Staying low, Bolan padded across the mud. Unexpectedly, a man rose to his right, and the Executioner paused to make sure it was a mercenary before taking him out with a burst from the Kalashnikov.
Angry voices were shouting from different locations across the marsh, and the gunfire was taking on a more precise pattern, probing in one direction before moving on to another. Bolan was grazed twice more and felt something hot go through his hair. That sent him into the mud, and crawling fast. That had been way too close for comfort. Somebody was either very good or very lucky.
Reaching the edge of the marsh, Bolan saw a Hummer parked on the berm of the highway with two men standing outside, one of them was cradling a Russian assault rifle while the other toted an American-made M-60 machine gun. They hid the weapons as a car drove past, and Bolan hoped the noise would disguise any sound he made as he crept along the edge of the marsh until he located a drainage ditch.
Because he was only able to move when traffic drove past, it took Bolan an inordinate length of time to locate a small culvert and wriggle inside. Trying not to breath in the fetid smell of decaying waste, he finally came out the other side.
Slowly rising behind the mercenaries, Bolan debated his next action, then started boldly across the open pavement, the Kalashnikov and Beretta at the ready. This was going to be close.
Triggering the grenade launcher, Bolan sent the 30 mm shell into the back of the larger mercenary carrying the M-60. The range was much too short for the warhead to arm, but the shell smashed into the mercenary like a cannonball, shattering his spine. With a jerk, the man dropped onto the pavement, shaking wildly.
Snarling a curse, the second man spun, his Kalashnikov spitting fiery death.
Diving to the side, Bolan rolled under the Hummer and shot the mercenary in the foot. Screaming in pain, the man fell, and Bolan ended his misery with another round to the middle of the forehead.
Voices shouted from the marsh, and a radio clipped to the belt of the dead man began to crackle loudly.
Ignoring that, Bolan retrieved the M-60 from the convulsing mercenary, then rapped the weapon’s butt against the guy’s head. With a sigh, the criminal went still.
Quickly checking the big M-60, Bolan started shooting into the marsh, white-hot tracer rounds stitching through the inky night. Starting at the far end, the soldier burned through an entire belt to try to drive the mercenaries back to the junkyard, a place they would naturally think of as a safe haven.
As the belt became exhausted, they boiled out of the weeds, Bolan tossed away the heavy machine gun to raise both of the Kalashnikovs and cut loose in a prolonged barrage. The double volley of 7.62 mm rounds ripped the mercenaries part, their limbs flailing about like drunken puppets.
When the assault rifles cycled empty, Bolan dropped them and pulled out the Glock. Bracing the pistol on top of the front hood of the Hummer, he squeezed off single shots, blowing the survivors away one at a time.
As the last man fell, Bolan bolted away from the Hummer. He’d barely got clear when there was a flash of light from the roof of the garage, and a rocket streaked in to annihilate the Hummer in a strident explosion, chunks of men and machine rising high on a roiling fireball.
Kneeling to steady his aim, Bolan drew the Beretta and emptied the entire magazine. The chattering stream of bullets peppered the distant garage, apparently without result. But as he reloaded, a man rose into view holding a Carl Gustav rocket launcher. As the mercenary aimed the rocket launcher, Bolan cut loose with the contents of his last magazine. The mercenary staggered from the incoming rounds, then sagged and launched the rocket straight into the sky.
As the rocket streaked harmlessly away, the backwash engulfed the rooftop, blowing off the man’s legs and setting his clothing on fire.
Shrieking pitifully, he feebly rolled about until going off the edge of the garage and falling directly onto the pile of rusty saw blades.
A split second later, something inside the garage detonated, spreading out a fiery corona. Another explosion closely followed, then several more, some louder, some weaker, then the entire building erupted. Bodies, furniture and vehicles formed a hellish geyser into the sky, ragged lumps and chunks arching away to pelt down into the marsh.
As the stores of ammunition inside the garage began cooking off, Bolan wearily walked to the wreckage of the Hummer and began to search for a medical kit, more ammunition, or anything else usable. His best guess was that all of the mercenaries had been killed, but until that was confirmed, he would stay alert.
In the far distance, Bolan could hear a siren wailing and forced himself to start for the marsh again.
Suddenly, a pair of headlights appeared, sweeping the Hummer as a Rhino came jouncing off the highway heading directly his way. Checking the load in the Glock, Bolan took cover behind the Hummer. He wouldn’t shoot the police or firefighters, even at the risk of his own life. However, their car tires were another matter entirely.
As Bolan drew a bead, the Rhino barked to a rocking halt on the grass, then the horn sounded in a fast series of honks: three, two, one, then three again.
“About time you showed up,” Bolan muttered, trying to put the Glock into a holster designed for a Beretta. When it didn’t fit, he merely tucked it into his belt.
“Got here as fast as we could,” Kirkland announced, climbing out from behind the wheel with the Webley in his grip. Montenegro’s Neostead was slung across his back, and a canvas ammo bag hung at his side.
