Sabotage

by Don Pendleton

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to do something sneaky,” Delaney said. “You know, stealth? Subterfuge? Something other than walking up to the front door with a rifle and shouting ‘Trick or Treat’?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it,” Bolan said. He got out of the SUV and went around to the back. There, he loaded and cocked the M-16, placed it in its open duffel and hefted the bag.

  “I’m coming with you,” Delaney said.

  “You don’t want to take the back?”

  “Crazy as I must be to walk in a front door with you, Cooper,” she said, loading and cocking her MP-5 K, “no, I don’t want to take the back.” She made sure the weapon was secure on its sling under her arm.

  “Suit yourself,” Bolan said.

  They marched directly to the front of the SCFI building. No sooner did they enter the foyer than they were challenged by a pair of uniformed SCAR security operatives.

  “No one is allowed beyond this point,” one of the guards said.

  “I have an appointment,” Bolan said.

  “No one has appointments,” the other guard said. They exchanged glances. They moved for their slung rifles.

  Bolan was faster. He yanked the M-16 out of the duffel bag, dropping the bag, and snapped off the safety. He raked the two men as their Kalashnikovs came up, bowling them over and ending their lives.

  “Come on,” Bolan said. “We’ve got to find a computer terminal.”

  Price had been able to provide only the most basic floorplan and HVAC layouts for the building. There had been no online or networked data regarding the positions of network terminals within the building. They would have no choice but to check floor by floor. Bolan was reminded of the bloody slog through Twain’s headquarters, but there was nothing that could be done. They would simply have to work with what they had.

  Alarms began to ring. A metal security shutter slammed down over the foyer exit.

  “Cooper!” Delaney pointed. “We’re trapped!”

  “Good,” Bolan said.

  “Good?”

  “That means they’re trapped in here with us,” Bolan said, “and there’s no chance an innocent can wander into the battle.”

  “You know, Cooper,” Delaney said, “you make a lot of sense, but you’re also completely insane.”

  Bolan said nothing. He paused at the elevator and planted a pair of the miniature proximity Claymores.

  “Move away, quickly,” Bolan said. “Don’t get within two yards of those devices unless you do it from the back.” Each miniature Claymore was clearly labeled Front Toward Enemy.

  Delaney covered him as he pushed through the fire door into the stairwell. The stairs were very wide, and each landing was huge. Bolan moved cautiously up to the next level.

  Gunfire greeted him.

  The floor beyond the stairwell door was divided into office space around the perimeter, with a common area dotted by couches, tables and comfortable chairs in the center. Bolan poked the snout of the M-16 through the partially opened doorway and triggered a grenade, blowing apart the nearest of the offices and scoring some fairly significant damage among the couches.

  “Losing proposition,” he said, ducking back. “I didn’t see anything that looked like a network terminal, just office space.”

  “If we keep moving up with them in there,” Delaney said, “we’ll be caught between them once they start to move.

  “Exactly,” Bolan told her. “Time to go for broke.”

  “What?”

  Bolan shed his field jacket, then pulled the war bag from his shoulder. He dumped several grenades onto the floor of the stairwell. They were a mixed bag: phosphorous, incendiary, frag and flash-bang. He replaced the much-lighter bag on his shoulder.

  “Grab a handful,” Bolan said.

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “No,” Bolan said. “Pull the pins and get ready. We’ve going to throw them all in.”

  “This is insane,” Delaney muttered.

  “Ready…” Bolan said, whipping the door open again. “Now!”

  They hurled armed bomb after bomb into the office space beyond, then Bolan slammed the door shut.

  “Brace yourself!”

  The explosions came, one after another, the relatively dull thumps of the more conventional ammo drowned by the deafening roar of the flash-bangs. The walls vibrated. Bolan motioned to the door, and Delaney ripped it open once more. A huge plume of smoke rushed out.

  Bolan fought back the urge to cough and plunged into the smoke. Here and there he caught movement, and when he saw an enemy with a weapon, he triggered a 3-round burst from the M-16, putting the man down. Working methodically from one side of the ruined, scorched floor to the other, he cleared the area as efficiently as possible.

  Gunfire began to rain down on Delaney from the landing above her.

  “Cooper!” she called. “Help!”

  The Executioner was already moving. He had expected the SCAR personnel on the upper floors to take the initiative at some point; the explosions on this level had been enough to convince them of the need. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he’d felt the entire building shake. That would be enough for the SCAR operatives to realize the severity of the threat.

  Bolan joined Delaney. He angled the M-16 up and triggered a burst, then another, then a long stream of full-auto fire. The last was enough to drive the enemy back. “Come on,” he said. “While there’s time.”

  They worked their way up the stairs. A dead man was sprawled on the next landing, where Bolan’s blind cover fire had caught him purely by bad luck. The soldier checked the corpse to make sure the man was truly dead, then advanced on the open doorway to the next floor. It was wedged open; someone had shoved an empty M-16 magazine into the gap between the hinges.

  The invitation was an obvious one, and Bolan didn’t intend to fall for it. He had used his supply of grenades, so he took out one of Kissinger’s proximity mines, armed it and tossed it through the opening.

