HELL ON EARTH

When a firefight breaks out in Mexico, the blitz leaves countless dead and Apache gunships in the hands of an Australian self-made millionaire and the soldiers of his white supremacist group. This in turn puts Mack Bolan in grim pursuit. Hijacking the ordnance turns out to be the first move in a campaign of terror that arms the enemy with an arsenal of NASA experimental limpet mines. The killing sweep then strikes the Cayman Islands, with the object of stealing a supercomputer to control the limpets. And a deadly demonstration off the coast of Brazil leaves no doubt that World War III is the millionaire’s ultimate goal.

Now all things from satellites to rockets are hands-on weapons of terror to cripple global defenses. Cities around the world will burn unless Bolan—using everything he’s got—can dispatch the enemy into eternal darkness.

The entire island seemed to be shaking

Momentarily losing control of the jetpacks, the men struggled to stay away from the walls as the tunnel started to break apart, wide cracks lancing along the interior making countless bricks fall free.

Desperately dodging out of the way, Cinco flew too low and scraped a boot heel across the floor, then Bolan went sideways to carom off the shuddering wall, sparks spraying off the housing as it rubbed the shattering bricks.

Suddenly a bright light filled the tunnel, and Bolan saw a monstrous fireball billowing toward them like the exhaust charge of a firing cannon.

“Fly or die!” he yelled, twisting the controls to the max.

Other titles available in this series:

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

Contagion Option

Hellfire Code

War Drums

Ripple Effect

Devil’s Playground

The Killing Rule

Patriot Play

Appointment in Baghdad

Havana Five

The Judas Project

Plains of Fire

Colony of Evil

Hard Passage

Interception

Cold War Reprise

Mission: Apocalypse

Altered State

Killing Game

Diplomacy Directive

Betrayed

Sabotage

Conflict Zone

Blood Play

Desert Fallout

Extraordinary Rendition

Devil’s Mark

Savage Rule

Infiltration

Resurgence

Kill Shot

Stealth Sweep

Grave Mercy

Treason Play

Assassin’s Code

Shadow Strike

Decision Point

Road of Bones

Radical Edge

Fireburst

Oblivion Pact

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Our single most important challenge is to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual. We must construct that people-centred society of freedom in such a manner that it guarantees the political liberties and the human rights of all our citizens.

—Nelson Mandela

May 25, 1994

We all face challenges, sometimes just to survive. Unfortunately it seems there is always someone, some group, who thinks they have the right to take what is ours. Over my dead body.

—Mack Bolan

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Nick Pollotta for his contribution to this work.

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Cancun, Mexico

Death watched from high above.

It was a scorching tropical night, the heat unforgiving in spite of a cool breeze coming off the ocean. A thumping techno beat filled the air with a palpable presence, the lyrics indistinct over the laughter of the drunken college students cavorting on the white sandy beach.

Standing on the balcony of his penthouse suite, Dalton Greene looked down on the raucous party with the impersonal gaze of a surgeon preparing to cut a tumor from the body of a patient.

“Enjoy yourselves while it lasts,” Greene whispered, checking the load of the 10 mm Falcon pistol before tucking the weapon into its shoulder holster.

Neither handsome nor ugly, Greene was simply plain with an ordinary, easily forgettable face and nondescript features. Except for one. The man was huge, not fat, although he would have disagreed on that point, but genuinely enormous, well over seven feet tall and as broad as a gorilla.

Most people the billionaire did business with called him The Jolly Greene Giant, but never to his face. The one person who had been foolish enough to do that disappeared the next day, and was found a year later. From what the New York coroner could ascertain, the man had been tortured, then allowed to heal, and tortured again, over and over, for weeks, until his head was smashed.

Whether the horrid story was true or not, the billionaire had done his best to circulate it worldwide, and the tale certainly fitted Dalton Greene’s profile. He never got angry or upset, only even, and somehow he always managed to make a profit. Even from death.

“They call it spring break, right?” Greene asked over a shoulder, dispassionately watching the dozens of campfires blazing along the beach.

Hundreds of college students reveled in drunken celebration, singing to the techno beat, the combination creating a low growl.

“Yes, sir, spring break,” Samantha LoMonaco answered, carefully loading a 12-gauge Neostead shotgun.

The lights were off in the palatial suite, making it easier for them to discreetly observe the party below. A dozen other people were in the suite, all of them checking a weapon, or adjusting the straps on military body armor.

“Ridiculous. A break from what?” Greene demanded. “The strenuous task of sitting in a comfortable chair in an air-conditioned room reading books?”

Working the pump-action on the Neostead, LoMonaco shrugged. “Americans are a ridiculous people, sir.”

Easing a clip into an F88 assault rifle, a bearded man scowled. “I thought you came from America, Ms. LoMonaco?” he asked in a thick accent.

“I’m Australian now,” LoMonaco stated with an air of pride. “Just like the rest of you.”

A diminutive brunette with a full luscious figure, Samantha “The Hammer” LoMonaco was a stunningly beautiful woman with lovely dark eyes and a smile so sweet that she often managed to talk her way out of traffic tickets and past security checkpoints.

Her long hair was tied in a ponytail to keep it from her face, and more importantly out of the breech of her weapon. Her nails were cut short, almost to the quick, to make it easier to reload her weapon.

She was also covered with tattoos. Although born in America, she had been raised in the slums of west Canberra, and at a very early age had started getting a tattoo for each confirmed kill.

The first killing had been done in the dark alley behind a bar where a drunken man was trying to assault her friend. LoMonaco grabbed a loose brick and pounded him to death. The next day her friend took LoMonaco to a tattoo parlor and paid for both of them to get matching stars on their wrists so they could always remember that night. As news of the incident spread, LoMonaco was quickly dubbed with the nickname The Hammer because of her assault with the brick.

Then another friend asked for her help with an abusive boyfriend, and LoMonaco earned a second tattoo, then a third, fourth, fifth.... Soon, she learned the terrible truth: blood was like whiskey. After enough of it had flowed, you didn’t want the river ever to stop.

These days, LoMonaco carried a Gerber combat knife sheathed at the small of her back where it couldn’t be easily seen. A boxy Glock 18 machine pistol was holstered at her side, and in her wallet was a fake credit card that contained a ceramic razor blade undetectable through airport security.

Officially, LoMonaco was registered as a professional bodyguard, and thus was allowed to carry firearms in places where other people couldn’t. In reality, she was an assassin, a hired killer for Dalton Greene.

“Mr. Greene, the truck has arrived!” announced David Thomas, adjusting the pipe in his mouth. Still in the long process of trying to quit smoking, the man was chewing on a briarwood pipe these days to help control his urges.

Rolling out of the dunes, an electric flatbed truck was trundling along the beach. The driver stopped at each bonfire to drop off a plastic cooler, and briefly speak to whomever was in charge.

As he drove away into the darkness, the eager college students dragged the coolers out of the light and into the darkness. Minutes later, swarms of people descended on the area, many of them still talking on their cell phones. In rapid order, the party escalated to a new level of debauchery, as the students reeled about smoking what looked like homemade cigarettes. Their laughter became disjointed, and soon items of clothing started coming off, which was a short procedure as most of the students were wearing only bathing suits and flip-flop sandals.

“Is that marijuana?” Thomas asked curiously, clipping a grenade to his belt. Dashingly handsome, the man was an expert hacker, and always carried an Australian army combat laptop slung at his side.

“I ordered zooters,” LoMonaco replied.

He scowled. “What’s that?”

“Marijuana soaked in formaldehyde.”

Thomas was stunned. “Isn’t embalming fluid poisonous?”

“Extremely.” She laughed. “But first you get incredibly high.”

“How much did you get?” Greene asked, raising an arm to shoulder height. He flexed his hand and a small .44 derringer slapped into his palm, then back out of sight.

“Five kilos.”

Greene frowned. “Do we really need that much?”

“Probably not,” LoMonaco said with a shrug. “But I assumed it would be better to have too much than too little.

“Agreed. Failure isn’t an option,” Greene said, then he turned and shouted the phrase. “Failure isn’t an option!” Inside the darkened suite, the men and women of Operation Daylight repeated the words over and over as if it was a battle chant.

“Where are the whores?” Thomas asked, walking over to the balcony.

“They’ll be here soon,” Greene replied, strapping on body armor. It was as supersized as himself, but fitted perfectly, molded to his specific contours.

“And here they come,” Victor Layne stated gruffly.

Unlike his giant employer, Victor Layne was fat, and didn’t give a damn. His incredible physical strength was infamous from Adelaide to Christmas Island.

A few moments later, six more electric trucks rolled out of the dunes, each carrying dozens of shopworn but still mildly attractive women in skimpy bikinis or loose summer dresses. As the ocean breeze lifted the hem on one, it was clear that the woman wore nothing underneath but tan lines.

Taking LoMonaco by the arm, Greene pulled her aside. “Samantha, are all the supplies ready at Compose?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “All set, sir.”

“Excellent,” Greene said with a brief smile, then he turned. “Victor, what did you tell the colleges about the party?”

“That I was an alumni and just wanted to help the kids celebrate the big win.”

“What big win?” Thomas asked.

Layne shrugged. “Who cares?”

“Alumnus,” LoMonaco corrected, walking onto the balcony with the Neostead resting on a shoulder. “ Alumni means several, alumus is the male singular.”

Layne scowled. “You’re kidding. Alumnus?”

“God’s truth.”

“Then God is an idiot,” Layne snorted, walking back into the darkness.

Down on the beach, the party was starting to get out of control as naked people began running about, and numerous students were having sex on the beach. Mostly it was couples, but sometimes there were three people involved.

“Bah, sex on the beach,” Thomas muttered in frank disapproval.

“It’s sort of romantic,” LoMonaco countered. “Even for these drunken fools.”

“But the sand gets everywhere. And I do mean everywhere!”

“So you shower afterward,” Layne contributed. “Let’s let them enjoy what little time they have remaining.”

Just then, they heard the crackling of explosions, and suddenly rockets soared high into the night sky to explode into colorful blossoms.

“Fireworks,” Greene grunted, sliding on clear surgical gloves. “Nice touch.”

“Thanks,” Layne said “I thought it might stimulate a faster response from the local PD.”

Softly, in the distance police sirens howled. Soon flashing lights appeared along the coastal highway.

“How many?” Greene demanded, grabbing the banister with both hands, and squeezing tight. “How many did they send?”

“Six, eight...ten cars!” LoMonaco reported, dialing for enhancement on a US Army–issue monocular. Computer-operated, the device took the ambient light of the stars, blocked out the bonfires, and delivered a perfectly clear black-and-white image of the beachfront debauchery.

“Excellent,” Greene exhaled, sliding on a ski mask. “Okay, time to go to work, people.”

“Daylight!” Thomas shouted, brandishing a Colt revolver.

“Daylight!” the armed people in the suite repeated, and surged out of the room.

In the hallway, a young couple gasped at the sight of the armed mob pouring from the suite.

“Go to your room,” Greene commanded, cradling an F88 assault rifle. “This has nothing to do with you!”

The man nodded and dragged the terrified young woman inside with him, and slammed the door shut.

“Why leave them alive?” Thomas snarled, hefting an Atchisson autoshotgun.

“We do not harm our own kind,” Greene stated, just as the elevator opened.

Inside the cage were three Latina maids dressed in clean white uniforms, and carrying the various tools of their trades.

