked open her skull just behind the ear. Dead, seven times over from Zing’s and Bolan’s bullets, Mi Qua slumped limply across the security counter, brains pouring out of the back of her head.

Bolan turned back and saw Zing clutching his upper chest. He rushed to the youth’s side.

“I’ll get you to help…” Bolan said.

Zing winced, then shook his head. “Where?”

Bolan grit his teeth. “I’m not going to leave you to die.”

“Who’s going to die?” Zing asked, voice racked with pain. “I’m hurt, and I’d slow you down, but I think I can last awhile.”

Bolan frowned, looking up. Some of the wounded had slumped, unconscious, others hid their heads from the fresh mayhem.

“I can get medical assistance from my countrymen,” Zing added. “As long as Huan’s dead, I think I can handle life in the military. Get moving. If I say I was wounded trying to bring you and your partner, Mi Qua, down…”

Bolan looked at the dead woman, then smiled. “You might get a medal. If anyone asks, tell them I was asking you where the bioweapons are kept.”

“In the slaughterhouse, if you haven’t already guessed,” Zing answered, a pained grin on his face. He hurt, and blood soaked his tunic, but compared to the pain that had been inflicted upon him by the insidious major who’d violated him, it was only a dull ache. He took aim at the two remaining wounded who were still conscious, and fired a shot into each of them, killing them to maintain his cover.

And Mack Bolan, the Executioner, disappeared through the entrance.

He had one more stop to make in the “meat processing plant.”

BOLAN USED A BORROWED AK-107 from one of the dead North Koreans of the containment team to deal with the guard force at the slaughterhouse. They put up a good fight, but against the Executioner, their efforts were for nothing.

He checked his six, and saw soldiers swarming the lobby of the office building, medics attending to the wounded. Zing, in uniform, sporting two bullet wounds, would be attended to. He was one of them, though there was a spark in him now. Maybe sometime in the future, Bolan could use his assistance to deal with other threats in North Korea. Or Zing would defect. If asked, he could spin a fable about being grilled, while wounded, about the base.

Bolan intended to lend credence to Zing’s fabrication. He entered the slaughterhouse.

A pen held a tangled mass of corpses that threatened to overwhelm even the Executioner’s sensibility. Young Thai men and women lay sprawled amid the remains of gassed cattle. Bolan fought off a wave of nausea, and his jaw clenched tightly as he saw workers loading bodies onto a conveyer belt leading to a grinding machine.

Human bodies, killed by biological weaponry, were added to the cattle feed made from slaughtered animals.

The logical part of Bolan realized the purpose of this. Bovine prions would combine with ground human proteins. Their mutated nature would alter the human proteins in a deadly mix that would affect both cattle and men equally. Mad cow disease was feared not because of what it did to animals, but for the fact that the altered protein structures present in the animals could transfer to humans and render them vulnerable to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Normally, humans only suffered it through inherited or random mutation, but it could be induced by exposure to bovine spongiform disease prions.

However, mixing human and bovine proteins…

Bolan looked at one of the corpses, sublimating the rage tearing through him. He couldn’t determine if the girl he studied was suffering from CJD, but the Thais were transported for a purpose. What he suspected churned his stomach. He stepped around the mound of corpses and confronted the men loading them onto the conveyor belt.

The Koreans froze, confused by the tall, powerful man in black. One charged, intending to use his meat hooks as weapons, but Bolan drew his Beretta and drilled the ghoul through the gut. The worker collapsed, his weapons forgotten. The others broke and ran.

The Executioner, however, wasn’t in the mood for mercy. These men, despite being unarmed, were actively producing a horrifying mixture that would spread brain-destroying diseases across the globe, and they casually handled the corpses of young, helpless murder victims to add to the horrific feed. He fired on semiauto, a single bullet for each thug.

He spared only one, shooting the Korean through the kneecap.

“Do you speak English?” Bolan asked.

The ghoul looked at him in horror. “Little…”

Bolan nodded, wrapping his long fingers around the man’s throat. “Where are the rest of them? The living ones?”

The Korean swallowed hard. “In the basement. Entrance is far side of the building.”

Bolan nodded. “Stay here.”

He crossed, passing pens filled with jerking, spastic cattle. One animal’s head hung over a rail, drooling, big eyes twitching. It lifted its head at his passing, giving a weakened mewl. He paused and touched the animal’s head, and knew it was already dying, its nervous system ravaged by Mad Cow disease. Bolan shook his head and moved on. He already knew what he would find in the basement, but he had to see if he could help, if there was any hope.

As he walked down the stairs, he saw trembling, drooling humans behind a chain-link fence. Their heads wobbled to the beat of some insane, unheard drummer, and those few who had the strength to walk did so with inhuman, almost zombielike lurching.

A Korean guard looked up, then tried to reach for his pistol, but Bolan burned him down without a second thought.

A young Thai leaned against the fence, eyeing Bolan with the same pitiful gaze as the suffering animal on the floor above.

“Kill me,” the boy said in halting English. “Please…”

He vomited bile that poured down his naked chest, but he didn’t even try to wipe it off. Or maybe he didn’t have the control over his limbs necessary to perform even such a simple task. “Please…”

Bolan rested his head against the fence, trying to control his rage and sorrow. He took a deep breath, fighting down conflicting emotions.

The boy blinked sadly. Bolan noticed the only reason that he still stood was that a series of cable ties fastened him to the fence. Others had been restrained. They were held up only to make room for more bodies strewed across the floor, slumped in various stages of consciousness. “Dead…anyway…hurt so bad…”

Bolan closed his eyes, feeling them sting. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease had no known cure, and everyone in this pen would be dead. Once contracted and activated, they’d only have a year to live. This boy had mental functioning, but his motor control was reduced to speech and eye movement. His free arm rippled and wriggled like a snake stapled to a wall.

Bolan turned away. He saw a panel in the wall. His eyes narrowed, pictograms displaying a translation of the Korean symbols scrawled beneath.

It was a containment emergency shutdown system for the slaughterhouse. It was set up to deal with a biological or chemical escape. Gelled fuel mixtures would be sprayed into the air, and a spark would induce a bath of superheated napalm to scorch any released diseases in the atmosphere, destroying every ounce of infected flesh. It had been set up in a time when the North Koreans assumed that they would be testing lethal mixtures or deadly microbes, not dealing with the microscopic aberrations formed from infected meat.

The bodies piled up hadn’t been subjected to anthrax or other diseases. Humans and bovines had been fed with cattle feed, infecting them with more prions. The mutant proteins had developed far enough to affect both species, perhaps even more species. And as they died, they were put on the conveyor belts, turned into more tainted protein, to feed the next generation of victims and to carry on the evolution of a man-made nightmare.

Bolan opened the panel and understood the control systems. He set the timer to release its lethal payload and burn this abattoir to powder. The fuel would soak everyone, and in a manner similar to the thermobaric bomb that had destroyed the submarine base in Wonsan, a simple flash of fire would incinerate every living and dead creature in the building instantly.

Bolan looked back at the dying boy, the gun in his hand. “I don’t know how fast…or painful…”

The boy’s brown eyes glistened. “I’ll die with the others. Get out.”

Bolan sighed, then left the slaughterhouse. He walked past the Korean he’d shot in the knee.

“Please, help me! Mercy!” the worker cried out.

Bolan looked at the man, then turned and kept on walking. As he left the building, he heard the hiss of gelled fuel release from the emergency containment system.

The Executioner had used the last vestiges of his mercy to give the dying humans and animals as swift a release as possible.

The slaughterhouse imploded as flames licked from windows and open doors. It was as if Hell’s fires had erupted on Earth, but Bolan knew the truth.

The cleansing flames had only ended a different kind of hell.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Park City, Utah

Rachel Marrick didn’t know what she expected when Stan Reader suggested they use his lodge as a base, but she was officially impressed at the sight of the inside of the building. One corner of the lodge was a computer center with technology that was a sprawling mess of electronic growth. Bare wires, shiny boards and laser lights crisscrossed in a wild maze that seemed more like the explosion of life in a jungle made of silicone and black plastic.

“Wow,” she said. There were half a dozen monitors inlaid into the mess. One of them looked like a radar screen for the immediate area. She studied it for a moment.

“That’s an aerial thermal imaging representation of the resort, in real time,” Reader explained. “There’s a satellite in geosynchronous orbit over Northern California using infrared photography to track underground lava flows and steam pressure in an effort to observe possible seismic activity.”

“How did you tap into it?” Marrick asked.

“I didn’t. I helped to design the thermal imagers for a friend of mine. NASA put it in orbit to monitor the West Coast. We can see as far as Hawaii to the east and the Mississippi to the west,” Reader replied. “I also set up a more sensitive minimonitor on the satellite that gives me an aerial view of my current surroundings, as long as I’m under its umbrella of influence.”

Marrick raised an eyebrow. “You always like to have an eye in the sky watching you?”

Reader frowned. “My investigations have garnered me enmity from very dangerous people. There is a fatwah called against me for my assistance to the FBI and other government agencies.”

Marrick’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you’re great at keeping your friends alive. Ever since you turned up, there have been people out to kill me and my partner. Kirby was nearly killed when that bank collapsed, because you brought him in there. And then, he risked his life throwing you out the window of another burning building while being shot at by the same men trying to kill you. I’ve got a cop’s death on my conscience, and jangled nerves from being nearly murdered myself. But Kirby, he’s nearly dead twice, because he won’t let you down.”

Reader took a deep breath. “I would never allow Kirby to come to harm.”

Marrick glared at the scientist for a long moment. “If he does, you better pray that I’m dead, too.”

She turned from the computer center and walked over to Graham who had returned from looking at the perimeter of the lodge.

KIRBY GRAHAM SHOOK some snow off his boots and noticed Marrick approaching him. Reader, who looked like he’d been hit by a steamroller, turned toward a keyboard to type feverishly away.

“What was that about?” Graham asked.

“Setting some ground rules,” Marrick answered. “Are you okay?”

Graham frowned. “You’re threatening him?”

“Just making sure whatever karma he’s bringing us doesn’t stay around,” Marrick told him. “After all, before he showed up…”

“Before he showed up, the Dugway UFOs were just considered a bullshit job for two FBI agents in the doghouse because they looked too hard at a politician’s ties to al Qaeda,” Graham growled. “Now, it’s a serious investigation.”

“Serious? How?”

“The bank robbery is related,” Graham said.

Marrick frowned. “A bank robbery by a Korean street gang.”

“It was a smokescreen. They did everything they could to kill that bank’s records. Hard copy, soft copy and digital,” Graham explained. “Stan recognized a powerful electromagnet that put out a field strong enough to wipe everything on tape.”

Marrick pursed her lips. “The bank was involved in money laundering?”

“Nothing that would attract the attention of the FBI or DEA. If it’s not drug or terrorism related, we’d spend our resources somewhere else,” Graham said.

“So why crash an entire building?” Marrick asked.

“To cover up something big. Bigger than anything that’s ever happened to the U.S.,” Graham replied. “Think on an apocalyptic level.”

“Dugway,” Marrick said. “The last breach killed hundreds of sheep. If the wind had been going the other way…”

“A million people. Dead,” Reader replied, finally joining them. “I’ve been observing weather patterns, and in a couple of days, there will be a window of opportunity for a major containment failure to unleash a lethal plague across Salt Lake City.”

Marrick shrugged. “Right into the frying pan.”

“Rachel, I know you’re mad at me for getting you involved in all of this. I’m sorry,” Reader continued.

Marrick glared. “Maybe you’d be a lot more upset if it were people you know being killed. The cops in that police station are my co-workers.”

“No, this isn’t personal for him,” Graham said. “That’s why he can keep thinking about the solution.”

“We have people trying to kill us, Kirby. Don’t you think that’s more important than some half-realized conspiracy?” Marrick asked.

Graham frowned.

“Stan?” Graham asked.

“She is correct. Survival should be our priority,” Reader replied. “Unfortunately, it does not obviate her negativity. I hoped disclosure would allow us to lessen the air of hostility…”

“Maybe if you stuffed a sock in it, you pompous walking thesaurus…” Marrick shouted.

“Would the two of you just cool down?” Graham asked, stepping between them. “Stan, go do computer shit. Rachel, I’ll check you out on Stan’s guns. And we’re going to talk. Actually, I’m gonna talk, you nod and agree with me.”

Marrick twisted away. “Sure, caveman. Whatever you say.”

THEY WALKED DOWN to the basement.

Graham clicked on a light, bathing the room in an incandescent glow. One wall was lined with a pegboard loaded with various tools. Instead of a pool table or a train set, the center of the room was dominated by a smooth-sided square.

“What’s that?” Marrick asked.

“A server,” Graham said. “And the wires are leading under the tile to the dish on the roof for satellite uplink.”

“A server?” Marrick asked. She ran her hand across the device, feeling its subdued, humming power.

“I remember when he drew up the designs for the prototype. This computer has more than enough brainpower to run NASA or NORAD,” Graham explained.

Marrick pulled her hand away from it. “He’s just getting on my nerves.”

“I said, he was offering to take us both out of the doghouse. We’ll head out to the real world, and not have to worry about paperwork,” Graham told her. “Or restrictions against fraternization.”

Marrick’s mouth turned into a tight line. “Kirby…”

The big man put his hands on her shoulders. “We get to be people, not badges. And we get to choose who we want to spend our lives with.”

Marrick looked away. “I’m flattered.”

“If you’re threatening Stan, you’re a lot more than flattered,” Graham said, letting her go. He walked over to a section of paneling, then gave it two sharp raps. A board came loose, and he set it aside, pushing back a rolling section of paneling to reveal another pegboard.

Instead of tools, however, this one was laden with various weapons.

Marrick swallowed. “Does—”

“Stan’s got a Class III license for all of this,” Graham replied, pulling down a Heckler & Koch MP-5. He looked through its scope and checked its balance. “He likes to be prepared.”

Marrick ran her fingers across an M-60 machine gun. “For World War III?”

“He’s a hard core Boy Scout,” Graham said, replacing the submachine gun with a Colt M-4 carbine. “Take whatever you want. And load up.”

Graham found fully loaded magazines for the carbine and slid them into a bandolier belt. He walked over to a dresser, pulled open one drawer, reached in and took out a load-bearing vest. He gave a section a rap with his knuckles. “Trauma plate. A lot better than our vests.”

Marrick took another Colt carbine off the rack and took ammunition for it. “Think he’ll have one in my size?”

Graham threw her a vest. “Adjustable straps and quick-attaching pockets.”

Marrick blinked. “This is his cabin. He’s not renting it.”

Graham smiled. “Bought it with prize money from his biathalon medal rewards and a few inventions here and there. This is his unofficial West Coast headquarters.”

“He’s got a place like this on the East Coast?” Marrick asked.

Graham shrugged. “Maybe a little better.” Marrick shook her head. “What have I gotten myself into?”

Outside Wonsan, North Korea

CUTTING ACROSS the North Korean countryside only a few moments after dawn wasn’t the smartest thing that Jack Grimaldi had ever done, even with Dragon Slayer’s considerable stealth capabilities. But Mack Bolan needed him, and Grimaldi had never let him down yet.

The emergency signal cut across Dragon Slayer’s sensors, and the ace Stony Man pilot had powered up the high-tech helicopter to launch from its hiding place on the North Korean coast. Grimaldi had found the site while racing up the shoreline. Sparsely populated, and with few sensors, it could nestle the sleek airship easily, giving Grimaldi a shorter trip back to Bolan’s side.

The homing beacon on the Executioner’s belt drew him close, and Grimaldi kept his eyes on the radar suite. No one had hit him with active radar yet, but that didn’t mean antiaircraft systems with passive sensors or infrared targeting scanners weren’t waiting for him. Despite the baffles on the engines, dispersing heat at a fraction of standard operating temperatures, the helicopter would still have enough of a signature to attract an enemy missile if it was of sufficient technology. North Korea’s arms market didn’t have such sensitive warheads, but according to Bolan, the bad guys had access to outside support.

Grimaldi flew nap of the earth, hugging Dragon Slayer to tree lines so closely, if he wavered an inch, he’d chop limbs off. Tall grasses slapped at the underbelly of the aircraft, but he kept it steady. He wasn’t going to risk being spotted as he homed in on his friend.

A row of hills loomed ahead and Grimaldi swept them with his forward-looking radar, momentarily exposing himself with broadcast energies. There was a gap ahead, and it was just wide enough to allow the helicopter to nose through, barely inches available for the width of the rotor. He pushed up the throttle and headed for the lowest gap between the hills ahead, killing the radar.

It was no good. Dragon Slayer’s board lit up as an enemy air patrol swept him. Grimaldi killed the sideways sound transmitters and opened up the heat vents. He’d need all the power he could get so that he could make the gap to Bolan’s location before the air patrol found him.

The IFF computer pegged the two enemy craft as MiG-21s, tired old warbirds from the middle of the cold war. Dragon Slayer hit 200 mph just as the fighters broke into power dives toward him. Their cannon opened up, 20 mm shells hammering the ground in Grimaldi’s wake. It would take a few moments for the pilots to adjust their aim, but as soon as they had their range, he yanked the high-tech helicopter into the gap. Explosive shells blasted into the entrance of the small gully between the hills, dirt and stone flying under their onslaught.

Grimaldi fought to ignore the radar alerts blaring in his ears, concentrating on keeping control at full speed in the narrow channel he’d hit. Behind him, missile detonations thundered as the MiGs tried to catch him with heat-seeking missiles, but the warheads didn’t have the agility to thread the needle in pursuit of Dragon Slayer. It wouldn’t be long before the helicopter burst out onto flat land, but right now, his primary goal was to escape this gap. A pair of 20 mm shells detonated at the tops of hills, spitting dirt and sod into the rotors, but it was to no avail. They didn’t have an angle on the Stony Man pilot and his sleek craft.

In the open, however, they’d have all the space to engage him that they needed. And with four times his speed, they’d have no trouble reducing him and the chopper to an oily smear on the countryside.

Grimaldi throttled down as he reached the end of the gap, and the MiGs overshot him, bursting into open sky. He flipped down his goggles, tied in to the optically guided weapons systems of the magnificent aircraft. The computerized systems locked on, and Grimaldi fired off two Redeye missiles. The MiGs spotted the pursuing warheads and hit their afterburners, jetting farther off into the sky, giving Grimaldi some more breathing room.

He shot like an arrow toward the bioweapons production plant, spotting a skirmish on the grounds as North Korean soldiers opened fire on a lone warrior.

Pinned at the base of a burning slaughterhouse, the Executioner held off the enemy army with his usual skill. Grimaldi checked his six and reengaged the infrared baffles, sweeping over the roof of the engulfed building. He switched control to the GECAL .50-caliber machine gun mounted in Dragon Slayer’s belly. Targeting a clot of heavily armed North Koreans, he pressed the firing stud and ripped them to shreds. Body parts flew in a reddish-tinted frothing cloud of dirt and gristle from the mighty impacts of .50-caliber bullets at 6000 rounds per minute.

That broke the will of the defenders and they raced away, abandoning their assault on the Executioner.

Grimaldi spotted the MiGs racing in at top speed, missiles launching. No active radar pinged on the chopper’s alerts, and he pivoted the aircraft.

Heat-seeking missiles ignored the relatively cool engine exhaust of the high-tech stealth helicopter, slamming into the slaughterhouse boiling with napalm. They exploded inside, bringing down sections of the roof.

Grimaldi milked the trigger on the GECAL and swept one jet fighter with a 6000 rpm storm of armor-piercing slugs. Its wings were torn off by the sizzling salvo, its main fuselage plummeting nose-first into the ground only a few hundred feet short of the burning building. He turned and fired the GECAL again, but he ended up only clipping the tail of the second aircraft as it peeled away. Smoke trailed from the fighter as it wended a path of retreat.

Grimaldi swung Dragon Slayer around and lowered the landing gear. The panel doors opened.

Mack Bolan broke across the cleared battlefield and leaped, hooking the passenger compartment door with his fingers. He dragged himself into the mighty airship.

“You okay, Sarge?” Grimaldi asked.

Bolan was silent as he hauled himself into the passenger couch after slapping the door control. Hydraulics hissed as the shell of Dragon Slayer closed back to a streamlined whole.

Grimaldi frowned and throttled up, steering for Wonsan.

“Where next?” Grimaldi asked.

Bolan looked at the burning meat-packing plant, face a mask of grim anger.

“Sarge?” Grimaldi prodded.

“We’re heading for Japan,” Bolan told him. “Everything points back to the U.S.”

Grimaldi nodded. Dragon Slayer would be parked at a secure location until it could be returned to Stony Man Farm. In the meantime, he would pilot an F-14 or an F-18 trainer at supersonic speeds from Japan to Los Angeles, or wherever else on the West Coast that the Executioner directed him.

Maybe sometime between here and there, Grimaldi might even learn why his friend was so emotionally shaken.

Then, knowing what it would take to rattle Mack Bolan, Grimaldi figured that he could wait to deal with that nightmare.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“JACK AND STRIKER just cleared Tongjosun Bay,” Aaron Kurtzman announced. “Someone jammed communications on the Wonsan area, but things are clearing up.”

Hal Brognola wiped his brow. “Any incident?”

“Some Chinese spec-ops team hit a meat processing plant just outside of town,” Akira Tokaido announced. “They also experienced an earthquake in the harbor area. Hang on…”

Brognola frowned and glanced at Barbara Price.

“One MiG was shot down,” Kurtzman said. “The remnants of the military contingent at the meat processing plant have linked it to the Chinese spec-ops team.”

“China?” Price asked.

“Mack,” Brognola said. “Apparently his disguise held enough. And he had someone to confirm his story.”

Price nodded, remembering the prosthetics and contact lenses the Executioner had arranged for. “Thing is, Dragon Slayer’s heading for Japan.”

“I’m screwing their signals,” Kurtzman told them. “Dragon Slayer is what we see. They’re seeing aircraft splitting up and heading toward Mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea, as well.”

“You’re just going to make their ‘beloved leader’ paranoid of everyone in their neighborhood, aren’t you?” Brognola cracked.

Kurtzman laughed. “He already is. I’m just giving him an option to rail against whoever he wants.”

Brognola shook his head. “Get us in contact with—”

“Striker to Base.” A familiar voice cut in over the speakers. It was Mack Bolan, and he sounded very tired.

“Striker?” Price asked. “You okay?”

“I’ll live,” Bolan answered. “I have a lead on the mastermind behind this affair.”

“It didn’t come from North Korea?” Brognola asked.

“They were only pawns. Expendable pawns,” Bolan replied. “They’ve been smuggling cattle carcasses to the U.S. for at least the past ten years.”

“Aaron told us you suspected that in association with the cattle mutilations. They’ve been using the bodies as cushioning for air-dropping contraband,” Price mentioned.

“That’s the cover for that.”

Brognola scratched his head in confusion. “The cattle mutilations are cover for a smuggling operation that itself is another cover?”

“They’re smuggling infected meat,” Bolan explained.

“Wouldn’t the meat be useless?” Price asked. “Unless they cured it ahead of time…”

“They’re smuggling in cattle infected with prions,” Bolan said. “Mutant proteins. They survive cooking. Anything less than total incineration is useless.”

“Prions…” Price began. “You mean, Mad Cow?”

“Mad Cow. Scrapie. CJD,” Bolan stated. “The same proteins induce the same diseases across several species.”

Price and Brognola looked at each other. “Surely the CDC can handle something like that,” Price offered.

“We’re talking approximately 100 tons of carcasses,” Bolan said. He took a deep breath. “They’ve been breeding and testing this for the past ten years. I saw firsthand what the results were.”

There was an unspoken note of dread in the air, and Brognola shuddered. “So, it is effective against humans.”

“Especially since they’ve been adding human flesh to the same mix. The cattle in the slaughterhouse, easily five hundred head, were being fed from proteins of infected humans and cattle, making it far more likely that the prions will spread to people. The cattle corpses sent to the U.S. are loaded with it. Grind them down into protein meal, and you can spread it even finer,” Bolan said.

“A plague,” Price muttered. “Creutzfeldt-Jakob has no cure, and it can kill within a year.”

Brognola cleared his throat. “I’ll get on the line to Atlanta and give them a heads up.”

“Hal, they’re going to have their hands full otherwise,” Bolan interjected.

“What do you mean?” Brognola asked.

“Dugway Proving Grounds. You have some contractors on the ground there already investigating?” Bolan asked.

“Yeah. At your urging, mind you,” Brognola stated. He took a deep breath. “Good Lord…”

“If an entire city is hit with a cloud of anthrax,” Bolan said, “you’re going to have the CDC and the U.S. Military biological warfare division with their hands full.”

“Tying up resources which could otherwise be used to control an outbreak of Mad Cow or CJD,” Brognola cursed. “I’ll get in touch with my people on the ground.”

“Do that,” Bolan told him. “I need transportation to the U.S.”

“Already putting through the paperwork for you to get on an F-14 to San Francisco,” Price announced. “That fast enough?”

Bolan was quiet for a moment. “It will have to be.”

“Jesus,” Price muttered. “It’s that bad?”

“Remember the deal at O’Hare Airport a while back?” Bolan asked.

“An attempt to cause a nationwide Botox outbreak. But you stopped them cold,” Brognola said.

“Not all of them. I know Able Team and Phoenix Force took down two of their compatriots, but there’s still Stevens out there,” Bolan told them. “Stevens was the guy who planned the Botulinum spread.”

“Mojo,” Price muttered. “He’s been linked to biochemical warfare, on our side and theirs.”

“And he’s got a whole base full of lethal little bugs to unleash on Utah,” Bolan warned. “He’s probably the one who arranged the bank robbery. Maybe he had a money trail leading to that bank.”

“Kirby Graham said that his pal, Reader, figured it out,” Price told him. “Between a huge electromagnet to wipe out tape drives to the physical destruction of the bank, any records leftover—”

“That haven’t been hacked,” Bolan interjected.

Price looked to Kurtzman.

“Someone hit their offsite records. Whoever broke in wasn’t as good as some we’ve faced, but it doesn’t matter. Logic bombs and worms have turned their entire network into a mass of useless, corrupted data,” Kurtzman explained.

“They’re working for the end run,” Bolan stated. “Is Salt Lake City on alert?”

“The FBI, Marshals and the S.L.P.D. are busy trying to control a war between Korean gangs,” Price told him. “A lot of gang-bangers have been killed, and there was an attack on a police station that killed an officer.”