“Matt, are you all right?” Montenegro asked, stepping out of the vehicle. The heavy XM-25 grenade launcher hung at her side from a nylon strap.
“Never better,” Bolan said, walking forward. “How did you find me?”
“We met a helpful fisherman, followed your trail, then listened for World War III,” Kirkland said. “That’s always worked before.”
“Can’t argue with success.”
“Lord Almighty, did you escape through the sewage system?” Montenegro asked, holding her nose. “I’ve known week-old corpses that smelled better than you.”
“I am a mite ripe at that,” Bolan admitted.
“More importantly,” Kirkland asked intently, “did you get what we need?”
“Almost,” Bolan replied in blunt honesty. “But the phones got smashed along the way.”
“All right.” Montenegro sighed, adjusting the heavy XM-25. “Is any of their communications equipment still intact?”
“I doubt it highly,” Bolan snorted, glancing at the burning wreckage.
“Only one way to know for sure,” Kirkland said. “Let’s go hunting.”
“This way,” Bolan said, starting off at a stiff walk.
“Freeze right there, mister!” Kirkland bellowed.
Stopping motionless, Bolan looked around, positive that the man had spotted a land mine or a trip wire.
Instead, he bent down to look at Bolan’s bloody feet and removed his own boots.
“Put them on,” he stated. “A limping man only slows the rest of the platoon and gets everybody killed.”
Bolan started to object, then saw their expressions and did as requested.
“Better?” Kirkland asked, wiggling his toes in his socks.
“Better,” Bolan admitted, then added. “Thanks.”
“Keep them,” Montenegro added. “You’ll be cursing our names after we clean those and put in some stitches.”
“Yeah, been there, done that,” Bolan said with a shrug.
>
Sweeping into the junkyard in a standard three-on-three defense pattern, they made it to the burning garage in only a few minutes.
The base was dotted with numerous small fires, and in the distance the mountain of crushed cars was still shifting and creaking into its new position.
“I love your work,” Kirkland snorted. “But you were probably right, we’re not going to find anything intact here.”
“Unless,” Montenegro said, then suddenly fired the XM-25.
Far across the junkyard, standing brazenly on top of a pile of crushed cars, a man holding a flamethrower cried out as the heavy shell slammed into his belly. The impact spun him, and sent him tumbling over the other side.
“Why’d you shoot him?” Kirkland demanded.
“To stop him from shooting us,” she replied. “Are you unclear on how this whole battle thing works?”
“I think he meant that we could have used somebody alive to question,” Bolan answered, then went silent.
“Something wrong?” Kirkland asked, Neostead sweeping the fiery yard for any suspicious movements.
“Listen,” Bolan whispered.
The others stopped talking, and a few seconds later there came a low moan of pain from the mound of used tires.
Staying in formation, they checked for traps, then shifted a few of the tires. Buried underneath was a man in bloody clothing, an AK-47 at his side, the barrel visibly bent.
“Hi, there!” Kirkland said with a smile. “Looking for some reliable retreads?”
With a snarl, the wounded mercenary pulled a knife out of his sleeve, but Montenegro kicked it free. It sailed away to land with a clatter amid the tractors, and rusty plows.
“Now that the preliminaries are over…” Bolan said, working the slide on the Glock.
At the familiar sound, the mercenary sneered in repressed fury and started for the assault rifle, then stopped and cut loose with a long string of Hindi, followed by German and then French.
Kneeling, Bolan lowered the muzzle of the weapon against the man’s left eye. “Enough of that,” he ordered. “I heard you speak English before when I did a recon.” It was a lie, but the man had no way of knowing that, and most people in India spoke a little English.
“Yes, yes, I speak,” the man growled, shifting uncomfortably on the filthy ground.
“Give me the name of the person who hired you to do the recon in Sri Lanka,” Bolan demanded.
“And please don’t say that you don’t know,” Kirkland said, low enough to make the other man strain to hear the words. “Because otherwise you’re useless to us.”
“Useless,” Montenegro repeated, lowering the big muzzle of the XM-25.
For a long moment, the mercenary said nothing, his eyes darting about the ruin of the junkyard, the dead bodies and then all of the weapons pointing his way. “Merc,” he growled in heavily accented English, gesturing at himself with a thumb. Then he made an international gesture by rubbing two fingers together.
Surprised, Bolan eased his stance. He wanted to get paid for the information? Once hired to do a job, a professional would never stop until the job was done. On the other hand, his job was done, so…
“Deal,” Bolan said, removing the gun barrel.
“I do like a man without principles,” Montenegro said, pulling out a thick wad of euros, and tucking it into the shirt pocket of the mercenary.
Unexpectedly, Kirkland then rolled him over and took his wallet in exchange.
Clearly confused, the merc stared as Kirkland removed all of the identification cards inside and tossed the empty wallet back to the man.
After a moment, the merc nodded in understanding. “I speak truth…or you go back.”
“Come back,” Montenegro corrected gruffly.