Firing from the hip, Greene, Layne and LoMonaco ruthlessly slaughtered the dark-skinned women in a hail of gunfire.

Leaving the bodies where they fell, Greene and Daylight moved through the luxury hotel, wounding any Caucasian they encountered, but ruthlessly executing everybody else.

In the lobby, one of the terrorists drew a bead on the desk clerk, but LoMonaco stayed his hand.

“One of us,” she whispered.

Exiting the building, Greene and his people paused to reload, then moved out, heading directly for the main access road to the secluded beach, and their scheduled meeting with the Mexican police.

CHAPTER ONE

Columbus, Ohio

Firing from the hip, Mack Bolan, aka The Executioner, took out both of the liveried guards, the discharge from the silenced 9 mm Beretta no louder than a hard cough.

As the dead men crumpled to the ground, Bolan moved in fast, smashing both of their handheld radios. Then he put a squirt of fast-acting glue onto the slides of their automatic pistols. If anybody found the corpses, they’d spend precious minutes trying to get the jimmied weapons to work again, and that was all the soldier needed now, just a few more minutes to get the job done.

The search for Eric “Mad Dog” Kegan had been long and hard. The gunrunner shed identities the way most other people did socks, and he always left behind a trail of bodies, most of them innocent bystanders who saw his face. But that reign of bloodshed would end here and now. If only Bolan moved fast enough.

Dressed for full urban combat, The Executioner was wearing a loose trench coat, and soft fedora. Underneath he wore a military blacksuit, Threat-Level-Four body armor, an old canvas web harness rigged with a wide assortment of weapons and tools of war and dark combat sneakers. They didn’t offer the full protection of combat boots, but made less noise.

Easing through the dark Bolan paused just before reentering the sunlight. Across the street was a small building nestled amid leafy trees and shrubs. He could see brick walls and a house set far back from the road. White stucco, the structure was two stories tall, probably a shoe store or something similar in the past, big picture windows on either side of a nice wooden door. The shutters on the second story were closed, with a small red-and-white For Rent sign in the left window that was partially obscured by streaked dust. Old, dirty, valueless, abandoned and forgotten, the store was just part of the neighborhood—there, but never truly noticed.

Crossing the busy street, Bolan attempted to look through the window, but couldn’t see anything. The pebbled glass was tinted a deep blue. Nice. Only a foot away, Kegan would have total privacy to conduct his business.

Easing into the greenery, Bolan checked for traps and hidden alarms, but found the area clear. The interior of the building would contain an advanced security system, but to maintain his cover, Kegan had to relay upon plain, ordinary locks outside so as not to draw any suspicion on the place.

Studying the building, Bolan wondered if the second floor was an apartment. This was an older neighborhood and lots of stores used to have living space above them in order to save money.

Going to the door, Bolan tried the handle but it was locked. Reaching under his windbreaker, he unearthed a keywire gun and shot the lock full of stiff wire, then turned the gun. The lock disengaged with a subtle click.

Wiggling the device free, Bolan tucked it away and drew his Beretta 93R machine pistol before sliding inside the dark building. Using a small can of pressurized talcum powder, Bolan filled the air with a swirling dust cloud to check for laser beams. But the powder revealed nothing, and he continued onward, staying alert for hidden video cameras and trip wires. This was home for Kegan and it was guaranteed to be a major hard site. He simply hadn’t found any security devices yet, which made Bolan slightly nervous. You never heard the bullet that got you. He had to stay alert, watch for everything and live another day. That was all any soldier could hope for in war.

And that’s all this was, a covert war for the streets of America, Bolan noted. On one side were Kegan and his kind, cannibals in thousand-dollar suits, and on the other side was civilization. Long ago, Bolan had decided that he wasn’t Animal Man’s judge, or jury, but his executioner. The soldier wasn’t here to enforce the law, but to dispense justice, hard and absolute. Street justice. Red law.

Kicking some torn manila folders out of his way, Bolan crossed the littered floor and stood amid the piles of destruction. There was no other way to describe the office area but totally trashed.

Pictures were smashed on the walls, the empty frames hanging from bent nails. The file-cabinet drawers had been removed and cast aside, sofa cushions ripped apart, the stuffing scattered about randomly, and assorted papers were everywhere. Somebody had been very serious about searching this room. An amateur, but dead serious.

However, just because a room had been searched, Bolan noted privately, didn’t mean that anything had been found.

The next room was an office, just as bedraggled as the waiting room but now empty shell casings from a dozen different weapons lay scattered about, telling Bolan how things had gone down. Four people had entered through the sitting room, each armed with automatic pistols, and one with a shotgun. Three others had opened fire from the staircase using M16 assault rifles, and something that left bullet holes but didn’t eject brass. The fire pattern was too tight for a bolt action...a caseless rifle? Impressive. The weapons sounded like a zipper in operation, and threw out lead faster than anything but a motorized Gatling gun. A caseless assault rifle was a serious threat. Bolan would have to keep a sharp watch out for— He froze.

Lancing through the swirling cloud of talcum powder was a scintillating red beam, thinner than a human hair, almost invisible. Dropping low, Bolan eased under the laser and carefully rose on the other side, his heart pounding. Touch the beam of light, and all hell would have broken loose, probably in the manner of a dozen Claymore mines plastered inside the wall. Close, but no cigar.

Going to the window, Bolan saw the real-estate sign. At the bottom was the monthly rent, a phone number and the name of the management company. Out of curiosity, Bolan tried the number, and wasn’t surprised to get only a busy signal, then voice mail, but the box was full. That was all anybody would ever get, a busy signal. Kegan lived in a building advertised as for rent. Clever. That would have stopped most investigations, but Bolan had sources everywhere, most of them whispers and hints. Add a few together, and suddenly a pattern became visible. A soft probe, followed by a hard probe, and when the target was confirmed, a full blitz with guns blazing. But he wasn’t there yet, this was just the soft probe.

Making sure the door was locked, Bolan did a quick sweep of the place and found nothing more interesting than a couple of thousand in cash and a kilo of marijuana. He took the cash.

“Thanks, Mad Dog,” Bolan whispered, tucking the wad of bills into an empty pouch on his gunbelt reserved for just that purpose.

Bolan really didn’t have an accurate count of how many millions he had stolen from the Mafia, terrorist organizations and organized crime in general, but their bloody profits had purchased a lot of hard justice rammed back down their throats. If that wasn’t karma, then Bolan had no idea what the proper definition was.

The last room on the ground floor was an office, all brass and leather, and smelling of death. A man lay behind the sofa in a position it was impossible to achieve while alive, and a woman was draped over the desk. Her tattoos identified her as an assassin for the Colombian drug cartel.

Pitting rival gangs against each other was an old trick in his book, and one that worked extremely well most of the time. Not always, but often enough. Bolan knew that it had been a gamble to tell Kegan’s enemies where the gunrunner could be located. But he hadn’t read them as foolish enough to drive up to the building and unload a couple of rocket launchers through the front windows. Kegan’s former customers, cheated of their goods, and often betrayed to the police for the reward, wanted hands-on revenge, up close and very personal. If they had succeeded, so much the better. But at the very least, they had diverted Kegan and his people, giving Bolan a precious few minutes to try to find Kegan’s next identity and permanently end his reign of terror.

Alongside the corpse was a cheap pressboard computer desk, the PC smashed to pieces, the hard drive gone. Damn. That could have been useful. Not that Kegan would keep anything major on the drive, but there could have been hints and subtle clues. Sometimes Bolan felt as though he was fighting ghosts in the dark.

All the way across the office was a huge dark wooden desk sporting a stained brass plaque with the name Edward Carter. A common enough moniker to sound real, and close enough to his real name so that Erik Kegan wouldn’t make a fatal slip. In spite of being a bloodthirsty monster, Kegan wasn’t a fool.

On the wall behind the colossal desk was the usual assortment of impressive diplomas, testimonial letters from satisfied clients, mostly major corporations, and quite a few newspaper clippings showing Edward Carter with the mayor, and other noteworthy folks, with everybody smiling at the cameras. All fake of course, but the pictures did show Kegan himself.

Built like a bull gorilla, Eric Kegan still had the winning smile of a politician selling used cars, slicker than a snake in oil. The only tell was his eyes. The face could smile, the mouth laugh, but the eyes stayed the same, cold and dead, like the eyes of a shark.

It was strange that a man forever in hiding would allow himself to be photographed, especially by a newspaper. Anonymity was paramount for his line of business—selling death wholesale. Maybe Kegan just liked having his picture taken. Bolan shrugged. People were often contradictory.

Lifting the slashed leather chair from the floor, Bolan checked the sides for hidden controls but found nothing. Sitting in the chair, he twisted back and forth a few times, listening for a squeak, but hearing only the rustle of his clothing.

The desk itself was huge, a monstrous slab of cherrywood, topped with green leather and edged with shiny brass studs. It was clearly an antique from a bygone age and had to weigh a ton.

Going around, Bolan checked the front and sure enough saw a line of holes in the wood from three different pistols, but none of the lead had achieved full penetration. Even his furniture was bulletproof. That was when he caught a whiff of something in the air other than the talcum powder and blood. Perfume from the woman? No, what assassin would do a job wearing perfume to reveal her presence in the dark? It might be a man’s cologne, brandy-cut tobacco mixed with the faint aroma of homogenized oil.

He checked the top right-hand drawer and there was a cleaning kit for a gun. Plus a spare magazine and a box of ammo for a 10 mm Colt Magnum pistol—semisteel jacketed hollow-point rounds. Serious ammo. Those tens hit like sledgehammers and punched holes through everything short of Threat-Level-Five body armor.

Wearing only Level Four at the moment, that gave Bolan pause. Then he moved on. Kegan had to be stopped. End of discussion.

Closing the drawer, the soldier looked over the office again and tried to reconstruct in his mind how it got this way. Everything had been smashed or slashed open, even the books on the shelves. The plastic fern in the corner had been removed from its wicker pot and wood chips were scattered everywhere. Looking for something small and flexible... Documents, perhaps?

There were three doors lining the interior wall. Wading through the mounds of trash, Bolan went to the first and found that it opened onto a short hallway with stairs going up and another door to the left that had to lead to the basement.

The stairs didn’t creak as he’d expected, which was a good sign of proper maintenance. At the top, Bolan reached a blank wall with picture-used-to-be-here stains and a short hallway. Just to the left was a modern kitchen, obviously a recent addition, with a small breakfast area.

The kitchen table was in pieces, the steel tube chairs disassembled. Same as downstairs, the kitchen had been thoroughly searched, corn flakes littering the floor, bag of sugar busted wide open. Bolan studied the sugar for patterns in the granulated surface but found none. Whatever was hidden hadn’t been found here.

Rummaging through a drawer Bolan found a can opener and wasted precious minutes opening a couple of soup cans from the bottom cupboard. He had once encountered drug lords who smuggled messages to each other hidden inside sealed cans of soup. Simply open the bottom, insert your item, then weld the bottom back on. It had worked for years before the DEA got wise, then they did nothing to stop the transfer of information, merely opened the cans, copied the messages then sealed them up again.

