“Nothing yet,” he said, anticipating Novak’s question.
“What?” He could hear the CEO’s exhalation.
There was no pleasing this asshole.
“I said, nothing yet.”
“I heard you,” Novak told him, his voice laced with irritation. “Where’s Snyder?”
“I texted him a while ago. He’s on the way back.”
“All right,” Novak said. “I don’t think we’ll need them anyway. Everything’s working extremely well here.”
McMahon wondered if the call was merely Novak’s way of reminding him that they were on a strict timetable, and that he needed to obtain Leza Dean’s password and cooperation.
“Look, Warren, what I do takes time. I don’t want to push her over the edge. I’ll get what you need,” McMahon said.
“Okay.” Novak was obviously irritated by the lack of results. “Check how long Snyder will be. And then just have Snyder put them with the reporter when he gets here. We’ll deal with them all later.”
“Roger that.”
“We’re getting ready to launch the Aries. Then I’ll have Burke bring Cerillo back to you.”
“Roger.”
Novak hung up.
McMahon grinned and slipped the phone back into his pocket. To hell with checking on Snyder. He’d get here when he got here, for Christ’s sake. Novak wasn’t content unless he controlled every move, like on one of his stupid chessboards. McMahon took a deep breath and contemplated more pleasant tasks. He took one more breath of the outside air and opened the door to step back inside the long hallway. The dilapidated state of the place, with the peeling yellow paint and piles of crumbled ceiling tiles, seemed in contrast with the fancy ironwork that still lingered in places like the winding staircase and the huge doors with the rounded tops. In its heyday, the place had to have really been something.
At least this portion where the warden had his offices, McMahon thought.
He pulled open the heavy metal door and stepped back inside. Leza Dean still sat in the sturdy wooden chair, her arms and legs fastened to the struts with plastic zip ties. Her head perked up quickly as he entered, and McMahon flashed her one of those high-wattage smiles he liked to practice in the mirror.
“How you doing, gorgeous?” he said, then picked up the pliers and looked down at her. She stared up at him and sobbed.
“Okay,” McMahon said, reaching down to grab one of her bloody fingers while nosily opening and closing the pliers. “Where were we?”
* * *
The prison looked like a medieval castle set at least a hundred yards back from the highway, and the access road looked serviceable, yet overgrown in spots with weeds cropping up through the cracks in the asphalt. High trees and shrubbery had encroached on the once barren expanse that surrounded the fifteen-foot-high cyclone fence, topped with concertina wire. There was another overgrown gap of perhaps thirty yards between the metallic fencing and the large twenty-five-foot limestone walls with guard towers strategically placed along various spots and at the corners. Bolan used his binoculars to scan each one, looking for sentries. The road led to a set of wrought-iron gates between two massive stone pillars with a sentry post atop each one.
“Man,” Grimaldi said, “that place puts the ‘max’ in the term ‘maximum security.’ How’re we gonna break in there?”
Bolan continued his survey, saying nothing. They were a good distance off, but from what he could tell, only one of the towers seemed to be occupied, which was a good sign. He lowered the binoculars, turned in the seat and pulled his duffel bag toward him.
“We’d better take this opportunity to load up,” he said. “We don’t know exactly who or what we’re going to find.”
“Exactly my point,” Grimaldi said. “Maybe we should just back off and wait until we can assemble a team to go in.”
Bolan shook his head. “This whole thing seems to be proceeding at a fast pace. The drone attack in Mexico yesterday, the abductions of Cerillo and Leza Dean, and the attempted abduction of Cerillo’s family. We need to figure out what their endgame is, fast.”
Grimaldi sighed and reached for his bag. “Yeah, you’re right, as usual.”
Bolan took out his cell and dialed Aaron Kurtzman. When the Bear answered, Bolan put him on speaker and asked if he’d found out anything more on the abandoned prison.
