Bolan took a closer look, still holding the data terrorist’s arms behind his back. “Is that a cell phone?” The rectangular device had tiny numbered buttons and a speaker grid.
“The smallest on the market,” Octavios replied.
“I suppose I don’t want to know where you’ve been hiding that. Or how you got it into and out of that Canadian detention site,” Bolan said as he let the man up and pushed him toward the rear of the vehicle. With the back of his arm, he swept the tiny phone onto the asphalt. Then he crushed it with his boot, stomping on it several times. The tiny device came apart in shards of plastic and fragments of circuit boards.
“You really don’t.”
“So that’s how they’ve been tracking us,” Bolan muttered.
Octavios looked at him. “That was very expensive, you know.”
“I feel like I haven’t made myself clear, Javier,” the Executioner stated, deliberately using Octavios’s given name again. “Maybe you think you’re pretty clever. You’re not. I assumed your people were following us. That’s why I was waiting for them to show at the house in Toronto, and why I told my people to leave the car while I dealt with the problem.”
“Truly, you are a dizzying intellect,” Octavios mocked. “Please, regale me more with how your machinations have brought us to this point.”
“I was testing you. I wanted to see what you’d do. How you’d do it. And what we were up against where your people are concerned. I learned what I needed to know.”
“Did you? Perhaps you aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
Something in the tone of Octavios’s voice made Bolan turn. Looking up the QEW, the route they’d come, he spotted the two minivans headed his way. They were the same ones from the safehouse.
Codex Freedom had found them again.
Octavios started laughing. “Look at you, the brave American hardcase,” he said. “Standing there telling me how brilliant you are, while the very people you believe you’ve outsmarted have followed us here.”
“I was counting on it,” Bolan said.
Octavios’s face fell. “What?”
“If you like that, you’re going to love this.” He took the keys from his pocket and popped the trunk. He pulled one of the heavy canvas bags from inside and threw it to the ground.
“Wait—”
Bolan shoved the man into the trunk and slammed it shut. Then he threw the canvas bag into the Malibu, jumped into the vehicle, fired it up and peeled out of the diner parking lot just as the vans began to enter.
The soldier took the ramp with the tires squealing. He hoped they didn’t pass any Ontario Provincial Police vehicles along the way. He didn’t need interference from law enforcement, nor did he wish to put them in danger. The Codex Freedom misfits were the worst kind of terrorists. They were completely inexperienced in violence, which made them totally unpredictable.
Trained men and women, professionals, the types of killers with whom Bolan so frequently contended, could be counted on to behave in predictable patterns. It was both part of the training and part of the dictum that form followed function. When you trained an operative, when you educated a spy or an agent or an assassin or a military man, you were creating certain attitudes. You were building certain ways of doing things.
Over the years, Bolan had learned the ins and outs of the many professionals with whom he worked and against whom he fought. He was practiced at determining what they’d do based on his knowledge of their methods and their training. He could still be surprised, but on the whole, things tended to play out as he expected them to. Even the North Koreans, who were sloppy compared to some of the other intelligence and military operations on the world stage, were at least imitating the more polished players they aspired to rival.
These Codex Freedom characters, though...there was no telling what they’d do. He hadn’t expected to see them so quickly after dealing out death and destruction to their unprepared membership. He’d fought cults before—death cults so vicious that they would commit any act of violence against one another just to stop themselves from being interrogated after capture. But he didn’t yet have a good finger on the pulse of Octavios’s group. He wasn’t sure where they sat on the spectrum...although he was reasonably sure they were trying to free their boss, not kill him for his own good.
The Malibu surged when he put his foot on the accelerator. It was a good, powerful car. He’d like to keep this one free of bullet holes, not to mention driving it for more than a few miles before getting it shot up. With the Greek’s fanatics on his tail, that presented a problem.
Except that it didn’t.