  “What the…” someone said. “That’s not a—”

  “Put it down!” another voice screamed.

  The explosion brought shrieks of pain. Bolan rushed the doorway, with Delaney close behind.

  They emerged in a computer work farm. Row after row of terminals were arranged in a semicircular pattern, radiating from a central hub that boasted a large projection screen. The two wounded men had dropped their Kalashnikovs. One was no longer moving. The other was struggling to claw a revolver from a shoulder holster.

  Bolan put a single mercy round through his forehead. He checked the other man; the proximity mine had killed him.

  “Jackpot,” Delaney said. “Something tells me your network access can be had here.”

  “Except it will take time,” Bolan said. Price had warned him that Akira’s data device needed time to operate, during which it couldn’t be removed from the network. “Guard the door,” he said. “If anybody comes down or up, fill that stairwell with lead. The only people likely to be in this building are us and SCAR’s operatives. They’ll be playing for keeps.”

  “I understand, Cooper,” Delaney said, nodding.

  Bolan found an appropriate USB port and jacked the little device into it. Lights on the casing began to blink. The LED indicators were first red, then yellow, and then green, followed by a blinking amber that indicated data transfer. The machine was doing its job.

  Bolan removed his phone and speed-dialed the Farm.

  “Barb,” he said when she answered, “it’s in place.”

  “We’re getting the transmitted feed now,” Price said. “I’m transferring you to Akira.”

  “Akira here,” Tokaido said. Bolan could hear the faint echo of the heavy-metal music pumped into Akira’s ears through the headphones of his MP3 player. The young Asian was the Farm cyberteam’s talented computer hacker. Bolan could hear the younger man’s fingers flying over his keyboard as he kept pace with whatever his device was doing.

  “Coope
r!” Delaney called from the doorway. “They’re coming down!”

  “We’re about to come under fire here,” Bolan said calmly.

  “Understood, Striker,” Tokaido acknowledged. “My little black box is opening a port in their network’s firewall. It will stream all relevant data to us, using a special algorithm that moves the data around, makes it untraceable. They’ll never know where it went, or even that it was copied.”

  “All right,” Bolan said. “Call me when the transfer is complete.” Gunshots rang out in the stairwell beyond the door Delaney guarded. “I’ve got work to do.”

  With the M-16 in hand, Bolan took the left side of the doorway, while Delaney, firing left-handed with her MP-5 K detached from its sling, took the right. They traded burst after burst with the enemy beyond.

  “Running low here,” Delaney said, just loud enough for Bolan to hear over the earbud transceiver.

  Bolan produced some loaded magazines for the MP-5 K from his war bag.

  “We can’t keep this up forever,” Delaney said.

  “We won’t have to,” Bolan promised. He glanced back at Tokaido’s device, still blinking away, hopefully out of the direct line of fire.

  The shooting from the stairwell stopped.

  “You in there!” one of the mercenaries shouted. “We have you pinned down. It’s suicide to keep fighting. Throw out your weapons, put your hands behind your heads and come out quietly.”

  Buying time could only help them now, Bolan reasoned. “I’m listening,” he called.

  “That was it!” the voice shouted back. “Those were the terms! Now stop dicking around and come out of there.”

  “How do I know you won’t just shoot us when we come out?”

  “Look—” the voice sounded exasperated “—I’m giving you the only chance you’re going to get. Surrender and make this easy on yourself.”

  “There’s an awful lot of very heavily armed security here for a bank,” Bolan countered. “Maybe you’re doing something here that isn’t entirely legal. Maybe that means you’re less than trustworthy.”

  “Screw this!” someone else yelled. A new wave of gunfire hit the doorway. Bolan threw himself back to avoid being tagged by a ricochet or a lucky shot. Delaney crouched where she was, then triggered an answering burst from her MP-5 K.

  “I guess that answers that,” she muttered.

  Bolan’s secure phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

  “Cooper,” he answered.

  “We have it,” Tokaido said. “Analyzing now. I am transmitting a self-destruct code to the device. It will be rendered inert.”

  At Tokaido’s words, the electronic device began blinking red furiously. Then it emitted a plume of smoke and its LEDs went dark.

  “Have Barb get me a synopsis as soon as you can,” Bolan said.

  “Are you all right?” Tokaido asked.

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Bolan said. He closed the connection.

  Bolan considered the situation, then looked back at the computer stations arrayed behind him. Individually, none of them would stop a bullet. Taken in a line, however, there were quite a few metal casings full of circuit boards and other guts to consider. It wasn’t great cover, but it just might do.

  “Delaney,” he whispered, watching her, “can you hear me?”

  Delaney nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “Now, listen to me. I want you to work your way around the outside of the room, then duck behind the last row of workstations. Don’t let them get a clear line on you from the doorway. I’m going to do the same. Go now.”

  She obeyed, moving quietly and gracefully. Bolan mirrored her movements. The gunners outside fired a few more times, but the shots were sporadic. They were no longer certain of their tactics. That was good; it was just the sort of doubt that Bolan was counting on.

  He made the far end of the room and settled himself in behind one of the rows of workstations, next to where Delaney lay prone. She had her MP-5 K out in front of her in both hands, trained on the door through the gaps in the rows.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now what?”