“Like I told you,” Kurtzman said, “it’s been closed for quite a while, but somebody’s been using a lot of electricity and water out there. It stretches over twenty acres, and in the last year or so there’s been some construction, too. An aerial view shows what appears to be a road that’s been partially reconditioned on the east side. It butts right up to a section of the wall that’s been taken down and replaced with a building of some sort.”
“What’s your best guess on what it is?” Bolan asked.
“I’d say maybe a hangar and a landing strip.”
“That would fit if they were launching and landing drones here,” Bolan said.
“Oh, it’s long enough to land a full-fledged aircraft,” Kurtzman said. “And for one to take off, too.”
Bolan considered that.
“I also found something else of interest in the schematics,” Kurtzman said. “At one time this was an active prison, and the warden was apparently nervous about the possibility of a riot and rampaging prisoners. He had a special escape tunnel built from his office that leads just outside the front wall. It’s anybody’s guess if the thing’s still intact, though.”
“Maybe that’s our way in,” Grimaldi said.
“Well, like I told you,” Kurtzman said. “It’s anybody’s guess at this point if the thing’s still passable.”
“I’ve got another idea on how we can get in,” Bolan said.
Before he could say anything else, they saw what appeared to be a silver arrow zoom upward from the eastern side of the huge facility and arc skyward.
“Aw, hell,” Grimaldi said. “Was that what I think it was?”
“What’s going on?” Kurtzman asked.
“It looks like they’ve just launched one of their drones.” Bolan ended the call and watched as the drone circled and headed in a northeasterly direction.
“That thing looks like it’s headed toward DC,” Grimaldi said.
“Yeah, it does.”
“And unless my pilot’s eyes were mistaken,” Grimaldi said, “I think it was loaded for bear.”
Bolan pulled his Heckler & Koch MP5 out of the duffel bag along with four magazines. The timetable had just been tightened a few notches.
“You don’t think they’re planning on hitting something in the Capitol?” Grimaldi said, digging into his duffel, as well. “I mean, that’s a no-fly zone. They got all sorts of radar and jamming devices protecting that area.”
Bolan checked the magazine before sliding it into his MP5.
“Remember what McMahon told us about the Aries,” he said. “The radar-absorbing technology. It’s like a ghost.”
“You won’t know it’s there,” Grimaldi said. “Until it’s too late.”
“Let’s just hope we’re not.”
* * *
Novak watched as Burke brought Cerillo from the airstrip and back into the large hangar adjacent to the launching area. The stone walls had been removed and a replaced with corrugated metal and a massive overhead door. The huge C-130 sat next to a Learjet. The rest of the hangar area was filled with numerous vehicles, including the black limousine, the maroon Impala, the news van and Cerillo’s BMW. Burke held the waspish man in a vise-like arm grip, and Cerillo’s features were twisted in obvious pain. Meeks and the Arabs were about twenty feet away, crowded behind Redmond watching the transmitted images on the large screen, and Novak didn’t want them to see that Cerillo had been roughed up a bit. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered to them. They were used to conducting business the hard way, lobbing off the hands of transgressors and beheading others. A little strong-arming to assure compliance, in the form
of a beating, surely wouldn’t be off-putting to this group. Plus, they’d just paid the first installment for the assassination of one of their royal princes. Life was cheap to those people.
The redheaded geek was providing them step-by-step narration as he piloted both the Athena and the Aries over DC. Novak motioned for Burke to bring Cerillo into the hallway. Once there, Burke forced him down to his knees. The man’s lips twisted open, displaying crimson-covered teeth as he grimaced in pain.
“Where’s my wife? My daughter?”
Novak nodded to Burke, who grabbed Cerillo’s ear and twisted.
“You’re in no position to ask any questions,” Novak said. “Do we understand each other?”
Cerillo grunted pathetically.
Novak took that as a yes and smiled, motioning for Burke to ease up a bit.
“You’re sure the radar-defeating capability of the Aries is functioning properly?” Novak said.
“It took off, didn’t it?”