While he and Octavios had spent the night in the car, he’d been poring over maps in his encrypted smartphone. The sedated Octavios had snored loudly while Bolan found everything he’d needed. The soldier had run over the plan in his mind, memorizing everything before grabbing a few hours of shut-eye himself.
He had carefully considered the route on the way here, finding the access road he’d wanted and making sure the distance would work. His stop at the diner had been planned. He’d known that some party, or more than one, would follow them thanks to whatever signaling device Octavios was carrying. The diner was close to the access road the soldier had identified, so all he had to do was to make enough speed to put just enough stretch between the minivans and his Malibu.
Once on the access road, he could be sure the only cars that would follow immediately behind were the Codex Freedom vans. Slamming on the brakes, he brought the Malibu to a slewing stop, threw it in Park and got out. He took the canvas bag with him. Walking to the middle of the access road—some kind of right-of-way for highway maintenance equipment—he dumped the contents of the bag onto the roadway.
The spike strips unfurled like giant springs. He threw the canvas bag to the side of the road, leaped back into the Malibu and rammed it into gear once more. The vans were closing, barreling down on him. The lead driver probably had a moment to wonder how they had gotten so lucky to make up so much ground.
From the Malibu, Bolan could hear the van’s tires burst.
Traveling at these speeds, the effect of hitting the spike strip was like encountering a roadside bomb. The lead van yawed sideways, struck the ditch at the side of the road and flipped, landing on its side and skidding to a stop. Behind it, the second van’s driver couldn’t stop in time. Whoever was driving slammed on the brakes, hitting the spike strip and destroying all four tires before colliding with the first van. The front of the second vehicle crumpled beautifully, the collision bringing the van to a jarring stop.
Bolan halted the Malibu and threw it into Reverse. Taking out his Beretta, he leaned out the driver’s-side window and then heeled the steering wheel over. Once more, he put the vehicle in Park, jumping out to stalk the two vans.
A man stumbled out of the passenger side of the lead vehicle and brought up a revolver. Bolan shot him in the head. More men and women were spilling out of the sliding door of the second van. The Executioner took up a cover position by the engine block of the first vehicle, dropped to one knee and raised the action-tuned Beretta in a two-handed grip. He used the grip extension on the trigger guard and, with the pistol in single-shot mode, began pumping shots into the side of the second van.
Movement in Bolan’s flipped cover vehicle caught his attention. The driver inside the van was starting to move. When he caught sight of Bolan, he fisted a rusted 1911-pattern pistol from inside his jacket. Blood, streaming down his forehead, fouled his aim. His shot went wide. Bolan fired once, twice, through the cracked and starred windshield. The driver stopped moving.
“Stop! For the love of God, stop!” came a shout from the second minivan. Bolan shifted position slightly, keeping the engine of the overturned vehicle between him and from where the voice had come. It was the same woman’s voice he’d heard at the safehouse.
“Come out,�
� Bolan ordered.
“Don’t shoot me!” the woman yelled. “I’m coming out!”
“Just you,” he said. “None of your friends. They can stay in the van or they keep right on dying behind it. If I see any face but yours, I put a bullet in it.”
“I’m coming out!” she said again. When she stepped away from the van and into the access road, Bolan could see she was blond, quite attractive and dressed in formfitting camouflaged pants. Her olive-green blouse was baggy and billowed around her, hiding what Bolan assumed was probably a willowy figure that matched her legs. She wore a red scarf around her neck.
“Well, aren’t you just the picture of a Hollywood revolutionary,” Bolan said from his position. “Do you have any weapons, Ms. Hargrave?”
If Sheila Hargrave, known cell leader of Codex Freedom, was surprised that Bolan knew her by sight, she didn’t show it. The soldier recognized her picture from his dossier. A trickle of blood ran down her scalp, starting at her hairline and crossing her right cheek. Other than that, she seemed unharmed.
“I have a knife.”
“Let’s see it,” Bolan said.
