The campus went silent. But a moment later, far in the distance, Bolan heard the sounds of more running footsteps and excited, if muffled, voices.
It was time to get out of there.
He turned and sprinted back toward the parking lot. As he neared, he saw Ahmad behind the wheel of the Highlander and O’Melton at the helm of the jeep. A moment later Bolan leaped into the air, landing gracefully next to the final four crates of biological weaponry in the rear of the topless jeep.
“What are you waiting for?” he called out, and O’Melton backed the vehicle away from the curb and turned it around. A moment later, with Ahmad in the backseat, they were racing across the empty parking lot to the street, with the Highlander right behind them.
Bolan looked back at Ahmad as the man drove. It seemed that once again the former Hezbollah man had proved true. But the Executioner reminded himself that the mission was not yet over. One of two things, however, were a still a fact.
Either Ahmad was totally committed to helping Bolan.
Or he was waiting for some even better situation in which to insure they all got killed.
13
Not often, but sometimes in a great while, Bolan found that he flat-out got lucky.
The Highlander and the Iranian army jeep, packed full of wooden crates and men, made it out of Tehran under the moonlit sky without further incident, even passing two small convoys of military vehicles entering the city, and a lone Tehran police car parked on the side of the road. Bolan watched carefully out of the corner of his eye each time they encountered a potential threat, and saw that next to him O’Melton was doing the same.
When they had reached the city’s outskirts, O’Melton finally turned to Bolan and smiled. “And some people say there is no God who watches over us?”
Bolan just smiled back.
The two vehicles moved on, reversing the route they had taken into Tehran until they reached the spot in the road where Mohammed had first picked them up. The sun was just peeking over the horizon as they pulled off onto the shoulder and parked. “Get these things up through the trees and into the clearing where we landed,” Bolan ordered. “Everyone but you, Zaid. You take the jeep as soon as it’s unloaded, and find a spot where you can hide it.”
Ahmad looked at Bolan with a puzzled expression. “What about the Highlander?” he asked.
“Just lift the hood,” Bolan said. “It’ll look like it broke down, and nobody’ll pay it any attention. But the jeep is obviously army. It needs to be out of sight from the road.”
By the time he had finished speaking all the wooden crates had been lifted out of the jeep. Bolan watched as the other men began toting the biological agents up the hill toward the trees, and Ahmad got behind the wheel of the jeep, pulled it across the road and disappeared over a small hill.
Bolan was still keeping a close eye on the Hezbollah-terrorist-turned-Christian, assigning him simple, non-life-threatening tasks and watching to see how he performed them. So far, Ahmad had shown no signs of treachery. And he had performed admirably back at the gunfight with the Iranian soldiers. But still, Bolan knew, there was more than one possible explanation for that. The man might be sincere in his conversion. On the other hand, he might just be really good in the art of deception, which he believed would further the Islamic holy war.
Back at the medical school campus, it had taken the team three trips to get the crates from the laboratory into the vehicles. Presently, with Ahmad hiding the jeep and Bolan supervising, the going was slower. It took the three men four trips each to carry the crates up the hill, through the trees and into the clearing. But there had been no sign of pursuit since they’d left the scene of the gunfight, and Bolan used the time to pull out his satellite phone and tap in Grimaldi’s number.
Bolan had contacted Stony Man Farm’s ace pilot during the drive from Tehran, and put him on alert. Unless Bolan missed his guess, Grimaldi should already be closing in on the area to pick them up.
When Grimaldi answered, Bolan heard the sound of flapping helicopter blades in the background. “Go, Striker,” the pilot said.
“We’re at the site,” Bolan said. “Ten-twenty?”
“I’m five minutes out,” Grimaldi reported. “It’s not a very big clearing. So it’s going to be a tight fit.”
“I have no doubt you can pull it off,” Bolan stated.
“Me, either.” His old friend laughed. “If I do say so myself.”
Grimaldi was as good with aircraft as Bolan was at combat, and knew it. But somehow, even comments like his last one never came out sounding as if the man was bragging.
Ahmad appeared at the top of the hill a moment later. He was afoot, jogging, and the jeep was nowhere to be seen. “Get on up to the trees and into the clearing,” Bolan said as the man crossed the highway. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
Ahmad nodded, smiled and kept jogging.
Bolan waited until the man had disappeared before beginning to run himself. He wanted to see exactly what the informant had done with the jeep—whether it had been truly hidden or left out somewhere in plain sight where it could be spotted from the air. As soon as he reached the top of the hill, he got his answer. The vehicle was barely visible below in a ravine, covered almost completely with branches and leaves.
It looked as if the former Hezbollah man had truly tried to hide it from both land and air.
Bolan ran back down the hill, then up the incline on the other side of the road. He slowed to a walk when he reached the trees, then made his way to the clearing where they had parachuted upon their entry to Iran. He had just stepped out onto the grass when the sound of chopper blades above met his ears.
