Sabotage

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan pulled the door gun in tight and aimed.

  The big M-60 bucked as he pulled the trigger, its earsplitting racket deafening up close. Delaney put her hands against the sides of her head, watching Bolan with intense interest and more than a little fear. The machine gun spewed empty cases and separated metal links, delivering 7.62 mm judgment. Every few rounds, a red tracer lighted the sky. Bolan burned down the men on the ground on one side, then strafed the gunners on the other side of the building. He and Grimaldi made a good team. It wasn’t the first time they’d fought together as pilot and gunner, and wouldn’t be the last.

  They made a few more passes. Bolan softened up the doorway on the east side by spraying several feet of his ammo belt into it. “Down there, Jack!” he said. “Put us down there if you can!”

  Grimaldi nodded and brought them in and down. The skids barely touched the asphalt as Bolan and Delaney jumped for it.

  They hit the shattered doorway at a run and came under fire as soon as they entered the building. Bolan, his 93-R set for 3-round bursts, began to acquire and drop targets on the move, his finely honed sniper’s reflexes kicking in. Delaney followed him in close support, her MP-5 K stuttering here and there, taking first one, then another, then a third gunner.

  The interior of the factory was a maze of assembly lines, worktables, fork trucks and tracked cranes used for transporting skids from one section of the warehouse to the other. Light came from banks of fluorescent tubes high in the ceiling. There were a few windows, some of which were painted over, while others were dusty and cracked. Several had been blown out by Grimaldi’s fast passes or, more often than not, Bolan’s 7.62 mm fire. Outside, Grimaldi continued to circle the building, apparently hoping to add to the confusion of the gunmen inside the warehouse.

  Bolan gunned down a man trying to get a bead on him, sending the shooter tumbling over a conveyor belt. Next to him, Delaney shot a man on the catwalk above, which connected the tracked cranes.

  “Keep an eye on the upper deck,” Bolan said. “I’ll aim low.”

  “Got it,” Delaney said calmly.

  They began working their way from one end of the warehouse to the other. There were plenty of armed guards here, some wearing SCAR uniforms, some in plainclothes. They were all armed with automatic weapons, handguns or shotguns. The automatic weapons were a telltale sign that something about the facility wasn’t right. No private security firm operating in the States regularly equipped its people with full-auto weaponry.

  “Go, go,” Bolan said. He shot yet another man in the head as they worked toward the back of the warehouse space. There were offices partitioned here. It was possible, if there was any information to be had about this site, that it would be kept there.

  They didn’t have much time to examine the items being assembled, under fire as they were, but Bolan noted several devices that appeared to be the same components he had seen in Cedar Rapids. He also saw explosives. One worktable was laden with what could only be Semtex, the plastic explosive so popular with terrorist groups the world over. As he fought, he felt his righteous anger rising. These bastards were, it seemed, indeed producing explosives that were most likely intended for use against American troops.

  They were taking fire from several directions at once, but it was confused, not focused. Grimaldi’s improvised fly-by had apparently done its job, rattling the gunmen and making them feel they were under attack from all sides. The chopper circling rapidly helped keep up that impression, and every so often a shooter’s head would turn toward the windows and the silhouette of the passing chopper, giving Bolan the distraction he needed to gun down yet another would-be murderer.

  “Make for the offices,” he told Delaney. “I’ll hold here. I want to know what’s back there.”

  “Will do,” Delaney said.

  “And be careful,” Bolan said. “No telling what’s back there.”

  Still shooting, he backed up following her, placing himself between Delaney and the remaining gunners. His surgical gunfire was taking a toll on the SCAR operatives and those helping them. Resistance was fading fast in the face of the Executioner’s superior abilities and tactics.

  Bolan positioned himself by the entrance to the office, reloading a fresh 20-round magazine into his Beretta 93-R. He tagged two more enemy operatives, then moved, circling, gliding heel to toe as he maintained a steady shooting platform. Here and there enemy shooters broke from cover to take shots at him, but the Executioner was ready for them. He burned them down as fast as they appeared, circling their position and always on the move. He was a wraith, a ghost, a wisp of smoke among them, and he made sure none of the enemy gunners would be in any condition to present a lethal threat while he and Delaney were present.