Novak raised an eyebrow and signaled Burke again. The big man bore down on the frail-looking scientist.
More grunts of pain, punctuated by a whimper, echoed in the hallway.
“Now,” Novak said, “I’m going to ask you that same question again, and I want an answer in plain, simple English, not some sarcastic outburst. Do we understand each other?”
Cerillo squealed an affirmative reply.
Just then Burke cocked his head and Novak turned, seeing Meeks slipping around the corner. The congressman had a concerned look on his face.
“Something going wrong?” he asked.
Novak forced himself to smile. “No, nothing.”
“Well, then, what’s all this?” Meeks’s hand gestured toward the kneeling man and Burke hovering over him.
“Just a little insurance,” Novak said. “Shoring up our defenses while keeping the king protected in the back row.”
Meeks’s brow furrowed. It was obvious the chess metaphor was lost on him.
Lowbrow, Novak thought.
“I guess...” Meeks shook his head. “I wasn’t expecting it would be so messy.”
Novak kept his face neutral, but he wanted to lash out and slap the son of a bitch. What did he expect? Of course, the congressman was a typical politician, used to sitting back and pontificating while sending others in to do the dirty work.
“Everything’s fine, Eddie,” he said, trying without success to keep the vestiges of a sarcastic lilt completely out of his voice. “Now, just go back and keep our Middle Eastern guests happy and occupied. This will all be over soon.”
The congressman looked from Novak to Cerillo and then back again with a worried expression on his face. He turned and went back into the room without another word.
“Take him back to the holding cell and put him with the reporter,” Novak said. “His family should be there any minute now. And then have McMahon bring me that laptop. It’s time to get the final moves in place.”
Burke pulled Cerillo to his feet and started to walk the man down the hallway.
“You know what to do,” Novak said.
Burke nodded, a slight smile on his lips.
* * *
“The front gate?” Grimaldi repeated. “You sure?”
“It’s probably our best chance,” Bolan said. “Nobody’ll expect us breaking into a prison.”
Grimaldi snorted. “You got that right.”
Bolan passed him one of the balaclava he’d found in the glove box.
“Slip this on,” he said. “Chances are they won’t recognize us right away. We’re both dressed in similar outfits to their strike team.”
“Yeah,” Grimaldi said. “Good guys wear black, right?”
Bolan said nothing. They had perhaps fifty yards to go before they hit the gate. He picked up the phone and texted MM: Were here. Have them open the gate.
He sent the text, hoping his grammatical rendering was comparable to the others he’d found in the phone’s memory.
Grimaldi purposely slowed the van. Bolan caught a flash of movement in the right side tower on the pillar adjacent to the gate.
“Sentry at one o’clock,” he said. “I’ll take him. The gate guard’s yours. The other tower looks clear.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The metallic fixture between the twin pillars continued to loom closer. Bolan tried to anticipate how this would play out if their subterfuge was somehow discovered. Depending on what the sentry in the tower was armed with, it could end very badly. He checked the sound suppressor on the barrel of his Beretta 93R. The weapon would be lighter and more maneuverable in the tight quarters of the stairwell leading up to the tower. Plus, it would be quieter. If this was to be a covert entry, stealth was a necessity.
He glanced down at the phone.
MM hadn’t replied to the text request to open the gate. He wondered if he’d received it, or if the message been a mistake. Could it have been a possible violation of their protocol? He used his own phone to try to call Brognola, but the screen flashed No Signal.
“Phone’s not working,” he said.
“Yeah?” Grimaldi said. “I wonder what else can go wrong.”
Thirty yards to go now and still there was no movement at the gate. If they’d been somehow discovered, the sentry would be opening fire in the next few moments.
Twenty-five yards, twenty, fifteen.
They passed what the danger point was for a rifle attack from above. But that didn’t preclude someone curling around one of the pillars and firing directly at them.
He saw a flash of movement.
A man dressed in black BDUs stepped from around the stone structure, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. He waved and moved to the center of the wrought-iron gates and pulled the right one open.