Hargrave reached behind her back and produced a glittering kerambit, a curved Indonesian weapon with a ring in the handle. Such a weapon was wielded in the reverse grip, like a tiger’s claw.
“You see?” she said. “This is all I have. I’ve lost my gun.”
“And I’m sure your friends in the van will be happy to loan you a piece,” Bolan replied. “Toss the blade.”
Hargrave set it carefully on the pavement, rather than throw it. Bolan noted that. This was a woman who was fond of her knives, unless he missed his guess. That was an important point. If he found himself face-to-face with her and she had the blade, she’d be the type to want to use it.
“How many of you are alive in there?” Bolan asked.
“You’re a coward,” she said. “Hiding behind cover while people you’ve shot bleed to death. You have no humanity.”
“You’re the ones who kicked in my door in the middle of the night,” Bolan reminded her. “I don’t suppose you’d like to confirm how you’ve been tracking your boss. Cell phone signal, maybe?”
“Is Javier alive?”
“I’m surprised you’d need to ask that,” Bolan said. “He’s the one with the data bomb jammed in his chest. If he dies, doesn’t the internet get spammed with all his dirty laundry?”
“All your dirty laundry,” Hargrave snarled. “You, and the Fascist government you represent. And countless other power-hungry regimes. We’re going to topple the monopoly Big Tech holds on—”
“Skip it,” Bolan said. “I’m not interested in your philosophy. We’re at an impasse, Ms. Hargrave. You want your boss back. I’m not going to give him to you. I’m in a position to end your life. I’d prefer not to. That means this can go one of two ways. Either you, and everyone else with you, lies down on your stomach in the road, or I finish the job you’ve forced me to start.”
“I don’t think so,” Hargrave said.
There it was. Bolan had been able to see, in his peripheral vision, one of the other zealots trying to flank him. The man was crawling along the brush on the side of the access road, carrying some kind of rifle. Apparently he fancied himself some sort of sniper. He had to be nearly in position. Bolan was reasonably certain of where he’d be crouching, now that he was no longer in the soldier’s eye line. Hargrave had been stalling, and she thought Bolan was a dead man.
“Don’t do it,” Bolan warned.
“Now!” Hargrave shouted. She broke into a run.
Bolan put a bullet in her shoulder, swiveled and rolled. A heavy round, maybe a .30-06, struck the overturned van a foot from where he’d been crouched. The shooter wasn’t even close. The Executioner jumped to his feet, took aim with the Beretta and stitched the would-be sniper with multiple rounds. Then he shoved the Beretta in its holster and drew the Desert Eagle.
The air was suddenly thick with gunfire again. Bolan emptied the Desert Eagle as he ran for his Malibu. There was no way to know if he had hit anything, but it didn’t matter. His goal was to lay down cover fire as he made for the vehicle.
Once back at his Malibu, he tore out of there, roaring down the access road, back the way he’d come. A few shots rang out, but none clipped the vehicle. He couldn’t see anybody by either van. They were probably crouched with the vehicles between them and Bolan, firing into the air out of fear. He had seen it before.
“That’s going to slow them down for a bit,” Bolan said loudly so that Octavios could hear him through the rear seat. “Unless you’d like to tell me what resources your cells command.”
From the trunk, the Greek shouted curses at him. “How can I tell you what I don’t know? We use the cell structure for that very reason!”
“Well, that’s one cell that’s going to have to do a recruiting drive,” Bolan said.
“You are a merciless man, Cooper.”
“Quite the opposite. I could have slaughtered them all. I didn’t, because that’s not how I work. I used exactly the force necessary to stop them from coming at us. They could have saved themselves a lot of blood and pain by leaving us be. They made their choices.”
Octavios was quiet for a while. Finally he said something in a normal speaking voice, which Bolan couldn’t make out.
“What?”
“I said,” Octavios shouted, “did you kill Sheila?”
“Maybe. Does it matter?”