Moving upstairs, Bolan moved onward, keeping an ear out for a car arriving or a knock downstairs. A neighbor might have seen him enter and called the police. But this was Columbus where everybody minded his or her own business and quietly got killed without disturbing the people next door. An open doorway led to what remained of a living room, couch flipped over, cushions slit open, the covers removed from the electrical outlets, pictures off the wall, even the television set had been kicked in and the cover removed. After the assassins had been chased away by Kegan and his crew, somebody else had entered the building, and done a thorough job of searching the place from top to bottom. Smart move, and the perps were certainly thorough enough, he’d give them that.

The curtains were off the windows, and the blinds torn down, the weighted bottoms cracked apart. Impressive. Bolan never would have thought of hiding anything inside the bottoms of venetian blinds. He was starting to get the feeling that whatever Kegan had hidden had to have been found and was long gone. But he still had to double check. Just the chance of stopping Kegan was worth the effort.

Down the hall was a bathroom with grout dust covering the fixtures. Somebody had run a knife along the wall tiles to look for fresh work over a secret panel. They really were good! Bolan filed that trick away to use himself sometime in the future.

The bedroom looked like a hurricane had hit a rag factory. Nothing was intact. Feathers swirled about his shoes from pillows gone to heaven. The northern wall was a single expanse of closets with a bare top shelf. Bolan probed for a panel leading to a crawl space or attic, but found nothing except dust and deceased spiders.

The light-switch panels had been yanked off the walls, exposed wires dangling dangerously loose, and the carpet was torn up in several spots. A rush of adrenaline was building within Bolan. Time was short, the numbers falling, and he wondered if there was any place they hadn’t looked.

Going to his personal favorite spot to stash important things, Bolan lifted the ceramic lid off the toilet tank and looked inside. Nothing there but water, the usual mechanical works and a drained sanitizer cylinder. The pros who’d hit this place would never have missed an area so obvious as the toilet tank. But had they searched everything?

Tucking away the Beretta, Bolan pulled a knife. Grabbing hold of the copper support rod to hold it steady, he slid the blade along the slightly slimy rubber. The knife slipped once and cut him, but no blood welled from the wound. Just a surface scratch. Bolan proceeded more slowly, switching to a fillet blade and sawing through the resilient material, rather than trying to slice it apart like a ripe melon. The slick bulb wasn’t cooperative, but he finally got through, and a clear corner triangle of a plastic bag jutted into view.

Forcing the blade along the side of the bulb, Bolan widened the cut until it was big enough for him to grab and pull it apart. There lay a clear plastic bag filled with maybe a dozen film negatives. Going to the sink, he wiped the bag off on a dingy towel bearing the name Sheraton. The bastard had millions in a Swiss bank, but stole hotel towels?

Opening the sandwich bag, Bolan lifted out the negatives, only touching them by the edges, and held a strip to a flashlight. They were negatives of a passport, birth certificate, college diploma, dental and general medical records for a Shawn MacTeague of Glasgow, Scotland. The man in the photos was Kegan. Bolan knew that the man spent years building a perfect identify and with these gone, Kegan would have no place left to run. He’d be forced to make a stand and fight, which was exactly what Bolan wanted.

Slipping the bag full of negatives into a pocket, Bolan paused to text a brief message to a friend in Washington: Kegan was Shawn MacTeague, Glasgow.

Done and done. Now if Bolan was killed, Hal Brognola at the Justice Department would make sure somebody else finished the job. Mostly Bolan worked alone, but every now and then he did find it convenient to have backup, and he could trust Brognola with his life. He had many times before.

Giving the apartment a fast once-over, Bolan checked a few more locations where small items could be found, then eased down the stairs. Mission accomplished!

Bolan was halfway down the stairs when he heard the front door crash open, and people stomping into the building, working the arming bolts on automatic weapons.

CHAPTER TWO

“Kill everybody you see!” a man growled, his voice nearly inhuman in its violent rage.

Nice to meet you, Eric, Bolan thought sarcastically, pulling the safety ring on an antipersonnel grenade. Then he released the handle and flipped the sphere down the stairs. It hit the landing hard and bounced around the corner. Instantly, Bolan surged into action, running for the living room.

“What in the...run!” a man screamed, the blast cutting off the startled cry.

The entire building seemed to shake from the force of the fiery blast, windows shattering on the ground level, and a couple of alarms cutting loose with deafening sirens.

So much for hiding in the shadows, Bolan noted, diving through the cracked window. Welcome to the light, Eric!

Daggers of glass cut into the trench coat, but the body armor underneath protected Bolan from any serious damage, and he landed sprawling in the fork of an oak tree, startling a small squirrel.

“Better run, amigo,” Bolan whispered, sliding down the tree to land in a crouch, both of his weapons drawn and at the ready.

Lights began to appear in all of the nearby houses, people roused by the explosion, and a couple of big men carrying M16 assault rifles appeared from around the front of the building.

Bolan and the gunners opened fired in unison. They missed, he didn’t, and they fell away into forever, their chattering weapons strafing the open night sky.

As much as Bolan wanted to walk around to the front and take out Kegan right now, there were too many civilians in the area to risk a gun battle. He felt sure that had been part of the man’s defense strategy, and the soldier couldn’t fault the bastard for coming out with a winning plan. People dressed in pajamas and slippers, armed only with flashlights, were starting across the street, and shuffling this way. In spite of that, Bolan still hesitated and took a step forward, then he saw a couple of kids appear, and a pregnant woman. Time to go.

Whirling, Bolan took off at a sprint and hit the back fence at a full run. He easily scaled it and paused, with one leg in sight until he heard somebody curse. Then he dropped over, just as a hole appeared in the old wood, spraying out splinters from the thunderous passage of a big-bore round.

Aiming at the sky, Bolan answered back with two shots from the Beretta, then took off again, jumping over an inflatable pool and dodging patio furniture. A glass door slid aside and out waddled an enormously fat woman cradling a double-barrel shotgun and wearing a fierce expression.

“Trying to rob me again, motherfucker!” she snarled, discharging both barrels.

Moving fast, Bolan got out of the way in time, and only a few of the lead pellets hammered him across the back of his armor. Christ, this was a nightmare! He had civilians coming out of the woodwork! Had to move this fight to something more secluded before innocent lives were lost.

Skirting a huge Cadillac, Bolan heard scampering claws and flipped his gun in the air to grab the Beretta by the hot barrel. A split second later, a huge Doberman charged into view, and Bolan neatly clubbed the animal unconscious with a single blow to the skull just behind the ears. The dog dropped with a sigh, and the soldier continued running, almost becoming entangled with a tricycle, and hopping over a low hedge.

Reaching the relative freedom of the street, he shot out the light on the corner, and quickly dropped the partially used magazine to slam in a fresh one. Suddenly, a car appeared at the end of the street. The headlights were off, and Bolan could see the dim silhouettes of men holding long objects out the open windows.

Dropping into a crouch, Bolan switched the Beretta to 3-round-burst mode, and emptied the entire magazine into the front of the vehicle. The stuttering barrage smashed both headlights and took out a tire, then the hood flipped up as the radiator exploded into a hissing geyser of steam.

“Get that son of a bitch!” Kegan screamed from inside the car, and the darkness became alive with the bright flashes of automatic gunfire.

Already running low and fast, Bolan took cover behind a Ford Pinto just as the first hail of lead arrived. The car rocked from the arrival of the military rounds, more glass shattering, then there came the strong smell of spilled gasoline.

Springing along the row of parked cars, Bolan heard the car ignite into a fireball as more house windows started lighting up, dogs began to bark from everywhere, and in the distance there came the long, drawn-out howl of a police siren.

Not pausing for an instant, Bolan pulled out a flash-bang grenade, armed the device and flipped it over a shoulder. He heard the doors slam shut on the crippled car and men cursing, then the grenade detonated. Designed to incapacitate an enemy, not kill, the stun grenade banished the night with a magnesium-fueled flash ten times brighter than the sun, along with a bone-jarring boom.

As Bolan dove behind a mailbox, he dimly heard the other men weeping and cursing, their weapons wildly discharging as leaves fell from the trees from the passage of the bullets.

One more corner, and Bolan saw a huge BMW motorcycle parked at the next corner. It was sleek and shiny and looked like polished speed. The front wheel of the BMW was covered with a bright yellow locking clamp, the infamous Denver Boot. A single kick disengaged the fake plastic clamp, and Bolan climbed onto the bike, twisting the ignition.

The big engine softly came into life. The only visible signs of operation were the dashboard indicators starting to glow softly, and the shaking of the muffler exhaust. One of the main attributes of the Beamer bike was that it used a transmission instead of a chain. That reduced the noise level significantly. Add a few modifications to the muffler, and the BMW become a purring mechanized ghost, barely discernable from a yard away.

“Fuck, fire, he’s got a bike!” a man snarled, an M16 cutting loose with a long burst.

Several of the 5.56 mm hardball rounds ricocheted off the dark pavement as Bolan lurched away, missing the man by the thickness of a prayer. Accelerating as he braked, the soldier took the corner fast and low, throwing out a leg to keep from toppling over. The friction nearly tore the combat sneaker off his foot, but he made it out of sight intact, then he slowed to a crawl, the huge engine barely ticking over.

Lost in the sounds of people, dogs and police, Bolan couldn’t hear any pursuit, so he fired a couple of more rounds into the air to give them a lock on his position. Bolan knew this was a dangerous game, but he wouldn’t kill civilians, even by accident.

A few moments later, something large and dark appeared at the far end of the road, then the halogen headlights crashed on, fully illuminating both man and bike. For a moment, Bolan realized that he might have overplayed his hand. That was a military Hummer!

As the huge vehicle surged forward with a full-throated roar of controlled power, Bolan twisted the throttle and silently streaked away. This was going to be close....

Just then, a police car flashed through an intersection, the light bar flashing and siren howling.

Knowing the local PD was no match for the kind of firepower carried by Kegan and his street soldiers, Bolan angled away from the police and took off down a side street, then popped a wheelie to get over a high curb and started through a weedy field.

The Hummer stayed right on his tail, the military vehicle taking the curb with barely a jounce.

Hanging on to the handlebars with all of his might, Bolan plowed through the weeds and cut across a Little League baseball field. As soon as he reached bare earth, he fishtailed the bike to throw up a cloud of dirt, then swung around the concession stand and came out the other side with his second handgun ready.

As the bright headlights of the Hummer appeared within the swirling cloud, Bolan used both hands to aim and fire the massive .50-caliber Desert Eagle. The big-bore rounds slammed into the engine, and it whoofed into flames.

The vehicle streaked past Bolan, the men inside screaming and cursing and fighting to get out of the burning vehicle. One dove to the ground and hit hard, his bones audibly cracking from the impact. As he rolled along, more bones snapped, then he slammed headfirst into the dugout, and stopped moving or making any noise.

Shooting out a tire on the Hummer, Bolan helped the driver bring the big car to a ragged halt. Then he switched weapons and raked the smoky darkness with the Beretta, the stream of 9 mm Parabellum rounds invoking a series of painful cries, and then deep silence.

Kicking down the stand, Bolan reloaded, then warily approached the burning car, his every combat sense on the alert. Unless Kegan had hired fools, the men were either dead, or only playing possum to lure him in closer. But either way, he had to see Kegan’s lifeless corpse before allowing this matter to end.

Bolan was only a few yards away when the Hummer unexpectedly detonated, the blast illuminating the entire ball field and throwing him backward. The breath was knocked out of him as he hit the ground, then the soldier rolled over and came up with both guns primed, searching for targets. But there was only the smoking ruin of the Hummer strewn across half the ball field, bits and pieces of sizzling flesh lying scattered about in grisly display.