Bolan grunted. “It’s the end run. With the gang war as cover, everyone in the area will be too busy watching out for violent gangs to worry about Dugway, leaving only the facility’s security.”

“We figured it out,” Price said. “But that doesn’t mean we can stop anything.”

“I’m on my way,” Bolan retorted. “Just tell Graham to keep his head down.”

“We’ll do that,” Brognola stated. “I’ll try to get the CDC alerted to the infected feed.”

“One biological disaster at a time,” Bolan replied. “Which means that we stop the Dugway intrusion as soon as possible. Are Carl’s and David’s teams available?”

“No, they’re busy,” Price responded. “Then I’ll make do with Graham and Reader,” Bolan said.

He killed the connection.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Park City, Utah

Kirby Graham listened to Hal Brognola’s assessment of the situation. He asked a few questions, but other than the report, there was little else to go on.

“Striker is on his way,” Brognola explained. “You’ll be his contact and liaison. He’ll be traveling light.”

“I’ve got a friend who can set him up,” Graham replied.

“Yes. Mr. Reader’s Class III license might come in handy,” Brognola said. “I assume his collection is a little more impressive than the ATF records we have indicated.”

Graham chuckled. “He’s strapped. If Striker needs a couple peashooters, we can accommodate him.”

“I’m sure he’s listening in,” Brognola said. “The line does show multiple listeners.”

“The jig is up, Stretch,” Graham called.

“I don’t have to tell you what we know about you, Professor Reader,” Brognola returned.

“No, you don’t,” the scientist answered. “Just so we understand each other, I am intimately acquainted with your dossier, too.”

Brognola chuckled. “I’m not surprised. Can we count on your assistance with our operative?”

“Yes,” Reader replied. “I’m just curious.”

Graham held his breath. Reader’s curiosity was notorious for getting him into trouble. The inquisitive genius might just alienate Stony Man Farm if he pressed too hard.

“I can’t give the identity of our agent,” Brognola stated.

“Just one operative, however?” Reader asked.

“He’s good,” Brognola answered.

“He’d have to be very good,” Reader responded.

“Agent Matt Cooper,” Brognola stated. “We’ll send you his official dossier.”

Reader glanced to Graham. “I’m certain it’s a finely crafted piece of fiction, Mr. Brognola—”

“With enough truth to allay your fears, Professor,” Brognola cut him off. “Kirby, you can let Agent Marrick know about our operation, as well.”

“Thanks.” Rachel Marrick spoke up. “I may enjoy playing snow bunny at the ski resort, but I hate being out in the cold.”

“Don’t worry, Agent,” Brognola replied with a soft laugh. “Things will warm up soon enough.”

“Oh, yeah, I think,” Marrick stated, doubt hanging off her words.

“No, definitely not a yeah,” Brognola responded. “This is a major emergency.”

“I figured that one out when the bank collapsed downtown,” Marrick replied. “But thanks for cluing me in. So why can’t we arrange for more help?”

“Take your pick,” Brognola replied. “It could cause a national emergency. The last time the guy behind this kind of an operation went to work, he was trying to incite the government into an oppressive crackdown to suspend democratic process. The man you’re looking for has connections, and we don’t want to spook him. And he has a submarine crawling around the Pacific that had at least enough firepower to destroy a covert underground submarine facility in North Korea.”

“The earthquake reported in Wonsan?” Reader interjected.

“Precisely,” Brognola answered.

“How’d you find that out?” Reader asked.

“We had someone who was nearly at ground zero,” Brognola stated.

“And he just got out of the way of a thermobaric explosive?” Reader asked.

“Good guess on what was used,” Brognola commented.

“A nuclear explosion would have been too messy and gotten North Korea to throw around its own warheads in retaliation. A fuel-air explosive has the power, but without the radiation, to duplicate an earthquake,” Reader explained.

“That explains the firepower they had on hand to take out the bank,” Graham muttered.

“And you’re only sending one man?” Marrick repeated.

“With the four of you, it’ll be more than enough,” Brognola promised. “Graham, you can vouch for Striker from when you trained with him, right?”

“Yeah,” Graham answered. “And Striker is sharper than anyone in this room.”

He caught Reader’s doubtful gaze.

“He ain’t a rocket scientist, but still,” Graham stated.

“If you say so, I trust you, Kirby,” Reader replied. “And we’ll see if I can trust this Striker.”

“You can,” Brognola explained. “Even if you don’t trust me, you’ll trust him.”

Graham nodded in agreement. “Where can we pick him up?”

“Hill AFB,” Brognola advised. “He should get there in about six hours.”

Elsewhere

STEVENS STEEPLED his fingers, looking at the satellite footage of Dragon Slayer cutting out of the base in North Korea. He frowned as he realized that everything had been destroyed at the meat processing plant, but not before a bright and capable enemy operative could gather enough clues to figure out his apocalyptic plan.

“What shall we do?” Pave, his assistant and bodyguard, spoke up, watching the display on the plasma monitor. The confusion seemed out of place coming from such a huge and powerful man. At six foot eight, his thinning blond hair slicked back and pulled taut into a ponytail, he wasn’t tightly defined with rippling muscles, but built-in slabs of muscle covered with hard fat. Despite the fact that his biceps weren’t bare and raw, sinews and veins rippling across them, his arms were massive, nearly two feet around. A slight paunch formed under his huge, firm pectorals. Stevens didn’t want a body-builder for a guardian. Pave was practically built, as if he’d stepped off a Viking longboat. He was deceptively quick for a man so big.

Pave was the veteran of hundreds of street battles, and wanted for multiple murders. Stevens had bestowed his name on the giant as a double joke. Pave was a synonym for stone, and when he was finished with an opponent, the remains looked as if they had been made a part of the pavement.

“We continue with our plan,” Stevens replied. “He will attempt to intercept us, and we will have to carry them out as soon as possible.”

“But, the weather patterns…”

Stevens nodded. “I know. They will not be right for the next forty-eight hours. But once the wind shifts, Salt Lake City will be doomed. We will move our forces in immediately. Plan Delta.”

Pave nodded. “The stealth option.”

Stevens nodded. “Our inside people will keep up appearances until the breach.”

“And it could look like an accident afterward,” Pave replied.

Stevens grinned, and Pave shuddered at the gaunt, red-spectacled man whose smile resembled the lipless leer of a desiccated corpse. “That’s what we want them to believe.”

Pave nodded, but it was more a spasm than an acknowledgment of his agreement. Not that Stevens minded. He enjoyed the undercurrent of terror in all of his subordinates. He returned his gaze to the footage, replaying it.

Only one man got out of the plant. The helicopter came for only one survivor of the strike team, which meant that it had to be the one who thwarted his Botulinum outbreak at O’Hare Airport years ago. He’d only been peripherally involved, working with other masterminds, but still, the setback was annoying.

Not that the man now known as Kent Stevens minded. He had more than a few pokers in the fire, plots spreading around the world. If one failed, he’d move on to another. Still, the Dugway Solution would prove to be an interesting exercise in mass murder. If it came to full fruition, he’d either exterminate an entire city within a few hours, or condemn millions of livestock and humans to death through fast-acting neurodegenerative disease. If he was truly lucky, both prongs of his operation would claim millions of lives. As it was, he went for the scattershot effect, allowing for either end of this operation to succeed at the expense of the other. The assembled resources of the World Health Organization and American government would be insufficient to deal with both plagues. Especially with concurrent epidemics he’d planted in Third World nations—outbreaks of cholera and other lethal, but lower grade diseases. Natural droughts and famines also assisted.

It had taken a decade to set up this operation, delicately balanced, but with his preparations, and the forces he had at his command, Stevens would be able to pull it off.

The presence of the man in black, however, did give the lethal genius some pause. He’d lost associates to him, and he was certain that Mi Qua was dead, as well.

“Shame really,” Stevens said.

“Clarice? Yeah,” Pave replied. “That one-man army did her job for her.”

Stevens looked at his bodyguard with bemusement. The huge warrior had a soft spot for her. The doctor felt sorry for the big man, and for his own sake, withheld the information that Mi Qua’s usefulness was at an end with the assassination of the general and his staff.

“Should we have someone intercept him in Japan?” Pave asked, struggling through his depression over Mi.

“It would be a waste of resources,” Stevens replied. “Besides, we’re already pulling in all our foreign assets for this operation. They’re en route to home. Captain Jaye is on his way back, too, but he’ll be too late to participate. He’s going to escort us out of the country in the wake of the mission.”

Pave nodded.

“I need you to get me there, Pave.”

“Yes, sir,” the giant responded.

“That means your head has to be clear. We can mourn for our brave operative later,” Stevens replied, giving him a tap on one thick forearm.

Pave nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

Stevens grinned, this time putting as much warmth as he could into it. He knew it wouldn’t change much, however. The bony genius, his red hair cropped short, his eyes shielded by one-way red lenses, was hardly a man known for his ability to convey sympathetic reassurance. Still, Pave’s sadness burned away to cool determination.

“How goes the observation of Professor Reader and Agents Graham and Marrick?” Stevens asked.

“They’re still holed up in his lodge. Efforts at electronic surveillance have been defeated by a jamming field across several frequencies,” Pave reported. “Telescopes have been defeated by window treatments.”

“He seems a bit paranoid, doesn’t he?” Stevens inquired.

“You’re not paranoid if they truly are out to get you,” Pave responded. “Shall we move in?”

Stevens shook his head. “That lodge may be too well defended. Just look at the window placement on avenues of approach.”

Pave nodded. “Good fields of overlapping fire. And Reader has already demonstrated that he knows how to use an automatic weapon.”

“He’s got a Class III license, so it is legal for him to own one. In fact, a records check shows he owns several,” Stevens replied. “We’d need the same kind of firepower to take that lodge that we would need to take down Dugway. Especially since they are expecting trouble.”

Pave nodded. He turned away as an assistant entered the room and handed him a note.

“They just received a phone call. Encrypted and the point of origin was unknown. On the land line,” Pave said. “Nothing much we can get from it, but they were called by an outside source.”

Stevens nodded. “Our man in black is on the way.”

“You think that was him?” Pave asked.

“Or the people he’s allied with,” Stevens returned. “A man like that has a network of supporters and allies.”

The scientist frowned. “Have our people keep an eye on the lodge. Maintain surveillance, especially if they leave. Chances are, we can intercept them when our man in black arrives.”

Pave nodded.

“Have your best man lead the intercept team, and make certain that they are fully equipped,” Stevens replied. “You saw what he did to a base full of armed and nervous North Korean troops.”

“Yes, sir,” Pave answered. He left the genius known as Mojo to think and plan.

Above the Pacific Ocean

MACK BOLAN WAS traveling light in the 3200 miles into the 5500 mile trip, having refueled for the second time in the air. Grimaldi was pushing the envelope of the 500 mile mission radius of the awesome fighter plane, but right now, there was very little else they could do except abuse the hell out of its 20,000 pounds of thrust per engine, running it at nearly three-quarters the speed of sound. Six hours, and Bolan had gotten a lot of sleep since they’d started. The Tomcat’s acceleration couches were comfortable, but for this amount of time, even on autopilot, Bolan could tell that Grimaldi was running thin.

He tilted his head and saw that his friend was catching a quick catnap, passed out at the stick. Bolan’s console informed him that the autopilot was in effect, and they were maintaining a steady thrust, racing along at 530 miles an hour. Bolan sat back, not wanting to disturb Grimaldi’s rest. The strain of getting Dragon Slayer out of North Korea, avoiding two enemy fighters, and conducting two aerial refuelings was the kind of pressure you would find in a week of flying. Bolan was glad that when they got to Utah, they’d have an Air Force base to land at, even though he knew Grimaldi was skilled enough to park the supersonic fighter on an aircraft carrier, even after a ten-hour flight.

As experienced in land combat as the Executioner was, the pilot nicknamed G-force was equally skilled in the cockpit of any aircraft. From helicopters to the most powerful, spaceship-like aircraft in the U.S. government’s arsenal, Grimaldi had flown it all, and had circled the globe hundreds of times.

Bolan rested his head back, but didn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes, he still remembered the twitching, spasmodic horrors of the Thai teenagers, degenerating due to CJD, in the basement of the slaughterhouse, the corpses of those who had already died mixed in with cattle carcasses intended for grinding into protein meal to mix with cattle feed. Humans and animals, mixed in an unholy concoction, both species infected with lethal prions that could destroy nervous systems after only a short year of work.

He would avenge them. Mojo was a man already wanted for other atrocities, and he had earned the Executioner’s wrath many times over.

But now, the personal plea of a dying youth echoed in his mind.

“Kill me…please,” he remembered.

Brognola promised him, in a quick communication, that when he got to Hill AFB in Utah, someone would meet him and provide him with the tools he’d need to combat Stevens’s co-conspirators. The head Fed had also promised that Kirby Graham and his partners would pitch in. Bolan wished that he didn’t need the help, but they were more familiar with Salt Lake City and its environs. Plus, they’d been involved in that end of the mystery since the start. Cutting them off would seem cruel, though he realized that their assistance to him could very well get them injured.

He remembered Zing’s injury.

The young Korean attaché was lucky to have been among friendly forces when he’d been shot. Chances were, the kid would survive his wound, but it was still close.

So far, Bolan had been lucky. His only other ally, Grimaldi, had been unharmed. But it still showed him how dangerous this mission was. Half of the people he’d worked with were seriously injured. Given the opponents he was facing, Bolan wondered if his allies would end up as assets or cannon fodder before Stevens’s forces.

Heavy thoughts continued to weigh on the Executioner’s troubled brow as he endured the next seven hundred miles of flight to the next refueling in lonely silence.

Washington, D.C.

HAL BROGNOLA SHUFFLED through the side entrance after his flight in from Stony Man Farm. He surrendered his weapons to the Secret Service who were guarding the President, then trundled into the Oval Office where the Man sat.

“Striker penetrated North Korea?” the President asked, cutting straight to the point.

Brognola nodded. “He’s on his way back to the States now.”

The President winced and motioned for Brognola to take a seat. A cup of coffee sat on the table in front of the chair. “I’ve been getting a lot of conflicting reports. Somehow this is involved with North Korea’s WMD development, and yet it’s not North Korea? And there’s something going on, related to this, in Salt Lake City, and you were clued in thanks to something about a bank robbery?”

Brognola nodded. “It’s a tangled skein, and it all started on a ship smuggling humans and livestock from Thailand to North Korea.”

“Livestock?” the President asked. “That seems like a strange thing to do.”

“American-style cattle. Species normally used for beef in Western or European nations, as opposed to Asian-style,” Brognola explained. “I also just received word about the smuggled cattle before I came to your office. Tests have been conducted and about forty percent of the animals found on the transport ship were infected with Mad Cow disease.”

The President nodded, frowning. “I’m glad Striker caught them.”

“This was the endcap of ten years of development, sir,” Brognola explained. “Mad Cow can cause a similar effect in humans. Bovine spongiform, I believe the disease is called.”

“Yeah. It happens when cattle ingest protein from other cattle with recessive genes,” the President answered. “That recessive gene produces a mutated protein that causes nerve tissue to degenerate.”

“I forgot you know a little about ranching,” Brognola responded.

The President nodded. “As much as my critics would like to think so, I’m not a complete idiot. What happened to the cattle carcasses from this plant?”

“They were mixed with human victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and reduced to feed.”

“Human…victims.” The President’s face screwed in disgust. “The victims, they were infected with the prions from the tainted meat.”

Brognola nodded.

The Man stood and walked to the window, looking out into the darkness. “When you called, you said this wasn’t the only aspect of this Kent Stevens’s plan.”

“There have been sightings of unidentified flying objects around Dugway Proving Grounds,” Brognola replied. “And, recently, Korean street gangs have been arming up uncharacteristically.”

“The collapse of the building in Salt Lake,” the President responded. “I saw that in my morning threat matrix. The FBI is on the case there. You think it has to do with a terrorist operation against Dugway?”

Brognola nodded. “One of the FBI contract agents believes that the gang was erasing money trails through the bank.”

The President looked through the preliminary file that Brognola had faxed to him. “Stan Reader. Hasn’t he been working on portable X-ray cameras for the FBI?”

Brognola nodded. “And a bunch of other things. Smart…and nosy.”

“He thinks that this wasn’t a bank robbery,” the President said.

“There was a large electromagnet that wiped tape drives in the basement of the bank,” Brognola stated. “The snipers upstairs were cover for a team destroying hard copy records.”

“All of them?” the President asked.

Brognola nodded. “They even had a virus launched to take out records at other sources.”

The President looked down at the files on his desk. “So, if he has the nerve degenerating diseases, why is Stevens trying to cause havoc in Dugway?”

“Overload,” Brognola responded. “With Salt Lake City hit by a massive anthrax release—or whatever other crap is stored there—the Centers for Disease Control will be distracted from the CJD release.”

“Works better than an envelope filled with powder,” the President grudgingly admitted. “We haven’t heard any demands from Stevens yet, have we?”

“Nope. We’re not even sure of the location of his base of operation,” Brognola stated. “He usually isn’t an upfront kind of guy.”

“Works behind the scenes,” the Man answered. “He helped Chemical Ali with the gas attacks that killed thousands of Kurds. And wasn’t he involved in another mess that Striker stopped?”

Brognola nodded. “He’s bad news. But, we’re working on him. Once he’s in Striker’s sights…”

“I wouldn’t count on it being so easy,” the President responded. “He killed three CIA hit teams. Or his bodyguards did. We couldn’t really tell.”

Brognola nodded. He’d seen the photographs of the remains of the CIA teams mailed back to Langley. They had been sent in a set of jars, organs separated and sent in alphabetical order. Their removed skins and boxed skeletons had been matched up with fingerprint and dental records finally. Except for being broken down to their component body parts, clean and bloodless—the blood had been jarred separately—there was no sign of the trauma that had slain them.

The CIA had been unnerved by the bold return of their murdered agents.

Brognola didn’t want to think of Mack Bolan sent to the White House in a series of crates. He shook off the image. “Striker has fought worse. And we’re trying to wrap up Able Team’s and Phoenix Force’s subsequent missions to assist him. We already have FBI agents ready to support him.”

“FBI agents, and Striker. Where three CIA wet-works teams failed,” the Man said.

Brognola nodded. “I’d suggest increasing security at Dugway.”

“I’ll have the Joint Chiefs on it in the morning.”

“Thank you, sir,” Brognola replied.

“I’ll see about getting the CDC and Army Biowarfare teams to prepare for an operation in the area.”

“If you do that, Stevens might just destroy Dugway and make off with whatever weapons are there. Or kill our intervention teams,” Brognola stated. “And then we’ll never know what their plans are for the infected cattle carcasses.”

The President grimaced. “If we react, we either have to shut down the country and throw it into martial law—”

“Which is what Stevens and his partners wanted last time,” Brognola interjected.

“Or we let him do what he’s planning,” the President said, “and lose millions of lives.”

“We have to be ready to pick up the pieces should Striker fail. But he won’t,” Brognola promised.

“He better not, Hal. I know he’s pulled off miracles before.”

Brognola nodded. “He knows what’s at stake.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Stan Reader joined Graham and Marrick in his basement workshop, after giving them a respectable amount of time to clear the air.

Marrick’s mood had lightened, and she managed a weak smile for the scientist, her animosity faded now.

“Sorry,” Reader lied. “I was checking perimeter security and scanning for enemy transmissions. I don’t know where the time went.”

Graham quirked an eyebrow. “We were just talking, anyway. I didn’t want to acquire any gear for Striker until I got your permission.”

Reader nodded and looked at his watch, despite the fact he knew exactly what time it was. “He should be arriving in an hour and a half, according to Mr. Brognola.”

“Crud. That’s on the other side of the lake,” Graham observed. “Though, we could take 215 and speed.”

“Not too much,” Reader replied. “Seventy-five miles an hour to reach it if we leave in fifteen minutes, and I know how you drive.”

Graham rolled his eyes. “Hell…We got plenty of time, then.”

Marrick shuddered. “What would this Striker guy need?”

“He usually carries two pistols. One silenced, and one heavy. A Magnum,” Graham explained.

Reader looked through his pegboard and took down a pair of handguns. “What does he like in long arms?”

Graham took the Walther P-990 with a threaded barrel. He checked it. A .40-caliber handgun, it was flat and compact. “Got the extra-large back strap for this? He’s got big hands.”

Reader rummaged through his box of spare parts, then tossed him a plastic bag with the spare inserts and replacement sights. “I’ve got a Gem-tech suppressor for the Walther, too.”

Graham nodded and loaded them into a bag. He then did a quick check on the Magnum handgun that Reader had given him. A Taurus 446 Raging Bull revolver. The stainless-steel .44 Magnum was an impressive, powerful piece. Graham found a hip holster for it, complete with speed loader loops. The Walther itself went into a shoulder holster, with an open bottom and a breakfront that allowed it to be carried with the compact suppressor in place. Graham screwed on the silencer and wrapped the holster straps around the weapon, and magazines were stuffed into hanging pouches. As he had for the Walther, he loaded it, and quickly assembled speed loaders as he had filled the Walther’s spare magazines.

“We’re going to need something smaller than these rifles if we’re going out to Hill,” Marrick noted. She went to the rifle rack. She picked a Heckler & Koch PDW and an MP-5 with a collapsing stock. “Two long guns that we can at least hide.”

Reader nodded and looked through the rest. “The PDW and MP-5 take the same magazines, so no worries about that. However, common ammunition with the others—”

“It’s overrated,” Graham cut him off. “You forget, I know people who’ve been in some heavy fights. Nobody ever told me that they borrowed someone else’s ammo in the middle of the shit.”

Reader nodded and took an Olympic Arms OA-93 Entry pistol. “This is basically an M-16 with a pistol-length barrel and no stock. Think he knows how to use one of these? I mean that he packs Magnum handguns.”

“Yeah,” Graham replied. “He was my instructor on one of those things. It has the sling? He shoots it SAS style.”

“Using the sling to brace it…good plan,” Reader said. He pushed the OA-93 to Graham who placed it in the war bag they were assembling for Striker. Reader frowned as he looked at his gear. He took a stubby version of an AK-47 off the rack. “I’ll take my Krinkov.”

“Good plan. That’s pretty concealable, too,” Graham commented.

Reader slid the sling over his shoulder, then tested it out hanging under his winter coat. With the Krinkov’s full-length 30-round magazine, it wouldn’t zip up without poking out, so he rummaged for a short 10-shot magazine. This hid quite well. He stuffed spare 30 rounders in his deep coat pockets.

“Narrow as you are, you can still hide that thing,” Graham stated.

“It was either be narrow from all the biathlon training or just lapse and swell up on my diet of Mountain Dew and whoopie pies,” Reader admitted.

Graham laughed. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Graham took the larger MP-5 from Marrick, and a 15-round magazine for the machine pistol. His barrel chest hid the larger weapon well under his winter coat. Marrick and the smaller PDW were well suited to each other. She wore a loose parka to make up for the folded machine pistol’s bulk. The swell of her breasts also lessened the printing of the gun.

“All set?” Reader asked.

“We’ve got spare mags for our pistols,” Marrick said.

“All right,” Reader answered. For a moment he looked at a cabinet, then opened it, then tossed each of them a canister from it. “A flash-bang grenade. Just in case.”

Graham pocketed his. “Toss me a couple for the war bag.”

Reader lobbed them to him. “They’re going to let us into Hill with all of this hardware?”

“Brognola’s given us a free pass,” Graham replied. “Faxed over the paperwork from the Justice Department this morning.”

“Okay,” Reader said. Graham handed him the bag as they locked the lodge up, and Reader staggered under the unexpected weight. “Wow.”

“Sorry,” Graham said. He took the war bag back.

“No, I was just surprised. Drive,” Reader said, taking it again. Marrick got into the shotgun seat and Reader threw the duffel onto the back seat and crawled in after it. The folded Krinkov jabbed him in the ribs, and he twisted in the seat to get a little more comfortable. He pulled out his PDA and began scanning.

“They’re talking. They know we’re moving,” Reader announced.

Graham and Marrick nodded. “We’ll be ready for them.”

Reader took a deep breath. “I hope so.”

“THEY’RE ON THE MOVE,” Pave announced to Stevens. “They grabbed a heavy bag and threw it in the back seat. Looks like they’re armed for a war.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stevens answered. “It’s two FBI agents and a geek. They should have been dead long ago. Who do you have on the operation?”

“Shock,” Pave said.

Stevens nodded. “He did well at the bank job. Remind him that we’re trying to make this look like a Korean street-gang hit.”

“He knows,” Pave answered.

Stevens smiled. “But have him wait until they’ve left the base. Meeting with the man in black.”

“Yes, sir,” Pave said. He got on the cell phone.

MACK BOLAN RUBBED his eyes as he awoke. Jack Grimaldi was on approach. His sleep was far from dreamless; nightmares of shambling Americans strewed through the streets, begging for the sweet release of death haunted his mind. The potential for millions of humans begging to die as their brains and nerves turned to spongy pulps of useless, misfiring neurons hung with him like a frozen cloak. “You okay, Sarge? You didn’t sound like you slept too well,” Grimaldi called.

“Just land, Jack. I’ll be fine,” Bolan answered. He looked at the PDA in his lap. He powered it up and checked to see if the mutant proteins could survive immersion in water supplies, through treatment systems and filters. So far, Aaron Kurtzman found nothing to corroborate after raiding CDC files.

“I found another way for the prions to be spread, after doing a lot of research,” Kurtzman had told him. “I discovered a paper that showed the presence of the proteins in olfactory cilia and the central olfactory passageway.”

“Airborne,” Bolan said.

“With sufficient mutation,” Kurtzman stated. “It could be weaponized into an airstream dispersement.”

Bolan’s brow furrowed. “Containment breach at Dugway, if they can arrange it,” he said softly. “But it’s also a proving ground for various air and land weapons systems.”

“Meaning that there are artillery shells and rockets at Dugway that could be used to disperse aerial toxins or biological weapons,” Kurtzman concluded.

Bolan wondered about the time he’d spent in the slaughterhouse, but considering that the men tossing corpses into the grinders had no special respiratory filters, the possibility that the prions were already airborne was doubtful. However, sufficiently weaponized, with several tons of donor proteins to work from, Stevens could produce enough missiles to infect every major population center in the nation. And no one would know that they were infected until the first symptoms hit. The early symptoms were slowed-down thinking, followed by wild mood changes, irritability and dementia. Increased violence and more accidents would result among those infected, and not until muscle spasms and seizures began would doctors check for spongiform nerve tissue. If the doctors even had the mental capacity to figure it out.