Knowing they would be in the small clearing, Grimaldi had traded in the Learjet for a Blackhawk helicopter like the ones used by the Stony Man Farm blacksuits when they’d removed the chemical weapons from Syria. He was hovering above the opening in the trees and preparing to set down. “Get back,” Bolan shouted to the other men. “Into the trees. He’s barely got room to land as it is.”
All of them stepped backward and took up positions behind tree trunks.
A moment later, the Blackhawk was on the ground and O’Melton, Ahmad, Mohammed and Hasan were loading crates of bio-agents into its hold. When they were all secured, the men scrambled on board. As always, Bolan waited until last, then hauled himself up and inside the Blackhawk. Taking the seat next to Grimaldi, he nodded his head.
Stony Man Farm’s numero uno flyboy began to carefully lift the chopper back into the air.
Mohammed, sitting between Hasan and O’Melton, was impressed. “Your man knows what he is doing,” he said to Bolan over the noise of the whirlybird. “A less skilled pilot would have snapped the blades off hitting the tree branches.”
“That’s why we hired him,” Bolan said simply.
The strange combination of warriors and informants flew in silence for a few minutes. By the time the sun had fully lit the sky, they were over water and heading toward the aircraft carrier. Bolan got up out of his seat and stepped back to where Mohammed sat. “You like his flying so much,” he told the former CIA snitch, “take my place and watch.”
The man nodded and traded seats with him.
Bolan sat down next to Hasan and made his real reason for the seat change clear. “Okay, Professor,” he said. “I believe you were going to give me some information that would make me want to let you live?”
“Yes,” Hasan said. “Please understand, I am placing my life in your hands when I tell you what I am about to reveal.”
The Executioner smiled and tapped the Desert Eagle on his hip. “Maybe you haven’t fully realized the reality yet,” he said. “But your life is already in my hands. So let’s get on with it.”
“Word is out about the chemical weapons in Syria,” Hasan said. “And it will soon be com
mon knowledge—at least within the world of clandestine warriors—that you have also now taken possession of the biological agents in Tehran.” The man’s face was gray with fear, and his bottom lip trembled slightly with every word that came past it. “But did you know there is one last WMD that was shipped out of Iraq before the U.S. invaded?”
“No,” Bolan said. “But it makes perfect sense.”
“It is perhaps the most dangerous of all,” Hasan said. “At least to the people of America.”
Bolan felt his fist clench. “Then why don’t you quit pussyfooting around and tell me what it is?” he said in a low, menacing voice.
Hasan drew a deep breath. “First, I must have your word that you will never reveal where you obtained this information,” he said. His voice was low, too. But frightened rather than frightening.
“You’ve got it,” Bolan said. “And while we’re on the subject, let me map out the rest of the deal for you. You give me the information, and if it turns out to be accurate, I’ll keep my mouth shut about your part in all this, and see to it that you get back to Tehran with no one the wiser.”
Hasan took another deep breath. “It is a medium-size nuclear warhead,” he finally said, in a voice so low it was almost inaudible. “But Iraq’s dictator had only midrange rockets on which to mount it.” The words seemed to take his air away, his chest heaved as he added, “So he shipped the warhead and rocket to Venezuela.”
Bolan sat back as he took in the message and all its implications. The president of Venezuela had been a longtime America hater and foe. And he was just the kind of man who would be crazy enough to launch a midrange nuke from his country into one of the United States’ large Southern cities. Doing so would kill thousands, if not millions, of Americans. And it could make ground zero uninhabitable for decades to come, which would throw yet another curve in the country’s troubled economy.
“How do you know all this?” Bolan asked. “It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing the Iranian president would talk over with a university professor.”
Hasan had been nervous before. Now he cast his eyes down at the deck of the Blackhawk in shame. “I have a friend,” he said. “A friend who is one of the Iranian president’s secretaries. She overheard a conversation between him, the Iraqi dictator, and the Syrian and Venezuelan presidents.”
Bolan frowned at the man. This revelation appeared to be the hardest for Hasan to disclose so far. Why? he wondered.
And then it hit him.
“I’m guessing this secretary—you said she—is married,” Bolan said.
Hasan kept his eyes on the deck as he nodded.
“And I’m guessing you’re married, too,” Bolan went on.
That got him another shameful nod.
“And correct me if I’m wrong, but you aren’t married to each other.”
“No,” Hasan said in a weak voice.
“Well,” Bolan asked, “just how well do you know her?”
“As well as a man can know a woman,” Hasan whispered again.
“Okay then, Ajib,” Bolan said. “I’m not completely up on sharia law, but am I right if I assume bad things—very bad things—are going to happen to her if this affair becomes public knowledge?”
“She would be put to death,” Hasan said. “Probably stoned.”
“And I’m guessing you don’t mean stoned on drugs,” Bolan said, nodding. “What about you, Ajib? What would they do to you?”
“It is not as clear,” the professor whispered again. “The man is usually not held to be as responsible. It is assumed that the woman used her feminine wiles to trick the man beyond what he was able to resist.”
Before Bolan could speak again, he heard a change in the helicopter’s droning and looked out of the Blackhawk to see the aircraft carrier below. A moment later, they descended slowly down onto a landing pad.