“I cared for her.”
“If you cared for her,” Bolan said, “you never would have dragged her into this insane cult you’ve got going.”
Octavios said nothing to that.
The soldier put the pedal down and drove for some time before striking a pothole deep enough to make Octavios shout out.
“Let me out of this trunk, damn you,” he said.
“I’ll think about it.”
Chapter Seven
Buffalo, New York
The Mercedes sedans—a collection of black and silver cars, all the same model—couldn’t have been more obvious. It couldn’t be helped. Choi had called in reinforcements and a veritable arsenal to replace the guns they’d had to leave in Canada. Jang Mung-Jun shook his head as he watched several of the commander’s subordinates fill the vehicles with gas. They were occupying all but two of the station’s many pumps, under the fire-fighting canopy he gathered was required by American law at such places.
This was Jang’s first foray into the West under the command of Choi Kwang Sik. He found it almost overwhelming. Everything about this place was alien. The too loud Westerners in their too bright clothing. The conspicuous consumption of every conceivable resource. The shelves of their stores were stuffed with so much merchandise that goods went unsold and food rotted before it could be eaten. Their cars burned countless liters of fuel as they ferried themselves here and there, never going anywhere of consequence.
Back home, his people starved. Back home, men and women brewed drugs like methamphetamine to dull the pain of illnesses that went untreated. It was easier to make bathtub drugs than it was to obtain life-saving medication. Vast sections of the country had no power. So many North Koreans lived in poverty.
Jang looked around him, at the waste, at the wealth, and knew who was to blame for his people’s suffering. It was the West. They sucked up all the world’s resources, all the world’s energy, all the world’s consumer goods. They lorded their power over nations they considered weaker, peoples they consider inferior. But now they would be brought low. Now, in their incredible arrogance, they would be humbled. The dedicated men of the SSD would see to that. The thought brought a smile to his face.
Jang reached into his pocket and took out the toonie he carried. The gold and silver coin had a bear etched onto it. He had received it in exchange after purchasing supplies for the men with Commander Choi.
He’d kept it, not to spend, but as a reminder of his time in the decadent West. He never wanted to forget what he had seen here. For the rest of his life, he would know what they’d accomplished. Once Javier Octavios was dead and the West had been dealt a terrible blow at its own corrupt hands, Jang and his people could stand more proudly.
Jang walked the coin across his fingers, leaning against one of the Mercedes sedans. He’d had an uncle who’d used to perform the same trick with metal washers. Thinking of his uncle made Jang feel guilty. He pushed the thought from his mind. The man had been found guilty of crimes against the state for complaining about rationing. Jang felt great shame over that, and was grateful his uncle’s misdeeds had not affected Jang’s own career.
He was fortunate to be a highly placed officer in the State Security Department. Priority for food and resources was given to special operations for obvious reasons. Jang, Commander Choi and the rest of their extensive team were here on foreign soil to carry out the will of the Supreme Leader. It was one of the riskiest—and most important—missions ever assigned to the SSD. They could not fail.
The thought made Jang frown. No, failure was never an option for the SSD. The Supreme Leader had tasked Commander Choi personally with making sure Javier Octavios died and his secrets were revealed to the world. If he escaped, if his escort managed to spirit him to safety, Commander Choi would be disgraced. So would the rest of the team. His country’s leader was known to be fair and benevolent, yes...but he dealt harshly with failure. It had been made clear to all of them, on their departure, that failure was treason. To let Octavios live was to deny the will of the Supreme Leader, tantamount to insurrection.
The leader had fed his own relatives to ravenous dogs when he’d purged his court of those disloyal to him. This was not common knowledge. It was something Commander Choi had witnessed. In another instance, an antiaircraft gun—artillery used to target enemy bombers—had been used to dispatch a traitor. The wretch had been forced to stand just one hundred feet from the weapon, which had a range of twenty-six thousand feet.
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