“How long would it take to convert the proteins into a weaponized form?” Bolan asked.

“He’s had a decade and a half to whip something up, Striker,” Kurtzman answered. “The fact that he’s closing down his various operations means he’s already got it weaponized. He only needs delivery systems.”

Bolan’s jaw clenched. “Which means he has to get into Dugway long before the containment breech.”

“We’ve been watching meteorological charts, Striker. You’ve got forty-two hours before the winds shift and they can fake the accident,” Kurtzman explained.

“He’s already there,” Bolan said. “He was in North Korea for a decade. He’s got people inside the proving grounds.”

“Not outside the realm of possibility,” Kurtzman admitted.

“It’s the way his kind operates,” Bolan retorted. “This isn’t a small plan. This is a huge slap in the face to the world. He’s not asking for demands of surrender. He’s culling the herd, thinning out humanity. Whoever remain will fear him, and beg not to be exterminated.”

“I hope we never see that day,” Kurtzman said softly.

“I know I won’t,” Bolan told him. “If he gets that far, it means I’ll have died fighting him. But I don’t intend to die without pulling him down with me.”

SHOCK LOOKED AT HIMSELF in the van’s passenger side mirror. With a shock of red hair and hazel eyes, it was hard for him to imagine himself as the “leader of the vicious Korean bank robbers” from a few days ago. A balaclava had shielded his freckled cheeks, mirrored glasses obscuring his obviously occidental eyes. He spoke Korean fluently, however, after having been a guard at the 38th Parallel for his short military career. He knew the language like a native, down to the inflections.

And he despised the dirty bastards. When he could have gone on to a career in smuggling, he’d been unceremoniously discharged from the military. One of his Asian customers had ratted him out, or had been a plant, or had just tried to discredit him.

Whatever the case, Shock was dismissed, stripped of his rank and privileges. He had only barely gotten away from the prison transport, freed by Dr. Kent Stevens and his enormous bodyguard Pave. While the guards and driver died, dosed with small squirts of nerve gas, Shock had been taken, stripped of his past, a rusty-haired hobo left in his place to burn with the busload of dead military prisoners.

His new lease on life was owed to the criminal mastermind. Stevens had needed someone who could run an operation linking United States and North Korean factions, and make it so that any facts pointed toward the Asians as the forces behind the deadly plot.

As such, when Stevens told him someone needed to die, that person died.

He patted the receiver of his AK-107 under the blanket in his lap. Hill Air Force Base was a half mile down the road, from where he stopped at the gas station. In the back of the van, his men sat, restless and tense.

They weren’t Korean immigrant gangs from Salt Lake City, but rather South Korean gangsters and soldiers of fortune that Stevens had hired as his smear squad. Even if they were from the south, however, Shock hated them. They were Asian thugs, the scum of the earth, the same people who’d cost him his sweet ride in the U.S. Army’s armory. Instead of living high on the hog from dealing surplus rifles to terrorists and criminals at top dollar, he was a dead man walking. Seamus Houllihan was a memory, a disgraced soldier who died in a freak bus crash on his way to twenty years in Levenworth.

Shock had taken great pleasure in destroying the targets in Salt Lake, murdering the bastards who looked just like the ones who had sold him out. He especially enjoyed the teenage girl, young and ripe, so soft and vulnerable.

The South Koreans in the van hadn’t been with him. He was the sole survivor of the group that had hit the street gang’s apartments, driving away when Graham and Reader had broken up the ambush, surviving the firebombs by sheer tenacity. The men with him didn’t know that he’d exploded in rage when he killed the helpless gang members, executing them, but taking extra time with the girl. They didn’t know of the racist hatred burning in his breast, nor the desire he had to find another Korean girl and crush her as he did the victim from that morning. It was a glorious release, a brand-new form of drug, even better than the first illicit money he’d gotten from giving Uncle Sam’s M-16s over for thick wads of cash. The rush was something he wanted to repeat.

The woman, Agent Marrick, had dark hair and hazel eyes. She didn’t look Asian, but there was a stirring down in Shock’s loins.

He didn’t voice the desire to take her alive. Pave’s orders were to kill them, but he was supposed to make certain that the man in black whom they picked up from Hill was the first victim.

Maybe he could wound Marrick, enjoy her as she bled out, the light fading from her eyes as she became a dead thing. Shock licked his lips.

Maybe.

“Sir?” The South Korean driver spoke up.

Shock looked at him, tugging his knit cap tighter over his red hair, obscuring the last visible vestiges of it. He adjusted his mirrored glasses so they wouldn’t fall off on impact. Shock momentarily fancied the thought of firing his .45 point-blank through the Asian’s moonlike face, spraying thick, syrupy blood over the windshield. The homicidal racist urge passed, and he nodded for the driver to continue.

“I see headlights,” the driver said. “A civilian vehicle.”

Shock raised a set of night-vision binoculars and looked at it. The same FBI-issue sedan they’d followed was now rolling slowly down the road back this way. He pushed the blanket off his rifle. “Ramming speed.”

The driver threw the van into gear, its engine roaring as it shot forward. The pickup truck with the backup team screeched its tires and whipped onto the road behind them.

That’s when the spotlight exploded to life, blazing through the windshield.

MACK BOLAN INSPECTED the gear that Brognola’s contractors had brought with them. He was impressed, and slid everything under the jacket they’d provided for him. His tall, powerful frame and the drape of the winter coat rendered the weaponry invisible.

“I wish you’d let me come with, Sarge,” Grimaldi said.

“We’ll need backup. Hal’s sending in a team of blacksuits from the Farm,” Bolan told him. “You’ll take charge of them—”

“In case you get killed? Dammit—” Grimaldi began.

Bolan shook his head. “You’re a good leader, Jack. If I fall, I’ve got you to fall back on. You, Carl and David…”

“You’re expecting to be killed?” Grimaldi asked.

“I’m expecting the worst,” Bolan said. “If worse comes to worst, we might have to activate emergency sterilization at Dugway.”

Grimaldi’s eyes widened.

“I have Aaron online. He’s inside their mainframe’s back door, ready to fire up the self-destruct systems in case I send the signal,” Bolan explained.

“You’ll be killed if he does that.” Grimaldi swore. “And so will Graham and the others, and whoever else is on that base.”

Bolan nodded. “I’ll try to evacuate any hostages, but if I can’t, it’s only a few thousand soldiers in exchange for millions of Americans. My life isn’t worth one civilian’s.”

Grimaldi winced. “You’ve saved—”

Bolan cut him off. “Nobody owes me anything. I’m doing what I do because it’s the right thing. I’m expendable. I’ve always seen myself as expendable. I’m not cut out for suicide, but if I am reduced to ash to prevent a cloud of lethal microbes from descending upon a city and killing millions, then so be it.”

“You’re going to give them that option?” Grimaldi asked.

“I’m going to try to talk them out of coming with me,” Bolan said. “But it’s their choice…”

“It’s my choice, too,” Grimaldi snapped. “We’ve been a team since you started this whole damned crusade. Remember Vegas? Remember the Caribbean? You saved me from being another scumbag.”

“And I’m going to ask you to keep up the fight. You’ll have the authority to run any mission to support me, but, I need you here to coordinate with the blacksuits in case the enemy tries to slip out the back door,” Bolan stated. “Jack, I’m holding you in reserve.”

“Excuse me.” A tall, gangly man spoke up.

Grimaldi and Bolan both looked at Stan Reader as he interrupted them.

“The men who trailed us are waiting at a gas station, half a mile down the road,” Reader announced. “Two vehicles.”

“You told me that you’d been under surveillance,” Bolan announced. “Thanks for the guns, again.”

Reader waved off the thanks. “If we pull out, they’ll try to ambush us.”

Bolan nodded. “We can turn that to our advantage, then.”

“It’d be the first prisoners we’ve taken so far in this investigation,” Kirby Graham admitted. “The first ones we’d catch that we’d keep, at least.”

“But we need to flank them first,” Marrick noted. “Someone has to act as bait, and someone has to slam the door on them.”

Grimaldi nodded. “Well, I’ve got an idea on how to nail them and maybe even take them flat-footed.”

“Helicopter,” Bolan said.

Grimaldi nodded.

“When you’re done, you stick to the base,” Bolan ordered.

“Absolutely,” Grimaldi answered. “But at least I won’t feel like I’m sitting on my thumbs.”

“I’d never accuse you of that,” Bolan replied.

BOLAN VOLUNTEERED for the job as bait, driving Marrick’s FBI-issue sedan, but she said he couldn’t go it alone.

“Why not?” Bolan asked.

“If they don’t see at least two of us in the car…” she began.

“I could use a dummy,” Bolan replied.

“We don’t have any wigs. It’d be too different,” Marrick argued. “Besides, I don’t have any training in rappelling out of helicopters. Kirby and Stan do.”

Bolan took a deep breath, then let it out evenly.

“Besides, your hands will be full with combat driving,” Marrick added. “I’ve got body armor, and I’ve got a machine pistol.”

“They have rifles with armor-piercing ammunition, Rachel,” Graham complained.

“So what? You’re going to make me sit this out?”

“You could ride shotgun in the helicopter,” Graham offered.

“It won’t work,” Reader said. “Striker will need some backup. Sir, do you know how to operate a Krinkov submachine gun?”

Bolan nodded. Reader took his from under his coat. “Rachel, you’ll need to use the OA-93, since you’re trained with M-16s. I’ll take your PDW. You’ll need all the firepower you can get.”

“Good enough plan,” Bolan stated. “Since they’ll be dropping on the enemy’s exposed flanks, they won’t need the kind of punch our weapons will need.”

Graham glared at Reader for a moment, a spark of irritation igniting in the big man’s features before he cupped Marrick’s cheek. “Be careful.”

“I will,” she’d replied.

With the OA-93 in her lap, her lips pursed into a flat line of worry, Marrick was a contrast of innocent young beauty and deadly readiness. She glanced at the Executioner, but to her credit, her trigger finger rested on the frame of the powerful SMG, not on the trigger. She knew how to handle weapons safely.

“It’s okay to be worried,” Bolan told her as they drove toward the ambush. They could see a van and a pickup truck waiting in the lot of the gas station hundreds of yards ahead of them.

“I’m the most worried about my temper,” Marrick replied. “These assholes killed a cop trying to get me.”

Bolan nodded. The Krinkov was tucked alongside his thigh. He’d fire the stubby assault weapon right through the windshield when it was time. The 7.62 mm rounds would turn the glass into a sieve and still have enough punch to tear into the enemy vehicle if necessary. “Remember, if you screw up, you kill both of us. Think of how guilty you’d feel then.”

Marrick chuckled nervously. “Okay, I’ll keep my head.”

“That’s all anyone can ask,” Bolan responded.

“I don’t see the helicopter,” Marrick mentioned.

“That’s because he doesn’t want to be seen,” Bolan answered. The OH-6 Little Bird they borrowed from the Air Force was painted jet-black, and Grimaldi was flying it without running lights. At altitude, in the night sky, he was invisible and inaudible. “He won’t let us down.”

Marrick nodded. “I didn’t mean to say—”

“It’s okay,” Bolan cut her off. “Just be ready.”

Marrick swallowed. “I am.”

She looked at the van and the pickup truck. Men sat in the back of the pickup, and she knew that they had guns, hidden out of sight. They drew closer, and as much as she wanted to rest her finger on the trigger, it would just lead to an inadvertent discharge.

“You only touch the trigger when you’re ready to kill or destroy your target” was a command burned into her mind when she was at the FBI academy. And when it came time to pull the trigger, she’d put the Aimpoint sight to use, pulling the sling taut against her shoulder to brace the autoweapon. A flash suppressor rode on the barrel, because the six-inch tube left a lot of rifle powder unused, turning the thing into a blazing flamethrower at close range. In the dark, without the flash-hider, she’d be blinded and burned by her own muzzle-blast.

Finally, at fifty yards, the van suddenly lurched to life, tearing off like a rocket at the sedan.

Bolan stomped on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder of the road, turning Marrick’s side of the car away from the charging vehicle. A cone of brilliant blue-white light stabbed down into the windshield of the van for a moment as the helicopter pilot swung the aircraft into range.

Momentarily dazzled, the van’s driver swerved wildly, trying to control the vehicle. Bolan shoved the muzzle of the Krinkov through the driver’s window and held down the trigger. The sedan finally sluiced to a stop.

“Get out!” he bellowed, audible even over the roar of the stubby assault rifle.

Marrick threw open the door and rolled to the desert floor. She picked up the OA-93 and sighted on the pickup swooping behind the van, also blinded and dazzled by the helicopter’s spotlight. She framed the pickup in the ring of the Aimpoint sight and held down the trigger. The first two-thirds of her burst was on target, but recoil eventually wrenched her muzzle off target, bullets sizzling into the air above the enemy vehicle. She charged as rifles chattered, kicking up dirt and sand behind her.

Bolan launched from the driver’s seat, fanning the pickup with his Soviet SMG. Rifle bullets, robbed of power and velocity by a short barrel, still chopped ferociously into the flesh of hapless gunmen as Grimaldi swung the Little Bird around.

Two figures dropped into view from above, machine pistols chattering from behind the van. Gunmen disgorging from the back scrambled, firing wildly, unable to track the two plummeting figures.

Marrick swung her weapon around, reloading swiftly. She wasn’t going to let them kill Graham or Reader. She targeted a pair of mercenaries with her Aimpoint and pulled the trigger, stitching the would-be killers with a salvo of slugs. The short burst was much more controllable, everything flying on the level. She rode out the recoil, still pushing hard against the sling. She tapped off a quick follow-up blast to destroy the van’s windshield as a gunman got out on the passenger side. He scrambled wildly away from the battle.

Bolan was still occupied by the gunners in the pickup, reloading and hosing them down with precision bursts as some of the enemy riflemen had taken cover behind the vehicle’s heavy frame.

A wind flared up and something dropped into the cab of the pickup. Moments later, the flash-bang that Grimaldi had dropped from the helicopter detonated. Gunmen wailed, eyes and ears burning from the thunderclap and brilliant light loosed by the grenade. One staggered into the open, and Bolan switched the Krinkov to single shot, tagging the man through the shoulder. He went down, clutching the wounded limb, weapon long forgotten.

One prisoner accounted for. But the man who had been in the passenger seat of the van looked like a much better prize.

Marrick ran after the enemy mercenary in a broken-field pattern, chasing him down. She was tempted to shoot the man in the legs, but she knew the rifle rounds might sever arteries and kill the guy. Instead, she pushed harder, running like hell. She spotted motion out of the corner of her eye; it was Stan Reader rushing to help her.

Reader’s long, slender legs helped him pass her, the bony limbs moving like the tines of a pendulum. One part of Marrick’s mind remembered the odd gait as originating in Reader’s cross-country skiing. He was remarkably fast.

Reader launched himself, spearing the runner in the back with his shoulder and bowling them both over. The man’s hat was torn from his head, a scrub of fiery-red hair on his skull. Marrick continued her charge, seeing Reader knocked aside by the tough little redhead. She leveled her weapon at him.

“Hold it!” she bellowed.

The man twisted, pulling Reader in front of him, and the slim scientist hammered the terrorist in the face, bouncing his red crew cut off the desert floor. The terrorist jolted and heaved Reader aside, and Marrick let the OA-93 hang on its sling, diving onto the would-be assassin.

A punch slammed into her gut, knocking the wind from her, but Reader tangled his arm around the scrappy little fighter, pinning him long enough for Marrick to snap her knee into his groin. He howled in pain, then lunged, biting Marrick on the cheek, fingers digging through her long brown hair and into her scalp.

“Fucking little animal!” Marrick shouted, hammering her knee into his testicles. Reader hammered his fist into the base of the mercenary’s neck, and his teeth let go of her face. Reader lopped his long arms around the man’s neck and pulled him away from Marrick, and she punched him under the solar plexus.

The assailant’s breath exploded from his lungs and he gasped as Reader squeezed his neck tightly. The scientist’s long arms had enough leverage to drive the man into unconsciousness, and he let go just as the man went limp.

Marrick stood back and aimed the OA-93 at him again.

“Thanks,” she panted.

They looked back. Bolan and Graham were rounding up the few survivors of the ambush party.

“You’re dead meat…” a voice croaked on the ground.

Marrick whirled, seeing the redhead hold up a .45, aimed at Reader. She charged, using the machine pistol as a bat against the big pistol. They needed this guy alive.

The muzzle-flash burned across her eyes and the world went black.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They rushed Rachel Marrick into the infirmary at Hill Air Force base, Reader holding a dampened strip of his shirt to her eyes. Graham struggled to keep up as Grimaldi and Bolan hung back at the entrance of the medical bay. Medics swarmed around Marrick, and needed to pull Reader away from her eyes so they could examine her. Reader himself had to pry Graham from her side, and the two friends walked back toward Grimaldi and Bolan.

Through it all, Marrick’s mouth was a tight line of determination. She didn’t cry out, and breathed deeply and evenly, struggling to maintain her control.

“God…” Graham whispered, looking at the doctors and nurses working on her.

“She took the muzzle-blast across both eyes,” Reader whispered. “She…was protecting me and protecting him.”

Graham’s eyes watered as he stood like a statue, watching in silent impotence.

“Kirby, these are good people, some of the best-trained doctors in the U.S. Air Force. She’ll be okay,” Reader promised. “Kirby…”

Graham turned toward him, but he was silent.

“Kirby, I’m sorry. She should have let him shoot me. My armor could have taken it. We could have taken him…”

Graham shook his head and turned, walking away.

Reader glanced to Bolan and Grimaldi, both men ashen and silent. “I should have held on to him. I shouldn’t have fallen for him playing possum. I—”

Bolan rested a hand on the scientist’s shoulder. “You didn’t do this to her.”

“But I could have restrained him, or done something,” Reader murmured. “Or patted him down for weapons.”

“Anyone could have made that kind of a mistake,” Bolan soothed. “Stop beating yourself up.”

Reader looked Bolan in the eyes. “Striker, Kirby means more to me than anything else in the world. He’s my best friend. And Rachel…she means the world to him.”

The slender man looked away. “And now, she’s blind. Because I fucked up.”

Reader took a seat and folded himself over his knees, burying his face in his crossed arms.

SHOCK TRIED TO OPEN HIS EYES, but they had been taped shut, all gummy and sticky as duct tape struggled to keep his lids closed. He couldn’t smell anything, and the center of his face hurt like hell. Something salty trickled into his mouth, but a rag pulled tight at the corners of his lips kept him from speaking.

The room sounded quiet, and he struggled to move. Plastic riot cuffs dug into his wrists. He remembered how they felt when the Military Intelligence Criminal Investigation Division took him prisoner. His fingertips tingled as the blood supply was pinched off. He tried to twist free, when a big hand slapped the center of his chest and held him down.

The duct tape came off his eyes, and Shock felt as if his eyebrows had been torn out by the roots. Adhesive made his eyelids itch and when he blinked, it took an effort to open his eyes again. His skin felt raw where the tape had ripped off the top layer.

When his vision focused, he was looking at two sets of cold blue eyes. He recognized Kirby Graham as the one leaning on his chest, dangling a strip of tape with hair and skin matted to its sticky side. The other one was a tall man with black hair and weathered, tan features. This new stranger matched the description of the mysterious interloper that Stevens had warned about. Shock tried to swallow, but the gag kept him from closing his lips or moving his tongue.

“We gagged you like this because I broke your nose. If we blocked your mouth any other way, you couldn’t breathe. Normally, for blinding my girl, I wouldn’t mind if you suffocated, but we need some answers, punk,” Graham snarled.

Shock glanced to the black-haired stranger.

“Don’t look to me for any mercy,” Bolan told him. “You signed your death sentence a dozen times over. Murder. Rape. Helping Stevens kill millions more.”

Shock’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, we know about Stevens, punk,” Graham said. Then a fist like a sledgehammer smacked Shock on the breastbone. Pain stabbed through the mercenary and he tried to cough around his gag.

“Ahl tawk,” Shock garbled. “Ahl tawk.”

“Oh, you’re going to talk, pal,” Graham returned. “But first I’m going to have a little fun.”

Stan Reader stepped into view, screwing a drill bit into a power tool. He gave the drill’s trigger a squeeze and it whirled. “I would advise not thrashing too much. If I go even a fraction of an inch too deep, I could destroy the language center of your brain.”

Shock thrashed wildly in the chair, wailing gibberish that even without the rag would have proven unintelligible. They were going to drill a hole in his skull.

“Relax. I’ll open up a small aperture, and then attach an electrode directly to your brain so that we can determine if you’re telling the truth,” Reader explained.

Bolan held up the PDA with an EKG lead plugged into it.

“The software’s new, and up until now, I really haven’t had the opportunity to engage in human experimentation,” Reader continued as Shock sobbed and warbled around the gag. Tears flowed down the terrorist’s cheeks and he sawed at the gag stuck in his mouth, trying to cut it and spit it out. “Please, sir. Stop making such a fuss. I’m trying to concentrate. You wouldn’t want me to lobotomize you, would you?”

Shock’s head whipped around wildly. “Ahl tawk bah dabbit! Ahl tawk bah dabbit! Dobe dill bye kull!”

Reader and Graham looked at Bolan.

“I’d really like to try out the brain lead, sir,” Reader offered.

Bolan flicked open a wicked knife and grabbed the loop of the gag. Bolan’s blade scraped Shock’s cheek, drawing blood, and in a heartbeat, the redhead could talk clearly again.

“I’ll talk, dammit! Don’t drill my skull, you freak!” Shock wailed, his voice shrill with terror.

“Do it fast,” Bolan snarled. “Before I get bored and let Reader play Dr. Frankenstein.”

Shock spilled his guts, confessing as fast as he could, giving details of the operation.

Finally, after it was all done, Shock looked up into the muzzle of Graham’s .45. The terrorist nodded. “Make it quick.”

Graham flicked on the safety, then stuffed the gun into its holster. “You don’t deserve quick, asshole.”

Shock looked on, dumbfounded.

Graham managed a smirk. “But don’t worry, Seth Rubinstein. When you get to jail for your murder of a pretty little blond girl, I’m sure your Aryan Nation co-prisoners will make your life a living hell.”

“But my name is Houllihan…”

“You know that. I know that. But the Justice Department computers and Utah Department of Corrections,” Bolan explained. “They’re under a different assumption.”

Shock’s head hung.

Graham squeezed Shock’s jaw. “Enjoy the rest of your hellish life.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Shock trembling.

READER JOGGED to catch up with Graham and rested his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Kirby…”

Graham stopped.

“Kirby, I’m sorry I screwed—”

Graham shook his head. “No, you didn’t. Rachel’s hardheaded. She wanted to help. She wanted to be involved, and to catch the scumbags responsible for killing the cop and wounding others.”

“But I convinced Striker to bring her along and I didn’t stop Shock,” Reader said, confused.

“The two of you let your guard down when you saw we had wrapped up with the others,” Graham replied. “And if you didn’t convince Striker, then she’d have found some way. And she wasn’t killed or hurt because of the plan. She was hurt because of a simple lapse of attention and judgment. It happens to everyone. It happened to us in the gang’s apartment.”

“It happened to me. I’ve been caught napping at every step of this investigation,” Reader said.

“Shut up, Stretch,” Graham said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re the one who spotted Shock and his team clearing out of the bank. You’re the one who noticed the electromagnet that wiped out the bank’s memory. You’re the one who doubted that the team who committed the robbery was even a local gang of street toughs.”

Reader looked down.

“Remember when you were tutoring me? I kept messing up lessons. But you had patience with me, going over it again and again until I finally got them right on my own. You didn’t hand me my good grades or take any tests for me. You showed me how I could break things down the way I could figure ’em out,” Graham stated.

“Yes,” Reader answered. “But if I make mistakes here, people die.”

“They didn’t at the bank. We survived Shock’s firebombing. And Rachel will live, and if her eyes recover, it’s because you’re the one who had the bright idea to slap a wet cloth on her eyes to keep them irrigated and cool,” Graham said. “You heard what the doctor said. A third-degree burn to her right eye, and a lesser burn to the other.”

Reader nodded.

Graham managed a weak smile. “You’re helping us out. You located the bad guys. You took out two of them when we dropped from the helicopter. And you helped to take that slimy little punk Shock alive. Stop beating yourself up, because I need you to keep that brain of yours in this game. We survived this long, got this far, thanks to your efforts.”

Reader sighed. “I’ve just been feeling useless…”

“So’ve I. Let’s make up for it and put some boot to ass,” Graham told him.

Reader glanced back as Bolan eventually caught up with them. His tanned, craggy face had a slight grin on it.

“Feeling all right now?” Bolan asked them.

“Could be better,” Graham admitted. “But we’re finished thumbing our guilt glands. Pity party’s over until we can afford to get all sobby and sloppy.”

Bolan nodded. “That’s always the best plan.”

“Speaking of plans,” Reader said. “What’s our next stop?”

“I want to take a look at Dugway. Knowing how Stevens operates, he’ll have infiltrators on the scene already,” Bolan explained. “Their takeover of the facility and their attempt to breach any of the bioweapon storage areas might not be done by force.”

Reader frowned. “So we’re going to go to a place that could be crawling with saboteurs and assassins, and possibly spur them into prematurely setting off their plan.”

“If it goes off before the winds change, then Salt Lake City will be spared,” Bolan said. “A warm front is due to pass through the area from the south in about forty hours.”

“So we’ll be picking up winds that will push everything into the city within the next two days,” Graham mused. “And if that happens…”

“Better to get them going prematurely,” Reader replied.

“Or not at all,” Bolan answered. “Trouble is, security at Dugway is tight.”

“And we’re not going in the front door?” Graham asked.

Bolan shook his head. “If we head in looking official, they’ll be spooked. I’d rather not have anyone at the proving grounds hurt or killed because we set off the conspirators.”

“They know we’re in town,” Graham said. “And they know we took down Shock.”

“And probably know we took him prisoner,” Bolan added.

“But if we go in, in disguise…” Reader said. “Dugway is a multiservice station.”

“And we can use any particular uniform. Once we get past the gate,” Bolan stated.

“It’s going to be tight,” Graham mentioned.

“We have an option?” Bolan asked.