  As if a switch had been thrown, the gunfire ceased. Bolan looked around, the barrel of the 93-R hot from the extended gunplay. There were no more enemy gunners moving. Had they gotten them all? He thought perhaps they had. Not one to take unnecessary chances, he made another circuit of the warehouse floor, checking each downed man, kicking away the weapons they held and occasionally searching the bodies for more. It seemed almost a moot point, by now, but he also took some pictures of the dead to send to Stony Man Farm.

  “Cooper.” Delaney’s voice sounded in his transceiver. “You’d better get back here.”

  Careful to watch his back, Bolan approached the offices. He found Delaney standing over a desk in the last segmented area.

  She held a gun on a man Bolan had seen before.

  “He looks familiar,” he said.

  “He should.” Delaney nodded, gesturing with the MP-5 K. “This is James Thomas Winston, formerly of MIT, and currently number eight on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.”

  The round-faced Winston looked up at them. He was a paunchy, jowly man, wearing a sloppy white button-down shirt. His black tie was at half-mast, and his wire-framed spectacles were crooked on his nose. His hair fell in wisps around his ears but ended just above them, leaving the rest of his freckled scalp bald.

  “Winston, the Green Bomber?” Bolan asked.

  “The very same,” Delaney said. “Made a hobby of mailing bombs to factories, before graduating to corporate coffeehouse chain stores. He’s an electronics expert with a minor in chemistry.”

  “In other words,” Bolan said, “exactly the sort of person you’d have on your payroll to build bombs for you.”

  “Yes,” Delaney said.

  “Look, whoever you are,” Winston started, “whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Whomever,” Winston said. “Look, we can work this out.”

  Bolan took the Beretta 93-R and shoved the barrel of the machine pistol under Winston’s chin. “Now, you listen to me, and you listen good,” he said. “I’ve got no time for you. You’re going to answer my questions and answer them truthfully. Lie and you get a bullet.”

  “Cooper!” Delaney said. “The man’s a wanted fugitive. You can’t just—”

  “I can and will,” Bolan said. Unseen by Winston, he winked at her. “This piece of trash is putting together bombs. Tell me he’s not. Tell me he’s not building explosives here.”

  “I can explain,” Winston said feebly.

  “Do it, then,” Bolan said. “One lie and the last thing that goes through your mind will be a 124-grain jacketed hollowpoint round.”

  “Trofimov!” Winston blurted. “I work for Yuri Trofimov!”

  “I thought as much,” Bolan said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Building bombs, like you said,” Winston said hurriedly. “He made me do it! Said he’d kill me if I didn’t! It’s not my fault!”

  Bolan cocked the hammer of the Beretta. “What did I tell you?”

  Winston went suddenly quiet.

  “Cooper,” Delaney said, “remember that Pennsylvania address? If I remember the Wanted sheets, Winston was last seen in Pennsylvania.”

  “Well?” Bolan said. �
�What of it?”

  “I was…I was there,” Winston stammered. “Please don’t kill me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “Then spill it,” Bolan said. “And give me the short version. We don’t have time for your life’s story.”

  “They brought me out to oversee the final designs for the devices,” Winston said. “I didn’t want to come out here. I wanted to stay in Scranton.”

  Bolan and Delaney exchanged looks. “You have an address there. Give it to me.”

  Winston recited the address. It was the same as the one Delaney had found.

  “So what do you do in Scranton?”

  “They pay me to design the devices,” Winston said, “and anything else I can come up with. I’m very good at what I do.”

  Bolan resisted the urge to pistol-whip the terrorist. That wasn’t how he operated, but the man was the lowest form of traitorous scum. Being in close proximity to such people reminded Bolan of the need for his war.

  “What do you know about drugs being produced at the same address?”