Bolan opened the chopper door and dropped down, instinctively ducking under the still-rotating blades over his head. In the distance, he saw the captain of the aircraft carrier come striding his way. A moment later, the man saluted him, then stuck out his hand. “Good to see you again,” he said.
“Good to be back,” Bolan said. “We’ve got a dozen crates full of smallpox and anthrax cultures on board. Can you make arrangements to have them flown to the States for disposal?”
The captain frowned. “You aren’t taking them back with you?” he asked.
“We’ve got to make a side trip,” Bolan said.
“Understood,” the skipper said. “I’ve got a SEAL team on board who can take possession of this stuff and get it home safely.”
“Good enough,” Bolan said. Then, turning back to the helicopter, he shouted to Grimaldi, who was still behind the controls. “Jack, the captain’s making arrangements to have these crates flown back for us. I want to supervise the transfer just to be safe.” He paused a moment as his eyes flew from Grimaldi to O’Melton, and then to the other three. “We need to unload all of our equipment and transfer it and these men back to the Learjet again.” He paused a moment, then said, “Can you take charge of that?”
“No problem at all,” Grimaldi said. “But are we still dragging all these guys along with us?” The pilot’s inference was unmistakable.
Bolan studied his team’s faces again. It was clear that hell itself wouldn’t stop O’Melton from seeing this mission to the end. And Ahmad at least looked as if he wanted to go. But it was clear that Mohammed and Hasan both had reservations.
Bolan eyed the ex-CIA informant harder. His native Farsi had been invaluable back in Tehran, but Bolan doubted he’d need Mohammed in the Spanish-speaking country where he was headed. Of course, with the obvious connection between Venezuela and Iran, there was always a chance that someone who spoke Farsi would come in handy. But Father O’Melton’s grasp of the language should be enough. And it would mean they could get rid of a deadweight noncombatant.
Bolan turned his gaze to Hasan, who was obviously frightened beyond belief. He definitely no longer needed the biology teacher. But he couldn’t afford to just let him go free. At least not until this mission was over and the professor could no longer alert his al Qaeda contact.
“No,” Bolan finally told Grimaldi. “It’ll just be me, O’Melton and Zaid.” Dropping a hand on Hasan’s shoulder and feeling the man recoil at his touch, he turned to the captain and said, “We’ll leave this man with you, and ask you to put him under arrest. You can take him to Gitmo and lock him up until he dies of old age for all I care.”
“More than happy to oblige,” the skipper said.
Bolan turned to Mohammed. “This one’s a little different,” he said. “He’ll be staying with you, too, but he has an agreement with us. I’ll contact my base and have them send a team to take him off your hands, settle with him and escort him wherever he wants to go.”
“I smell money in the air.” The captain almost laughed.
“Sometimes bullets work,” Bolan said. “Other times money.”
“Where are we going now?” Grimaldi asked.
“Venezuela,” Bolan said, as he began helping the rest of the men unload the equipment bags from the helicopter.
14
Hasan had already told him that word of the chemical confiscation in Syria had reached Iran. That meant that this “axis of evil” made up of Syria, Iran and Venezuela was still closely connected, and that if news about the seizure of the anthrax and smallpox had not yet hit the desk of the Venezuelan president, it soon would.
Probably while Bolan and his little ratgtag group were still in the air over the Atlantic.
Security would be doubled—maybe even tripled—around the site where the nuclear warhead and missile were hidden. And Bolan had no idea where to begin looking for this last deadly legacy from the Iraqi dictator.
Next to him, Grimaldi w
as whistling softly as he guided the Learjet through a light rainfall over the ocean. Ahmad had taken a seat and buckled himself in behind them. As the raindrops splattered against the glass, Bolan lifted his satellite phone to his ear and tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm.
A few seconds later, Price answered with her usual professional voice. “Hello, Striker.”
“I need the Bear,” Bolan said.
Another few seconds and he had him.
“What’s up now, big guy?” Kurtzman asked.
“We’re back in the air and headed toward Venezuela,” Bolan replied.
“I figured as much,” he said.
Bolan was slightly taken back. Then he recalled just how efficient Kurtzman could be with his “magic machines.” “You getting internet chatter back and forth from Iran to Caracas?”
“And encoded emails,” Kurtzman said. “Almost more than we can keep up with. From Syria, too.” He paused a moment, and when he came back his voice was low and serious. “It’ll take time to decode it all. But I’d say they know you’re coming.”
Bolan grunted. “We aren’t likely to have time for you to get all of the specifics,” he said. “The Venezuelan president has one of Iraq’s old nuclear warheads and it’s attached to a midrange missile. Pointed at you know who.” He took a deep breath. “And he’s crazier than a March hare. He’s likely to launch it just out of spite for us retrieving the chemical and biological weapons.”
Kurtzman waited, not answering.
“I need you to start checking satellite photos of Venezuela, Bear,” Bolan went on. “The nuke isn’t like the chemical and biological weapons we’ve seized so far. It won’t have been hidden as much as protected. So look for unusual activity around Venezuelan military bases. Especially those in the northern part of the country, closest to the U.S.”
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