“Nope,” Graham replied.

“Then let’s hit them,” Bolan said. “Give me your sizes, and I’ll requisition some uniforms. And by now, the doctors will have finished with Marrick. Check on her.”

Reader and Graham looked at each other.

“It’ll put your minds at ease,” Bolan told them.

“Sure,” Graham said. He gave Reader a clap on the shoulder. “You want some privacy yourself.”

Bolan gave a nod, acknowledging Graham’s observational skills.

The two friends went to check on Rachel Marrick, and Bolan went to get uniforms and to check with Jack Grimaldi as he set up the communications center with Stony Man Farm.

STEVENS KNEW from the look on Pave’s face that he came bearing bad news.

“Shock’s team was neutralized,” the huge bodyguard announced.

Stevens nodded. “I expected as much. Were any of them taken prisoner?”

“We couldn’t tell. A helicopter was flying over the scene, and something was jamming all of our electronic communication,” Pave answered. “And it kicked up dust, so our long-range surveillance was blocked. More choppers arrived and began a rapid cleanup. After a few minutes—”

“It was as if there had been no encounter with our enemy and his agent friends,” Stevens concluded. “Hell and damnation.”

“We should assume that Shock spilled all he knew,” Pave suggested.

Stevens glared at Pave as if he’d just released a noxious odor.

“Sorry,” Pave apologized.

“There’s a reason why we keep our operatives so in the dark. They are all expendable,” Stevens stated. “Sadly, even Mi Qua.”

“And me,” Pave answered. “But that’s the job of the bodyguard. To die so the target doesn’t.”

“But if you die, you can’t keep me shielded,” Stevens reminded him. “And as our operatives die, they are no longer able to assist us. I do not blithely throw away my resources or my faithful.”

This was a lie, of course, but Stevens didn’t need the hulk standing in front of him to know that. He turned back to his lab table and tapped a few keys on his computer. “How is Plan Delta going?”

“Well enough,” Pave answered. “So far, nobody suspects anything yet.”

“Excellent,” Stevens stated. He adjusted the name tag on his lab coat, flipping it into his pocket so it would be out of the way of his study of the inert proteins on the slide as he looked at them in the microscope. He paused, looking at the picture of himself, and smiled.

“Major Stephen Nelson, of the United States Army Biological Warfare Research Division, Dugway Proving Grounds Branch.”

Nestled in the heart of one of America’s most top-secret facilities, “Nelson” had the authority to select his own staff, and to travel the world investigating outbreaks of diseases, obtain samples and bring them back to Dugway to work on them in well-protected laboratories under such strict security that it seemed a shame to even have his own cadre of loyal troops interspersed among the base’s staff. The real Major Nelson had died ten years ago, replaced by Stevens. Nelson himself had been one of the best and brightest of the USABWRD’s scientists, even if he was a little reclusive. It was no problem for Stevens to replace the American, who had been in his employ. The major might be found, but only in the form of ten-year-old alligator dung. Nelson had been hired because of their similarities in height and appearance—slender, knobby men with gaunt and similar faces and red hair. The mastermind known as Mojo had subjected himself to a battery of immunizations to match Nelson’s, the aftermath of which left him with a ferocious fever that forever left his eyes sensitive to strong light, necessitating the sunglasses he wore at all times.

Nelson’s staff, who were Mojo’s employees, as well, covered for the ailing mastermind and documented the change in his skin condition—pockmarked and wrinkled from a ferocious rash that left him scarred and even more slender and ghastly. The BWRD accepted “Major Nelson” back with open arms, because the scientist had far too much technical skill to leave alone. With no family or friends outside of the military, it was easy to replace the dead man.

Stevens looked at the prion strings on the slide, monitoring them. There had been no growth. He pulled up a split image, and compared them to the weaponized variant proteins that he’d already assembled into artillery rockets that Pave and his team were loading up for “demolition.”

Dugway Proving Grounds was a storehouse for biological weapons, and once they were examined, outdated samples and biological munitions were dealt with and disposed of. Those munitions were generally destroyed by a thermobaric explosive, which had so much power, even microbes caught in the blast dome of superflammable fuel and air were destroyed. The fuel-air explosives were also good at destroying old chemical weapon samples.

Stevens, in the meantime, had been destroying hulls and husks, leftover empty tubes and warheads from North Korea’s bioweapon development program, sent by Chong to America. After a scheduled demolition of the munitions, even the foreign shells were indecipherable from the pulverized and charred splinters that would have been left from U.S. munitions.

In this position, Stevens had provided botulinum and sarin munitions to allies for various conspiracies over the past few years as a means to keep his original plans solvent. He needed money to maintain his cattle farm and breeding program, and to keep his small army employed. Some were with his cause through belief that the human race would be better off if it was smaller. Others were motivated by political nihilism. But they all needed a paycheck. Stevens had laundered this cash through the bank in Salt Lake City, paying off the crews he’d selected for his stealth helicopters, buying black-market submarines, hiring Shock’s Korean mercenaries, and paying off General Chong and his staff. That, and the war funds he’d received from assisting the Iraqi government in dealing with its Kurdish problems, had all been wiped clean through “legitimate” businesses and all through the bank.

The robbery was a cover for all of that. He’d hired some hackers to clean out the last of it, but the original data in the bank’s mainframe had to be destroyed, along with hard copy. It was a necessary evil and effort.

Someone might notice Stevens transmitting his retirement fund to a Bahamian bank account through the bank in Salt Lake. It was enough money for Stevens and Pave to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives. They would hide in a nice South Seas Island, bought through the funds, and Captain Michael Jaye would stock it with plenty of supplies as the civilized world fell under the assault of the dozens of terrorist groups to whom Mojo had promised the ultimate weapon.

Weaponized spongiform prions in artillery shells would kill millions of people in the hands of his psychotic pawns. He’d made five hundred of the deadly shells, enough for the most populous cities across the globe. One hundred eighty of them were specifically meant for the capitals of every major nation. Stevens figured that the other 320 set off in giant cities like St. Petersburg, Sydney, New York, or Honolulu would wipe out hundreds of millions more. The purchased warheads were almost complete, worked on in secrecy by “Major Nelson’s staff” in their off hours. The warheads were destined for destruction, but in reality, Stevens’s operation would substitute junk munitions from various donor terrorist groups. While he didn’t expect the terrorists to succeed in their mass slaughter, even the detonation of three or four of the bioweapon warheads would result in ten million deaths, throwing world governments into such a panic that they would suspend the rights of their citizens.

When the iron fist of oppression crushed humanity across the globe, then the dogs of war and madness would finally be released. If more of the lethal warheads were detonated, so much the better, especially if they were fired in defiance of untempered authority. Democracies would succumb to dictatorships, republics would crumble in civil war, riots and mayhem would kill huge numbers.

And watching from his well-stocked, heavily defended island mansion, the biological sorcerer known as Mojo would watch civilization collapse like a house of cards, humans either succumbing to disease or becoming prey to a new age of barbarism. Those not slain by his mutant proteins would be vulnerable to human predators all too willing to seize power as law folded in on itself.

It was a brilliant, glorious strategy.

All made possible by the simple stupidity of feeding a cow the remains of another cow, passing on bad genetics to mutate proteins into nerve destroying molecules that affected almost any form of mammal indiscriminately.

Mojo smiled as he looked at the little strings of complex proteins twisted and enlarged by the electron microscope. Dr. Kent Stevens, Major Steven Nelson, Mojo, whichever name he held, would be remembered by the survivors of his apocalypse as the man who brought humanity to its knees. And then, after the collapse, he would take on the name he was born to wield.

The god-king of Earth.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Security at Dugway is tighter than a frog’s ass,” Hal Brognola informed Mack Bolan. “They’re ready for the hounds of hell if they show up.”

“Which worries me,” Bolan answered.

“What do you mean?” Brognola asked.

“All that security. It’s also perfect for providing cover for an operation already in progress,” Bolan said. “I’m sure that Mojo or Stevens or whatever he calls himself is somewhere close by.”

“Striker, the only way he could be on the inside is if he’d been on the staff of Dugway for the past decade or more,” Brognola stated.

Bolan remained silent, allowing the head Fed to drink in the reality of his own statement.

“Good Lord. But, Mojo—”

“Mojo was involved in Iraq’s culling of the rebellious Kurds in the early nineties, Hal,” Bolan explained. “And then he decided to take part in breeding cattle in Thailand.”

Brognola let out a low groan.

“Somewhere along the way, he could have infiltrated Dugway. We’ve been running into a lot of stolen biological weapons. Stuff that terrorists either learned how to access, or have ended up in control of when they had no visible means how to,” Bolan explained. “We never did figure out where exactly the botulinum ampules for the O’Hare incident came from.”

“As if someone had somehow deleted them from the U.S. Army’s own database of those weapons,” Brognola added.

“Exactly. And that would take an inside source to even give a hacker a clue as how to do that,” Bolan replied. “Have Aaron dig into this for me. It might give us some lead in to who’s responsible.”

“This could go all the way up the ladder,” Brognola stated.

“I don’t like the idea of possibly going against U.S. servicemen, even if they are on the take from a criminal mastermind,” Bolan answered. “But we’ve got the fate of millions resting on taking down Stevens before he puts his plan into operation, and time’s getting too short.”

“Striker, we have your contingency plan in place,” Brognola informed him.

Bolan nodded. He’d decided to exercise an option that he’d never thought he’d have to when he was first put in charge of the Sensitive Operations Group. When he was recruited to defend America and her allies against terrorism in the wake of his mob wars, the President who recruited him had entrusted Bolan with the authority to use almost any level of nuclear force, including battlefield tactical-level nuclear weapons. He’d utilized an Atomic Demolitions Munition on a few occasions after returning from his lone-wolf estrangement caused by the death of April Rose. It wasn’t an option that Bolan was entirely comfortable with, having access to weaponry that could turn an entire city into a blast crater.

But he informed Brognola to have bombers from Hill Air Force Base ready to turn the facilities at Dugway Proving Grounds into a sheet of radioactive glass to prevent a lethal outbreak. Bolan prepared his panic button, an electronic sensor hidden under a fleshlike prosthetic in the crease of muscle between his pectoral muscle and his armpit. To activate it, he’d squeeze hard enough to break a circuit. At that moment, the panic button would transmit its signal, and the fighter-bombers would launch.

A minute later, barring a cancellation signal from Bolan, the weapon stockpiles, the base, and everyone there would be consumed by several kilotons of nuclear fire. The biological and chemical weapons would be vaporized, rendered into harmless distaff atoms by the explosions. Whatever munitions or conspirators would be reduced to serene ash.

Salt Lake City would be spared the horror of a biohazard outbreak.

And the Executioner’s War Everlasting would come to a fiery end, Bolan’s body burned to radioactive powder in his own final option. It was a last-ditch effort, one he wanted to avoid to spare those uninvolved and oblivious to the conspiracy. As dug in as Stevens was at the proving grounds, there was no evidence that he was in complete control of the operation. In fact, the fewer who were aware of the threat Stevens posed, the more secure the cunning madman was to discovery. He probably had only a handful of supporters with him on the base, enough to carry out plans of smuggling and sabotage, but discreet enough to go unnoticed by an unwitting U.S. Military serving as security for a world-threatening conspiracy.

“Good. Thanks, Hal,” Bolan said.

“Striker, you don’t think it’ll come to that?” Brognola asked.

Bolan frowned. “I’ve got too much left to do, Hal, to want to blow myself to ashes. Too many people in trouble, too many wrongs still need to be made right. But if it’s a choice between millions of noncombatants and myself…”

“I understand,” Brognola answered.

“If containment is breeched, a nuclear fireball will plug it back up handily,” Bolan explained. “You can make antibiotic resistant microbes, but I don’t know anything that can survive temperatures approaching the heat of the sun.”

“Just finish this case,” Brognola admonished. “You’re right. We do need you.”

“I’ll do my best,” Bolan answered.

“You always do, Striker.”

RACHEL MARRICK FELT like hell, her head filled with cotton from painkillers. The fact that her eyes were taped over and she couldn’t even move her lids only added to her discomfort.

“Other than that, you look fine, Rachel,” Graham offered meekly.

“Thanks,” she answered, not sounding convinced. “Where did you get the moisture for the wet compress on my eyes, Reader?”

“It’s a proved fact that the moisture in the human bladder is free from infection carrying—”

“Thanks for saving my eyes. Please shut up.” Marrick held up her hand.

“But it worked, didn’t it?” Reader added. “Sorry.”

“My doctor said it kept my right eye’s burns from getting worse,” Marrick answered. “There’s some reaction in it still, but the other cornea is unresponsive.”

“You sound like me,” Reader mentioned.

“It’s the drugs,” Marrick said. “And I think you’re rubbing off on me.”

“A little soda water should clean that off,” Reader offered.

Marrick gave one convulsive snort of laughter. She felt Graham’s hand wrap around hers. It was big and rough, but the grasp was light and gentle, as if he were holding something fragile. She clenched her fingers tightly against his.

“I’m not giving up,” Marrick told him.

“I know you’re not,” Graham replied.

“So stop treating me like some little China doll, okay?” Marrick requested.

Graham sighed. “You know me. I’m a big worry wart.”

He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and Marrick smiled. “Yeah. I know.”

“Just relax and recuperate,” Reader told her. “Kirby and I will see this thing through with Striker.”

“Considering I can’t even lift my head from the pillow I can’t complain about you leaving me behind,” Marrick said.

Graham squeezed her hand again.

“And even blind, you’ll kick my ass if I let anything happen to Kirby,” Reader told her.

“You won’t let anything happen to him,” Marrick replied.

“You sure?” Reader asked.

“You didn’t let me take on Shock by myself. If it wasn’t for you, he might have killed me,” Marrick said.

“He did blind you—”

“Yeah,” Marrick interrupted. “He was going to blow your head off, and I stopped him. I saved your narrow ass.”

“And I just got over feeling guilty,” Reader muttered.

“Stan, I’m trying to like you because you’re practically family,” Marrick said. She was surprised, but she attributed it to the painkillers loosening her tongue. “But for God’s sake, quit being such a self-absorbed schmuck, okay?”

Reader chuckled a little nervously. “Okay, Rachel.”

“Gimme a kiss, both of you,” Marrick said. “While I’m all doped and touchy-feely.”

She felt Reader’s chaste kiss on her cheek, and Graham’s lips on her own. Graham’s kiss she drank down.

“Okay. Go save the world,” Marrick said, her voice slurring off.

Within a few minutes she was asleep again. She could tell she was asleep, because in her dreams, she could see Reader and Graham leaving the hospital room.

“Good luck,” she muttered in her dream.

THE TRUCKS LEFT Hill AFB just before dawn, laden with paperwork that had been delivered to the air base for transport to the proving grounds at Dugway. The journey was quiet as the convoy left on its standard morning travel, sending supplies to the installation. The men on board the trucks were dressed in blue coveralls and bulky coats with laminated ID cards hanging from their collars.

The trucks were laden with mail, food, office supplies and other assorted crates with which to continue the day-to-day operations of the Dugway facility. Just one more delivery trip.

Except, three men on these trucks were newcomers to the daily grind. In jumpsuits that covered fatigues and concealed handguns, Mack Bolan, Kirby Graham and Stan Reader rode in separate vehicles, each absorbed in his own thoughts as the Great Salt Lake sprawled out like a sheet of black glass in the predawn murk. Clouds hung, promising a dreary day, but that would provide neither boon nor hindrance to the men’s plans. With appropriately faked identification tags, complete with magnetic verification stripes, Bolan and his allies would pass through the inspection checkpoint to make their deliveries.

But once the crews stopped their trucks, the infiltrators had other plans.

Bolan accepted a cigarette from the driver of his truck, lighting up. He used to smoke long ago, but had cut down on the habit, for health and stealth purposes. But he still occasionally accepted one if offered to him. It was a means of socialization, and military men had few more certain icebreakers than an offered cigarette. As he let the cigarette hang between his lips, blowing smoke from his nostrils out the open truck cab, he wasn’t hit with any nostalgic feeling for nicotine, but instead, he settled into the role of a bored delivery man, making another sleepy trip for another day of back-bending labor.

“Looks like snow today,” the driver said. “If we finish soon enough, maybe I can roll up to Brighton and cut some pow.”

Bolan looked at the cloud cover, turning lighter in the growing light of day. “Ski or board?” he asked lazily.

“I board,” the driver said. “Started out skiing, but the plank really lets you have some fun. Do you?”

“More into snowmobiles,” Bolan answered. “All the lifting wrecks your leg muscles.”

The driver chuckled. “Yeah. That’s why I’m in the driver’s seat. Got your back brace?”

Bolan nodded. The driver meant the support belt and shoulder harness intended to keep back muscles from compressing from heavy lifting. It was a lie, though. The only belt and shoulder harness the Executioner wore was an improvised double-shoulder holster for his .44 Magnum Taurus and silenced Walther P-99, and a belt laden with assorted spare magazines and infiltration tools. “Never leave home without my harness.”

The driver pulled out a paper bag from the AFB commissary, bottles clinking inside. “I’ve got some bottled coffee and snack cakes. Gotta keep up that morning sugar rush, or you fall asleep. Like mocha?”

Bolan nodded. He stuck the cigarette, still relatively unburned, in the truck’s ashtray. He accepted a package of two chocolate-and-cream cakes and a small bottle of cold brown liquid.

“I know it’s not hot coffee, but when you’re driving, even a foam cup is a little too much to handle,” the driver admitted. “But you can pop six of these into a bag and haul ’em around.”

Bolan nodded, pretending mild interest as he peeled off the plastic wrapper. His eyes were on the road and the sky. No aerial surveillance tailed the convoy, and there was nothing at roadside that looked like a disguised set of cameras, especially since Bolan doubted that even Mojo could make a robotic lamb with telescopic camera eyes. He spotted more sheep flocks as they got closer to Dugway.

The herders hadn’t been put off by the containment breach decades ago. This was still good sheep country, and the sheep dug into the cold ground, freeing up grass to nibble on. There was little snow down here, despite the cold. There wasn’t that much moisture out here, as there was in the mountains, which became precipitation that gave the resorts their money making “fresh pow” as the skiers and snow boarders called the deep, powdery snow they raced across.

Bolan downed his coffee in four swallows.

“Cold, but good,” Bolan said. “I read somewhere that drinking cold liquids actually makes your body warm up more.”

“Yeah. I heard that, too,” the driver answered. “When we get to Dugway, though, they’ll have the hot stuff. It’s pretty good.”

Bolan nodded and let the cigarette hang from his lips after knocking a column of ash out the window.

Just another quiet morning, infiltrating one of the most heavily defended installations in North America.

If he was caught, either by the Dugway guards, or by Mojo’s conspirators, he’d be lucky to just be shot to death. Torture at the hands of the criminal mastermind was a certainty.

Just another morning for the Executioner.

THE FALSE LAMINATED CARDS worked. Kirby Graham didn’t doubt their effectiveness, though, since they’d been set up by Striker’s people back at Stony Man Farm. He clipped the ID to his collar and climbed back into his own truck. Country music warbled from the radio and the driver swung around and got back behind the wheel, singing along out of tune with a sultry singer’s “he done me wrong” song.

Graham endured the tonelessness of his companion’s voice as he glanced into the mirror, watching the Dugway security checkpoint fading in the distance behind them. There was another one up ahead, with head counts for the crews of the convoys.

Graham didn’t worry about the convoy on the way out. The three drivers they’d been saddled with were with Air Force Intelligence, part of the undercover effort ironically tasked with keeping Dugway and Hill safe from infiltration. And here they were, helping three ragtag crusaders slip in through one of the few flaws in security, to find a cancerous conspiracy that had grown, tangling in the guts of the proving grounds.

The drivers and their usual partners were accommodating Bolan and the others. The shotgun riders were snuggled in among the delivery supplies, and would take the infiltrators’ places in the cabs on the way out.

Graham watched as sentries passed around the truck, their pole-mounted mirrors scanning the undercarriages for bombs, in case a terrorist had somehow managed to slip high explosives into the framework of the vehicle.

Graham didn’t blame them for their paranoia, and despite the fact that Security could have discovered their ruse, he actually appreciated the proving grounds’ defenders. The perimeter was heavily defended, which would make the interior subsequently more lax. It wouldn’t be a cakewalk, and there was still a strong possibility that they would be noticed, but there would be less attention paid to those already in the area than there would be at the gates.

Graham was reassured by the balanced weights of his .45 and his Glock, even though he knew that if anyone frisked him, they’d find the powerful handguns. He looked back as the sentries continued down the line of trucks, keeping up their vigilance against molded blobs of plastic explosives or bound bundles of TNT. He wondered how Stan Reader was holding up.

He seemed to have recovered from his sense of guilt over Rachel Marrick’s fate. He also hid his nervousness about joining the convoy of delivery vehicles quite well, but there was no guarantee that he could maintain that calm. Even Graham felt the tension twisting in his gut at the possibility of discovery.

Neither of them were spies. Sure, Graham had gone undercover a couple of times, but those instances had been nerve-racking affairs. Reader, despite his contract work for the FBI and his private investigations, was by far the least experienced in the kind of skullduggery that they were engaging in.

“We’re getting close,” the driver said. “One more checkpoint, and then we can start unloading.”

Graham nodded. The drivers were average-looking and-sounding men, engaging in mind-numbing small talk. It was a change from the armed young soldiers whom they’d seen in the briefing rooms. Their quiet intensity was buried under a layer of apathy and normalcy, so that if anyone paid attention, they wouldn’t see covert, counterterrorism-trained Air Force Intelligence operatives ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat, but guys burning up their military careers until they could leave and get a job driving for parcel services.

It was brilliant camouflage, hiding in plain sight. On the day that someone tried to take advantage of the convoy, they’d end up on the receiving end of an explosive response as the covert security team burst into swift violence to head off anyone daring to attack. Graham’s heel scuffed against the folded stock of a Heckler & Koch Personal Defense Weapon under his seat. There was another under the driver’s seat. It was the only hint that there was anything untoward about the driver and his partner.

Other drivers were unaware of their true identities, according to the quick briefing they attended.

Once they reached the offloading point, the drivers would let their partners out, and there would be a quiet transition as Bolan, Graham and Reader disappeared into the base.

STAN READER HOPPED OUT of the cab of his truck. The driver’s partner came out of a compartment in his vehicle and the two men didn’t even acknowledge each other as Reader broke for the shadows. Disappearing behind cover, he spotted Bolan and Graham and wended his way between stacks of crates to where they’d assembled.

He unzipped his coat and reversed it. The jumpsuit landed in a puddle of useless cloth at his ankles, and underneath was a set of rumpled BDUs. His arms had felt constricted by the bunched cloth and he tugged the sleeves and pant legs straight. The material shook off its wrinkles quickly, and Reader rolled his shoulders around to uncramp. He felt his Skorpion bounce under his left arm, and under his right, his backup pistol, another silenced Walther P-99 in .40 caliber, tapped his ribs there.

“All loose?” Graham asked.

Reader nodded, gathering up his jumpsuit. Bolan opened a vent and stuffed it away. The Air Force security men that they’d ridden with would collect the jumpsuits on the next day, provided there was a tomorrow for Dugway Proving Grounds.

Reader plucked his bulky PDA from its spot under his BDU jacket and keyed it to life. It took thirty seconds of scanning the area before the display showed a star field of surveillance and security cameras dotted throughout the warehouse complex they were in, and the rest of the base. Soundlessly, he pointed this out to Bolan and Graham.

“I’ll take the lead,” Reader said. He snaked an earphone into his ear, its wire leading down to his pocket computer. “I can understand the sound cues from my camera scanner.”

“Fair enough,” Bolan said. “I’ll handle rear security.”

Reader swallowed, then settled into a walk. Their Battle Dress Uniforms helped them to blend in with the staff on the base, but it was a thin, tenuous disguise at best. They would have to avoid the security cameras so as not to attract attention to the fact that three unaccounted-for soldiers were traversing the facility, heading for areas they were not supposed to be. The weight of the double-pistol harness he wore also hung on his mind. While the layers of disguise and winter clothing masked the presence of the weaponry, even casual contact might reveal them. They were armed in case Kent Stevens fought to defend his conspiracy, but silenced handgun fire was not completely stealthy, and would alert Dugway Proving Grounds’ legitimate defenders. As dedicated as he was to stopping the murderous conspiracy, Reader loathed the thought of shooting at legitimate U.S. soldiers in the commission of their duty.

If they encountered Dugway’s official security in the middle of a firefight, Reader was certain he’d be gunned down.

Bolan, as he’d briefed Graham and Reader, had also stated that conflict with uninvolved military men was to be avoided at all costs.

It was a dichotomy. The man Reader knew as Striker had the authority to drop a nuclear weapon that could kill all the personnel on the base, but he would not shoot them in self-defense.

Reader understood Graham now, when the Fed stated that his covert service was of impeccable devotion to justice. Bolan wasn’t a casual murderer, and he was devoted to his crusade, but not at the cost of innocent lives. The nuclear option would only be brought into play when there was a containment breach, which would already infer that everyone on the base would be exposed to lethal microbes and dying anyway.

The base would die so that a city and its surrounding towns would live. A few thousand lives in exchange for a metropolitan area containing millions.

Reader edged out his PDA, bringing up a map of the base.

Naturally, his satellite access didn’t allow him to observe top-secret military facilities, but Bolan’s computer support team had hooked up with Reader, allowing him maps and other data that would be necessary for their mission.

He looked back to Bolan who was also consulting the map.

“We have the munitions warehouse here, and that’s the Biological Warfare Research laboratory,” Reader pointed out. “This is where we split up.”

“You can handle it by yourself,” Bolan said.

Reader nodded. He knew the plan. Graham and Bolan would check out the munitions warehouse, most likely the area where Stevens would have placed more security. Reader would infiltrate the laboratory complex, where his scientific expertise would at least allow him to figure out what to look for. He focused on the computerized composite sketch that Bolan had assembled of what Chong and others had said Kent Stevens looked like on his visits.

Mojo would be the man he looked for.

“Good luck,” Graham said.

“You, too, brother,” Reader whispered.

The infiltrators separated.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Pave hit the button on the coffee machine, filling a paper cup with hot liquid. He fished out more coins from his pocket and fed them into the coin slot as he poured the contents of the paper cup into his thermos. It took him two dollars to fill it. He grabbed a handful of sugar and cream, then walked along with his half-full thermos. Usually, the machine’s coffee was too hot, so he added tap water to get it just right. In addition, the force of the tap helped churn in the cream and sugar to blend it to that perfect solution of supersweet, creamy sludge he enjoyed sucking down to wake him up.