Minutes passed, and nobody spoke, the silence becoming more intense with each passing moment.
“Start talking or start dying,” Bolan stated in a graveyard voice.
Inspecting the amount of cash in his pocket, the wounded mercenary sighed, then spoke a name: Roger Sullivan.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Sea of Japan
It had started as a beautiful day, but now the sky was heavily overcast, the roiling clouds dark and low. The ocean below was calm and serene. There were a few low swells, and a gentle breeze coming in from the northwest. Aside from the colossal U.S.S. Esteem there were only a few other vessels in sight, mostly fishing trawlers, and a few pleasure boats skimming along the waves.
The nuclear generators and electric engines of the U.S.S. Esteem revved toward overload as the colossal aircraft carrier desperately raced toward its home port of Yokohama. The armored prow of the vessel didn’t plow through the waves, it crushed them aside, the aft propellers kicking up a frothy wake that spread outward for hundreds of yards. Along both sides of the vessel, deadly Phalanx autoguns scanned the area with their radar beams probing for any incoming danger.
Hundreds of sailors were scrambling to get the last couple of jetfighters onto the waiting elevator. The motorized trawl normally used to move the aircraft into position had unexpectedly blown a fuel gasket, and instead of waiting for the second trawl, the grim sailors swarmed over the jets like ants, using sheer muscle power to push, pull and drag the F-18 Super Hornets toward the waiting elevator.
The hydraulic lift was already loaded with an Apache gunship and a Tomcat, but the crew was grimly determined to get one more jet safely below before all hell broke loose.
“We don’t even know if this is going to help!” a sailor groused, putting his back into the task.
“However, we do know this baby is a sitting duck on the flight deck!” a lieutenant replied gruffly. “So, more muscle, less lung!”
“Yes, sir!”
There had been no official announcement from the White House, the Pentagon, or the Pacific Fleet’s commander, but they all watched television. For some unknown reason, lightning was systematically destroying military and civilian targets around the world. American, Russian, French, British: it made no difference, people were dying in droves, and the grim crew of the Esteem had absolutely no intention of joining the ranks of the dead just yet.
The minute dark clouds formed overhead, the captain began shouting orders over the PA system, and everybody scrambled to get the jets quickly off the flight deck and safely inside the carrier.
Theoretically, the crew and jetfighters were both safe enough; the ship’s steel deck was eighteen inches thick, the armored hull over three feet thick, proof to anything short of a nuclear torpedo. However, while lightning strikes had been considered in the original calculations, multiple strikes coming in nonstop for minutes at a time certainly hadn’t.
But since there was no way of knowing if their standard antilightning safeguards were sufficient to the task at hand, the captain and crew were playing it safe and trying to clear the flight deck. The standard complement of eight jetfighters, full of fuel and high-explosion munitions, normally the greatest defense of the Esteem, were now its deadliest threat.
On the bridge of the aircraft carrier, the captain watched the display screens with an intensity normally reserved for combat. The radar screens were clear, and sonar showed that there was nothing below the waves but a pod of whales and a few dolphins.
“Engine room, go to a 110 percent,” the captain said in a deceptively calm voice.
“Sir, that is strongly not recommended,” the chief engineer replied over the intercom.
“Sir—”
“I said now!” the captain interrupted in a dangerous tone.
There was a brief pause. “Aye, aye, sir,” the woman replied.
A few seconds later, the dials and gauges on the control board rose, and the speed of the aircraft carrier ever so slightly increased.
“Think that’ll do it, Captain?” the executive officer asked tersely, looking through a window at the sky overhead.
“I’ll tell you when we reach port,” the captain growled, as a gentle rain began to patter against the windows of the bridge.
Instantly, a klaxon started to sound, then every klaxon cut loose at full volume. Next, a siren began to wail, closely followed by the rarely used collision-warning bells. The simultaneous cacophony bordered on deafening, echoing and reverberating through every level of the massive vessel.
“Red alert!” the captain announced over a PA system. “Repeat, red alert! The rain is here! All hands belowdecks. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill! All hands belowdecks!”
Thunder boomed as lightning lanced down from the clouds to hit a group of sailors. As their stunned comrades struggled to recover from the numbing strike, another bolt crashed into the Super Hornet on the deck. The fuel and ammunition stores detonated like a bomb, the blast clearing the deck of everybody, broken bodies flying over the side to splash into the sea.
Static electric charges crackled along the metal hull of the carrier, burning out lightbulbs, making the crash net jerk upward into position, and burning out the sirens and horns until a strange silence covered the bloody flight deck.
As another bolt hit, two of the Phalanx guns blew apart into fiery shrapnel, but the rest stuttered into halting operation. Without targets, the computerized Gatling guns wildly sprayed out streams of 20 mm shells into the sea and sky. Then, firing randomly, they hosed the deck of the carrier, the shells annihilating everything in sight: men, machines, even blasting a string of jagged holes across the lower sections of the bridge.
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