For a long moment, Bolan watched for any signs that Kegan or one of his people had survived the stentorian explosion, then reluctantly holstered his weapons and walked stiffly back to the bike. He had to consider this mission a failure. Kegan might be dead, or he might not. Not even a team of forensic scientists would be able to tell for sure from that level of fiery destruction. Once more, Kegan the Unkillable had escaped.

Climbing back onto the BMW motorcycle, Bolan revved the engine and checked for any damage from shrapnel, then drove away into the night, heading for the main road out of town. His trench coat had a dozen holes in it, but it still served the basic purpose of hiding the majority of his weapons. If his radar-detector pinpointed any cops, he would simply swing off to the berm and get behind the bike, pretending to fix the engine until they were gone.

Worst-case scenario, Bolan would use the FBI commission booklet he had stashed in the luggage compartment of the bike. It was real enough for the locals, just not good enough to stand up to the scrutiny of the FBI, or any of the other Alphabet Agencies.

Cutting through a quiet shopping mall, Bolan took an on-ramp onto the elevated 465 beltway, and rode in somber contemplation until reaching the exit for the Columbus International Airport.

Throttling down the engine, he swept down the off-ramp, when there came a distant flash of light and a fiery dart streaked out of the night to impact on the ramp. A roiling blast shattered the concrete, and Bolan went flying. Soaring through the air, he forced himself to relax in an effort to not break his bones, and bit down on a sleeve. As little as it was, the cushioning effect might save his teeth. But no matter how he looked at it, this was going to be a bad crash.

In a jarring thud, Bolan landed in the swampy marshland around the airport, the splash of mud jutting yards high. An unknown length of time passed, then the soldier jerked awake, a hand clawing for the Beretta. It was gone, but the Desert Eagle was still at his side.

Weakly standing, Bolan wobbled as he desperately attempted to remember what had just happened. Clearly, there had been some sort of explosion, but what had detonated, he had no idea. Everything was a blur of chaotic images in his head. Then he saw the crumbling exit ramp, the burning motorcycle and everything came rushing back with the speed and ferocity of an express train. The ramp had been a trap!

Obviously, Kegan hadn’t been killed in the Hummer. Bolan had no idea how that was possible, but now the gunrunner and his troops were in hot pursuit. Having seen the horrors Kegan did to enemies to make them talk, Bolan decided he wouldn’t let these animals capture him alive. Everybody could be broken given enough time. Everybody. That was just the hard reality of life. A soldier simply had to decide what was more important, a few more minutes of life, or dying with dignity. And hopefully taking a couple of the bastards with you straight to hell! he thought.

Suddenly, there was a flash of bright light on top of the elevated roadway, and a fiery dart lanced across the field to slam into the smashed motorcycle. The explosion threw chunks of burning bike far and wide.

Diving to the side, Bolan rolled through the reeking mud trying to get far away from his point of arrival, then started crawling deeper into the gooey marsh until he reached scummy water. Pausing to catch his breath, Bolan felt his ribs grind and wondered if he had a full break. The body armor had saved his life, but now it was deadweight, and he reluctantly cut it free.

Moving with speed, he holstered the Desert Eagle and did a quick check for any further damage, then dug out the small medical kit behind his back. Thankfully it was still intact, and Bolan shot himself full of painkillers, just enough to dull the pain without impairing his judgment. Then wrapped duct tape around his muddy chest. For about the next hour, he’d feel fine, then all bets were off.

Struggling to recall the details of the airport, Bolan glanced at the starry sky to get his bearings, then headed due north, away from the airport. That would be another trap.

Finding a culvert, Bolan sloshed through the dirty water, disturbing countless frogs and huge clouds of buzzing insects. He may have been stung once or twice, but the painkillers were doing their job, and he felt nothing. There was only a sort of throbbing in his limbs from the combination of drugs coursing through his veins.

The culvert fed into the Ohio River, but bypassing that, Bolan continued northward until he encountered an old abandoned cement factory. It was quite possibly one of the worst locations he had ever found for making a last stand, but the huge feeder towers made an excellent landmark. Now he turned sharply west, wading through fields of debris and garbage, rats constantly underfoot, until he spotted a small squat building set alongside the river.

As Bolan stumbled for the ancient factory, there came unbidden into his mind the adage: to achieve success plan for failure. He thought that was Ben Franklin, but couldn’t be sure at the moment. However, it was absolutely true. Bolan laid out a plan for battle with extreme care, and no matter how perfect it seemed, he always memorized an escape route. On the roof of the cement factory was a duffel bag full of food, medical supplies, weapons and a cell phone. Everything he needed to keep breathing, and to call for an immediate evac. Just a few more yards, is all, he thought, almost there...

The boom of a long-range sniper rifle echoed across the landscape, and Bolan felt something hot briefly tug on his wet shirt. Damn, that was close! From the sound he could tell it was a .50-caliber rifle, and those were very bad news. Even the worst one he knew about still had a range of a quarter mile, and the best easily tripled that. As long as he was outside, he was in range for the hidden sniper. Only one answer to that problem.

Redoubling his efforts, Bolan sprinted across the field, zigzagging randomly to throw off the sniper’s aim. The big rifle boomed twice more, but hit nothing.

Reaching the rear fire door to the factory, Bolan checked the wax seal he had placed on the lintel. It was intact, meaning that nobody had gained entrance to the factory since his last visit, or at least, not through this door.

As Bolan forced open the metal door, he struggled to remember if there were other doors, but the information eluded him. Closing the fire door, the soldier threw the heavy bolt he had installed only that afternoon, then turned and started directly for the stairs to the second level. There was an access ladder up there, and—

In a thunderclap of ripping steel, the fire door exploded off its hinges.

Taking refuge behind a concrete pillar, Bolan watched as the door rattled about the rows of hulking machinery until finally coming to a rest in a pool of moonlight streaming in through a skylight. The fire door was deeply dented in the middle, the hinges and deadbolt only tattered remains of twisted metal. Unfortunately, that meant the sniper was a professional. He had a variety of bullets for the big-bore weapon, including blunt-nosed rounds perfect for smashing open doors or knocking down brick walls.

Changing direction, Bolan lumbered to the elevated control room. The office was dark, the air thick with dust, but the talcum powder he had spread across the floor was undisturbed. Going to a fuse box, he quickly screwed in a couple of the old-fashioned fuses, then threw the main switch.

None of the overhead lights came on, that would have been suicide, but about half of the cement machinery squealed into operation; stampers loudly banging, degreasers hissing steam, and a long snaking conveyor belt squealing in protest at its decades-long slumber being so rudely disturbed.

Easing open the door, Bolan slid out on his belly and crawled directly under a large piece of machinery. The air down there smelled of grease, rust, dust and petrified mouse droppings. Staying perfectly still, Bolan waited until somebody came into view. From this angle he couldn’t see his face, so the instant he had a good view of the sniper’s feet he fired the Desert Eagle.

The man’s shoe exploded into tattered leather, and he screamed, falling to the dirty floor and grabbing his mutilated foot with both hands in an effort to staunch the blood.

Moving to another dark machine, Bolan fired fast three times at a support leg. The booming .50-caliber rounds from the Desert Eagle ricocheted off the steel, and the man cried out, then went silent.

One down, and an unknown number to go, Bolan noted with little satisfaction. He had been ambushed like a rank amateur! But the soldier tried to move past that. This wasn’t the time nor the place for recriminations. Stay cool, stay sharp, kill on sight, live another day.

Rising slowly upward in the shadowy darkness between two hulking machines of unknown purpose, Bolan tried to move again as he studied the rattling, clanking factory. Smoke was rising from one of the distant machines, and he had no idea if that was just years of accumulated dust burning off the hot metal, or if the factory was on fire. Then he went stiff at a soft mewling noise, followed by crying.

Remaining still, he tried to track the noise when the source came into view. Tied to the conveyor belt was a woman dressed in dirty rags. She was struggling to get free, but clearly making no progress.

His only guess was that Kegan had grabbed some homeless person and dragged them along as a bargaining chip. Only now her status had abruptly changed to bait. Bolan had no idea where the convoluted belt went, or how Kegan had gained access, but since this was a cement factory, the chance of it ending at a pile of feather pillows was roughly zero to the power of ten.

“Surrender, feeb! Only I can save her!” Kegan boasted, firing short bursts from his weapon about randomly.

Bolan said nothing. Feeb? So he thought Bolan was an FBI agent, eh? Interesting.

Just then, a light flickered into life on the distant ceiling. Aiming and firing in a single motion, Bolan blew out the fluorescent tube, then darted back under the machine before the rain of glass shards arrived.

“Oh, you’re fast!” Kegan yelled from somewhere, the words echoing among the machines. “But I’ve got ten guys and you’re all alone!” He paused as if waiting for a response. When none came, he continued, “How about a deal? Tell me who you work for, and I’ll let you leave, alive and unharmed!”

Bullshit, he’d be shot on sight, Bolan knew, but that wasn’t the Executioner’s main concern at the moment. The woman on the belt was slowly heading away, and Bolan had to get close, even though he knew in advance it was a trap. But he couldn’t allow a noncombatant to die in his place.

Searching around on the filthy floor with a bare hand, Bolan found a couple of large bolts that had worked their way free from the machines. Holstering the Desert Eagle, Bolan pulled out his last grenade, yanked out the pin, then dropped one of the bolts, and threw the other.

“Grenade!” a man bellowed, and Bolan heard the sound of people running.

Releasing the handle on the grenade, he now threw it ahead of them, then scrambled onto the conveyor belt and started sprinting.

As he ducked under a steam pipe, the grenade violently exploded. A chemical thunderclap of brilliant light filled the entire factory, and Bolan heard several men shout in pain and surprise, their voices fading away into eternity.

When the conveyor belt took an unexpected dip, Bolan nearly lost his footing, and he dropped flat to hold on to the tattered leather strip with both hands. Some of the staples holding the belt together were coming loose, and he got cut and slashed, but the punctures were only flesh wounds and he ignored them.

Suddenly, the whimpering increased, and there she was, only a yard away, moving in the opposite direction. The blasted belt had reversed course somewhere! Diving forward, Bolan grabbed an overhead pipe and felt it start to give as he swung forward. It broke free just as he let go, and Bolan landed on the conveyor belt just as the pipe loudly crashed to the floor, closely followed by a rain of assorted metallic debris.

Instantly, gunfire strobed the darkness, hot lead ricocheting off the machines at that location. But Bolan was already far away, and steadily accelerating. Going to the prisoner, the soldier punched her in the temple to expertly knock her unconscious and stop the crying. He felt sure she’d rather have a throbbing headache, and live, than die.

Running his hands over her body, he was surprised to find her so healthy and well-fed. Suspicious, he drew a knife and slashed away her clothing until she was down to her bra and panties. That was when he found a slim Remington .32 pistol taped under a breast. She was a fake!

Pocketing the gun, Bolan eased off the rumbling leather belt and back into the darkness.

Moving away from the sporadic gunfire, the soldier headed back to the second floor, and started up the ladder for the roof. Whoever the woman was, he felt no pity or remorse. Obviously she worked for Kegan and deserved whatever kind of cruel justice was offered by the grinding gears of the ancient rattling machine.