He checked his watch.

Ever since the mysterious wraith had arrived in Utah, he’d been awake, coordinating with the conspirators still on base and with Mojo. The munitions warehouse was still being emptied, according to his watch and his knowledge of their schedules.

The timetable was nearing its end, and he wanted to be finished before the wind shifted.

Pave ran the tap, feeling his thermos fill. He was used to Dugway, and he would regret breaking out of the habits he’d developed, but Stevens had promised a life of luxury in the South Seas.

He’d expected to have Clarice Mi as his companion on the island, taken away from a world collapsed into barbaric anarchy by a wave of biological terrorism and governmental totalitarian response. Instead, the tiny, busty little Asian was dead, slain by the mysterious wraith who had killed Shock and his mercenaries.

Whoever the man was, Pave owed him. He owed the bastard in black pain and suffering.

When he left the bathroom, he bumped into a slender man in fatigues, nearly dropping his Thermos.

“Excuse me, sir,” the skinny guy apologized.

Pave looked into the face of Stan Reader, recognition clicking in the huge bodyguard’s eyes.

Stan Reader would have never known that Pave had been part of the conspiracy if it hadn’t been for the shock crossing his face. Reader took a step back as Pave let his thermos crash to the tile floor, coffee pouring out in a mess.

“You!” Pave gritted.

Reader thought about pulling one of his guns, but one trunklike arm nearly swept his head from his shoulders, Pave’s forearm clipping him across the ear. The slender scientist buckled almost to his knees, as much from reflex as the force of the impact, and he snapped a hard punch into Pave’s big gut.

The massive bodyguard shrugged off the snap-blow, and kicked between Reader’s legs. Reader lunged aside as Pave’s shin barked on the inside of his thigh, only missing his groin by an inch. The FBI contract agent tumbled over one shoulder, rolling behind Pave. The big, ponytailed thug started to whirl, but Reader snapped both of his legs out, snaring them in Pave’s shins and ankles. It was too late to stop turning, momentum had taken hold, and on the coffee-slicked tile, the heavily built conspirator lost his balance. He crashed headfirst into the wall, his balding forehead splitting as he cracked a crater in the drywall.

“What the hell is going on?” an office worker in BDUs asked, confused by the mayhem.

Reader lurched to his feet and rushed down the hall as Pave shoved off of the wall.

“Richard?” the office worker asked, calling Pave by his assumed name.

The bloodied bodyguard was livid with rage, and his prey was escaping down the hall. With a surge fueled by fury, he elbowed the support staffer under the chin, hurling him back over his desk with a sickening crack. Windpipe collapsed by the vicious reflex, vertebrae fractured on the hard metal desktop, the soldier twisted and began dying in a messy spurting of bloody froth.

Pave ignored his victim, stomping after Reader, slipping as he skidded through his own puddle of coffee, his eyes rimmed with rage.

“KIRBY!” READER’S VOICE CUT OVER their headsets. “Kirby, I’ve been made.”

“Base security?” Bolan asked.

“No. Some huge hulk of a thug. He tried to rip my head off, but I got away…but he’s chasing me through the lab complex,” Reader said, breathless. “They must have recognized me…these have to be the people who’ve been sending assassins after us in Salt Lake.”

“Hold tight,” Graham began. “I’ll—”

“I can handle myself. But watch yourself. The bad guys know we’re here and…Oh, jeez…”

There was the wild rush and rattle of fabric across the microphone on the other end.

“Stretch?” Graham asked.

“That hulk must have found him,” Bolan said. “We have to keep on our mission here.”

Bolan caught the anger in Graham’s eyes at the suggestion that he abandon his friend, but reason quickly took over.

“He’s on the run, he can escape, and alarms haven’t been sounded yet,” Bolan told him. “We’ve still got time.”

“All right,” Graham growled.

Bolan pulled a screwdriver and took apart the vent in the roof of the munitions warehouse. They’d managed to get to the top before Reader’s call, and made certain that there were no sensors attached to the vent system. Because of the danger of contained, vaporized explosives and fuel, the vent tunnels were large enough to pump fresh air in and detonating fumes out into the atmosphere to prevent a deadly blast.

Slipping through the vents was easy, even for the broad and powerful pair of men. They moved quickly, but carefully. They reached a maintenance catwalk after a few minutes of crawling, Graham’s expression turning darker with concern for Reader as he didn’t call back. He drew his Glock 23 and made certain that the suppressor was affixed to its muzzle before sweeping the munitions storage area for trouble.

There was motion below as a forklift transported palettes of artillery shells toward the loading dock.

“According to the commander at Hill, there wasn’t supposed to be testing today,” Graham whispered.

“No. But there are demolitions of old munitions,” Bolan answered. “One problem.” He lifted a small monocular to his eye. The compact telescope showed trucks overloaded with crates and palettes. “They’re stuffed.”

Graham accepted the monocular and took a look. “Pretty dodgy setup.”

“Almost as if they were carrying twice as much as what they should,” Bolan said. “But one thing’s concerning me.”

“Those aren’t American-size artillery shells,” Graham said as he looked at one crate. “More like Soviet.”

Bolan nodded. “And the crew setting up the trucks are ignoring that little discrepancy.”

“Think it might be leftover from Iraq or Afghanistan?”

“Not in that amount,” Bolan replied. “And take a closer look at the shells.”

“Not Arabic…some kind of Kanji.”

“Like Japanese…”

“Or Korean,” Graham finished.

Bolan’s jaw set firmly. “If these guys aren’t involved in the conspiracy, then they must have pudding for brains.”

“The Korean shells are detonated, while the outdated, but still usable American munitions are sent on to another location?” Graham asked.

Bolan put his monocular away. “Exactly. Those must be part of Mojo’s handpicked crew.”

“Let’s pay them a little visit, then, so we can get back to Stretch,” Graham suggested.

Bolan checked for any sign of other soldiers in the area, his Walther slipping into his hand. “Take the right flank.”

The Executioner and Graham separated and closed in on the weapon smugglers.

STAN READER RACED down the stairwell, Pave hot on his heels. He vaulted a rail and dropped fifteen feet to a lower landing, hitting the floor in a crouch to absorb the weight of the sudden stop. He was tempted to pull his suppressed handgun, but so far he’d been lucky enough to avoid attracting the attention of the facility security.

However, it would only be a matter of a few more minutes before someone discovered the office worker that Pave had killed with a single blow, or the torn door to the stairwell. Reader thought that jamming the handle would have bought him some time, but Pave’s shoulder had proved a battering ram that even the reinforced metal of the fire-resistant door couldn’t stop.

Reader cut onto the second floor of the laboratory complex and found a cubicle farm. He disappeared into the darkened office; the morning shift hadn’t arrived at a little after 0600. He slipped into one cubicle before the stairwell exploded open, hinges tearing under Pave’s thundering assault.

Reader, for an instant, wondered if even the power of the suppressed .40 would stop the rampaging hulk on his heels.

Pave glanced around, his tiny eyes glinting in the half light when his cell phone warbled. Reader clenched down more tightly, fingers wrapped around the wooden grips of his Skorpion revolver. Thinking better of using the gun, he reached for his PDA and thumbed it to “clone” mode to listen in on the cellular signal.

Finally the incessant ringtones of the phone cut through Pave’s rage.

“What?” Pave rumbled. “I’ve got Reader on base…”

“Why in the hell did you kill—” came Stevens’s raging yell before Pave’s words cut through. “Reader? He’s here? Get back to the lab.”

“But he’s down here,” Pave said into the phone, venturing out into the cubicle farm. “And if he’s here…”

“If he’s here, then so are the others. Somehow they slipped through security,” Stevens noted. “We’re evacuating now.”

Pave glanced around and backed toward the stairwell. “All right.”

“Meet me at the helipad. We’re heading to our fallback,” Stevens said.

Pave turned and lurched into the stairwell.

Reader stood and took off after Pave. He tested his earphone communicator, and then noticed that the ear wire had been torn when he’d scurried out of Pave’s lethal grasp a second time. He cursed and plugged the communicator into his PDA.

“Striker, Kirby. Hurry up, they’re onto us,” he announced.

BOLAN HEARD Reader’s warning just before the men loading up the trucks reacted to one man’s announcement. They pulled out concealed handguns, scanning in a ring around them for incoming threats.

Bolan leveled the P-99 and fired a single shot into the forehead of one of the BDU-clad conspirators, the .40-caliber hollowpoint round chewing through skull bone and blossoming like a copper-and-lead flower in brain tissue. The gunman jerked violently, a stream of blood and pulped nerve tissue jetting out of the bullet hole. Bolan swung toward a second smuggler who opened fire into the rafters after guessing where the lethal shot had originated, shouting that the infiltrators were behind them.

The shooter didn’t know exactly where Bolan or Graham were at, but the fact that he was cutting loose with a Beretta was enough of a reason to cut him down, before he got lucky with a wild shot or a ricochet. Bolan punched a pair of .40-caliber manglers into the man’s chest, the powerful slugs chewing through muscle and bone to drill through to the vulnerable arteries and lung tissue beneath. The gunman collapsed, his pistol clattering to the concrete floor.

Graham, from his vantage point, took out a third of the smugglers with two .40-caliber rounds to the base of his neck. With his head severed from his spine by the heavyweight slugs, the third target twisted violently firing his pistol into the concrete floor.

Alarms exploded in the predawn silence, and the Executioner cursed the end of their stealth mission.

He’d intended to take out most of the enemies quickly and quietly, grabbing one of the drivers to interrogate about the final destination of Stevens’s shipment of lethal warheads. However, the mastermind’s warning had turned this from a swift strike into a two-way gun battle, and the traitorous soldiers below didn’t have silencers. Their pistol fire put the entire base on alert.

Bolan tagged another man in the leg, the powerful 180-grain slug snapping the fleeing conspirator’s femur. The man flopped to the ground, his pistol bouncing loose from stunned fingers as the others clambered onto the trucks. The four trucks tore out of the loading dock, their heavy cabs and thick tires immune to even the power of the silenced pistols they carried, due to their military construction. Without a rifle or a grenade launcher, there was no way that the Executioner could have slowed the enemy vehicles as they hightailed out of there.

But, they had one prisoner. The man crawled toward his fallen pistol, but Graham put a bullet into the gun from his vantage point, tossing the mangled weapon farther out of the prisoner’s grasp. Bolan raced to a ladder and slid down the rails to the floor.

Graham followed suit, only a few seconds slower.

Bolan grabbed the wounded man by the collar and tugged him to his knees, so that his weight would half rest on the shattered thighbones. As agony cut through the conspirator, Bolan grabbed the man’s jaw and squeezed his face, applying pressure.

“Where are those trucks going?” Bolan asked.

“To the demolitions range,” he answered, trying to play dumb. Suddenly he jerked, and his eyes bulged in pain. Bolan looked down to see that Graham had kicked him in the broken leg. A burbling scream, accompanied by a flood of spittle, poured out over Bolan’s hand. “Ah, Jesus! Please don’t!”

Bolan let go of the man and stepped back. “Sorry. But if you’re going to do this hard, I’m going to let Killer here twist your legs off.”

Graham bent and grabbed the prisoner’s ankle, the one to the broken leg, and pulled up. The conspirator thrashed violently.

Bolan scanned in the distance. Two Jeeps full of Dugway security forces were rolling on them. The doomsday numbers were running down, because there was no way he was going to shoot legitimate soldiers defending the installation.

“Park City!” the man howled. “The trucks are going to Park City! Major Nelson has a place a few miles east of there!”

“Major Nelson?” Graham asked. He turned the prisoner’s ankle, and Bolan heard bone grate against bone in the man’s thigh.

“Major Nelson is the guy in charge of the smuggling…” the conspirator sobbed. “He’s got an airfield attached to his place in the hills.”

“Mojo’s cover identity,” Bolan surmised.

“Yeah…Mojo,” the prisoner gasped. “Please…please…stop hurting my leg…”

Graham let go with a sneer. “Stretch…”

“They’re getting on a stealth helicopter, Kirby!” Reader called over their communicator. “We’ll lose them!”

“They’re headed for Park City,” Bolan announced. “Find us some transportation.”

“Transportation, right,” Reader answered. “But security alerts are going off all over.”

“We’ll have to find our own way out,” Bolan returned.

The security Jeeps drew closer, and a sentry aimed an M-16 at them. Bolan grabbed Graham by the arm and the two of them ducked back into the loading dock. As they disappeared, rifle fire chopped after them.

STAN READER WATCHED impotently as Pave and Stevens boarded the stealth helicopter and took off. He drew his silenced Walther and opened fire, but the Kevlar hull plates reflected the bullets as easily as they reflected radar emissions. The aircraft whirled and the pilot smirked at Reader before nosing the ship up and into the early morning sky. Reader emptied the pistol, but the chopper was already out of range. He reloaded and looked around.

He was out of breath from trying to keep pace with Pave, the bodyguard’s long legs driving him along with all the grace and speed of an out-of-control locomotive. Reader shook his head, wondering where in the hell he was going to get a vehicle to get out of Dugway and take off after Stevens.

Bolan had said that they were en route to Park City.

Reader frowned.

“That’s why I thought I was being watched,” he muttered as he scanned for available transportation.

There weren’t many options. Trying to get a Jeep past the security checkpoints would require a miracle once the alerts locked down the gates. He’d need something the size of the two-and-a-half ton trucks that were normally used for transportation.

From his vantage point at the helipad, he saw a line of trucks accelerate away from the munitions store point. There were five of them, and they zipped past Dugway security team Jeeps racing toward the warehouse.

Reader looked at the hangars and saw another of the stealth helicopters. He raced toward it, hoping that he would be able to get it working. He didn’t have a clue as how to hot-wire a chopper, but at least it was better than nothing.

MACK BOLAN SWUNG around the side of the loading dock doors with his .44 Magnum Taurus and triggered a single massive slug into the grille of one of the racing Jeeps. The powerful 240-grain bullet punched through the sheet metal of the Jeep and plowed through the engine housing, disrupting pistons. Smoke poured from the hood as the vehicle bled off speed.

The security team in the second Jeep, however, reacted quickly, pulling to a halt by the stalled first vehicle, riflemen in the back cutting loose with their M-16s to pepper the spot where Bolan had fired from. The Executioner, however, had fallen back, looking around for options to get out of the warehouse. He turned to see Kirby Graham climb into the forklift. Its diesel engine thrummed and he ran the vehicle up toward them.

“We won’t have any protection,” Graham admitted, “but they’re wheels.”

“I slowed the teams, but we don’t have long,” Bolan told him. “Grab that pallette over there.”

Graham glanced and spotted that the pallette that Bolan had indicated was loaded with mortar shells. “If they take a shot at us…Oh, yeah…”

“They’ll hold their fire once they recognize what we’re hauling. Those things will make a big dent in the warehouse if they go off,” Bolan explained. He hopped onto the back of the forklift as Graham picked up the pallette.

“Let’s hope they’re not trigger-happy,” Graham mentioned as he threw the forklift into gear and wheeled around. The pallette made it hard to see from the driver’s seat. Bolan, however, had a better vantage point from his position on the back. The Executioner held on to the .44 Magnum pistol, in case he needed to keep the heads down from the security team.

As they lurched into the open, one of the security men bellowed through a bullhorn.

“Halt! Throw down your weapons!”

Bolan leveled his weapon at the crate of mortar shells. He replied to the Dugway sentries in his loudest parademarch bellow. “This is three hundred pounds of high explosives with impact fuses!”

The security team’s rifles wavered for a moment.

“Back off!” Bolan ordered, his big six-inch-barreled revolver, shiny and massive, very obvious as it was pointed at the mortar shells. “You’re well within the blast radius!”

Graham glanced at the revolver in Bolan’s hand. His finger was off the trigger, and the pistol wasn’t cocked. There was no chance that he could accidentally send a .44 slug into the deadly payload on the forks of their lift. But from their distance, the riflemen protecting Dugway wouldn’t be able to see that.

“Hit reverse and back around the warehouse,” Bolan said. “If we get too far from the other munitions, they might risk taking a shot at us.”

“But with us behind the cover of the warehouse we’ll be okay…for a few moments,” Graham responded.

“Buying some time for Reader to pull a miracle,” Bolan mentioned.

Graham threw the gearbox into reverse, backing the forklift away from the security Jeeps. He heard more engines. “Who’s coming?”

“Two Hummers,” Bolan responded. “With mounted machine guns.”

“The security team would have told them about the mortar shells, right?” Graham asked, accelerating backward toward the corner of the warehouse.

“Duck!” Bolan shouted.

Heavy weapons fire chattered and one of the wheels of the forklift exploded out from under the vehicle. Graham tried to recover as the bottom of the vehicle scraped and ground on the concrete, and he watched helplessly as the crate of mortar shells tumbled off the tines of the forklift. Bolan grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the driver’s seat.

The two men scrambled, using the crippled forklift for cover. The Hummers accelerated, racing past the bulk of the wounded vehicle, .50-caliber machine guns tracking them as they disappeared behind the corner.

In another few moments, the Dugway security men would have a clear shot at Bolan and Graham, and there was no way that even their body armor could slow down the lethal power of the heavy machine guns.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The helicopter was fueled and ready for action. As opposed to the black-hulled, no-tail rotor version of the Bell JetRanger that Mojo and Pave escaped on, this was a teardrop-shaped Hughes 500D, also equipped with the cylindrical tail boom. Stan Reader crawled into the cockpit and looked it over. It was ready to fly, but sitting inside the hangar, it would require a small tow-cart to roll it out into the open.

Reader didn’t have enough time for that. He didn’t even have time to work off the standard checklist. He wished desperately that he’d spent more time on this particular model of helicopter, having only a total of twenty five hours training with the little craft. He had one thousand hours certification with the JetRanger model.

The engine turned over on the first try and Reader powered up the throttle. Out of the domed windshield, he spotted two machine-gun-armed Jeeps racing across the tarmac toward the munitions warehouse, and Reader’s stomach twisted.

He fired up the collective to takeoff speeds and the Hughes, smaller and more nimble than he was used to, popped into the air twenty feet. Luckily, he regained control of the bird before smashing the rotors into the roof structure of the hangar. The doors were open, but Reader swallowed hard.

It would be like threading a needle with a Mack truck. The agile Little Bird twitched as he adjusted the joystick, and he pushed the collective to full power. He nosed the Hughes down and raced forward.

Bolan and Graham wouldn’t have much time, not with the heavy security vehicles racing for them. He had to get out.

The stick wobbled against his grasp, but Reader held it steady, roaring through the hangar doors. The NOTOR boom bounced behind him against the top of the entrance, and through the top of the cockpit dome, he could see how close the top lip of the entrance had come to his rotors. But now, he saw only cloudy skies above him and he put the 500D into a powerful climb, building speed and momentum as he swung the aircraft into an arc. The helicopter twisted under his control and he swung toward the Hummers.

In the distance, he could see two antlike figures on a forklift, backing away with a payload of crates hanging on its forks.

Whatever was on the palette had to have been something that would give the Dugway security riflemen some pause. He switched on the radios and heard a soldier announce that the forklift was loaded with mortar shells with impact fuses.

The gunners in the Hummers popped into position behind their heavy machine guns.

“I’m going to take out the wheels,” one announced. “I have a clear shot.”

“Take it,” the security chief announced.

Another radio signal cut through Reader’s hearing.

“Bio-Two, Bio-Two, you have not filed a flight plan!” Dugway Central Air Traffic Control announced. “Stay out of munitions warehouse area! Security aircraft are to arrive in area within thirty seconds.”

Reader looked out the window and saw two fat, beetle-shaped Black Hawk UH-60 helicopters hanging in the air. Door guns hung lazily on their sides, ready to lay down fields of fire in case the infiltrators tried to escape with the lethal munitions from the warehouse.

In the distance, he noticed the convoy of two-and-a-half-ton trucks blasting through the gates.

“Bio-Two! Bio-Two! Return to pad!” Dugway CAT repeated.

“Alert! Convoy breaching perimeter defenses!” another security man’s voice called. “Not stopping. Not responding to warning shots.”

Reader accelerated the Hughes over the tops of the two machine-gun-armed Hummers, blinding the men on the heavy weapons with the whipping winds from his rotor wash. He could see the forklift, overturned. Graham and Bolan, though, were crouched beside the warehouse, shaken but otherwise unharmed.

“Bio-Two is not responding! Take him down!”

Reader swung the Hughes into an arc and raked the NOTAR across the windshield of one of the Hummers. A blast of concentrated air rammed into the glass and it buckled, starring white. The roof of the vehicle bumped off the tail boom, and Reader wrestled with the jerking aircraft, trying to keep it under control. The second Hummer swung around and fired a burst of .50-caliber shells that punched through the rear cabin, missing Reader in the pilot’s seat, and thankfully also avoiding the engines in the rear of the aircraft. He accelerated forward and watched as the vehicle with the damaged windshield slowed to a halt. The gunner in the turret on top tried to increase the elevation on his M-2 Browning, but Reader spiraled wildly over it, climbing as fast as he could.

The other Hummer broke away from its partner, gaining distance so that the Hughes was in the arc of fire. A stream of tracers licked underneath the 500D and Reader fought to keep up his frantic climb. The Black Hawks roared into range, flanking him.

Grim faces peered at him over the sights of M-60D machine guns.

“Blow Bio-Two out of the sky!” Dugway CAT called.

STAN READER HAD BOUGHT Mack Bolan a reprieve as he buzzed the machine-gun-armed armored Hummers, and he took advantage, leveling his Raging Bull at the machine gunner on the top of the second vehicle. He adjusted his aim at the last moment and blazed away with five quick shots. The long-nosed Magnum revolver launched its payload, and Bolan could see the gunner recoil from his M-2 Browning, its receiver blasted into useless junk by a swift succession of heavy-caliber pistol rounds.

The first gunner in the stopped Hummer swung his machine gun around and raked the corner of the warehouse, but the Executioner and Graham retreated from the savage onslaught. Graham, though, instead of heading back to the cover of the warehouse wall, charged forward toward the overturned forklift.

A security Jeep raced around, riflemen in the back ready to take up the slack for their heavier-armed ally when Graham reached the flipped forklift. He skidded to a halt and grabbed a freely rolling mortar shell. He plucked the safety pin on the warhead and hefted the miniature bomb.

“Come on,” Graham taunted. “Closer…”

He whipped the 120 mm shell. While shaped like a football, the warhead seemed to weigh a hundred times more. Still, Graham put everything he had into the throw, and the bomb slammed nose-first in front of the security Jeep. He was short by twenty feet, but when the shell hit, it didn’t matter.

The mortar shell erupted with the force of a thunderclap, and Graham felt the shock wave rip across him. The riflemen in the back of the Jeep were dislodged from their positions, and the driver swung crazily trying to keep his vehicle from flipping over.

Graham smirked. “Touchdown.”

He looked back and saw that the first Hummer and its machine gunner were still in action. The .50-caliber Browning swung toward him, and Graham froze, knowing that they had him dead to rights. The muzzle flared and the ex-college football star was yanked off his feet and slammed against the frame of the forklift.

Bolan pushed Graham under cover as the tarmac to their side erupted under a line of heavy-caliber slugs.

“Thanks,” Graham said.

“Forget it,” Bolan answered. “Reader’s got company up there. Black Hawks with security troops have him pinned down.”

Graham looked up and saw the teardrop-shaped helicopter flittering like a bumblebee between two heavier, predatory air sharks. It was a wild aerial dance as the bulkier Black Hawks wound in a spiral around the Hughes, trying to keep it trapped long enough for the door gunners to hose it down. At this distance, there was nothing he could do. Chucking the mortar shell even forty yards across the tarmac had taken everything out of him, and his arm hung like limp pasta from the muscle-wrenching effort.

“Stan, cut the power and drop,” Graham whispered. “You’re a lot more agile than those bloated slugs.”

Suddenly, the Hughes 500D plummeted, as if the strings holding its toylike frame aloft had been severed. Graham swallowed hard as the Little Bird dropped like a rock, the Black Hawks left easily three hundred feet above it, trying to recover. Suddenly the agile little aircraft twisted out of its power dive with fifty feet to spare and lanced through the sky toward the forklift.

Reader swung the Hughes around. “Get on!”

The moment that Graham heard Reader’s voice over his earphone, he realized that the slender scientist had taken Graham’s jet fighter advice. He and Bolan charged toward the aircraft known as Bio-Two, climbing aboard. Bolan slipped into the back while Graham hauled himself into the copilot’s chair. The minute both men had grabbed on, Reader swung the Little Bird behind the cover of the warehouse.

“Thanks for the advice,” Reader said. “But you’re the one who’s got to get us out of here. I used all my good tricks.”

Graham clutched the joystick and the collective throttle. His shoulder still ached from the effort of throwing the mortar bomb, but he ignored the pain through force of will, twisting the nimble Hughes out of the path of streams of heavy gunfire from the Black Hawks and the remaining Browning machine gun on the Hummer.

“Stan, we’re going to need a lot more than my jockeying,” Graham cautioned.

Reader looked at the PDA and went to work. “I’ll jam communications with my satellite hookup at the condo—”

Graham nodded as he juked the Hughes hard.

Bolan reloaded his Raging Bull and cocked the hammer on the revolver. He hung out the side door, offhand wrapped tightly around a safety strap, the other bracing the heavy Magnum revolver as he took aim at one of the Black Hawks. He knew that the steel rotors were tough enough to bounce .30-caliber rifle fire, but even a rifle didn’t have the sheer bullet weight of a .44 Magnum slug. Besides, he wasn’t intending to blow the Dugway security aircraft out of the sky, only to hold it off. He tripped the trigger and one 240-grain slug speared through the spinning rotors, chipping off one aluminum blade before tumbling into the main mast.

The Black Hawk swerved away.

The gunners, thrown off by the sudden evasive action of their pilot, weren’t able to hose down the Hughes. Graham swung lower to the ground, making a beeline for the base’s perimeter fence. The second Black Hawk swung in a tight circle, trying to drop down on the opposite side that Bolan was shooting from. Graham, though, twisted the Hughes around on its rotor hub, giving the Executioner a clean shot at the other Black Hawk. The Dugway pilot evaded to keep Bolan’s Raging Bull cannon from damaging his aircraft.

