Critical Exposure

by Don Pendleton

  The man didn’t say anything for a moment, instead watching Bolan, and then he turned and left the Executioner alone.

  Bolan sighed in relief, glad his stall tactic had worked. Of course, Stony Man had that entire workup of his profile handled and if they had any connections at all, the dossier they pulled on his fallback cover identity would bear even the most intense scrutiny. That didn’t help him as far as his captors were concerned, since it didn’t buy him any good will either way. After all, he’d killed a lot of their men and he doubted they would find any knowledge he possessed worth keeping him alive. So it was just a matter of time before they did him in.

  His thoughts turned to Grimaldi. The Stony Man flier would soon be darkening the doorstep of Bolan’s captors and likely would be ill-prepared for what awaited him. While Grimaldi was certainly a capable fighter, he didn’t have anywhere near the Executioner’s talents or combat expertise. He could very well walk straight into the middle of an unwinnable firefight or, worse, be captured by the enemy and occupy a cold, damp cell right next to Bolan. Short of an execution, neither of them would ever be heard from again.

  The GPS transmitter in Bolan’s gut would undoubtedly send a fix on his exact position, to be sure, but it didn’t mean whomever came to his rescue—it wasn’t beyond reason Stony Man would send Able Team or Phoenix Force to bail Bolan out if Grimaldi’s initial attempt to locate and rescue him failed—would be prepared for whatever waited outside the walls of this prison.

  No, that would never do, which meant Bolan, who for some reason his captors apparently felt didn’t pose enough of a threat that they even bothered to bind him, would have to make sure that never happened. He couldn’t allow his friends to put themselves in a situation that could compromise the mission. So Mack Bolan would just have to find a way to turn the tables on his enemies.

  Livingston, Guatemala

  IT WAS WELL rumored among pilots who’d traveled as extensively as Jack Grimaldi that the best place for information in Central America could be found in the tourist towns. It didn’t imply that the natives of Livingston’s highly unusual cultural mix would necessarily cooperate with outsiders. But when that particular individual happened to be a ruggedly handsome and quietly unassuming type like Grimaldi—whose solicitation of those with a cooperative and talkative nature had a hell of lot more to do with his ready wad of cash than a charming nature—information could be had by certain tongues.

  Of course, money or alcohol had a profound effect in loosening the tongues of some. In part, the “some” included those individuals who were really more about personal gain or self-preservation than following some obscure code of silence. If one got caught talking, he or she could wake up to find his or her throat slit, but for the most part information flowed freely for the right bribe delivered to the right place.

  Grimaldi knew those places frequented by the more talkative denizens of Livingston, and so it didn’t take him long to find his way into a seedier establishment near the shores of the Caribbean Sea. He’d opted to put his plane down in Punta Gorda, a district capital in southern Belize, and travel by boat to Livingston. The city had once been the largest port in Guatemala and still enjoyed a rather rich tourist trade. Entry to the port was relatively casual, although they still went in for the formality of declaring oneself and presenting a passport for inspection at customs.

  Still, Grimaldi had learned how easy it was to operate in the liberal town with little to no interference from outsiders, and that’s exactly the situation he found himself most in need of now. According to the homing sensor in his cell phone, Bolan’s GPS transmitter had activated and was sending coordinates from a location about ten miles from Livingston. That location seemed to be some sort of obscure town according to the satellite photos Stony Man had sent him.

  Grimaldi had no idea what he might be getting himself into. While he didn’t have the resources to go up against a force of unknown size or capabilities, neither could he stand idly by and let his friend die. He also had some questions for Shoup, who had apparently disappeared into thin air. In fact, his entire unit was listed as MIA, and if they didn’t report in soon Grimaldi knew it would blow the whole lid on the operation and they could no longer keep this thing a secret.

  So his mission was simple in the most academic sense of the term. Gather intelligence on the site from where Bolan’s GPS homing signal was transmitting and determine the feasibility of a rescue attempt. Barring that, he’d have to get information back to Stony Man and request assistance. In fact, he already knew he’d get it despite the fact the Executioner preferred to work alone. Brognola had made no bones about it: he’d activate Phoenix Force in a heartbeat. The Stony Man chief had done it before and he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again, despite however Bolan might feel, if Grimaldi requested it.

  But first Grimaldi meant to try it on his own to see where things went. He’d agreed to a meeting with someone at the suggestion of Stony Man, which had a score of information brokers in the area.

  He didn’t know exactly what his mark looked like, but he did know he’d recognize him on sight. Or her, as it proved to be in this case. She wore a red bandanna across her forehead, which teased her dark, wavy hair in odd directions. She had on a black T-shirt with some sort of abstract symbol on it and well-worn jeans that tugged seductively at her hips. She moved with a swagger that indicated part practiced movement and part confidence.

  Keeping his mind on business, Grimaldi immediately left the bar with a pair of ice-cold beers. The bottles sweated in the tropical heat and the cool water dribbled down the backs of his hands. A veritable puddle formed when he finally set them on the table, shoving one toward the new arrival and keeping the other for himself.