Reaching the skylight, Bolan checked to make sure the wax seals were still in place, then pushed open the now-lubricated hinges and stepped into a cool refreshing breeze. Heading directly for the emergency pack, Bolan sent off the signal for an emergency evac, took a few grenades, and the spare Beretta, then went back to the open skylight.

Below there was only darkness and the rumbling machines. Then a woman screamed in mortal agony, the cries becoming high-pitched as the machines took on a lower tone. The conveyor belt stopped, but the screaming continued.

Pulling the pin on an antipersonnel grenade, Bolan tossed it in that direction. Before it even landed, he pulled the pin on three Willy Peter grenades and tossed them about the interior of the factory—then he moved back fast.

At the first blast the female’s screaming thankfully ceased as the spray of shrapnel zinged about madly off the walls and machines. Two more voices shrieked, then the incendiary grenades ignited, and the entire factory flashed as an inferno of incandescent chemicals spread outward, blanketing everything they touched with deadly white phosphorous.

As a hellish blaze began to swiftly grow, a side door burst open and out staggered a coughing man. Immediately, Bolan recognized him as Kegan. Drawing and aiming the Beretta in a single move, the soldier emptied the machine pistol in prolonged bursts. The hail of 9 mm hollowpoint rounds slammed Kegan to the ground, ripping into the man until he collapsed to the roof.

“Debt paid in full,” Bolan growled, reloading the Beretta.

The roof was starting to get warm under his feet, and Bolan was considering a jump toward a pool of stagnant water when a deep throb sounded in the starry night sky. Bolan looked up to see a Bell Huey helicopter heading his way.

“Taxi!” he shouted with a wave, then put two fingers into his mouth and sharply whistled.

Swinging about, the helicopter landed a couple of yards away, and Bolan yanked open the side hatch to half step, half fall into the passenger seat.

“Tough day at the office, Sarge?” Jack Grimaldi asked, smiling behind his visor.

“Nothing special,” Bolan replied, buckling a seat belt around his bloody clothing.

Laughing in reply, the Stony Man pilot pulled back on the control yoke, and the helicopter lifted off the roof of the burning factory. It disappeared into the night only moments before the local fire department arrived, closely followed by a brace of ambulances and a heavily armed SWAT team.

CHAPTER THREE

Mexico

A long conga line of police cars drove along the mountainous road, their lights flashing, but the sirens oddly silent.

The backbone of the USA–Mexico combined antidrug effort, Firebase Azules, was a heavily fortified Mexican military base situated on top of a low hill that gave it a commanding view of the surrounding valley and the distant mountains. Concrete K-rails surrounded the entire base to deter suicide bombers from driving a truck loaded with explosive onto the base. Past the rails was a hurricane fence made completely out of barbed wire and topped with deadly coils of concertina wire, the endless coils of razor blades glittering in the early morning sunlight.

Grim soldiers stood in concrete guard towers, smoking, drinking coffee or polishing their M16 assault rifles. Security cameras constantly swept the perimeter, radar scanned the air and sonar probed the nearby river.

The United States of America and Mexico had signed a mutually beneficial treaty many years ago: the US supplied Mexico with military ordnance to help the nation’s endless fight against the drug lords that kept coming up from South America. The best of the best went to Azules.

Only recently, a submarine had been stopped off the Atlantic coast, and 180 million dollars’ worth of cocaine had been found. The crew was in jail, the cocaine destroyed at a special incinerator and the Mexican navy got a slightly used diesel submarine. All things considered, a pretty good day for the Federal Border Patrol.

Slowing down at the maze of K-rails, the police cars proceeded slowly over the expanse of speed bumps and hidden land mines. Stopping a short distance from a fortified guard kiosk, Dalton Greene turned off the engine of the stolen police car, and climbed outside. The billionaire was now wearing the regulation uniform of the Mexico police, including sidearms, sunglasses and wristwatch. A spray tan had darkened his skin to something more appropriate to a Caucasian living below the Rio Grande. The only subtle difference was the Threat-Level-Five body armor he wore under the uniform.

“Good morning, Lieutenant!” Greene hailed in flawless Spanish. “Is the base commander available?”

“Perhaps I can help you with something?” the officer asked, pushing back his cap.

The soldier was armed with a .45 Colt automatic pistol, while his partner inside the kiosk was cradling an M16 assault rifle with an old-fashioned M203 grenade launcher attached underneath. On top of the kiosk, a small radar dish never stopped spinning in its endless search for incoming enemy planes.

“No, sorry, I need to see the base commander,” Greene repeated, trying to sound apologetic.

Warily, the guard looked over the men and women in the eight police cars. Aside from the fact that they were all Caucasians, he wasn’t suspicious in the least. Mexico did things differently than most countries, not better or worse, just different, so while this seemed like a lot of police to send to a military base for any reason, it wasn’t unusual. More than likely somebody important was arriving at the base, and they were here to escort him to someplace else, like Mexico City for example.

“You have papers?” the lieutenant asked at last.

Greene grinned. “Of course!” He passed over a clipboard stuffed with documents.

The officer gave the sheaf of expertly forged papers only a cursory glance, then nodded to the soldiers inside the kiosk. One of them threw a switch, and the steel barricade that blocked entry onto the base slowly descended into the ground with the sound of working hydraulic pumps.

When the way was clear, Greene took back the forged documents, got back behind the wheel.

Driving onto the base, the members of Daylight smiled and nodded at the hundreds of soldiers going about their daily routines. Some were policing a grassy field, marching in formation, hauling away garbage, or yawning and scratching while standing in line at the galley. The smells wafting from the numerous air vents of the cinder-block structure were tantalizing.

“Any chance we could grab a bite?” a terrorist asked, leaning forward in his seat.

“Can’t see why not,” a driver said with a dismissive shrug. “But only afterward, I mean. You know...”

“Yeah, sure. No problem, mate.”

Parking directly in front of the base commander’s office, Greene got out once more, noticing that the other police cars were dutifully parking at strategic points around the sprawling base: the fuel depot, barracks, galley, armory.

Sauntering inside alone, Greene introduced himself to the young corporal at the reception desk, and was briskly escorted into the private office of General Juan Dias.

“A pleasure to meet you, sir!” Greene said, giving a crisp salute.

“At ease, Captain.” The general returned the salute, then offered a hand. They shook. “Way out here on the front line Azules is nowhere near as formal as back in the capital.”

“Good to know.” Greene smiled, gesturing at a chair.

The general nodded, and the billionaire took a seat. “I’m sure that you can guess why I’m here.”

“Some VIP is arriving unannounced at our airfield, and you’re here to escort them back to the capital.”

“Exactly, sir! Your reputation precedes you, sir.”

“Thanks. Now stop blowing smoke up my ass and tell me why you’re really here?”

Greene shrugged. “Honestly, we’re just here for the VIP. Some congressman from the United States wants to get a reputation for being tough on drugs. Same old, same old.”

“Fair enough, then. Cigar?”

“Thank you!” Greene lit a match, and let all of the sulfur burn off before applying the flame to the tobacco. “Magnificent!”

“Of course! Only the best here. We don’t share the crazy American’s trade embargo with our brothers in Cuba.”

“Obviously!” Greene sighed, savoring the thick rich smoke.

“So tell me about your latest kill?” Greene questioned.

Removing his own cigar, the general laughed. “You heard about that, eh? It was our biggest haul ever in drugs and hardware. Nineteen tons of heroin, and six more helicopters. Six!” Turning slightly at an angle, Dias looked out the window at the airfield. “This gives me a combined total of nine helicopters, eighteen assorted gunships and one submarine.”

“No! Really?”

“Honest to God. Plus more Hummers, trucks and APCs than I can remember.”

“Wow. You are a credit to our nation, sir,” Greene said, gesturing with his cigar.

General Dias shrugged. “It is my job.” But his tone said something different.

Glancing about as if to make sure they were alone in the office, Greene pulled a small black box from his pocket. “Now, this is something you may find very interesting,” he said, working the controls. A light flashed green on the box, then changed to red.

“What is it?” Dias asked, puffing away contentedly. “Some new form of radar jammer?”

“Oh, no, sir, something much more simple than that,” Greene replied, pressing the light.

Instantly, the box burst open and something lanced across the desk to wrap around the general’s neck.

“This is my own invention,” Greene boasted. “A new form of limpet mine designed to take out a moving torpedo. Watch what happens next, eh?”

Fighting to breathe, Dias clawed for the alarm switch on the intercom. But the linked segments of metal around his neck rapidly tightened until blood began to ooze out from underneath, and he dropped to the desk, his face purple, his eyes bulging.

“The more advanced version has explosive charges included,” Greene said, puffing contentedly on the cigar. “But I need this to be done quietly. Sorry about that.”

Shuddering, the general rolled over and went still. A moment later, there was a soft crack as his spine was crushed.

Saluting the general for a job well done, Greene went to the window. He smiled at the sight of the police cars parked at different locations across the military base, his people standing in a cluster on the grassy field reserved for drills and marches.

Here we go, he thought.

Changing the settings on the transmitter, Greene waited until the red light turned white, then he pressed it again and ducked.

The entire base rocked to the hammering concussion of all eight police cars exploding, their cargoes of dynamite and plastic explosives combining into a devil’s brew of annihilation. To the few survivors, the cars had seemed to simply vanish in a deafening fireball, the blast spreading out to flatten buildings, and send hundreds of soldiers flying high into the air in tattered pieces.

Even before the blast completely died away, the members of Daylight removed their earplugs and surged into action. Using their police revolvers to gun down any unharmed soldiers, the terrorists quickly reached the armory and upgraded to M16 assault rifles, M203 grenade launchers, Armbrust rocket launchers and flamethrowers.

Now the terrorists did a fast sweep of the burning base, ruthlessly exterminating anybody found alive. Some of the soldiers tried to fight back, others ran and a few begged for mercy, but it made no difference. The white supremacists of Daylight removed the Mexican soldiers with brutal efficiency.

Striding out of the main office, Greene headed for the airfield firing his 10 mm Falcon Magnum at several scurrying military officers. The unarmed men died bloody, still trying to escape. An older sergeant managed to get his pistol out, and Greene coldly emptied the entire magazine into the man, the 10 mm Magnum rounds blowing gaping holes.

Still smoking the cigar, Greene sauntered onto the tarmac and paused to reload. Several of his people were already at the airfield, the only section of the base that hadn’t been damaged in any way by the booby trapped police cars.

“Report!” Greene demanded, around the cigar.

“The executions are done,” Layne reported, easing a fresh clip into his exhausted weapon. The Barrett XM-25 rifle was a recent acquisition and fired 25 mm shells. At short range, the shells punched through the chest of a man, and at long range the chemical warhead detonated with enough force to blow the victim to hamburger.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Greene muttered, holstering the revolver. “Miss LoMonaco, if you were hiding from an invasion force such as ours, where would you go?”

Scratching the treble-clef tattoo on the inside of her wrist, the woman paused in thought. “Grease pit in the garage with a car parked on top,” LoMonaco said at last. “Or inside the water tank on top of the roof, or inside an oven in the galley kitchen.”

Pleased at the quick response, Greene smiled. “Take twenty men and check those locations. We need to be sure there are no survivors.”

“Not a problem,” LoMonaco said, resting the warm barrel of the Neostead shotgun on a shoulder and starting forward.

“Alpha Team, follow LoMonaco!” Layne bellowed, and a squad of armed men surged after the diminutive beauty.