The first Black Hawk Bolan tagged limped to a landing, smoke bleeding from the base of the main mast. The .44 Magnum slug had to have either deformed violently on contact with a blade, or else it pushed a chipped slab of the flat aluminum into the rotor mast. Either way, the Black Hawk was crippled, but the pilot had managed to land without causing injury to its crew.

The Executioner couldn’t have dreamed of getting that kind of a shot a second time against the sturdy, powerful Black Hawk, but the Dugway security helicopter crew wasn’t going to take any chances of a repeat performance. Graham aggressively tried to get into a superior dogfight position against the faster, but far less nimble Black Hawk, forcing the Dugway defenders to break off, pouring on the speed to escape the tenacious little helicopter.

“They’re disengaging,” Reader said. “Plugs out, gentlemen.”

Graham plucked his earphone out in time to hear a faint, soft howl emanate from the speaker.

“They’re deaf,” Reader announced. “I bounced a heavy band audio frequency into the perimeter of the base. That will keep them occupied for about two minutes.”

“By then, we’ll have disappeared into the foothills,” Bolan answered, strapping into the cabin’s rear couch. He thumbed a fresh .44 Magnum round into the Raging Bull to replace the one he’d spent taking down an enemy helicopter. “Do a quick search on the residence of a Major Nelson in Park City.”

Reader nodded. “Wait…Nelson?”

Bolan nodded.

“I remember that name…” Reader said. “Yeah. He owns a stretch between a couple of mountains. Sort of a ranch, but it’s mostly ski country there, except for an airstrip. In fact, the other day, Graham and I passed close by while cross-country skiing and plinking.”

“The day of the bank robbery,” Graham added.

“Feels like a year ago,” Reader answered.

“It was only this weekend,” Bolan returned. “You know the area?”

Graham sighed. “Stretch, take over. My shoulder’s killing me.”

“Right,” Reader answered. “You okay?”

“I just need to rest it,” Graham said. “Won’t have much time if we go pay a visit to Major Nelson.”

“If that’s the case, then we can reequip at your condo,” Bolan suggested. “Do you have any snowmobiles? We can slip in the back door.”

“We’re not going to intercept the convoy?” Graham asked.

“We don’t have enough firepower on board,” Bolan explained. “Besides, it’ll take them at least an hour to reach Park City, and then even more time to transfer their equipment to whatever planes they have at Nelson’s airstrip.”

“What about the containment breach Mojo planned for Dugway?” Reader asked.

“My first contingency plan is taking effect right now,” Bolan said. “Your jamming signal wouldn’t affect their Internet connection, nor their land-line telephone communications.”

“So?” Graham asked tiredly.

“I think they intended to release the contagion electronically,” Bolan told him.

“A logic bomb,” Reader translated. “Or, ironically, a computer virus.”

“A virus to release the anthrax virus…” Graham said.

“Actually, anthrax is a bacterium, not a viral infection…” Reader interjected.

“You were talking like a normal person for a couple hours, there, Stan. Now you’re getting all scientific,” Graham replied.

Reader raised an eyebrow. “I believe it’s due to a renewed sense of confidence in our situation—”

“Stretch…” Graham cut him off.

“I know,” Reader answered. “Shut up and drive.”

Kirby Graham smiled and laid back against the headrest of the seat.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

AARON KURTZMAN HAD penetrated Dugway Proving Grounds’ security system only a few minutes before the Executioner and his allies infiltrated, but the hunt for the lethal electronic booby traps laid within the system had taken the two hours the trio of crusaders had been on the scene. Shuffling through the firewalls, antivirus codes and other systems was at once tedious in its intricacy, but tense in that the slightest mistake would turn the entirety of the United States Military Computer Warfare division against him. Conduits from NORAD and the Pentagon, where small armies of military hackers manned their posts, would provide them with countless avenues not only to shut down the Dugway system, ironically protecting the lethal sabotage set in place by Mojo, but also lead them to attack Stony Man Farm’s own cybersystems.

As such, the rest of the cybercrew—Carmen Delahunt, Akira Tokaido and Huntington Wethers—were manning the computer defenses. All three would have to put their skills to the test to keep the Sensitive Operations Group’s computer systems safe from concentrated counterattacks from two of the most highly skilled groups of hackers in the world, and the powerful networks at their command.

Kurtzman shifted gently through countless information hubs, shuffling through files subtly, looking for anything that didn’t quite belong. He knew, though, that if Mojo himself had been a part of the Dugway staff for years, anything he set into the computer systems would have seemed home-grown, and a natural part of the electronic landscape. Still, Kurtzman couldn’t let up. Somewhere, there was a virus or a logic bomb waiting for the simple command to erupt and release deadly contagion into the atmosphere.

The computer genius looked at the screen, his fingertips dancing wildly across the keyboard as he guided his probes deeper into the defenses of the mainframe. His forehead creased with concentration, and a droplet of sweat beaded off his right eyebrow. Kurtzman gave his head a shake, and the sweat flicked away, dropping onto his forearm rather than stinging into his eye.

The network for Dugway was massive, with subsystems as extensive as a whole city’s. As it was, Kurtzman, with the power of his search programs and his own genius, could only skim the most likely hiding spots for the digital sabotage. Even if he had the other three on hand, poring through every file in every folder of the mainframe, it would take a year to search every jot of data for the sabotage.

But it had to be done. Otherwise, the Executioner had said a city could die. At the very least, if Kurtzman failed, the thousands of men and women stationed at Dugway would be murdered in a fireball of nuclear cleansing. The pressure was on, but that was how Kurtzman liked it. Adrenaline raced through his bloodstream as his own brain’s neurons fired quickly, thoughts and ideas leaping like lightning from lobe to lobe in his mind. He was in the zone, rapidly making logical associations at a speed that belied his wheelchair-bound form and burly hands.

“Intrusion protocols activated,” flashed on the screen, and Kurtzman tensed, but he double checked the screens.

“They’ve detected Bolan and the others,” Delahunt announced. “Security teams have been dispatched to the munitions warehouse.”

Kurtzman’s lips set tightly. “Keep me posted.”

“Helicopter’s taking off from the base, too,” Wethers stated. “Unauthorized, but…Radar has cut out. They’ve lost contact with the craft.”

“Stealth helicopters,” Kurtzman responded. He continued to hack away at the mainframe. His molars ground, and though he wished that he could take a sip of his industrial-strength sludge coffee, he denied himself the caffeine rush. Bolan counted on him to be the last line of defense for the very people who were alerted to his intrusion on the base. Kurtzman sailed through cyberspace, hunting and seeking out the elusive cybernetic commands that Bolan and he had agreed were in place.

There was no other option, really. A suicide operative would likely go off too soon, whenever his emotional state hit the perfect fever pitch of madness and zealousness. Explosives placed in key soft spots could be discovered by dog teams and security personnel.

The only sabotage element at work had to be a computer program of some form. And while there were minor viruses within the Dugway mainframe, none was anything more than a standard infection picked up by bored soldiers downloading Internet games and illegal programs online.

Kurtzman’s hands were growing tired, and his eyes continued to dart over the screen, looking for that one out-of-place line of code that would prove to be the telltale sign of digital sabotage. “Come on, dammit.”

The discovery of Bolan meant that Mojo was fully aware his cover had been blown. The scorched earth option that the criminal mastermind had set up could be activated at any time. Kurtzman hunted through the system.

“Bear!” Delahunt spoke up. “I’ve got Striker on the line. He said that the guy running the show at Dugway is Major Nelson.”

Kurtzman broke off his current line of search and plowed back through the mainframe toward the personnel network. “Nelson.”

Kurtzman slipped out of the base’s roster and threw up the server nodes in the mainframe for all personnel named Nelson. There were only thirteen who had their own nodes, the others being people of lower ranks who only required a user name to access official e-mail and Dugway bulletin boards.

And there was only one associated with the Dugway branch of the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Research Division.

Kurtzman invaded the node and quickly shut it down, isolating it from outside contact even as a message raced toward it. He threw a wall of black ice around the node, blocking the signal, then penetrated into the frozen depths of the node.

It took only a minute for his probes to find the logic bomb that would open the vents of the containment core. Mojo had almost activated this program, but the combined efforts of Mack Bolan and Aaron Kurtzman had prevented a computerized disaster.

The Stony Man computer genius purged the Dugway mainframe of its deadly sabotage, then hacked deeper into Major Nelson’s files.

“Carmen,” Kurtzman said, coming down off of his adrenaline high, “contact Hal and tell them to stand down the fighter-bombers. We’ve got everything under control.”

“Right,” Delahunt answered, relief filling the redhead’s voice.

KENT STEVENS LOOKED at his PDA as its message bounced off the server back at Dugway. He glanced over to Pave, and shook his head. “They cut us off.”

“So they know where we are,” the bodyguard said. “Great.”

“We still have the last shipment of artillery shells ready to transport out,” Stevens explained. “And, I do have my last-minute option waiting at my lodge.”

Pave nodded. “I’ll get that going while we’re loading the planes,” Pave stated.

“Good,” Stevens answered.

His last-ditch plan included an old Soviet 120 mm gun, acquired from his friends in the Iraqi government. It had been smuggled from the Middle East on his personal submarine, and brought up from the coast by one of his truck crews. That had occurred years ago, and the cannon was assembled under the cover of a barn where he stored his snowmobiles.

Granted, this necessitated the delivery of North Korean shells. While these were delivered by his partners’ submarines, and most of these were put to use in covering as destroyed munitions at the proving grounds’ demolitions disposal field, he kept a few of the shells in reserve. He had modified one of the warheads with the first batch of airborne, weaponized prions he’d developed. He had the range to hit Salt Lake City, and an airburst would provide a deadly, invisible cloud that would strike the city hard. Given air-dispersement patterns of the bioweapon, he was certain of at least two hundred thousand casualties, even though they wouldn’t develop for the first couple of months. But, by then, he would be on a tropical beach, drinking his smuggled whiskey and smoking Cuban cigars, securely away from the rest of the planet as the terrorist groups he supplied waged a lethal biological war against the nations of Earth.

With a satellite dish listening in on the collapse of civilization, once there had been enough mayhem, and governments were weak and reeling, Stevens would step forward and present himself as the man who could provide all the answers. In his decade of research, he’d developed a cure against CJD, at least the airborne version he’d developed. He still had trouble trying to clean up the mutant proteins transferred by digestion, but governments wouldn’t worry about that. They wanted something to protect themselves from the silent, deadly strain that would rain down on them from explosive shells.

The terrorist networks that would receive his artillery shells would also have the means of replicating the prions. And while he doubted that most of them could do anything with such formula, at best the bathtub biochemists would simply infect themselves with their own duplicates of CJD, killing themselves off and reducing their threat to his future leadership of the world.

Stevens-Mojo was going to trade the secret of survival for only one thing.

Raw political power.

The helicopter swooped over his ranch and he looked at the transport planes parked on the snowy runway. The powder had been crushed flat by a bulldozer to allow the aircraft traction to take off. He knew that each was only half full, the last remnants in the trucks he’d ordered to break off and come to his ranch.

Stevens knew that he wouldn’t have long, but he had enough men on hand, with automatic weapons and training, to hold off a small army.

He got on the phone and called the leader of his personal security team.

“Block off the roads, and get the antiaircraft weapons set up,” Stevens ordered. “We’re expecting visitors.”

“Yes, sir,” Viktor, his handpicked mercenary commander, answered. “Nothing on radar, yet.”

“Good.” From the window of the JetRanger, Stevens watched as heavy trees toppled to block the road leading to his base. Only one road was left wide open, and that would be closed off by an avalanche as soon as his convoy of trucks arrived. Swedish 40 mm Bofors antiaircraft guns, bought with a grateful Iraqi’s money, rose from their hidden turrets, quad barrels sweeping the sky to greet any aerial assault on the camp. Short of sending in a squadron of fighter-bombers with napalm and antiradiation missiles, there was no way any force was going to hit his valley without suffering devastating losses.

And yet, the mysterious man in black had taken on equally dangerous facilities.

Stevens wanted out of Utah as soon as possible.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Arctic Cat Z570 ESR was five hundred pounds of powerful trail-riding machine, and Mack Bolan revved it up to full power as he followed Stan Reader and Kirby Graham, riding in tandem on the two-seater 570 Bearcat that was Reader’s alternate ride. Though the 570 ESR single-seater was a couple of years older than Reader’s tandem seater, it was well maintained and the three men rocketed across the countryside at sixty miles an hour, the engines razzing noisily in the early morning silence. By taking back trails, they hoped to avoid others, and except for a small film crew cutting in another direction toward some peaks, they were alone in this part of the woods.

As it was, the trio had divided the long guns they’d rapidly gotten from Reader’s arsenal and stuffed them into duffel bags. Reader played a hunch and led them toward the one roadway to Stevens’s ranch where he indicated could be blocked off by avalanche.

“That is where he will likely direct his convoy, reserving the most irreversible terrain change for the final blockade,” Reader had told them.

“And we can intercept the trucks there,” Bolan had noted.

“Right,” Reader’d confirmed. “In fact, look at this map. We can set up an ambush, but I’m not certain where.”

“This hairpin,” Bolan had pointed out. “They’ll have to slow down. But we’d need three mobile forces.”

“I only have two snowmobiles, but I am a cross-country skier,” Reader’d advised, “and a biathlete.”

“Shooting from skis,” Bolan had mentioned, pointing to spots on the map. “Works for me. We’ll drop you off at the block end, and Graham and I will swoop in here and here to catch them off guard.”

Reader hopped off the Bearcat and Graham took over. The biathlete quickly strapped into his skis and took the rifle from his pack. Under Bolan’s advice, they left the M-16s behind. In the cold, snowy terrain, they needed a rifle that could cut through winter clothing or a truck cab. The security men at the gates of Dugway had proved ineffective with their M-16s, so they had 7.62 mm or heavier with them.

Reader had a Heckler & Koch G-3 rifle. With a 20-round magazine, the durable, reliable rifle was heavy, but its collapsing stock and superb engineering were perfect for cold weather, and its 7.62 mm cartridge was more than sufficient to smash through a truck windshield or render an engine useless junk in even the sturdiest of trucks. Bolan had an Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Precision rifle in .300 Winchester Magnum with a scope. The 10-round magazine and bolt-action design was no hindrance to the Executioner. He was swift and accurate with the relatively low-technology sniper rifle. The action had been originated in the nineteenth Century, but the AWP .300 was made of space-age fiberglass with a sleek, modern optical sight. Launching a 180-grain slug at 3200 feet per second, the .300 WM cartridges would stop anything smaller than a grizzly bear with one shot, or cause mayhem with the soft-skinned transport trucks.

Graham had an Armalite AR-10, the 7.62 mm version of the M-16, slightly heavier to handle than the larger, more powerful cartridge, but maintaining the same balance, reliability and operation as the smaller M-16. Graham and Reader had both opted for Aimpoint scopes, tough little optical units that allowed for fast and easy aiming. The three of them were also equipped with fragmentation grenades, 250 rounds of ammunition for their rifles, their handguns and spare ammunition.

It was a heavy load, but Bolan anticipated that they wouldn’t have a chance to stop off for more gear. Stevens had to be stopped here and now.

Reader understood what that meant. While Graham had informed Bolan that the scientist had doubts about the morality of a covert direct-action team the likes of Stony Man Farm’s forces, the reality of Kent Stevens-Major Nelson-Mojo had shown him the truth. Sometimes you had to go outside the law to save the lives of millions.

It was a moral struggle that Bolan had long ago come to terms with, and he hated having to subject anyone else to such a dilemma, but this emergency had forced him to recruit the young scientist. Reader sliced through the woods on his skis to his part of the ambush, and the Executioner spun and rushed to the back door of the ambush, a low hill that allowed him to overlook a mile of road.

He parked the snowmobile, ready to start with a flick of the ignition, in a copse to one side, and settled down behind the AWC .300. The Bushnell scope gave him a clear view of the trucks heading up the road. Packed snow stretched out in front of the convoy.

“They’re coming,” Bolan said. “Give it a minute.”

“Right,” Graham said. He’d taken position at the trunk of a heavy fir tree, giving him a wide arc of free fire across the road. When Reader blasted the lead truck, he would cut loose on the middle three trucks, while Bolan crippled the rear vehicle. Graham had the widest field of fire, but he had to be the most careful, since he could too easily rake the munitions in the beds of the trucks. If a .308-caliber slug struck a shell, there was the possibility of detonation.

Graham knew the risks, though. He’d focus on the cabs and the wheels of the trucks.

Bolan caught movement at Reader’s position, and he scanned the scientist as he packed two grenades into the flattened snow, covering them lightly with some loose powder to disguise them. Reader skied back to the roadside and hunkered down, adjusting his rifle.

An improvised landmine. Bolan knew that demolitions disposal teams used 7.62 mm rifles to shoot grenades to detonate them. Reader had thought of that, and he was going to use that trick to set off the grenades under the lead truck, trusting the undercarriage of the heavy transport vehicle to protect the deadly payload in the back while being wrecked by the blast and fragmentation.

Bolan watched as the trucks crawled past. While they had been rolling fast and hard down the road, the hairpin slowed them down. It would take a while for the driver to bring the big vehicle back up to speed, but on the snow-packed road, overloaded with munitions, they couldn’t risk hitting the curve at top speed.

That would give Reader his chance.

Bolan didn’t doubt his skill. As an Olympic Biathlon contender, Reader was used to hitting five-inch metal plates from one hundred yards away. While those were shot with a .22-caliber precision rifle, the range was shorter by a quarter, and Reader hadn’t crossed three hundred yards of rough, snowy terrain in the space of a few minutes. Rested and braced, Reader could hit the grenades with his superbly accurate Heckler & Koch. If not, he could empty the magazine into the windshield and grille of the truck as a last-ditch effort.

The last truck passed the Executioner’s position, and Bolan sighted on the rear wheel.

Stan Reader pulled the trigger and a muffled explosion thumped under the front wheels of the enemy truck. The out-of-control transport skidded, spewing up snow from its rear tires, and crashed into a roadside ditch.

The second truck accelerated to try to squeeze past the first vehicle, but Kirby Graham opened up with his AR-10, filling the cab with a storm of high-powered rifle bullets. The driver and his partner jerked violently as Graham’s sniper fire tore through the driver’s door and punched through both men before finally expending the last of its energy digging into the passenger’s door. The truck, its occupants no longer in control, slid out of control and rear-ended the first truck.

Bolan pulled the trigger and his .300 Winchester Magnum slug slammed into the hub of the last truck’s rear axle. The power of the bullet fractured the axle. With the weight and the stress of the snowy road, the wheel tore off on the next bump and the rear bumper sunk into the road, dragging along and pulling the vehicle into a fishtail that blocked the two previous trucks from backing up.

The driver opened the door on the fourth truck and pulled a pistol from its holster. Bolan swung and punched a round through his forehead. The Magnum hunting round tore off the top of the gunman’s skull in a halo of blood and tissue that sprayed across the hood of the truck and the snow behind. There was no other movement in the cab, which wasn’t surprising as Bolan and Graham had killed three of the smugglers back at Dugway, cutting down on the opposition here.

Six down, from Graham and Bolan’s actions, and in the distance, Reader exchanged fire with the crew of the first truck. From the sound of things, one of them had a submachine gun.

Stan Reader popped his bindings and rolled in the snow, clutching the G-3 tightly as autofire chopped into the snow in his wake. He finally reached the cover of a tree trunk as 9 mm slugs plunked impotently against the tree. Reader poked the G-3 around the side and saw the guy with the submachine gun reloading. The slender scientist pulled the trigger twice and caught the gunner in the upper chest. Both bullets were lethal shots, smashing through ribs, lungs and blood vessels, causing horrendous internal damage.

The man dropped his machine pistol and collapsed off the truck’s running board, blood pouring from the massive holes. Stunned by the twin hammering impacts, the gunman’s heart hammered, squirting blood out into the snow, turning it to a puddle of crimson beneath him.

The driver ducked behind the hood of his vehicle and burned off the Beretta’s magazine, trying to reach Reader behind cover. Unfortunately the driver hadn’t noticed Kirby Graham. A single 7.62 mm slug smashed into the base of the shooter’s skull, 175 grains of lead detonating violently and hurtling splinters of bone and spongy brain tissue in all directions. Nearly decapitated, the driver slumped down the fender of his truck, sightless eyes bulged in their sockets from the hydrostatic force of Graham’s shot.

Two remained, the drivers of the third and last trucks. They both hurled their pistols into the snow, crying out for mercy.

“Come on out!” Graham ordered. Bolan crawled onto his Arctic Cat snowmobile and raced up while Reader mounted his skis and closed with the third truck. Bolan took the fifth truck’s driver prisoner at the point of his revolver, while Reader kept the third driver quiet at the end of his rifle, giving Graham the opportunity to drive the Bearcat down to the convoy ambush. Reader went back to the first truck and retrieved the submachine gun after Graham took possession of their other prisoner. He turned the chatterbox over to Bolan for close-quarters mayhem. It was an Uzi, and the guy riding on security had three magazines for it. Bolan added the loot to his arsenal.

“Get in the driver’s seat,” Bolan ordered, taking the fifth driver to the side of the fourth truck. He loaded his war bag into the passenger seat well, and slid alongside his prisoner. “We’re staying the course.”

The driver knew what Bolan meant.

Graham rode shotgun with the other prisoner. The third and fourth trucks had been the only undamaged vehicles, and Reader sat on the tailgate of the third truck. Their plan had called for taking at least one of the vehicles without obvious damage. The drivers surrendering was the icing on the cake. Reader would jump ship before they reached the airfield, swinging around so as to take up a sniper’s roost while Bolan and Graham got up close and personal.

It was still a risky plan, but they had one ace in the hole back at Hill Air Force Base—Jack Grimaldi.

“THERE’S BEEN GUNFIRE reported,” Viktor told Stevens as the planes were being prepared.

“Damn. They must have caught up with the convoy.” Stevens cursed. “Get in touch with the drivers.”

“Already on it,” Viktor said. He handed the cell phone to the mastermind.

Stevens turned on the phone. “Report.”

“This is Anderson,” the driver replied, out of breath. “We lost three trucks.”

“What happened?” Stevens asked.

“They used one of the stealth helicopters to cut us off. They laid an ambush, and tried to cut us off using handguns and grenades,” Anderson responded. He sounded frightened. “First the attack at the warehouse…”

“How many are left?”

“Four of us. We got lucky that they took the Hughes. It didn’t have enough armor to hold off submachine-gun fire,” Anderson said.

“We didn’t hear a crash,” Stevens snapped.

“The pilot was good. We damaged the bird, but they came down too far from the road. We’re bringing everything we can,” Anderson replied. “But we’ll need more vehicles to grab the rest of the stuff from the other trucks.”

“They didn’t damage the cargo?” Stevens asked. He snapped his fingers and Pave, now armed with a pair of short-barreled AK-47s, nodded.

“No. They must have been afraid to set off the live munitions,” Anderson answered. “We’re about five minutes out.”

Stevens nodded to Pave who slung his rifles and opened a firing stud on a console. The hulking bodyguard pressed the button, and in the distance, thunder rumbled.

A sixty-inch base of thick, fresh snow cracked loose under the avalanche-inducing explosives.

Stevens was closing the road early. Too bad about the drivers, but he had enough to start his war against civilization. “Get the planes ready for takeoff.”

In the distance, rumbling snows crashed down the slope of the cliff in a tidal wave of white death.

ANDERSON HAD MISLED Stevens on the other end of the line. Sure, they normally would have been five minutes out, but Bolan knew the moment that the driver called in to his master, whatever plans he had to seal off his ranch would be put into place.

Anderson was charging his truck along, as was Graham’s driver, Dykstra, at 100 miles an hour. It was an insane rate of speed on the snowy roads, but with the cliffs above, they had no choice. Avalanche-causing charges could have been placed anywhere along the line.

Reader, on the tailgate of the previous truck, waved frantically. A furious white cloud signaled the rush of a snow slide, and Anderson’s face paled at the sight of the fifty-foot-tall cloud tumbling down toward the road ahead. Bolan saw the driver’s foot flex harder against the gas, squeezing everything out of the engine that he could get.

“Come on,” Bolan whispered as the two-and-a-half ton truck tore over the slippery road. They were lucky that the weight of their cargo was enough to stabilize the trucks on the snow-slicked back roads. Still, if they had to make a turn at this speed, they’d wipe out.

“Oh hell, we’re not going to make it,” Anderson muttered. “We’re not gonna—”

“We’ll make it. Keep going!” Bolan snapped.

The relationship between prisoner and captor had evaporated in the face of the avalanche. Now they were allies, bound by the desperate fear of hundreds of tons of hurtling snow. Even the Executioner’s vast battle experience was useless in the face of a collapsing mass of snow that ground everything in its path. Armies were mortal, but the rocketing slough was an invulnerable juggernaut, the force of nature given a horrific face.

The torrent of snow was thick and gray now. Instead of pure snow, chunks of shattered trees and loose rock were mixed in. Even if it were only slough-off snow and ice, at ninety miles an hour, the avalanche would sweep even the fully loaded transport trucks aside like children’s toys. The accumulation picked up more mass as it hurtled along, growing in size and increasing in velocity. Right now, one of the snowballs would hit with a force that made even the .44 Magnum revolver in the Executioner’s fist seem like the caress of a snowflake on a cheek.

All Bolan could do was hope that Anderson’s truck was fast enough. The wall of snow, a cloud churning a dozen feet over the road, hit the tree line and Bolan braced himself. Life was measured in heartbeats now, and while they were at the extreme edge of the avalanche, they still had a few more yards to cross before they escaped the wall of death roaring down toward them. He glanced ahead as a spear of icy runoff glanced off the rear fender of the truck ahead.

Reader desperately clung to the tailgate, his legs flying wildly under the impact and wicked shaking of the vehicle. The heavy tires of the truck ground up chunks of packed snow as the jet of slough tried to snap its wheels off. Only the massive weight of the smuggled munitions and the deuce and a half’s own size kept it from flipping like a leaf in a hurricane. Dykstra kept the vehicle plowing straight ahead, engine roaring under the strain. The suspension sagged under the dual forces of its payload and the snow’s strike.