  She snatched it up, looked at him with a cock of her head, and then smiled when he offered his own bottle for her to clink gently in a toast. Her grin transformed into more of a knowing smile and appeared to relax now that the ceremony of that recognition signal had passed.

  “You’re Jack?” the woman asked.

  Grimaldi had walked on most every continent and piloted myriad craft to points all over the world, but he couldn’t quite place her accent. “That’s me.”

  “Cretia,” she said, tapping her chest. “I was told you have questions about a certain village upriver.”

  “I do.” Grimaldi glanced over his shoulder surreptitiously to make sure nobody was listening, and then took a long pull from the bottle before he continued. “But not here. Isn’t there someplace more private we could talk?”

  “The gentlemen I deal with usually don’t want something more private for...talk.” Another disarming smile. “If you know what I mean.”

  “I’ll admit my curiosity, but unfortunately I don’t have time right now to satisfy it. I have a friend who’s in trouble and the numbers are running down. I was told by reliable sources you could help. But this place may have ears.”

  Cretia nodded. “Which is why you suggest perhaps someplace else is better.”

  “Right.”

  Grimaldi smiled.

  Cretia smiled.

  Both smiles faded when four men came through the front door of the dark, cramped bar toting machine pistols.

  Grimaldi saw the movement by the flickering change of light in the woman’s eyes followed by her expression of surprise. He immediately sprang to action, getting to his feet and upturning the table to provide cover while simultaneously yanking the lithe form of his companion out of her chair. The flimsy table wouldn’t stop the bullets, but it would provide a point of deflection while Grimaldi got to his belly and crawled toward a curtain drawn over an opening in the back.

  The screams of surprised patrons were drowned by the unmistakable chattering reports of the submachine guns toted by the enemy. Even as Grimaldi and Cretia made it through the makeshift doorway unscathed, which opened onto a large stock room that apparently double
d as living quarters for the bar’s owner, Grimaldi knew the arrival of these men was anything but coincidental. Somebody had ratted them out—somehow knowing Grimaldi’s purpose for being in Livingston—with orders to terminate the pilot’s life.

  Grimaldi didn’t take kindly to the thought and he began to wonder who might be to blame. Not that he had any reason to ponder the thought at that moment. There were other more pressing matters demanding his attention, and keeping himself and his companion alive was inarguably at the top of the list.

  Grimaldi turned to Cretia as they scrambled to their feet. “Listen up!”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Are you packing?” She shook her head as Grimaldi produced a pistol. “All right, then you need to make yourself scarce.”

  “But what about you?”

  Grimaldi heard genuine concern in her voice, something that both surprised and touched him, but he couldn’t afford distractions so he went for stoic. “No time to argue.”

  She nodded. “Okay, listen then. Two blocks from here you’ll find a man named Miguel who runs a boat tour and rental called Los Flotantes. Tell him you know me and he’ll give you directions to a backup location I use.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “Get.”

  She had barely been gone a minute when two of the four armed men burst through the curtain with their weapons leveled. They had apparently made the assumption that their targets were helpless and unarmed, and that’s why they had chosen to run. What they didn’t know was that that was exactly what Jack Grimaldi had wanted them to think.

  The first gunner never saw it coming as Grimaldi, waiting in deep shadows provided by an alcove to the right of the curtained doorway, extended his 9 mm Glock and squeezed the trigger. The bullet entered the right rear portion of the target’s skull and blew out a section at the forehead. Gore sprayed the man’s companion, who whirled and triggered his weapon reflexively. The shots went wild and didn’t come close enough to Grimaldi to even cause the pilot concern.

  Grimaldi triggered two more rounds, both hitting the man’s chest. The impact drove him back and he smashed against a collection of dusty shot glasses and empty bottles that had been neatly stacked. The man’s weight overturned the flimsy table and as he crumpled to the ground, the bottles and shot glasses rained upon him.

  Grimaldi waited, but the other pair didn’t show. If he had to venture a guess, they had probably doubled back to try to catch anyone who came out the back. Hopefully Cretia had managed to evade them.

  The Stony Man pilot found the rear exit, stuck his head out the door and looked along both sides of the alley. Empty. He crossed quickly to the dense line of trees on the opposite side and slipped into the concealment and comparative shade of the heavy, tropical foliage. For the moment he’d managed to hold off the enemy—whoever that enemy might be. Now he would have to find this Miguel to see if he could reconnect with Cretia.

  Hang on, Striker, he thought. I’m coming for you.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Would somebody please explain to me how the hell something like this could happen to one of our operatives?” Colonel Alan Bindler demanded.

  Nobody in the conference room at the consulate spoke a word, and the steady hum from the couple of window-mounted air-conditioner units seemed thunderous in the dead silence.

  “I need an answer from someone,” Bindler added as he dropped into his chair at the head of the table.

  One of his junior officers finally spoke up. “Sir, we just didn’t see anything like this coming. She’s an analyst and a civilian, and she really doesn’t possess any intelligence about military operations.”