  “There’s a lab there, sure,” Winston said. “But they don’t bother me, so I don’t bother them.”

  “‘They’?”

  “The Brothers of Blood,” Winston said. “It’s a biker gang. Trofimov pays them to protect me and to cook the meth he ships from Scranton. It’s a really efficient operation.”

  “Spare me the glowing praise,” Bolan said. “How long have you been working with Trofimov?”

  “A few years now,” Winston said. “When the government found me out and wanted to put me in prison, I ran. I network among other Green and peace-loving groups, and they hid me for a time. We have some connections in common, and he found me and put me to work for a good cause.”

  “What cause is that?”

  “Why, striking a blow against the imperialist American war machine, of course,” Winston said, as if that explained everything. He looked down at the gun Bolan still held under his chin. “I don’t suppose you’d understand.”

  “I don’t suppose I would.” The Executioner holstered his Beretta.

  “Call in the police and the closest branch of the FBI,” Bolan told Delaney, motioning to the cell phone on her hip. “The sooner this piece of work is out of my sight, the better.”

  “What’s next, Cooper?”

  Bolan looked at Winston, who cowered under his direct gaze.

  “Scranton,” Bolan said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bolan, positioned on a hill overlooking the location Winston had confirmed, peered through the scope of his Remington 700. He could see several bikers moving in and around the house, which was really just a double-wide trailer set in the middle of a field. A prefabricated metal storage building had been erected some distance to the rear of the house. Pipes jutted from it, spewing acrid smoke into the air. That was the meth amphetamine cookhouse, without doubt.

  The trailer was where Winston had spent most of his time working, apparently. The Brothers of Blood seemed to be circulating between the trailer and a series of tents set up in the field around a large bonfire pit. There was no fire right now, but the pit was smoldering as if there had been one the previous night.

  There was nothing about this operation that the local authorities and perhaps the Wilkes-Barre SWAT team couldn’t have handled, but Bolan wanted to keep the pressure on. Blitzing this outpost, letting Trofimov know that no part of his operation was safe, would go a long way toward further destabilizing things from his point of view. The more upset Trofimov was, the more nervous he became, the more likely he was to make a mistake. Those mistakes were what would help expose his terrorist operations, and the more exposure, the better. Brognola was going to have his work cut out for him explaining why an American citizen and wealthy businessman had his world blown out from under him. If it became obvious that the man was a traitor and a murderer, the questions would slow or stop altogether.

  Bolan cared less about that than about stopping Trofimov altogether, and keeping pressure on the Russian was part of that plan, too. Still, he saw no reason to make Brognola’s job any harder than it needed to be.

  Even with all the information backing his play, Bolan needed confirmation of the righteousness of this hit, just as he always demanded for his operations. Delaney, increasingly bold, had offered to provide that verification. As Bolan watched, Delaney, far below him, rolled up in her rented GMC Yukon, raising a cloud of dust on the dirt road that led to the trailer and ran past the circle of biker tents.

  “Excuse me.” Her voice was clear in Bolan’s transceiver, and he could even hear her window rolling down automatically. “Could you help me? I’m lost, and my cell phone’s gone dead. Is there a phone around here I could use? None of my family knows where I am, and I don’t want them to be worried.”

  It was a fairly transparent play, and Bolan wouldn’t have expected it to work had he been dealing with the Chinese special forces operatives or Twain’s SCAR personnel. These Brothers of Blood, however—the colors and logo they all sported was read easily enough through the scope of Bolan’s Remington—were far from paid professional soldiers. They were hired muscle, and that was all, local “talent” that was the best rural Pennsylvania had to offer.

  Through the scope, Bolan saw the two bikers closest to Delaney’s vehicle exchange glances. They were cookie-cutter similar: leather jackets, shaved heads, some visible tattoos, a clear lack of personal hygiene. He could hear one of them say, “Oh, missy, I think they’re gonna be worried. I think maybe we’re just gonna give them something to worry about. What’s say you come on over and meet the boys? Don’t worry. They’ll all get a turn before we’re through with you.” He reached into the truck, grabbing Delaney through the window.