Anderson didn’t let up, and he smashed across the current of snow that had slapped the road ahead of them. It was like hitting a brick wall while having a second one thrown at you. The front end buckled, hood deforming as it struck the jet of rocketing ice and snow, and the driver’s window shattered, both men in the cab suddenly inundated by choking powder. The driver didn’t stop, though, still keeping the hammer down, the pedal pressed firmly to the metal. The truck cut through, its speed and mass sufficient to keep it on the road and crash through the avalanche. Bolan was thrown in his seat, blinded, but holding Anderson at gunpoint now was superfluous. The driver’s attention was focused on survival. He worked the wheel, twisting and slaloming the big transport after it burst through the advance tendril of the avalanche. He couldn’t see, but all he needed to do was to keep the truck from slashing off course. Physics helped, and he knew that he had to keep plowing in the direction of the truck’s momentum. His face and eyes were caked with powder that had blasted through the shattered window. Both Bolan and Anderson had to cough and spit to free their noses and mouths from the choking cloud that had swarmed into the cab. Knobby tires whirled, trying to find traction, and momentum carried them off the side of the road into a ditch. Heavy steel split tree trunks as the woods provided a cushion for the out-of-control vehicle.

Bolan’s shoulder struck the dashboard on impact, and Anderson’s face was a mass of cuts and slashes on one side from broken glass. The driver clutched his arm, and the bruise from his own wrist was livid on his forehead through the snow that flaked off of his face. Bolan recognized the bruises as Anderson’s attempt to protect his face from a violent impact with the steering wheel. In blocking with his arm, he’d punched himself in the forehead, but it was better than having his skull caved in by the steering wheel.

“You all right?” Bolan asked.

“Alive…” Anderson muttered. There was no way the driver was faking his injuries. He’d suffered tremendously, taking the brunt of not only broken glass, but at least a broken forearm. Bolan checked the man’s eyes, using his pocket flashlight.

“Concussion,” Bolan told him. “Stay put.”

“Good ’vice,” Anderson slurred. Bolan checked the glove compartment and found a first-aid kit. Luckily, the snow had caked to the lacerations on his cheek. This gave the warrior time to check for any obvious broken glass in the man’s face. He took out two nasty splinters and a jagged square of glass, then pressed gauze to the cuts. Anderson helped to hold it in place while Bolan taped the compress down. Luckily, the driver’s eyes hadn’t been damaged.

“Thanks,” Anderson muttered.

“You got us through,” Bolan admitted. “I owe you.”

“Don’t suppose this means that you’ll let me go?” Anderson asked.

Bolan shook his head. “You’ve got some dues to pay.”

Anderson would have nodded, but his head hurt like hell. Bolan put the driver’s broken forearm in a sling he’d gotten from the first-aid kit. “Not like I could walk away from this…”

“No. But contact this man,” Bolan said. He pressed a small business card into Anderson’s good hand. “You can cut a deal with him. Turn state’s evidence, help the law close down whatever is still outstanding in this operation. That’s how you can pay the rest of your dues.”

Anderson managed a weak smile. “A chance for redemption.”

“You’ve earned it. So did your buddy Dykstra,” Bolan explained. “He can cut the same deal.”

“Somehow, though, I don’t think there’s gonna be too many left to prosecute after today,” Anderson muttered.

“Nope,” Bolan replied.

Bolan got out of the cab and saw that Graham had forced Dykstra to swing back around and rejoin him.

“What now?” Graham asked. “Are you okay?”

Bolan shrugged his shoulder, taking stock of it. “Bruised the joint when we hit the trees, but everything seems to be working all right.”

“I think Stevens has anticipated our plan,” Reader said.

Bolan looked at the pile of snow blocking their only way out. “Well, there’s no turning back now. How are the snowmobiles?”

“Serviceable,” Reader responded.

“He probably thinks he’s taken us down,” Bolan continued. He pulled out his satellite phone. Its powerful signal would reach Hill Air Force base despite the mountains around Park City. A cell phone’s signal would be blocked by the mountains.

“Sarge?” Grimaldi asked.

“Time to move in,” Bolan told him. “Hope you’ve got something pretty sharp up your sleeve.”

“Oh, the general decided to let me have some really nice toys since we kept his guys from having to nuke Dugway,” Grimaldi answered. “I’m on my way.”

After securing Dykstra to the steering wheel of his truck, Bolan and his companions unloaded their snowmobiles and headed for their final encounter with Mojo.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dr. Kent Stevens strode with majestic pride toward his Learjet. To one side, waiting in a queue, sat three Hercules C-130 planes. Their long storage had made them sluggish to get into action, especially in the cold Utah mountains. Still, they were ready to fly, their aircrews having spent the night preparing for their escape. On board each of the large craft were one hundred artillery shells.

It was only sixty percent of what he had promised to his buyers, the dozen terrorist organizations that he had entreated to begin their ultimate jihad against the corrupt governments of the world. He frowned, knowing that their disappointment would prove costly, but he had no choice. The remaining two hundred shells had already been lost in transit. He still had containment shell cores for the missing munitions, and there was the possibility that the terrorists would arrange their own means of dispersal of lethal spongiform prions. After all, they had proved quite adept at improvising explosive devices to carry out their wars.

Still, there would be customers, upset about the lack of ready-made munitions to drop on their victims.

Pave walked beside Stevens, the hulk a willing and docile toady. As he imagined the man who murdered Clarice Mi crushed under tons of snow, the big man’s face soured.

“What’s wrong?” Stevens asked.

“I can’t buy the fact that we took him out with an avalanche,” Pave responded. A bandage was wrapped around his forehead, red seeping through. “You heard what Captain Jaye said.”

The mad genius nodded. “He escaped a fuel-air explosive. This man has taken on many major threats in the past and survived them all. Perhaps we have destroyed him, but I doubt it. He can busy himself with our contingency plan, if he is capable.”

Pave looked at the cannon, primed and counting down to the moment when it would hurl a deadly shell, loaded with lethal bioagents, into the air over Salt Lake City. A tinge of doubt and regret colored his ruddy face. While he was fine with plotting the collapse of the rest of the world into chaos, barbarism and carnage, the thought of destroying a city he’d spent so much time in weighed on him for a moment. He knew people in the city, if only in passing.

It was one thing to plan something so abstract as worldwide slaughter and mayhem against faceless billions. But the people of Salt Lake did have a face, did have identities to the hulking bodyguard. He took a deep breath and let it out, trying to flush the thought from his mind.

There was only a one in two chance that the airborne version of the prions would infect people he recognized. Perhaps they would survive the pandemic caused by the artillery launch or the chaos caused in the wake of the outbreak.

Pave rationalized the outcome as he struggled with his conscience. He had been the one who had programmed the countdown, but he wasn’t the one who gave the orders, who developed the warhead loaded with nerve-tissue-destroying mutant proteins. He was merely a servant, at the command of a man who had put a stopper in a bottle of death, and who sought his deserved place at the throne of the whole world.

“Have you thought of where we should place my new palace?” Stevens asked whimsically. “I’ve got it split between the Taj Mahal and the Vatican.”

“I like Italian food,” Pave answered.

Stevens rubbed his chin and smirked. “Me, too. Hopefully we can find some decent Italian chefs in the aftermath of our apocalypse.”

“Well, they’re pretty spread out across the world. Maybe a few will make it,” Pave responded.

“Remind me the next time I make plans for depopulating the globe to arrange for a cadre of quality cooks before engaging in mass extermination,” Stevens quipped.

Pave laughed, his doubts burning away with the absurdity of his master’s comments. “Yes, sir.”

Stevens neared the Learjet, its turbines wailing to full power. The pilot waited at the steps of the plane. “I’ll miss the snow.”

“The tropics will be nice, though, sir,” Pave began. Something glinted in the corner of his eye, and with a speed belying his bulk, he dived, scooping Stevens to his chest. The two hit the snow as gunfire rang out.

The jet engine chugged, its perfect scream of operation suddenly turning into a sickly cough. Pave glanced up to see fire and smoke spitting through a hole in the drumlike turbine. A moment later, the other engine shook as a .300 Winchester Magnum round pierced it. This time, though, the superheated engine spewed a glowing stream of flaming aviation fuel in a fountain of liquid fire.

“Holy shit,” Stevens hissed as Pave fisted one of his stubby rifles and dragged the genius along like a child.

“Stay close to me!” Pave ordered. He triggered his Krinkov in the direction of the flashing glass that had alerted him to the attack. Despite the rifle cartridge, the stubby machine pistol didn’t have the range to reach the sniper.

The jet’s flaming engine erupted in an explosion that rained chunks of burning debris on the spot where Stevens and Pave would have been standing if the bodyguard hadn’t reacted on training and instinct to get them moving.

The airfield erupted as the riflemen hidden in the woods opened up. Stevens’s security forces reacted with trained precision, sweeping automatic fire to pin down the sudden assault.

Pave tore open the door to their gunmetal-gray Suburban and threw his boss into the back seat. The driver was wide-eyed as a rifle bullet glanced off the armored windshield.

“Move!” Pave bellowed, grabbing on to the truck’s frame.

The Suburban accelerated across the airfield, racing for cover. Pave slammed the side door behind him just in time to stop another powerful rifle slug that would have severed his spine.

“The man in black made it,” Pave growled.

“At the most, it’s only three men,” Stevens replied. “Kill them all.”

Pave reloaded his Krinkov, his face split by a mirthless smile. “Oh I intend to.”

STAN READER SLICED through the snow on his skis, the Heckler & Koch G-3 rifle bouncing against his back as he raced along. His legs and lungs burned for respite, but there would be time for that later. Hopefully.

Reader ducked beneath a branch, then skidded to a halt and shouldered the rifle. He spotted two of Stevens’s riflemen rushing toward Graham’s position, attracted by the muzzle-flash of his AR-10 on full-auto. The slender skier triggered his G-3 and took them both between the shoulder blades with a ragged, extended burst. The gunmen collapsed in bloody heaps, and Reader twisted and raced along as enemy gunfire reached out for him.

Just like skiing the biathlon, except with a rifle that really kicked, and with the urgency of kill or be killed. Earning a spot on the Winter Olympic team had provided Reader with a lot of pressure, but nothing matched the snap and crack of enemy bullets cutting through the air chasing after him. He wasn’t much more heartened by the idea that the thugs he was shooting at were far larger and easier to hit targets than the little metal plates he’d had to nail while running the biathlon course. Plates didn’t bleed or scream when they were hit. They simply fell over. Dead men were far more disconcerting targets.

Reader fought to make the differences not matter as he sliced between the trees. Both he and Graham had a vital task in this opening salvo of the assault on Stevens’s airstrip. They had to keep the security forces busy while the Executioner’s marksmanship was put to work against the parked aircraft. If one of them got off the ground, then a cargo of lethal biotoxins could get away. They had to sew up the escaping planes right away, and Bolan’s .300 WM rifle and his uncanny sniping skills were the only thing that could ground them.

Unfortunately, Stevens’s personal guards were very well trained. Most of them had taken cover and had created arcs of fire that kept Reader blistering across the powder, dodging both tree trunks and high-velocity bullets. The mathematician in him calculated velocities and ranges as he swept through evergreen branches caked with snow. Each one he hit exploded with powder, camouflaging him as he cut through the trees, making him harder to see. Reader made certain to shield his face with his forearm, because his breath created a sheet of steam that turned the normally placid powder into a sticky concoction that could clog his goggles. Blind, the scientist would prove to be easy pickings for the enemy gunmen as he raced to dodge them.

As soon as he passed out of the lethal arc of one group of enemy riflemen, he crossed toward another’s range. Reader twisted and raced for deeper cover among the trees as Graham opened up on the nest of gunners. Stevens’s defenders ducked under cover, but counted on their allies to apply pressure to the Fed. His Bearcat growled as it shot across the snow, sweeping around in the opposite direction as Reader’s orbit of the airfield. The powerful snowmobile kept Graham ahead of his enemies, always pushing himself just out of the range of their weaker 5.45 mm rifles.

Graham reached another secure position, shouldered the AR-10 and cut loose.

Stop, fire, wait for the enemy to duck out, then move again.

A simple, repetitious pattern, like the biathlon, Reader mused as he took aim and managed a hit, punching a 7.62 mm slug through the face of one of the enemy riflemen. The man’s right eye shot out of its socket on a rubbery string of nerves, blood pumping from the dying man’s face. The gruesome demise once again hammered home the difference between this lethal fight and the cool, bloodless precision of his Olympic sport.

People died here.

Reader charged on to avoid becoming one of those dead. A 5.45 mm slug tugged at the shoulder of his coat, and powdered snow flew. The flakes sprayed across his goggles, momentarily blinding him, and he tumbled as he struck a tree trunk. The impact would have crushed his nose if not for the safety goggles, but still, his head bounced wildly off the trunk, the world spinning like a top as he collapsed back into the soft powder. His forward momentum robbed, his arms windmilled, trying to keep him upright, only instinct keeping him from hurling his rifle from his grasp.

Hitting the ground had saved his life as enemy rifles slashed the air above him. He rolled, freeing himself from his skis, then triggered the G-3 blindly. The powerful German rifle shook in his grasp, and the swarm of enemy bullets faded. Reader shook the flakes from his goggles and saw two more men lying in crumpled, gory heaps, mute testimony to the sheer killing power of his weapon. He spotted another gunman racing away from the others, triggering his AK-107 wildly as he ran. There was no aiming on the defender’s part. He was only wasting ammunition in an effort to keep Reader’s head down.

The scientist wrestled with his conscience for a moment, then pulled the trigger, blowing a crater in the back of the mercenary’s skull.

“If they surrender, let them, but be careful, it could be a trick,” Bolan had warned him. “And if their finger is on the trigger, kill them. They’ll kill you without a second thought.”

“Kill them.” Reader repeated the orders of the mysterious warrior.

He scrambled to his feet and got his skis on. Within a moment he was moving again, racing away from Stevens’s defenders as they sent forth a blistering reaction of rage to avenge their comrades. Reader fought off a biting chill that had seized him in the middle of this snowy battle zone.

Despite the heat of the bullets cutting the air and the sheath of sweat under his snow suit, Reader felt very cold inside.

WHEN THE THIRD C-130’s last engine billowed with smoke, roiling forth as a 180-grain high-velocity slug had punched through its internals, Mack Bolan let the rifle drop into the snow and crawled onto the back of the Arctic Cat snowmobile. Graham and Reader were in the middle of a frantic firefight with the defenders of the airfield, and the enemy gunners had proved disciplined and capable.

Bolan wished that he could have had a grenade launcher to even up the odds, because against enemies with such skill and determination, a person needed all the edge he or she could get. Instead, all he had left was the Uzi, abandoning the bolt action as just a little too slow to make a difference against this crowd of gunmen.

It was time to get close and nasty. The Arctic Cat launched off an outcropping, snow trailing behind him like a cloud of exhaust, the single wide tread whirling as it was freed from contact with ground or powder. The vehicle had become an aircraft for a heartbeat before coming down with a jolt. The front skis shoved back hard into their shock absorbers, and then the wide-belt tread bit into snow again and thrust the snowmobile forward like a missile. With Bolan and his gear, the snowmobile was 750 pounds of hurtling war machine. He gripped the Uzi in preparation for his arrival into the midst of the battle, and taking off from a ramp of packed snow, he exploded over the heads of a group of guards. Trailing snow sprayed in their eyes and they fired their rifles ineffectually into the sky, but by then the Executioner was behind them, landed on the airfield and spinning the Arctic Cat around with deft precision.

Bolan stiff-armed the Uzi and raked the trio of gunmen he’d blinded. A burst of 9 mm manglers chopped into them at the tune of 600 rounds per minute, twisting the riflemen in a discordant death dance. A moment later, the trio collapsed into lifeless lumps in the snow. For a moment,

he was tempted to rush the corpses and grab one of their rifles and ammunition, when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

An antiaircraft gun swiveled and Bolan realized that Jack Grimaldi was on the way.

“Jack! Careful! They’ve got antiaircraft!” Bolan shouted. He twisted his snowmobile around and launched toward the 40 mm Bofors. Over the racket of rifle fire, he heard the rolling thunder of an approaching helicopter. The defenders’ radar had to have picked up the Executioner’s ace pilot in the hole, and they intended to blow him out of the sky.

THE MOMENT THAT the Executioner had called for him, Jack Grimaldi took flight in the AH-1 SuperCobra. Twin high-powered turbines rocketed the sleek combat aircraft along like a fanged dart splitting the sky. The SuperCobra was the ultimate evolution of one of the finest fighting helicopters that Grimaldi had ever flown, capable of zipping along with an agility that left the more heavily armored Apache AH-64 in the dust. The SuperCobra’s swiftness and nimbleness kept it competitive nearly half a century after its invention, thanks to upgraded engines and electronics.

Under the stubby wings of the aerial predator, were two fat barrels stuffed with 2.75-inch High Velocity Artillery Rockets, another old-fashioned design. On two other hard points, there were eight much more modern Hellfire antitank missiles waiting to unleash their explosive fists of devastation against truly heavy targets. Grimaldi had enough experience with the Hellfire to know that its warhead could smash a small building to rubble with the same ease that it could split a tank in two.

Two lethal guns rode under the nose of the SuperCobra, jutting forth like slender wicked horns or extended fangs. One was an M-134 minigun capable of shredding out 6000 rounds per minute, the other an MK-19 automatic grenade launcher that fired much more slowly, but each shell it fired was a hefty 40 mm packet of high-explosive.

“Jack! Careful! They’ve got antiaircraft!” Bolan’s voice cut over his headset, and Grimaldi speared the SuperCobra deep into the sky, rising like a rocket into the cloudy gray above. With a twist, he turned the cockpit around so that he could look down at the airfield, able to see two blistering streams of 40 mm antiaircraft tracers arcing up after him. At the speed he tore through the atmosphere, Grimaldi could see the columns of fiery bolts bending away from him, and he swung the helicopter into an Immelman. The sheer horsepower and the sleek frame of the AH-1 enabled such fighter-plane style tactics, and he dropped beneath one sweeping arc of Bofors fire.

“I’m on it, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered. He locked his gaze on one of the antiaircraft emplacements, his helmet’s visor boxing it in a luminescent green rectangle with crosshairs in the center. He kept his gaze locked on the Bofors cannon and hit the firing stud for the Hellfire missile beneath his stub wing. The powerful rocket engine spit the warhead along on a column of fire. As long as he kept the electronic optics of his helmet centered on the antiaircraft gun, the visually directed missile would stay on course. The whole process lasted only a few seconds, but even at 200 miles an hour, Grimaldi was a sitting target for the other gunner should he happen to gain the proper windage.

A glowing shower of spears cut across Grimaldi’s peripheral vision and he juked the SuperCobra to one side, avoiding the enemy cannon shells. The Hellfire wavered off course. It didn’t matter. The shaped charge warhead hit one yard away from the Bofors cannon, not stabbing into the heart of the emplaced weapon. Instead of disintegrating into a cloud of splintered, burning metal, the fireball lifted up the cannon and hurled it aside like a toy. The four 40 mm barrels sank into the snow and bent like taffy. The gunner in his seat was crushed under the massive weight of the thrown weapon, bursting like a rotten tomato when it landed on him.

Grimaldi pulled out of his charge and whirled into a spiral as the other gunner swept the sky to avenge his comrade. The SuperCobra danced out of the four-tiered rain of fire stabbing skyward. The minigun under the nose swiveled and ripped out a long burst of 7.62 mm bullets that exploded the snow to one side of the remaining Bofors.

By now, Stevens’s defenders realized that they had a deadly serpent in their midst and directed rifle fire against him. The armored cockpit glass discolored under the impact of a few lucky rounds, its skin plinking loudly as more slugs raked the fuselage.

“Heat’s on, Sarge! Buy me some breathing room!” Grimaldi requested.

The rifles weren’t that pressing a threat, but they would nickle and dime the sleek gunship to pieces, and damage its rotors or weapons systems with a lucky hit. The 40 mm cannon was the real menace that made Grimaldi sweat in his seat, and he flipped the helicopter around on its Jesus nut.

While Grimaldi had learned to fly almost any kind of aircraft, he was originally a “rotor head,” a helicopter pilot par excellence, and his reflexes and muscles put him through the motions of guiding even the nimble SuperCobra as if it were an extension of his body. He twisted the attack helicopter out of the path of another burst of heavy 40 mm explosive shells and opened up with his own 40 mm grenade launcher. The MK-19 thundered violently, but unlike the sheer power of the Hellfire’s antitank charge, the grenades detonated in front of the antiaircraft gun without sufficient force to damage the weapon.

Grimaldi sliced the helicopter sideways, wincing as a 5.45 mm bullet spiked through the canopy, grazing his helmet.

The solid-state optics in the aiming unit took the shock and only produced a minor glitch across his visor screen. Grimaldi swooped around in a tight circle and ripped the ground below with a burst from his minigun. A rifleman standing in the open exploded into a crimson mist as the M-134’s slugs tore him to pieces. The Bofors thundered again, and Grimaldi dipped the chopper forward to flash out of the lethal lances of cannon fire.

The air below was crisscrossed with bullets as Bolan, Graham and Reader tore into the defenders, pulling their attention away from the airborne dragon spitting fire at the antiaircraft guns. Grimaldi whispered a prayer of thanks for their efforts and dodged the Bofors again. This time, he switched over to the HVARs and the fat drum under the port wing spit out six of them.

The 2.75-inch warheads rained down, walking a line of explosions leading up to the 40 mm cannon. The gunner clutched the trigger tightly, screaming in horror as he knew what was coming next. Three of the rockets landed short, and the shock waves of their detonations buffeted the soft human in the gunner’s seat. When the remaining artillery darts slammed into the main gun itself, the stunned gunner ceased to exist as anything larger than a flying finger bone. The cannon he’d sat in was similarly pulverized.

Suddenly the skies above the airfield became a whole lot safer and Jack Grimaldi turned his attention to the damaged aircraft. The burning Learjet received another pair of HVAR rockets and it split in two, one wing cartwheeling into the trees.

That’s when he noticed the artillery piece sitting at one side of the field. He saw where the barrel was pointed—Salt Lake City. A cabinet of electronics was hooked up to the big gun’s firing mechanism, and Grimaldi realized that if it was allowed to fire, millions would suffer.

He locked a Hellfire missile on target and launched it. The heavy warhead struck dead-center this time, and the cannon broke in two. Grimaldi followed up with a salvo of HVAR rockets, their thermobaric warheads turning the air around the shattered field piece into a blistering inferno. The Stony Man pilot wasn’t about to allow a munition full of lethal bioagents to detonate so close to his friends without making the atmosphere inhospitable to the mutant proteins. The artillery shell cooked off, and Grimaldi launched a second blast of fuel-air rockets. The ensuing fireball was enough to render any microscopic organism harmless.

Grimaldi only hoped that it would be enough to shield his allies.

That’s when the SuperCobra shook.

Hovering in place to hammer the artillery piece and protect Salt Lake, he’d left himself open to the defenders on the ground. One of them had a 40 mm grenade launcher, and had scored a crippling hit on the tail boom.

Grimaldi wrestled with the assault helicopter, autorotating the damaged aircraft to the ground. In the bathtub of armor plating, he was safe from enemy riflemen for the moment. Still, the ace pilot wasn’t going to sit out the rest of this fight. He scooped up a Fabrique Nationale P-90 and prepared for a break in the enemy sniper fire.

Then he intended to come out, spitting lead and giving Stevens’s forces a show of how dangerous he was, even without an aircraft.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kirby Graham revved up the Bearcat and cut across the airfield. With the AR-10’s barrel resting on the handlebars, he was able to hose down enemy gunmen with ease, whipping the lethal muzzle at Stevens’s mercenary forces. Around him, columns of flame and smoke rose from the wreckage of antiaircraft guns and smashed planes. In the distance, he saw Striker’s pilot, Grimaldi, bring his Super-Cobra down in one piece despite the 40 mm crater in its tail boom. He accelerated toward the downed helicopter, intending to give the pilot some cover against the raging swarm of defenders waiting to greet him.

Graham reloaded the AR-10 as he coasted forward, using the heavy rifle as a lever to hold the handlebars straight while his free hand was busy. Grabbing the bar again, he milked the trigger and stitched one of Stevens’s riflemen up the back. The others broke and spun to react to Graham’s assault. Their weapons barked, but the snowmobile charged faster than they could aim. Graham tossed another burst of .308-caliber slugs at them and scored another dead enemy when the canopy on the SuperCobra opened.

Suddenly the armed thugs were caught in a crossfire as Jack Grimaldi whipped his quick little machine pistol around. The 50-round magazine of the P-90 was more than enough to supply a little something for everyone he targeted, short bursts chopping lethally into the guards. Graham spun the Bearcat to a halt and mopped up whoever Grimaldi didn’t get to, triggering salvos of heavy rifle fire into two of the gunmen and smashing them from existence on the sharp points of his bullets.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw a Chevy Suburban racing toward “Major Steve Nelson’s” cabin.

Graham swallowed and fired up the Bearcat. He reached for a spare magazine for his rifle, but his vest pockets were empty. He’d burned up everything taking on the enemy forces. Even Bolan had resorted to stripping an AK-107 off a dead defender, using it to scythe through the opposition.

“Stevens is falling back to his cabin!” the Fed growled.

“Kirby!” A voice cut from behind him.

Graham whirled in time to see Stan Reader launch through the air on his skis. The scientist’s spindly arms and legs splayed out, and then he brought both feet together. Graham ducked under the hurtling skier, and spotted a gunman tracking him. Armed with only an empty rifle, no time to draw either of his handguns, the Fed looked death in the face for a long heartbeat. Then suddenly Reader speared the rifleman through the chest with both skies.

The wood flexed and bent under Reader’s weight, the quick release bindings popping free to protect the scientist’s ankles from snapping. Meanwhile, Viktor, Stevens’s head mercenary, staggered backward, bowled over by the flying form that slammed into him. The tips of the skis were too blunt to penetrate the man’s chest, but Graham realized that the impact had to have at least broken ribs. Blood poured over the gunner’s lower lip and Reader rolled to a crouch from where he landed, the Skorpion in his fist. Two .357 Magnum slugs smashed through Viktor’s head.

Graham gave his friend a nod.

“Get Stevens,” Reader gasped, running to retrieve the dead man’s rifle. “We’ve got things under control here.”