The garage proved to be empty, as did the water tank, and the ovens. But checking the freezer, LoMonaco found a suspiciously large pile of frozen beef in the corner. “Surrender or die!” she yelled, working the pump action on the weapon.

“Please, I surrender!” a young private replied, scrambling into view with both hands raised. “Please, don’t shoot, I’m just the cook!”

Amused, LoMonaco burst into laughter. “Sorry, but I saw that movie.” She blew the head off the cringing teenager.

Heading back to the airfield, LoMonaco had a strange smile on her face, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. The other members of Daylight noticed that, but said nothing, deciding that discretion was the better part of keeping lead out of their heads.

“All clear, Mr. Greene,” LoMonaco reported, pulling a fat Cuban cigar from a pocket and applying the flame from a butane lighter to the tip.

“Excellent! Thank you, Samantha,” Greene said, and went to join the others on the busy tarmac. “How is it going, Victor?”

With one boot resting on a crate of air-to-air missiles, Layne looked up from a clipboard. “Perfectly, sir! We now have eight Apache gunships, fully fueled and armed. Plus four Cobras and ten Black Hawks.”

“Are all the Blackhawks transports?” Greene asked as a man handed him an M249 Minimi machine gun.

“No, sir. Five are transport, four are being packed with spare fuel and munitions, and one is a mobile medical bay.”

“Any radar defusers?”

“Yes, sir. Plus radio jammers.”

“Excellent,” Greene said around his cigar. “Most excellent. My compliments, Victor!”

“It was your plan, sir,” the man said with a shrug. “By the way, how did the limpet function?”

“Perfectly!”

Somewhere across the base, a man screamed, an assault rifle chattered, and a burning building started to collapse in ragged stages, thick black clouds of smoke rising high into the morning sky.

“Now what about all of those F-14 jetfighters?” LoMonaco asked, brushing back a loose strand of hair. The action left a streak of blood across her face.

“Nobody in Daylight can fly a jet aside from the two of us. They only know helicopters,” Greene growled. “Besides, a jet would only get in the way of the next mission. Low and slow is the key, not death-from-above as the Americans like to boast.”

“Such a shame.” LoMonaco sighed, looking longingly at the nearby hangar, a sleek F-14 Tomcat sitting in the entranceway fueled and ready to go.

Unexpectedly, a bright flash erupted from the roof of the base library, and a fiery dart lanced across the decimated base to slam directly into the Tomcat. The multimillion-dollar jetfighter thunderously exploded inside the hangar, the spreading fireball set off the next jetfighter and the next. The entire airfield was hammered by a long series of strident detonations that continued for an obscene length of time.

When the last roiling blast finally dissipated, Greene rose from the tarmac to scowl in open hatred at the smoking ruin of the hangar. All of the planes were gone, totally destroyed, the smoldering rubble spread out for as far as he could see.

“What the fuck was that?” Layne loudly demanded, working his jaw to try to clear his ringing ears.

“Sir, does this base have a bomb shelter, or some sort of hidden panic room, whatever the military calls them these days?” LoMonaco growled, brushing debris off her police uniform.

“If so, it didn’t appear in any of the floorplans I stole!” Greene snarled, slowly pulling a long sliver of steel from his bloody arm. “Okay, Layne, your turn. Kill them!”

“On it!” the man yelled, starting forward at a full run. “Thomas, Hannigan, Stone, Ferguson! Follow me, boys! It’s showtime!”

Spreading out so that they wouldn’t offer the hidden Mexican soldiers a group target, the terrorists raced across the base, darting from building to building, bushes to cars, never fully exposing themselves.

“Okay, LoMonaco,” Greene started, then stopped.

Buckling on a flamethrower, the woman ignited the pre-burner, then sent out a hissing lance of flame and started setting fire to anything between the library and the all-important helicopters.

As a wall of fire rose high, the billionaire nodded in approval. LoMonaco was hiding the machines from any further attacks! Smart girl. The Mexicans might still shoot more rockets, but, unable to aim properly, it would be a total gamble on their part.

Suddenly, a great commotion came from the base garage, and the metal doors were battered open as a pair of Bradley Fighting Vehicles surged into view. The squat machines charged at the library, rolling over debris, rubble and corpses. Smashing aside parked cars, the vehicles cut loose with 7.62 mm chain guns, arcs of spent brass flying away, then the 25 mm rapid-fire cannons roared into operation, the streams of high-explosive shells chewing a path of destruction across the marble face of the building. Windows shattered, doors disintegrated and hundreds of burning books were blown out of the library to flutter away like dying birds.

There was a flash on the roof, and a rocket streaked down to explode in the street only feet away from one of the Bradleys, then another from the first floor flashed right past the second one to continue onward and disappear into the distant mountains.

Slamming headfirst into the side of the burning building, the Bradley crashed through the brick wall and men briefly screamed, their cries barely discernable over the blazing chain guns. Then the second Bradley slammed through the opposite wall, and the whole library visibly shook, loose bricks tumbling off the cracking walls.

Revving their big Detroit engines to full power, the pair of Bradleys smashed through the interior walls in irregular patterns, crashing through offices, computers and lavatories, crushing a dozen scurrying soldiers. Smashing out the other side of the sagging building, the armored hulls of the Bradleys were covered with plaster dust, blood, paperbacks.

Stopping only a few yards from each other, the Bradleys unleashed their 25 mm rapid-fires again, tearing holes in the weakened walls and blasting apart support columns.

The roaring conflagration inside the library blocked most of what was happening, but everybody on the base could hear the groan of the structure as it finally succumbed to the brutal attack. A wall broke free to fall across the street, scattering loose bricks for several blocks. The roof bowed, another wall cracked open wide and the entire building collapsed into itself, throwing out a thick gray cloud of concrete dust.

Still firing, the crews of the Bradleys sent in waves of 25 mm shells, pounding the library nonstop, grimly determined to permanently end the threat of the soldiers inside the hidden bomb shelter. Tons of loose masonry tumbled into the basement, along with broken slabs of concrete, and endless piles of hardback books. Soon the basement was an inferno of fiery chaos, the roiling clouds of dense smoke rising high into the sky to form the classic mushroom pattern of any intensely hot ground fire.

Pulling back a safe distance, the Bradleys stopped and the triumphant crews climbed out to start walking back to the airfield with Layne in the lead.

“It looks like we nuked the base,” LoMonaco chuckled, easing off the straps of the flamethrower to set the empty canisters on the sidewalk.

“Pretty damn near,” Greene said in agreement, slinging the Minimi machine gun across his chest. “All right, let’s do a sweep and recover any of our people who died. Bring the bodies along, and we’ll bury them at sea.”

“Razor up, people! Get those birds hot!” LoMonaco added through cupped hands. “We need to be airborne in fifteen minutes!”

As a clean-up squad got busy with body bags, a small man wearing thick glasses stumbled out of a prefab hut. “Mr. Greene, sir! I found the Gladiator!” the technician shouted happily, triumphantly holding up a control box.

“About damn time,” LoMonaco muttered with a disgusted expression. “Is it a newer model?”

“No, sir. But it’s still fully functional.”

“Good work, Langstrom!” Greene shouted, giving a thumbs up. “Take everything! We can use it in the Triangle.”

“Don’t forget spare batteries!” Layne added over a shoulder, already heading for a Black Hawk.

A few minutes later, everybody had a seat in a helicopter, and the stolen armada gracefully lifted off the tarmac in a whirlwind of smoky exhaust and acrid smoke from the countless small fires.

Quickly rising high, the helicopters angled away from the obliterated base and followed a whitewater river to disappear into the nearby mountains, heading due north toward the United States.

CHAPTER FOUR

Bethesda, Maryland

The dark sedan pulled into the parking lot of the Ambassador Hotel and took the first spot available among the limousines and imported sports cars.

As the door opened, a middle-aged man got out and started walking briskly toward the outside swimming pool. He wasn’t quite running—that would have drawn unwanted attention—but the man certainly wasn’t out for a casual stroll, either.

Hal Brognola was a bulldog of a man, still physically fit even though middle age had added a light sprinkling of gray to his dark hair and a bit of paunch to his midsection. Brognola was also the person in charge of the Sensitive Operations Group, a clandestine antiterrorist organization based at Stony Man Farm, Virginia. He handled a lot of black-bag operations, ferreting out the secret enemies of freedom, and bringing them to a hard and swift brand of justice.

Mack Bolan had helped put the Stony Man teams together and at one time had had a hand in running the program, but these days Bolan had an arm’s length relationship with the big Fed. He’d take on a mission if it was mutually beneficial. He rarely turned one down.

The hotel’s swimming pool was particularly busy on such a warm day, families splashing about, bored teenagers texting, a cadre of diplomats and attachés at the bar already knocking back shots of straight vodka in a futile effort to hide their early morning consumption of alcohol.

Mixed in with the others were quite a few strikingly beautiful women in skimpy bathing suits. Relaxing on chaise longues, the ladies were slowly oiling their perfect skin, obviously enjoying the admiring looks they garnered.

Slowing his brisk pace on the wet concrete, Brognola smiled at several of the older women. Then one of them smiled back, and shifted on her longue to make room for a guest. Pausing for only a moment, Brognola nodded in thanks for the offer, then touched the plain gold wedding ring on his finger and moved on. A man could appreciate a gorgeous sunrise without trying to take it home.

The damp air was redolent with the aroma of pool chlorine and coconut-scented suntan lotion, the dulcet smells of summer, and Brognola breathed it in deeply, briefly invoking memories of his younger, more carefree, days, days before he’d joined the police force and eventually entered government service.

Times past, youth gone, but sweeter still for the missing or however the poem went, Brognola thought he couldn’t recall the last time he’d read a book for the fun of it. His life was purely work, with little time for family and friends anymore. Just another sacrifice for the greater good.

A velvet rope closed off a private section of the swimming area, but Brognola walked in as if he owned the place. A frowning lifeguard started his way, but the big Fed simply flashed his Justice Department credentials, and the man turned and went back to his business watching over the assorted swimmers. This was Washington, and everybody knew not to bother a member of the Alphabet Gang at anything they did.

Stretched on a cushioned table, Mack Bolan was getting a vigorous massage from an elderly Chinese woman, his face set into an emotionless mask of control as her strong hands kneaded his bruised skin to reach the hard muscles underneath.

“Does this story have a happy ending?” Brognola joked.

Looking up, Bolan grinned at his old friend. “Better not say that again, or Mrs. Feinstein will kick your ass.”

Brognola arched an eyebrow at the Jewish name, then shrugged. After he had learned that back in the sixties the mayor of Dublin had been a rabbi, he’d stopped trying to pigeonhole anybody and simply took people as they came.

“Wu, my last name is Wu,” the woman said in lightly accented English. “My old friend is trying once more to be funny.”

“Trying?”

“No wonder so many people shoot you,” Mrs. Wu snorted, drying her hands on a towel. “You wouldn’t know a joke if it bit your ass.” With that, she slapped him on the said area, then turned and walked away, humming a tune.

“You have the strangest friends,” Brognola said with a chuckle.

Sitting up, Bolan stretched and flexed his arms, the muscles visibly moving under the skin. “A strange few,” he said. “There’s no better massage therapist than Cindy. She’s a black belt in kung fu, and can kill just as easily as heal with those old hands.”

Brognola paused, then realized it wasn’t a joke. “Cindy Wu? Like in the Dr. Seuss books?”