  “I’m aware of her official capacity, lieutenant.” Bindler shook his head. “And all of the bullshit we put into her dossier for the Turkish government’s dissemination. But she’s been operating on other cases outside normal channels, and apparently she ignored my orders to drop her conspiracy theories about this mysterious Council of Luminárii. Now she’s been taken and our operations here compromised.”

  Again, nobody said much and with good reason. They knew more than anything that Bindler was just ranting. He truly did care about his people, however, and right now he was just trying not to show his anxiety for whatever awful circumstances might have befallen Alara Serif. It’s not that he blamed any of them. In fact, chances were good he blamed himself more than anything or anyone. If there was anything that people who knew him well could say, it was that Alan Bindler never sloughed his responsibilities onto someone else. He was large and in charge, and he took responsibility for everything that happened.

  “Okay,” Bindler said after a deep sigh. “Let’s put aside the potential why someone would want to kidnap Alara and focus on the whom for a moment. Is anyone aware of materials she had or something she was working that could help us?”

  “Well, I did set up a surveillance package for her,” one of the technicians stated.

  “I didn’t authorize any surveillance.” When the guy looked sheepish, Bindler said, “Never mind that. I won’t take any negative action against your record as long as you come clean with what you know.”

  “She...she told me you approved it,” the young man protested.

  Binder tried to maintain his patience. “I just said I wasn’t going to bust you for it, Karsten. Just start talking.”

  “I’d have to go back and look at more details, but I do recall one of the main subjects was a local businessman named Gastone Amocacci. Some sort of small-time exporter of clothing and raw materials like linens and silks. Stuff like that.”

  “I remember that name in her reports,” Bindler said. He turned to his intelligence man, a cryptanalyst named Sargent, who had short red hair and a face full of freckles. Some had remarked he looked like Archie from the comics, and in fact the resemblance was so striking it had earned him the nickname during his service years and “Arch” had stuck with him to this day. “What do we know about Amocacci?”

  “Not much more than I’ve already explained,” Sargent explained. “He and Lady Allegra Fellini are an item.”

  “Is this the same Fellini as the Italian clothing designer family?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Bindler’s adjutant interjected.

  Nestor Maxwell had served as Bindler’s right-hand man for the past three years. He was tough, reliable and a consummate officer on many levels. Bindler had the utmost respect for the guy. He appreciated Maxwell’s honesty and no-bullshit command style. Maxwell got things done; Bindler liked people who got things done.

  “But before you ask,” Maxwell said, “there’s no connection we can find between Lady Fellini and this Council of Luminárii, or even between the Fellini family and anything past or present related to Amocacci.”

  “The relationship between Fellini and Amocacci, while profoundly convenient, looks to be legit, sir,” Sargent concluded.

  “So in fact,” Bindler replied, “what you’re telling me is that we have diddly-squat on any of these people. And yet we have a missing analyst who may or may not have been onto something when she came up with this Gastone Amocacci’s connection to the Council of Luminárii, an organization that may or may not exist.”

  “This obviously sheds some legitimacy to Ms. Serif’s theory, sir,” Maxwell said.

  “It would seem so, Major.” Bindler shook his head for a minute and was lost in thought. He knew every eye in the room was trained on him. One of their own had been grabbed, and the entire team expected him to do something about it. He was their commanding officer and he was supposed to be their protector as the CO of the Marine guard assigned to this consulate.

  Finally, Bindler spoke, casting his first glance at Sargent. “Okay, let’s start pulling out all the stops. I want to know everything about Amocacci, and I want it yesterday. No detail is too small. Where was he born, where did he go to school, what’s his backgro
und. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sargent said as he furiously jotted down what was required.

  Bindler turned to Maxwell. “Major, you’ll lead the rest in putting together a three-man tactical team for special detail. They’ll need to have creds as civvies, but I want the top three men in our detachment. Find me guys who are smart, preferably with some sort of intelligence background. Out of twenty-five Marines or so, it shouldn’t be hard to get three good candidates.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Bindler took a deep breath and let his eyes rove the room at his people. “Listen up and listen good, folks. We’re going to find Alara, and we’re going to get her back. And we’re going to make sure that whoever’s behind her disappearance gets a clear message that you can’t just go around kidnapping Americans without us doing something about it. Am I clear?”

  At various nods and assents, Bindler dismissed them.

  The officer was barely out of the briefing room and down the hallway when another junior officer, this one the head of the clerical staff, rushed toward him. She tossed a quick salute that he returned smartly. “Sir, you have a telephone call from Washington. Priority One channel.”

  Bindler didn’t even break stride as he replied, “Pentagon?”

  “No, sir.”

  Bindler stopped midstride. “I thought you just said Washington on the Priority One channel, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “Well, then, if it isn’t the Pentagon it could only be the White House. Secretary of Defense or Chief of Staff?”

  “Neither of them, either, sir.”

  “Are you trying to be funny, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir!”

  Bindler studied the impassive face a moment. No quirk of the lips, no faltering in the seriousness of her expression. No, Lieutenant Hodgkin was quite serious. And since it wasn’t close to Bindler’s anniversary or birthday, this wasn’t some surprise party in disguise. He turned and continued down the hallway, ordering Hodgkin to put the call through to his office in one minute.