“Get ready,” Bolan said. “Try to take him alive. We’ll need a guide in here.”
Grimaldi nodded, then stopped the van just in front of the opening gate. The man continued to push it open and waved them through.
“We saw you coming,” the gate guard said. “Hey, what’s with the masks?”
Grimaldi floored the accelerator, steering directly at the surprised gate guard. The front of the van smacked into the gate and the guard went down. Bolan was already exiting the vehicle and running toward a door at the rear of the tower. He heard a grunting noise, followed by what sounded like a fist hitting flesh. He hoped Grimaldi was the striker, but couldn’t stop to worry about that now. Besides, he knew the pilot could handle himself in a fight and they had the element of surprise.
He got to the door and tried the knob. It twisted easily and opened inward. Bolan saw a winding iron staircase leading upward. With his Beretta held at combat ready, he proceeded to take the stairs two and three at a time.
Speed supplanted stealth, he thought as he neared the top.
The noise of his boots against the metal stairs apparently triggered some sort of alarm in the tower sentry because Bolan caught a glimpse of the man rotating the business end of an M16 toward the stairway entrance. He almost made it before the bullet from the Beretta pierced the man’s chest and he jerked backward slightly. The Executioner followed up with another round to the sentry’s head, as he crested the stairwell. Bolan kicked the M16 away from the sentry’s prone body and looked at him. Although death had twisted the man’s features, Bolan felt a spark of recognition as he studied the corpse’s face. It was Charles, a member of the Raptor strike team he and Grimaldi had worked with in Somalia.
Bolan used his binoculars to check the other towers.
None appeared to be occupied.
Whoever they were, they must have figured that two men on the front gate were adequate protection. He wondered how many more he and Grimaldi would be dealing with, and how well armed they were.
He used the binoculars to scan the rest of the facility. It had obviously been abandoned for a while, as Kurtzman had said. Blankets of climbing green ivy had crept up the tan brick walls of the exterior, and resilient rows of w
eeds had pushed up through various areas of the badly worn street and parking area below. It was obvious that the area had sustained a lot of vehicular traffic recently, as well. The castle-like motif continued with all the buildings in this section, the tallest of which was four stories. Bolan assumed it had been the office and initial processing section of the prison. A long black limousine was parked by what appeared to be the entrance of this office section. The vehicle had diplomatic license plates. Farther back he saw the immense round buildings that had no doubt housed the cell blocks. He saw something else from this high vantage point, too. Beyond the section of office buildings a long, flat crushed gravel strip stretched outward from a newer prefab metallic building and through a demolished section of the limestone wall. In the growing darkness Bolan could see a row of lines on each side of an adjacent asphalt roadway that extended several hundred yards. The lights on both sides of it made its purpose clear: it was a runway, as Kurtzman had suggested.
He wondered where the drone that had been launched several minutes ago was heading and what the intended target was. He also wondered who was behind this plot. Snyder and Charles had been members of the Raptor strike team. The “MM” who had texted Snyder’s phone was most likely McMahon. All were supposedly dead.
Bolan did a quick search of the dead man, removing a cell phone and a spare magazine from his body. He then picked up the M16 and headed back down the stairs. When he got down to the ground he saw that Grimaldi was sitting inside the van and the gate had been closed behind it. Bolan opened the door and got into the passenger seat.
“I figured it would be less suspicious if I closed it after us,” Grimaldi said. He’d removed his balaclava and smiled as he cocked his thumb toward the rear of the vehicle. “All trussed up and ready to go.”
The guard who’d opened the gate lay on his side, his hands secured behind him with metal-lined zip-ties that they carried in their duffel bags. The guard’s legs and feet were secured, too.
Grimaldi held up a Smith & Wesson MP Shield pistol. “He’s a man after my own heart. American made.” He glanced at the rifle in Bolan’s hand. “And is that a 16? Man, are these guys are patriotic or what?”
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