“Right,” Graham answered, and he tore out toward Stevens’s shed. He was tempted to mention that he owed Reader one, but the clumsy attempt at gratitude would have fallen on deaf ears. Graham would have pulled the same reckless stunt to protect the scientist, just the same as when he’d dived into the freezing water of the lake to haul him out all those years before.

It was just what brothers did for each other.

Graham raced after the mastermind and his hulking bodyguard.

MACK BOLAN LET THE EMPTY magazine drop free from the AK’s well and slammed a full one home. Stevens’s security forces were decimated now, corpses soaking their lifeblood into the cold, white snow, turning it into a messy shade of pink.

It was butchers’ work, and so far his allies were all hale and healthy. Reader had lost his skis in a reckless act of bravery to protect Kirby Graham, but he was up and grabbing a weapon. He spotted Jack Grimaldi behind the cover of the crashed SuperCobra, and Graham had taken off for the cabin.

The mayhem of the airfield battle had left the enemy in disarray, easy pickings for the Executioner and his allies. Except for the aircraft they lost, this battle was going well. Bolan sighted a pair of defenders who were trying to sneak up on Reader, and he triggered a burst. They jerked under an onslaught of 5.45 mm bullets, their blood pouring to further defile the clean winter scene, now a snapshot of hell.

The defenders no longer had the will to fight; they broke and ran. Between the Justice Department forces that Hal Brognola was assembling in Salt Lake and the Utah state police, these stragglers would be taken care of, thrown into prison for their part in this conspiracy, providing they survived their panicked trek out of the closed-off valley. Bolan kept a steady eye on the few guards as they retreated.

One lifted a handgun to menace Bolan, but a burst of automatic fire cut him down.

The airfield was secure, only the damaged bulks of the C-130s still standing. Grimaldi had held his fire to keep from releasing any of the stored contagion within the craft. Bolan’s sniper fire, though, was sufficient to render them nothing more than multiton paperweights sitting in the snow, queued up for a takeoff they would never make. Their lethal cargo would be secured by the U.S. Army’s Biological Warfare Research Division, for both study and disposal back at Dugway, where Stevens had brewed them.

The plan to destroy the whole world wouldn’t travel more than a few hundred miles back to its birth for destruction, a fitting end for the lethal prions and their creator.

“Striker.” Reader spoke up, running to his side. “Kirby went after Stevens and his bodyguard.”

Bolan glanced toward the cabin. “Keep an eye on the planes. I’ll go back him up.”

Reader nodded, and the Executioner got back onto his snowmobile, racing after the FBI agent.

There was the possibility that Stevens would have one last-ditch effort at escape, and Bolan wasn’t going to let the madman go, not after so far and so much.

The mad scientist’s judgment was waiting.

“BRILLIANT, JUST BRILLIANT,” Pave muttered as Stevens squirmed in the seat beside him. “We cut off every road into this place.”

“I expected—”

“You expected the man in black, and what did it get us?” Pave snapped. “You expected his interference and we lost Clarice, we lost our submarine base, and we lost our cover at Dugway!”

“How dare you talk to me like that?” Stevens asked.

“I am the one who will keep you alive, you puny whiner.” Pave wrapped his thick, powerful fingers around the doctor’s slender neck to emphasize his point. “You might be the genius here, but I don’t see you racing for proper cover, and I don’t see you packing a rifle.”

Stevens nodded. Pave’s rough fingers hadn’t squeezed his neck, just wrapped menacingly around. Had the hulking brute wanted to, he could have easily squeezed off the scrawny mastermind’s head.

“You might be the God of Death,” Pave whispered, “but not all gods are immortal. And that bastard out there specializes in killing gods like you.”

“Yes,” Stevens answered. “You’re in charge.”

“As long as someone’s shooting at you? Damn right. But when it comes to conquering the world, you’re the man,” Pave said. He rustled his hand through Stevens’s bristly red hair. “Don’t we have some snowmobiles here?”

“In the shed next to the cabin.”

“Good. That’ll get us across the road, even if it’s all blocked with the avalanche,” Pave decided. “Come on.”

At that moment, they heard the buzz of a snowmobile engine. Since the house had been evacuated, and the only member of Stevens’s staff present was the driver of the Suburban, that could only mean that the strike team was catching up. Pave snarled and shoved Stevens along. “Leave a snowmobile ready for me. I’ve got some ants to smash.”

Pave filled his fists with the twin Krinkovs when he felt something sting his ruddy cheek. A moment later pain flashed through his brain. He glanced back and saw Stevens lowering a small hypodermic dart pistol in his hand.

“What…”

“It’s a little something I call Burn,” Stevens told him. “It’s a stimulant.”

Pave felt his eyes seemingly swell in their sockets, his muscles tightening up. He remembered the mad doctor’s experiments with the stimulant. The Army thought it might be a good idea for injured soldiers to have it to fall back on to compensate for wounds, but the stimulant proved far too strong, too deadly in test animals. It turned them into rampaging psychopaths. Rats would tear even into their own nest mates, raging until their hearts exploded.

“This is a slightly weaker version, designed to allow the humans to live. On smaller folks, it still pushed them to a fatal heart attack, but given your body mass and strength, you’ll survive,” Stevens explained. He shut the heavy oak door between them before Pave recovered enough sense to pull the triggers on his rifles. Before it slid completely shut, Stevens’s voice cut across the distance. “You will never lay your hands on me like that again, fool.”

An instant later, the fury-fueled bodyguard remembered that the cabin was reinforced against even RPG fire. Pave held the trigger down on one gun, crushing the grip frame in his grasp. Pieces of the Krinkov dropped uselessly to the ground and he hurled the rest at the blast door.

“Fuck you!” Pave bellowed. He turned to the driver, and his senses, hyperattuned by adrenaline slicing through his nervous system, saw that the man was standing in a puddle of his own urine. The raging bodyguard shook his head, then snapped out his empty fist, crushing the poor fool’s nose, blood smearing his fist. With the bridge of his nose driven into his brain, the hapless driver collapsed lifelessly.

“Puny, whining bastards,” Pave growled as he saw Kirby Graham pull up on the Bearcat.

“Drop the gun!” Graham bellowed. He aimed his .45 at the ponytailed giant.

Pave let the Krinkov drop, his lips curling back in rage. “Oh, good. I was hoping you’d make this fun.”

Graham shook his head. “Facedown in the snow, asshole! I’m not telling you again!”

Pave took a step forward. “My name is Pave. And I’m going to smash you.”

Graham triggered the TRP twice, twin 230-grain hollowpoint rounds striking Pave in the chest. The bodyguard’s Kevlar armor held, but without the surging adrenaline numbing him, Pave would have fallen over backward from the impacts. Instead, he waded through the snow toward the Fed. Graham glanced toward the crushed rifle and the man that Pave had killed with one punch. He’d seen men dosed with PCP before, and Pave, being only slightly cleaned up from his biker days, was every inch the image of one of those monsters on Angel Dust. Graham fired twice more into Pave’s chest, but by this time, Pave’s spastic stomping turned into a bull-rush. The .45-caliber slugs were focused on the center of mass, still protected by the slabs of chest muscle and bulletproof Kevlar. The hulking bodyguard didn’t feel the slugs and his hamlike fist snapped out.

Graham blocked the punch with his forearm, and his injured shoulder flared with agony. He twisted under the hammer blow, losing his footing. Graham collapsed to his knees, but swung the .45 in his good hand. He brought up the steel frame like an ax, chopping Pave in the crotch. The blow barely registered in the howling nervous system of the hulking beast, but the force of it did make Pave stagger backward, giving Graham enough breathing room to snap to his feet, slamming shoulder-first into the bodyguard’s gut.

It was a tackle worthy of Graham’s college football days, lifting the three-hundred-pound ex-biker off his feet. The two men sailed over the snow, landing in a clumsy tumble of limbs.

Only momentarily stunned by the audacity of Graham’s charge, Pave slammed his beefy paws down on the Fed’s back. The strike aggravated Graham’s pulled shoulder muscles, and a red curtain of rage fell down over the FBI agent’s eyes. Whereas Pave’s fury was fueled by Stevens’s chemical interference, sheer frustration and agony shut down Graham’s pain receptors. Graham hammered both fists under Pave’s armpits in a bone-cracking punch, fracturing both his own knuckles and the giant’s ribs.

Pave roared as this fresh pain sliced through his fogged senses. Angrily, he peeled Graham off his chest and flung him aside like a rag doll. Graham landed and rolled, his relatively clearer mind enabling him to roll to his feet in a three-point stance, blue eyes glaring as the ponytailed ex-biker struggled to sit up. Graham charged like a freight train, spearing Pave in the head with his shoulder, snapping the man’s head around. There was a loud click as tendons overextended, but the bodyguard exploded to his feet in a column of blinded fury. The hulk’s neck muscles had proved too strong for Graham to snap his neck with such a dirty trick, but the ex-football player pivoted and scooped up an armful of snow. The slough flew in an obscuring cloud that Pave thrashed at with animalistic abandon, giving Graham another chance to charge him. All thoughts of his backup Glock and .38 were forgotten. Graham’s mind no longer acknowledged any technology more sophisticated than crude clubs and hurled debris.

As much as Pave had turned into a rampaging monster, Graham, too, had become a simple thing of destruction. He slammed into Pave’s slablike gut and hammered wildly with rabbit punches. Pave knifed down with his elbow, striking Graham between the shoulder blades. While the Fed’s spine proved strong enough to absorb the strike without fracture, the ribs on his left side cracked. Pave’s own elbow took a horrendous shock, as well, cartilage rupturing and tendons snapping, but with Burn sizzling through his blood, the ponytailed giant wouldn’t even have felt discomfort if someone had hacked off his arm with a machete.

Pave liked this feeling of invulnerability, pain bouncing off his consciousness like marshmallows off a brick wall. The only problem was that this puny, flat-faced little FBI agent was proving just as stubborn to fall down.

“Why don’t you die?” Pave bellowed, recovering a crude semblance of language.

“Just shut up,” Graham snapped back, and he reached down deep and powered his left fist in an uppercut that flipped Pave’s head back like a tennis ball. Through his numbed senses, he felt the carpal bones in his hand crack under the violent impact, but even as his own fist broke, he also felt Pave’s jaw give unnaturally in the same blow.

The hulking giant staggered back, blood pouring from his mouth. Pave spit out broken teeth and tried to sneer, but his broken jaw left his lower, gore-dripping lip slack and expressionless. Instead, the bodyguard unleashed a bellow and charged again.

Graham had swung up his brawny, injured right arm to protect himself when a buzzing roar rose up from behind him. Instinct cut through the haze of combat in his skull, and he dropped to the snow just as a flashing shape cut through the air above him.

Mack Bolan hit full-throttle on the Arctic Cat and, reaching 100 miles an hour, took flight like a missile aimed at the rampaging Pave. Graham ducked out of the flying snowmobile’s path, and the Executioner hung on, keeping his improvised aircraft on a straight course. The massive 300-pound bodyguard froze in stark realization at the blurring jet of red-and-blue snowmobile spearing at him.

Pave didn’t even have time to throw his arms up as the 750-pound rocket crashed into him. Steel and fiberglass proved too much for even Kevlar stretched across drug-enhanced muscles. Bolan twisted out of the seat and dived to the snow as Pave and the Arctic Cat continued plowing on into the heavy bulletproof door. More than one thousand pounds of crushed flesh, mangled fiberglass and steel tore the door off its hinges.

Bolan staggered to his feet and drew the Raging Bull, then raced over to Graham. “Kirby?”

“I’m alive,” the battered Fed grumbled. “Stevens is escaping.”

Bolan nodded and saw Grimaldi and Reader racing to join them. The Executioner knew that the others would take care of the injured agent as he took off into the house.

Bolan sidestepped, not wanting to step in the messy pulp that used to be Pave. The Arctic Cat had turned the huge bodyguard into a bloody stew, jagged ribs poking up from a compressed chest like the legs of some hideous insect. The warrior continued on, scanning for signs of the criminal mastermind. Then he saw the rear porch and through the large sliding-glass doors, Bolan spotted the madman.

Stevens struggled to pull his own snowmobile out into the snow, probably not realizing that the broad tread at the back would work as well on wood as it would in soft powder.

Bolan raised the Raging Bull and triggered a round, but the bulletproof glass of the patio doors stopped the slug. Stevens froze like a startled deer in the headlights, then took off running through the snow.

Bolan charged the glass, picking up a dining-room chair on the run. He swung the furniture ahead of him like a lance, and throwing all of his weight and strength into the blow, cracked the protective glass. The chair burst into chunks, and Bolan bounced off the transparent barrier, but several deep cracks ran through the length of the bulletproof shield.

“Just not using a big enough hammer,” Bolan said to himself as he turned back and tore a television set off the kitchen counter. The appliance was squat and dense, and Bolan swung for the intersections of the cracks in the glass. This time, he opened a hole large enough to dive through. Bolan was on the patio and racing after Stevens a heartbeat later.

He was tempted to jump on the other snowmobile, but there were no keys in the ignition, and time wasted hotwiring the vehicle would only give the enemy a larger lead.

Bolan’s long legs propelled him along through the snow as Stevens struggled to crash through the deep powder. The scientist looked back, then looked down to a tiny glimmering object in his hand. Bolan thought it was a gun at first, but pistols didn’t come in bright orange. Stevens looked down at his injector, then flipped the red glasses off his nose.

“If you want me, you’ve got me,” he said. “After all, God should partake of his own nectar.”

Bolan remembered how Graham looked after his war with Pave, the bodyguard. He snapped up the Taurus and triggered it as Stevens pumped the stimulant into his veins. The .44 Magnum slug punched through the mad scientist’s bulletproof vest and into his left lung, missing major arteries and the heart, but with a concentrated dose of Burn flooding through his system, Stevens didn’t even feel the bullet’s impact. Instead, with glassy eyes, the madman laughed. Bolan leveled the front sight of the Taurus at his adversary’s head, and then blinked in surprise as the skinny little man who had so much trouble running through the snow darted like a jet at the Executioner. Bolan’s shot missed the mastermind in a display of adrenaline-charged speed that left the soldier lost for a heartbeat.

Then Stevens struck, and Bolan went flying, thrown by the speed and the fury of the blows. Bolan had fought bigger, stronger men in the past, but these were men who felt pain and who were limited by the protests of their muscle and sinew. The gaunt, corpselike creature in front of him had no such hindrance as mortal frailty, and charged with blinding quickness.

The Executioner fired the .44 again, this time the heavy 240-grain slug tore out a chunk of muscle and a fragment of a rib, missing Stevens’s center of mass. Fingers like talons wrapped around Bolan’s forearm and dragged him into the air. Bolan kicked, reaching for leverage as the heavy revolver twisted out of his grasp. Finally, Stevens’s talons released the Executioner, and Bolan tucked into a ball, cushioning his landing in a snowbank.

Bolan struggled to his feet as the bloody, gaunt killer circled him, scrawny limbs waving in the air like the legs of a grotesque albino spider. A deathly rictus split Mojo’s face.

“I bleed, and yet I do not die. I am glorious in my unmatched—”

Bolan lunged, putting everything he had into a hard roundhouse kick. The blow snapped Stevens’s head around, but all it did was provide red, bloody gaps in the skeletal rictus of the criminal mastermind. A bony fist speared the Executioner in the small of the back and the soldier collapsed into the soft powder.

“See, Burn was developed to give our soldiers a means to tap the potential of the human body,” Stevens explained, his voice a discordant singsong tone that informed Bolan of the man’s lapse of sanity. “Every man is far stronger than he appears. Now, my muscles match my intellect. When the Burn wears off, I’ll surely die from the wounds you’ve inflicted.”

Stevens’s glassy eyes flashed with the flame of madness. “But for now, I am perfect. If I can’t be the king of this Earth, then most certainly I will be the god of your death.”

“Sorry,” Bolan apologized. He hooked the spindly legs of the supercharged scientist with one brawny arm and yanked him off his feet. “I don’t bow down to anyone calling himself a god.”

Bolan punctuated that statement with a hammer blow to Stevens’s gut, driving the air from his lungs, but the drug-crazed scientist kicked violently, catching the Executioner in the side of the head. The sole of Stevens’s snow boot opened a four-inch gash in Bolan’s scalp and the warrior tumbled back into the snow, his counterattack blunted.

Suddenly, Stevens’s claim of taking Bolan with him didn’t seem so outlandish. Like a mixture of ghoul and spider, the bloody creature leaped to its feet, its broken-toothed, gore-smeared smile gleaming in sharp contrast to his pale, snow-caked face.

Bolan pulled the Walther P-99 and stiff-armed it, punching out half the magazine. Six .40-caliber slugs flew in a thunderstorm of retribution, but Stevens was fast. Almost fast enough to avoid all of the half-dozen bullets, but the Executioner’s marksmanship skills were up to the challenge of the man’s hyperactive reflexes. Two bullets connected, one crushing the spindly scientist’s right elbow, and the other tearing a chunk out of his scrawny neck. Stevens staggered, slowed by the hits.

Bolan lunged to his feet, swinging one arm around Stevens’s bloody neck. A bony fist stabbed into the soldier’s gut, and the drug-fueled doctor continued to hammer on his adversary’s abdomen. The onslaught knocked the wind out of Bolan, and he could see the world wreathed in a red haze that he knew was the onset of unconsciousness.

But he felt Stevens’s head, pinned against his chest by his left arm, the polymer frame of the Walther locked in his other fist. The solution to this punishment grabbed the Executioner from the edge of collapse and he jammed the muzzle of the P-99 into the bloody smile of the ghoul and pulled the trigger. Something exploded across his biceps, burning hotly and painfully, a cycle of explosions sounding in the morass of his numbed senses.

When he recovered his wits, Bolan looked down at Stevens’s cored skull. Sticky brains stuck to his chest and arm, and he could see where two of his bullets had gone through the mass murderer’s head and into his own arm. Bolan released his death grip on Kent Stevens and the ghoulish figure dropped into the snow, his insectlike limbs still twitching, as if receiving signals from a disintegrated brain. The corpse’s distorted face was livid with powder burns from the contact wounds.

The Executioner staggered away from the corpse, scraping the dead man’s tissue off his own wounds.

“Striker!” A voice cried out.

Bolan glanced up to see Stan Reader running through the snow.

“Know anything about first aid?” Bolan asked.

Reader caught up to the Executioner and slid his slender shoulder under Bolan’s armpit. “Some. Why?”

“Flesh wounds in the arm. Maybe a broken rib or two,” Bolan explained.

“And Stevens?” Reader asked.

Bolan sucked down a breath, then felt something crunch beneath his feet. He looked down and saw the red, mirrored shades that the mad scientist had worn. He ground the lenses under his heel, cheap metal frames bending and deforming under his weight. He remembered the title Stevens had given himself.

“The king is dead.”

The exhausted and battered warriors waited for Brognola’s strike force to pick them up.

EPILOGUE

Captain Michael Jaye was uncertain of the wisdom of meeting Kent Stevens at the beach. The submarine breached the surface, however. Jaye knew full well the reach of the gaunt, red-haired mastermind, and he for one didn’t want to disappoint him. Not with the ways Stevens had to kill an enemy.

It was just after sunset, and he put the night-vision binoculars to his eyes.

On the shore, a skinny figure stood, arms folded and waiting.

“He made it,” Jaye whispered.

So much for having his very own South Sea island paradise, but better to be disappointed than killed by the hideous biowarfare mastery of Stevens. Jaye nodded for his crew to get the shore launch ready.

It had been a hectic voyage across the Pacific. Undoubtedly, the man he’d encountered in the Wonsan submarine pen had put out the alert for their craft. All along their journey from Korea, Jaye had to play a deadly game of cat and mouse, avoiding sub-hunting destroyers and helicopters across thousands of miles. Had it not been for his skills as a submariner, they would have been caught, but he’d managed to squeeze through, escaping the dragnet put out for them.

Jaye rubbed his sore arm. The scrape he’d received in the firefight with the mystery man in Wonsan still itched, despite the ship doctor’s attention.

“Serves you right for getting directly involved in a shore party,” the medic chided angrily. “You’re a captain. Delegate authority.”

Jaye smirked at his friend’s admonition, but he lived for adventure. If he wanted to just wear a captain’s hat and enjoy the privilege of rank, he’d be the captain of a fishing boat or a garbage scow. No, he’d been addicted to the rush of adventure, and that meant when he had the opportunity, he’d be at the forefront of the action. The men in his command appreciated that he would make them take no risks that he wouldn’t face himself, especially if it meant swimming into a covert, underwater facility and fighting an unknown marauder.

Jaye checked his SIG 550 rifle, then scanned the shore.

Just because the scrawny doctor was standing on the beach didn’t mean that they were in the clear. The intruder hadn’t been expected in the depths of the submarine pen. He could be anywhere.

Jaye crawled down and got into the inflatable launch, Mercury engines thrumming with quiet power as they pushed the Zodiac raft to shore. Jaye gripped his rifle tightly, his instincts screaming at him to just put the stock to his shoulder and empty two or three rounds into the skinny man on the sand.

From the faces of his men, they also had that thought racing through their minds.

Brushes with destroyers and helicopters had put everyone’s nerves on end.

“Where the hell is Pave?” one of his sailors asked as the Zodiac raft glided over the waves.

Jaye frowned. “Maybe he didn’t make it.”

“What could kill a beast like him?” the sailor asked.

“Just be glad his fat ass isn’t riding in the Zode back to the sub,” Jaye answered. “I didn’t really like the idea of that huge freak trying to squeeze in with the rest of us.”

The sailor nodded. “Still, this doesn’t seem right.”

Jaye’s eyes narrowed and he scanned the slender scientist again with his night-vision binoculars. Unfortunately, the light-enhancement optics washed out things like finer features. Recognition was severely hampered in the green haze of the binoculars.

“Should we turn back?” the sailor asked. “This feels like a trap.”

“We identify that scrawny bastard on the sand first,” Jaye said. “And even if it is Stevens, we put a couple magazines into him to make sure he doesn’t get up again. Then we blow out to our island. Just a few more minutes, and we’ll be home free.”

That’s when a familiar silhouette stepped out of the darkness on the shore.

Jaye froze as he recognized the figure of the man he’d battled in North Korea. He swung up his SIG 550, but there was the flash of a muzzle on the beach. The sailors in the Zodiac raft jerked violently under the concentrated assault.

Jaye howled in rage, holding down the trigger on his SIG, but there was one final brilliant flash of light.

“THEY’RE EXPECTING a bony-assed dork on the shore,” Stan Reader had explained, shaving his hair down to the nub like Stevens had worn his. “You’ll need the bait.”

Mack Bolan had been doubtful, but with red sunglasses, and his hair dyed red, Reader could pass for Dr. Kent Stevens at a distance, in the dark. The ruse wouldn’t last for long, but Bolan was too tired and too achy to argue.

“The Navy’s been tailing Stevens’s sub for the past day,” Bolan had explained. “You’re the only one still walking around from the Salt Lake team.”

“Anything to drop the hammer on the last of these conspirators,” Reader answered. He stuffed both a Walther P-99 and the .357 Skorpion into the back of his baggy shorts, covering both with his loose Hawaiian shirt. “How do I look?”

“Like a crazy man ready to go on vacation in a tropical paradise,” Bolan returned.

“So, just like Stevens,” Reader said with a wink before putting on the sunglasses.

Grimaldi had dropped them off in Dragon Slayer, brought to Southern California in the belly of a transport jet. The assault helicopter was ready with a full payload of tank- and submarine-busting missiles. Bolan said to wait until they were certain of the target, and that meant that Grimaldi would have to hover behind the tree line before they dealt with the pickup team. The ace Stony Man pilot hated being left out of the action on the beach, but the submarine couldn’t be allowed to escape.

The potential for the underwater craft’s mischief in the wrong hands, smuggling or engaging in warfare against coastal cities was too great.

Bolan tested the weight of the FN M-240 machine gun. The cannon was a modern update of the classic BAR of World Wars I and II, converted to belt feed instead of magazines, and rechambered from .30-06 to 7.62 mm NATO. The old warrior had returned to service with the United States military. Bolan’s arm had recovered from the flesh wounds inflicted in the battle with Stevens and with the sling and a pouch for the 200-round belt in place, he was ready to lay down a sheet of withering fire on the enemy.

The Zodiac raft buzzed closer to the shore, and through his own night-vision binoculars, Bolan could make out the shapes of sailors armed with assault rifles.

This wasn’t a military training exercise, especially with their oddball mix of weaponry.

This was Stevens’s pickup team.

Bolan stepped into the open and unleashed the full fury of the M-240. At 800 rounds per minute, the belt of machine-gun ammunition was gobbled by the FN, spitting out heavy slugs that punctured the inflatable raft and its occupants. The water churned as Captain Jaye gave one last howl of defiance, burning off the magazine from his SIG rifle before the combined fury of Bolan’s machine gun and Reader’s pistols chopped him into a lifeless husk. The raft and the corpses within were sucked beneath the waves.

Dragon Slayer, bristling with half a dozen Hellfire missiles, burst from the tree line and raced toward the submarine. Grimaldi had a lock on the boat and cut loose with all six missiles. While normally the job of breaking apart a submarine was left to the 100-pound warhead of an ASROC torpedo, the combined might of 160 pounds of high explosives erupted along the sub’s black hull. Metal tore and buckled as the shaped charges easily punctured the craft, creating six huge holes in its frame.

Metal groaned as Grimaldi swung around again and cut loose with the GECAL machine gun to shred anything remaining. Diesel engines blew flame and hot smoke through the wounds in the sub, and it broke in two, sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

The Executioner let the M-240 drop to the sand and sank to the ground. Reader plopped down beside him as Grimaldi swung the helicopter to land on a stretch of beach wide enough for the craft.

“That’s that?” Reader asked.

Bolan nodded. “The end of this conspiracy. There’s always another one out there. I could use a good man on the team.”

“And I can always use a guy like you for my company,” Reader returned.

“I work for myself,” Bolan said.

“So do I,” Reader answered. “But if you ever need my help…”

“Thanks,” Bolan told him.

Reader laid back on the sand and tucked his arms under his head. “Looks like a beautiful night.”

For all the mayhem of the past week, Bolan agreed.

He stared into space, drinking in the peace and quiet, relishing them.

One more victory against Animal Man had been won, but his War Everlasting was still far from over.

ISBN: 978-1-4603-7464-1

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Douglas P. Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

CONTAGION OPTION

Copyright © 2007 by Worldwide Library.

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