  Delaney slammed the Yukon into Reverse and flattened the accelerator.

  That was the signal, and verification that the Brothers of Blood were anything but upstanding citizens.

  The biker who’d grabbed Delaney was pulling a large hunting knife from under his leather jacket. Bolan tightened the Remington against his shoulder, sighted carefully and squeezed the trigger.

  The 146-grain, .308-caliber bullet bore a hole through the man’s skull and dropped him where he stood.

  The biker standing next to the dead man hesitated for a moment. Then the rolling thunder of the shot reached him, and his brain lurched into gear. He was running for the tents when Bolan’s second round caught him in the center of the back of his head, dumping him on the ground. The revolver he had been pulling from his belt went flying, landing somewhere in the bonfire pit.

  Per the plan, Delaney was pulling the Yukon back. The dirt road narrowed farther up, and the truck would be sufficient to block vehicle access into and out of the property. Bolan wasn’t so worried about being interrupted from the outside as he was allowing any of the bikers below to escape. He wanted to make a clean sweep of this, bring them all in or down, to intensify the effect that hitting the lab would have on Trofimov. As always, the purpose was to keep the pressure on, and Bolan was an expert at gaining and keeping the initiative in an engagement.

  Bikers began scrambling from the tents and from within the trailer, though Bolan noticed that no one emerged from the cookhouse. He calmly worked the bolt of the Remington, took careful aim and dropped a biker. Then he shot another one, and another one, each time working the bolt with icy calm. Mack Bolan was a master sniper, and the men below still hadn’t found his range.

  The bikers were attempting to mount resistance, however. They were firing up the hill. At least a few of them were smart enough to realize that sniper fire was likely to come from the nearest point of elevation. They were responding accordingly, and their less intelligent brethren were following suit. Bolan dropped three more bikers before it became obvious he would have to move in closer. The bikers retreated into the trailer and began to fire from the windows, shooting blindly at nothing. He might be able to tag one or two through a window that way, but Bolan saw no reason to
wait them out. He packed the Remington back in its hard case and began to work his way around, flanking the trailer, getting ready for a house call.

  So fixated on the hilltop were the bikers that they never noticed Bolan work his way down the opposite side of the hill and around the side of the trailer. Desert Eagle and Beretta 93-R in hand, Bolan stopped outside the trailer, stepped to the side and rapped on the door with the barrel of the Desert Eagle.

  “Who the fuck is it?” came the nervous voice from inside.

  “Special delivery,” Bolan said.

  “We didn’t order no special delivery,” the biker snarled. “Now clear outta here, man, there’s somebody shooting from up in the hills! Ain’t you seen the bodies, man?”

  “Special delivery,” Bolan said evenly.

  The door was ripped open. “I’m gonna stab you through the neck and watch you twitch,” the biker said, switchblade in hand. “What the fuck are you special delivering, you idiot—”

  “Bullets,” Bolan said, and shot him in the face.

  A well-placed combat-boot sole smashed the door inward, and Bolan stepped over the dead biker on the front step. He rolled as he hit the carpeted floor, avoiding a shotgun blast that passed over his head. Another shot from the Desert Eagle put a .44 slug through the brain of the shotgun-toting biker. Then Bolan was up and through.

  A man with a sawed-off shotgun tried to shoot Bolan’s legs out from under him. The soldier sidestepped the clumsy attack, and when both barrels were empty and the man was clawing for the release to break the gun and reload, Bolan shot him dead, center of mass. Another biker leaped up and swung a heavy motorcycle chain at Bolan, scoring a glancing blow against the soldier’s left wrist. Bolan reached out, grabbed the chain on the next swing and pulled the man into him left-handed. Off balance, the biker slammed into Bolan.

  With his gun pressed against his side, the Executioner fired, punching a bullet through the man’s heart.

  He looked around.