  “Now we wait.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. The SCAR gunners began moving closer and closer toward the open doorway. Delaney motioned as if to shoot.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Let them get closer.”

  “I don’t see them!” one of the men called to his fellow mercs.

  “Shout it to the world, why don’t you, you frigging moron,” another mercenary snapped. “There’s no exit through there. They must be in there.”

  “What if they went out a window?”

  “Do you see any windows in that room, stupid?”

  “Jeez, lighten up, man.”

  The mercenaries stalked into the room, moving among the terminals in what they obviously thought was stealth. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t good. Bolan wasn’t impressed.

  Delaney looked at him anxiously. The nearest gunner was getting closer to her position. In a few moments he would be able to see over the terminal desk, and he would spot her.

  Bolan shook his head.

  Delaney grimaced, but she held her fire. Then, at the very last minute, Bolan nodded.

  The mercenary closest to Delaney took a half step. He saw her.

  “Wha—” he started. “Here! They’re here—”

  Bolan shot to his feet and triggered a 3-round burst through the man’s chest.

  Delaney did the same, taking the men behind Bolan, firing past him and to either side, careful to avoid hitting him. The computer terminals erupted in a shower of sparks. Dead men danced and jerked as the automatic fire did its deadly work, sending them to forever in a hailstorm of metal jackets. Bolan swiveled, fired, turned and fired again, making short work of the remaining troops.

  There were several men who had stayed in reserve beyond the doorway. They bunched up, trying to rush in to help their comrades, and Bolan made them pay for it. He switched the M-16 to single fire and began picking off the gunners one by one, dropping each of them with precise head shots as they scrambled through the doorway on top of one another.

  It was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

  Bolan checked the hallway. “Clear!” he said. “At least for now. You all right?”

  “Clear here,” Delaney said. She looked around at the dead men and the damaged computers, MP-5 K still clutched in both hands. “Looks like we did it again, Cooper.”

  “Yeah, we did,” Bolan said.

  They made a cursory check of the floors above the terminal floor, but they found no other mercenaries. The rest of the building was deserted. The Farm presumably had all the computer files it needed, so they checked quickly for hard copies. When nothing presented itself, Bolan took Delaney by the arm.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before the police arrive.”

  “Aren’t you used to them by now?”

  “Let’s say I don’t want to push my luck.” They took the stairwell down to ground level and picked their way through the wreckage toward the exit. Bolan removed the small pry bar from his war bag and wedged it into the metal barrier. He grunted and dislodged the shutter, moving it aside just enough so the two of them could crawl out.

  In the distance, the first sirens were audible.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Let’s get moving,” Bolan said.

  He and Delaney climbed into the SUV. It would be a reasonably quick drive back to the airport. Bolan put the vehicle in gear and stepped on the gas.

  The truck rocked forward when a speeding panel van plowed into it.

  “Hold on!” Bolan shouted. He slammed the accelerator to the floor. The SUV shot forward. In the rearview mirror, Bolan could see a pair of cargo vans in pursuit.

  “Who are they?” Delaney asked, slipping on her seat belt, watching in the side mirror.

  “Has to be SCAR operatives,” Bolan said. “They must have been waiting in reserve. Most likely followed us out
. They may think we have data that must be recovered, or they’d just be looking for payback. It doesn’t matter.” The SUV’s engine roared as Bolan whipped the truck through a tight turn, almost bringing it up on two wheels. “We need to lose them or stop them, but we can’t do this forever.” For one thing, they were outnumbered, and their SUV wasn’t built for speed. To their advantage was the fact that the vans pursuing them weren’t particularly fast, either, but they were fast enough. Bolan tried every trick he could think of to lose them, but the SCAR drivers hung in.

  Delaney rolled down her window. “I’m going to see if I can take out their tires,” she said.

  “Don’t,” Bolan said. He jerked his chin at her MP-5 K. “You’ll never get them without nailing a lot of the landscape at this distance,” he said, “and I can’t slow down, or they’ll start to take shots at us.”

  “I’m open to suggestions!” she shouted over the noise of the engine and the rushing wind from her open window.

  “Here!” he said. “Take this!” He handed her the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. She took it as if it were something dead, holding it with distaste.

  “Use it,” he insisted.

  Nodding grimly, she forced herself to take a secure grip on the weapon. As they rode, swerving this way and that, Delaney took off her seat belt and climbed up using the support handle inside the door. She perched half in and half out of the open window, aiming the Desert Eagle with both hands on the gun. She wrapped her legs around the seat to keep her steady and stop her from being thrown from the window.

  Shooters in the vans began to fire at the fleeing SUV. Bolan’s side mirror took a round dead-center and spun away in a sudden flurry of plastic shards.

  “Hurry!” Bolan called.

  “I’m doing my best,” she shouted back.

  “Hang on!”

  The turn ahead was almost a ninety-degree angle. Bolan slammed the brake and whipped the wheel around, praying they didn’t manage to roll the SUV. An accident now would leave them at the mercy of their pursuers but, more important, rolling the SUV would be instant death for Delaney in her precarious position.