“I think that was Cindy Lu, and she prefers to be called Cynthia.”

Bolan slid off the table and pulled on a robe. “Walk with me.”

Moving away from the busy pool, the men entered a hedge maze and soon found a more secluded area. There was a table with two chairs, a pile of sandwiches and a pitcher of iced coffee.

“So what’s up?” Bolan asked.

“Sorry about this. I know you just got back, but I’ve got one of those feelings,” Brognola said, pouring himself a glass of the iced coffee.

“What happened?” Bolan asked, all of the humor gone from his voice and demeanor.

Laying a briefcase on the table, Brognola pressed a thumb to the glowing biometric lock. He felt a brief tingle as an electronic sensor confirmed that it was living flesh pressed against the contact plate, then it read his fingerprint, compared it to those on file. The case disarmed the self-destruct charge, then unlocked.

“Roughly twenty-four hours ago some people disguised as the Mexican police destroyed a Mexican military base in the Azules Mountains,” Brognola said, opening the case. Inside was a US Army laptop.

“They attacked the base?”

“Destroyed is the correct word.” Flipping up the screen, Brognola tapped a button, and the monitor flickered into life. “These shots were recovered from a dozen smashed cell phones, and the one security camera that the terrorists didn’t find and smash.”

“Terrorist is a big leap from thieves,” Bolan said, his full attention centered on the disjointed images: running shoes, a rain of spent shells, fire and destruction everywhere. A soldier firing his handgun from the ground, then instantly torn apart by converging streams of bullets from several different directions.

“Are those M16 assault rifles?” Bolan asked, furrowing his brow.

“F88,” Brognola corrected him. “Standard issue for the Australian military. They use the same ammo that we do, but it cycles a little bit slower than an American version.”

“That’s what caught my attention,” Bolan said, playing the images again.

Brognola was impressed. Bolan heard the difference in the middle of a firefight? “Now, they didn’t take the payroll in the commander’s safe, or even the loose cash in the register at the officer’s club. They did take a hundred kilos of pure heroin that was waiting to be incinerated, but ignored an even larger amount of crystal meth.”

Bolan gave a low whistle. That made no sense since the meth would be worth twice, maybe three times, more than the heroin. Everything seemed to point to the thieves being be narcoterrorists, but again, why leave behind the crystal meth? Why in the world would anybody need that much heroin?

“How do you know they’re not really the police, the drugs are purely misdirection, and in fact this was some kind of a political junta?” Bolan asked pointedly.

“No way they’re blue,” Brognola stated. “The fat guy is way too big. The woman is too short. The Mexicans have a minimum height requirement for female officers, and there is no record for anybody over seven feet tall ever working for the Mexican police.”

“Fair enough. Okay, what did they take?”

“Mostly heavy weapons, rocket launchers, Stinger missiles, radar defusers, VX nerve gas, and every working gunship on the base. Nineteen to be exact.”

“What types?”

“Mostly Apache and Cobra, but also a couple of armed Black Hawks. Not state-of-the-art, but all in perfect working condition, and armed to the teeth.”

“Maybe they plan on selling the helicopters. The Apaches alone would fetch a small fortune in certain parts of the world.”

“I wish it was true.” Brognola frowned. “However, they also took a Black Hawk medical unit.”

“Any blood missing from the base hospital?”

“According to the records, about a hundred units of blood plasma, and ten more of AB positive.”

“But nothing else?”

“Just the usual medical supplies, sutures, bandages, forceps and such.”

“AB positive is a pretty rare blood type,” Bolan said slowly.

“Yes, it is,” Brognola said. “So I ran that through the Interpol database, along with the general descriptions of the three people armed with unusual weapons.”

Bolan understood. Most of the thieves were carrying an F-8S. Anyone carrying a different weapon would be either a specialist, who might have a crime record, or else he or she was the person in charge.

“Now, the fat guy has an XM-25 grenade rifle,” Brognola said flipping through the shots to find the ones he wanted, then freezing them. “The woman has a Neostead shotgun, while the giant is carrying an F88 assault rifle...but has a Falcon automatic pistol in his shoulder holster. Everybody else is carrying a police-issue Glock.”

“What did you find?” Bolan asked, suddenly interested.

“Again nothing,” Brognola admitted honestly, taking a sandwich. “The President thinks I’m overreacting. But he’s a politician, and I’m a street cop.”

“Correction. The top cop for the nation.”

“Just a cop all the same. Half of this job is going with a gut instinct, and I’ve got a bad one on this thing, Striker,” Brognola said with a grimace. “There was just something hinky about these three, so I ran their descriptions through the entire government database. That brought up something.”

He took a bite of the sandwich, chewed and swallowed. “The giant appears to be Dalton Greene, the Australian billionaire, which makes the other two his bodyguards, Victor Layne and Samantha LoMonaco.”

“How hard is that intel?”

“Weak, only around fifty percent accurate.”

“Weak is a nice way to put it.”

“Accepted. Then I read that Greene and his bodyguards all died in a fiery car crash last week, the bodies burned beyond recognition.”

As the pictures on the screen stopped, Bolan sat back in his chair. “Chalk up another win for the gut instinct,” he said slowly. “This reeks to high heaven.”

Dalton Greene had been on Bolan’s radar for quite a while. There was nothing specific, just a lot of little indicators that the Aussie billionaire was dirty.

“How did they take the base?” Bolan asked.

Brognola shrugged. “Forensics isn’t sure yet, but I think they staged a riot in Cancun yesterday, then ambushed the police and stole their cars.”

“You think?”

“None of the police officers who responded to the call have been found yet. The attack zone was swept clean. Literally swept clean, like it was a zen rock garden.”

“Which means the cops are most likely shark food at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Probably.”

This was an interesting puzzle, Bolan realized. Greene was rich enough to buy the number of stolen helicopters, plus the weapons, on the black market. So why would he go to all the trouble to steal them? Merely to hide his identity, or was there something darker at play, some twist that he couldn’t quite see yet?

Reaching out, he tapped a button to start the flow of chaotic images once more. By now, Bolan was starting to get a bad feeling in his own gut. Ruthless, patient, cool and bloodthirsty. These were hard boys with a game plan. That always spelled big trouble.

“It looks like I’m going to Mexico....”

CHAPTER FIVE

Mexico City, Mexico

The air was cool and crisp inside the Alhambra Night Club, scrubbed and sterilized by a host of machines designed to remove any trace of pollution from the bustling metropolis just outside the front door.

A sparkling disco ball on the ceiling filled the room with artificial starlight, and a live band on the stage softly played classical love songs. Young couples danced on the floor and old married couples looked on from their tables, holding hands and smiling in fond memory. Everybody was well-dressed, suits and ties for the gentlemen, flowing dresses with wrist corsages for the ladies.

Standing outside the club was a pair of former bank guards whose only job was to keep out anybody deemed unsuitable, no matter how much money they were offered as a bribe, or what amazing sexual favors were promised in exchange for a quick peek inside. Unfortunately, no security system was perfect.

With a lopsided smile, the drunk woman leaned closer. “I lo-love big men,” she slurred, a plump breast nearly falling out of her black satin dress.

Saying nothing in reply, Special Agent Willard Cinco moved one chair away at the hotel bar.

She followed along.

“I sa-said that I love big, muscular, men,” she whispered, attempting a sexy smile and failing utterly. “Don’t you like me?”

“I like you fine, sweetheart, but I’m married and my wife is the jealous type.” He flashed her an apologetic smile, stood and walked away without another word.

Going to a table, Cinco waved down a passing waitress and ordered another scotch and soda. Maria smiled in reply showing dimples, then walked away with a definite swaying of the hips, but slowly, to let him admire the view.

Six feet tall, and as almost as wide, the hulking Mexican intelligence agent liked to joke that he was built like a bull, and easily twice as smart. But that was just one of his many lies. An expert in cryptography, countersurveillance and high explosives, Willard “The Bull” Cinco was one of the top agents at Centro de Investigatión y Seguridad Nacional de Mexico—CISEN, Mexico’s intelligence agency.

The television behind the bar was showing a football game, what the crazy Americans called soccer for some unknown reason, and Cinco heard the overly excited announcers talking about how one team’s defense was murdering the opposition, what a slaughter it was going to be this night, somebody wearing guts for garters, and how the blood would flow! Sipping his drink, the CISEN agent didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry.

Reaching into a pocket, Cinco pulled out a universal remote and shifted to the weather channel. Nobody in the club seemed to notice, or care. He liked the Weather Channel, it was oddly soothing, almost hypnotic.

Folding a stick of chewing gum into his mouth to help fight off the urge for a cigarette, Cinco chewed in peaceful silence for a while, and wasn’t terribly surprised when Maria delivered his drink accompanied by a free bowl of cheesy crackers, and a slip of paper bearing the name Rosetta and a local phone number. Exercising restraint, Cinco snacked on the first and burned the other in the ashtray, his impatience growing by the minute. His personal network of informants was rarely wrong about such things, but this time Cinco was starting to think that—

She walked into the nightclub as if she owned the place. Tall, slim and deliciously dark with raven-black hair and a wide generous smile, the woman was dressed in a designer gown that couldn’t have been any more formfitting if it had been sprayed onto her flawless skin. Diamonds sparkled from her fingers, circled both wrists and her neck. Her shoes showed toes, the nails painted the same color as her fingernail polish, and her long hair was swept forward across her face to help hide the jagged rope scar on her neck where she had been hung and hideously tortured by the formerly corrupt spy agency. Helping the federal army to bring it down hard, Lucia Cortez had been generously rewarded by Mexico by not being arrested for stealing millions of dollars from the secret coffers of the agency. Soon, Cortez had a string of restaurants, hotels, gas stations and nightclubs across the nation and happily fed CISEN any juicy gossip her employees heard in passing.

“Good evening, Bull,” Cortez said, sitting down at his table. Smiling, she placed a cigarette between her lips and waited.

Removing it, Cinco crushed the tube in one hand and sprinkled the remains into the ashtray.

Her dark eyes flashed with surprise, then Cortez laughed and relaxed in the cushioned leather chair. “You never change,” she said, reaching out to playfully ruffle his hair. “When the worms come to eat you in the grave, you’ll arrest them for trespassing.”

“My coffin, my rules.” Cinco smiled, then recoiled as the woman jerked backward in the chair, a small black hole appearing in the middle of her forehead. As blood began to trickle from the bullet wound, Cinco was hit twice in the back with something very hard.

Flipping over the table, he dove to the floor and came up with his Magnum pistol blasting. Standing near the fire exit was a man holding a silenced rifle, preparing to fire again. But the heavy slugs from the .357 Magnum slammed him against the fire door so hard his head audibly cracked on the metal, and he tumbled to the floor, gushing blood.

Panic filled the nightclub at the sound of the gunshots, and people started rushing about in a blind panic, screaming and shouting.

Ignoring the civilians, Cinco knelt by Cortez, and saw that it was too late to do anything. Her face was ashen, the pulse in their throat weak, and her skin already felt cold and lifeless.

“Lucia,” he whispered putting a lifetime of emotion into the name.

“Ca-Cancun...” she whispered in reply, the words almost lost in the general commotion of the rioting nightclub. She trembled once, then went still forever.

Laying her head gently on the floor, Cinco rose to his full height and proceeded directly out the fire exit. He passed by the killer without a second glance. He knew the man, Hector Martin, a contract killer from Quarez, who never asked why, merely who and how much? He had done a lot of work for the Sandanistas back in the bad old days, and Cinco knew that there was nothing new he could learn from the corpse. Martin cost a lot, so that meant whoever had had Cortez killed was very wealthy, and had good intel about the criminal underworld. That wasn’t much to go on, but he had to start somewhere.

The back alley was hot, humid and dank, ripe with the smell of rotting garbage. Feeling like a machine set on autopilot, Cinco strode through the reeking darkness, his fist clenched around the pistol, his heart pounding as he desperately sought somebody to kill in revenge for the senseless slaughter of his old friend. But the alley was clear, and the parking lot was total chaos, any possible clues destroyed by the mob of frightened civilians running for their lives.

Standing alone for what seemed a long time, Cinco slowly holstered the weapon, then went to his car and got inside. Opening the glove box, he pawed through the collection of maps until he found one that showed how to get to the Cancun Peninsula.

International Waters, Gulf of Mexico

T HE A LLENDALE ROSE and fell on the easy swells of the open water. There were no nets hanging from the tall cranes of the converted fishing boat, and the cold bay had long ago been made into a sort of dormitory with rows of bunk beds.

Sitting in a canvas chair, a blind man was softly strumming an old guitar, while his family and friends gathered around. Nearby, on several hibachis filled with hot coals, hamburgers and sausages loudly sizzled and gave off the most amazingly delicious mixture of smells.

“What are you going to play, Grandpa?” a young man asked, twisting off the cap from a frosty bottle of beer.

“What would you like to hear?” Jefferson LaSalle asked, then paused to tilt his head.

“Something wrong, sir?” a young woman asked, glancing around at the empty sea and sky.

Dropping the guitar, Jefferson felt cold adrenaline flood his body as he flashed back decades ago to the hated Vietnam war. Dear God almighty, he knew that noise all too well. It was the very sound that had robbed him of his sight and killed his best two friends at the exact same moment.

Lunging forward, the old vet grabbed the first child he could reach and strained with all of his might as he flung the little girl over the side of the Allendale and into the ocean.

“Grandpa!” a woman screamed. “Have you gone mad!”

But before he could answer something dark streaked past the boat leaving behind a long contrail of smoke.

“That’s a rocket!” A young boy laughed, starting to applaud.

Reaching for the noise, Jefferson grabbed the boy and dove sideways over the gunwale holding the child tight to his chest.

“What in the world is going on here?” a fat man demanded, setting down his beer. “Has the old man gone loony?”

High overhead, the dark shape was spiraling about in the growing twilight, swinging this way, and that, to finally start directly for the fishing boat.

With a growing feeling of dread, a woman grabbed her two children and dove over the side of the vessel. Dropping a book, a thin man began throwing small children overboard as fast as he could, then everybody scrambled to get off the deck, fueled more by family loyalty than fear.

The last man clumsily dove over the stern to belly flop loudly in the salty water a split second before the stealth missile slammed into the boat. The wooden hull shattered into pieces as it came out the other side, and then exploded, the ancient wood just barely offering enough resistance to trigger the warhead.

The chemical hellstorm filled the area, illuminated the ocean for miles, the blast smashing the Allendale into kindling and slamming the assorted swimmers deep underwater. But only a few moments later they bobbed to the surface again, coughing and spitting, treading water furiously.

“Grandpa, how...how did you know?” a man asked, his hair plastered flat onto his head.

But the old man merely shook his head in reply, already starting the arduous journey back to shore. There were no sharks, or barracudas in the area, so with some luck his family would reach the shore alive. However, he couldn’t say the same thing for whomever that swarm of military gunships was after. God help them all, he thought, the poor bastards.

Cape Canaveral, Florida

W HENEVER NASA HAD A ROCKET on the launch pad, they guarded it with a staggering display of physical defenses. A dozen Navy warships encircled the launch facility, and the sky overhead was full of Air Force jetfighters, chasing away the curious and ready to strike with lethal force any more determined advance. Navy submarines patrolled the deep waters, radar filled the sky, sonar probed the sea, and NORAD satellites watched everything from high in orbit. The cost of this military “ring of steel” was staggering, but deemed well worth it.

At any other time of the year, NASA and the sprawling launch facility used only standard security protocols established for any government facility in an effort to save the taxpayers some money. That was deemed prudent and cost-effective by the politicians, scientists and anybody who wasn’t trained in military tactics or security.

Following a modified version of the old Japanese plan of attack on Pearl Harbor, the forces of Daylight swept in from the west, maintaining tight formation, flying below the radar, and destroying any vessel they encountered in the open water. A dozen assorted boats were sunk with long-range heatseekers to remove any chance of advance warning to NASA. The Apaches were the fastest craft, so they hung back in the rear, and let the slower Cobras take the lead, with the armed Black Hawks maintaining a cluster formation in the middle, especially the one medical Black Hawk. That was assigned as their command ship, and contained Dalton Greene.

Bent over a table covered with maps and satellite photographs, the Australian billionaire was directing the mission using the one form of communication that couldn’t be effectively blocked—a Gertrude.

Everybody in the civilized world knew how submarines used a sonar “ping” to locate obstructions underwater. Fewer people had any idea that sonar would be modified into a form of underwater transmitter that somewhere along the way had gotten the odd nickname of Gertrude, original source unknown.

It broadcast a powerful pulse into the water, one that everybody and anybody within range could hear, which rendered it useless for general combat. There had been numerous attempts to scramble the pulses that never seemed to work because of countless technical difficulties. Encoded underwater transmissions weren’t possible, only general broadcasts, which the Navy strongly disliked. Even in times of peace, one submarine commander chatting with another could reveal far too much valuable information to non-Navy listeners. So the practice was strongly discouraged. When the commanders wanted to talk, they would “ping” each other, then rise to the surface and use more conventional forms of communications.

However, Greene had spent years laying plans for these attacks. The initial sortie on NASA was crucial, and after spending millions on experiments, his scientists had finally managed to shift the operational frequency of a Gertrude into the ultrasonic range, where nobody could hear it but dogs. And since one hundred percent of all airplanes, even seaplanes, didn’t have sonar receivers, nobody else in the air could even receive the transmission, much less understand. The failed form of underwater communications had proved highly successful in the lab. But only between helicopters in close-quarter combat. Airplanes and jetfighters simply made too much noise.

Those were the first obstacles to overcome today.

A self-made millionaire, Dalton Greene had been born in South Africa. When the white regime fell and Nelson Mandela took over, a disgusted Greene fled to Australia.

But now, swarms of immigrants were flooding into his adopted homeland, and Greene knew that soon it would became a nation of mongrels—just like South Africa. In a desperate effort to stop the influx of immigrants, Greene decided to liquidate his vast financial holdings and save Australia from the unwanted invasion in the only way possible—by starting a new world war.

Radiating a broad spectrum of radio, radar and cellular telephone jammers, the armada of stolen helicopters separated into groups. The forces of Daylight attacked from five directions, with Greene steadily issuing commands over the modified Gertrude.

Coming in from the west, the first salvo of missiles from Alpha Wing was sent arching over the horizon long before the American space base even came into view. The guided missiles matched the terrain below to the maps in their computers, and dove for the kill.

At the first indication of jamming, the local Air Force base assigned to protect NASA scrambled a full wing of Hornets, and the jets were just taxiing along the runway when the missiles arrived to slam into the tarmac and unleash a tidal wave of napalm.

The jetfighters were drenched by the sticky compound, and dripping flame. The pilots first tried to extinguish the hellish blaze by going faster, but that only seemed to feed the fire, making it hotter, the fuselage of the Hornets starting to soften in spots, the temperature gauges registering off the dial. With no other choice, the pilots decided to eject—only to realize that they were dangerously close to the civilian territory: homes, schools and hospitals.

Trapped between duty and honor, the grim Air Force pilots made the hard choice, and directed their melting jetfighters toward the open sea. Not one of them made it there.

Only moments later, the SAM bunkers assigned to protect the space facility cut loose with multiple salvos. But, designed to stop incoming missiles and enemy planes, the heatseekers went completely out of control at the wall of napalm, and streaked down to crash into the burning tarmac, removing any possibility of additional jetfighters attempting to take off.

“This is Zed Commander. Take out the helicopter hangar and fuel depot!” Greene commanded, moving small figures across the map. “Bravo Wing, go-go-go!”

Flashing across Coco Beach, Bravo Wing easily located the city power station and took it out with a single concentrated salvo. Then, following the high-tension powerlines, they systematically destroyed each substation encountered until the electric grid for Florida collapsed and half of the state went dark.

Right on cue, dozens of computer hackers across the world began flooding the internet with conflicting message about what was happening, blocking any possible attempt by the National Guard or the police to coordinate local defenses using bleep transmissions, or even email. Pretending to be trapped victims, the hackers claimed there were Cuban warships hitting Miami harbor, al-Qaeda overwhelming Tallahassee, and suicide bombers killing everybody at all of the larger amusement parks.

Unable to tell the real information from the false, the police were forced to simply wait until they knew what was actually happening. Which was exactly what Greene had wanted in the first place.

Using the chemical sensors in the Apache gunships, Charlie Wing easily located the exhaust fumes from a large petroleum refinery, and took out the main storage tanks with a salvo of 35 mm rockets, and then a single air-to-ground missile. Ripped wide open by the devastating combination attack, the colossal storage tanks burst, and ignited into gargantuan fireballs that registered as a nuclear explosion on the Keyhole and WatchDog satellites in orbit.

Following the coastline, David Wing easily found the main NASA facility, and spread out to hammer the base with multiple salvos of rockets and missiles. The multiple explosions formed a wall of fireballs before the Daylight gunships, and they charged straight through with their machine guns firing. Civilian cars were ripped apart under the barrage, windows shattering, hoods flying up and the older models burst into flames. People were scurrying everywhere, shouting, praying, cursing and firing handguns at the armored gunships. Ruthlessly, the Daylight pilots gunned down everybody.

Unexpectedly, a single antiaircraft rocket zoomed up from the ground, and a Black Hawk was blown out of the sky, flaming debris and bodies raining back down across the base.

A thousand people on the ground began to cheer, until all of the remaining gunships cut loose with everything they had. Rockets, missiles, bombs and chain guns strafed the base, detonating massive storage tanks of liquid hydrogen. The stentorian explosion shook the entire base as if a volcano had erupted. The noise was almost beyond description, and a mob of screaming people were blown away like dry autumn leaves.

Caught in the initial blast, the armored gunships were buffeted about, several of them taking damage, and two Apaches coming so close to each other that their spinning blades threw off sparks at the fleeting touch. But the Daylight armada survived, and did the same thing again to another underground storage tank of liquid oxygen. Prepared this time, they were hardly bothered by the hellish detonation, and continued their Draconian rampage across the base, delivering swift and unremitting death in every way possible.

Protected by the expanding ring of bloody chaos, David Wing landed on the unprotected roof of the NASA administration building. Pouring out of the helicopters, the terrorists stormed down the stairwell, executing anybody they encountered. Smashing into a lab, they gunned down the terrified scientists and blew open a safe. Inside were neat rows of electric components nestled in the soft gray foam normally used for transporting high explosives.

Gingerly loading the devices onto hand trucks, the terrorists returned to the roof, loaded them onto the waiting Black Hawk and immediately departed.

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