Screaming obscenities, Barrington angled the wand downward, and another column of fire gushed from the muzzle to reach across the bedroom, setting the sheets ablaze, then splashed across the front door to fill the living room with a chemical inferno.
As the flames washed over the aquarium, the glass cracked and water began to dribble onto the floor. Then the cushions burst into crazy green flames, and started giving off dense black smoke.Unconcerned, the tropical fish continued lazily swimming about, completely unaware of their impending doom.
Holding up a staying hand to the others, Kirkland took aim with the Tokarev trauma pistol, then emptied the entire magazine at the wall behind Barrington. The hail of rubber bullets cracked the plaster and bounced off to smack into the fuel tanks and hose of the flamethrower.
“You missed, asshole!” Barrington said with a sneer, then stopped as he heard a soft hiss of escaping gas from the pressurized tank.
Quickly triggering the weapon again, Barrington got only a weak stream of fire that barely reached out into the smoky bedroom. Then the hissing stopped, and the burning fuel merely flowed out of the fluted end of the wand to puddle on the carpeting.
Snarling, Barrington quickly disappeared down the ladder, the dead flamethrower clanking and clattering along the way.
Rushing into the closet, Bolan and Montenegro both emptied their weapons down the passageway, the double barrage of 9 mm Parabellum rounds generating numerous death screams, along with an assortment of cries of pain. As they’d expected, Barrington hadn’t been alone.
Then Kirkland pulled out a grenade. Tilting his head, Bolan looked at the man as if he was nuts, and Kirkland showed that the arming pin wasn’t pulled, or safety tape removed.
Confused by that, Emily started to ask a question, and Montenegro put a hand over her mouth. “It wouldn’t be very smart to blow up the only way out of here,” she whispered softly into the other’s woman’s ear.
As Emily’s face brightened in understanding, Kirkland dropped the grenade down the passageway, then tossed down another.
The military spheres disappeared into the shadows, followed by the dull thumps of their landings. But there were no yells of surprise or scampering boots.
Tossing down a flashlight, Bolan got only a brief view of the bullet-riddled walls and ladder before it landed on something hard. The lenses noisily cracked, and the flashlight winked out.
Reloading the Beretta, Bolan took the lead. Pressing his boots to the outside of the ladder instead of using the rungs, he slid down the entire length in only a few seconds. As Bolan reached the bottom, he stepped aside and Kirkland arrived in the same manner, his Webley out and sweeping for targets.
The crumpled bodies of six men were piled before an open doorway, and lying on the other side was a short man with silver hair, a flamethrower still strapped to his back. Edgar Barrington. He was sprawled in a pool of his own blood, most of his head torn away by the barrage of 9 mm rounds.
“I think we won,” Kirkland said, retrieving one of his grenades and polishing it like apple.
“Certainly seems so,” Bolan replied, taking a camping flare from a dead man. Smacking it on a raised knee, he ignited the stick and tossed it through the doorway.
In the harsh red glow, Bolan saw a gunnite-lined tunnel extending into the distance, an iron gate nearby swung aside to allow the passage of an armored fighting vehicle, designation LAV-25. The amphibian armored vehicle was perfect for traversing the black waters of the Alabama swamp. Then he spotted the 25 mm chain gun mounted on the top cupola.
Instantly, Bolan and Kirkland separated to race along the opposite sides of the APC, yanking open the rear doors. Thankfully, the LAV-25 was empty, but the interior reeked of sour sweat, and the floor was littered with crushed cigarette butts, empty MRE food packs and beer cans.
“Must have been a hell of a party.” Kirkland chuckled, the Webley never wavering. “Well, at least they died happy.”
“The dead part is all that concerns me,” Bolan stated, warily climbing inside the LAV-25 and starting to search for booby traps or other antipersonnel devices.
When Bolan made it alive to the driver’s seat, Kirkland returned to the ladder and sweetly whistled like a whip-poor-will. In short order, Emily descended into view, closely followed by Montenegro. Both women had cut strips of bath towels tied around their faces as crude protection from the cloud of smoke billowing inside the closet.
“Where’s Edgar?” Emily asked anxiously, her hands clasped together.
“Over here,” Kirkland replied, using his boot to flip over the corpse with the flamethrower.
Staring at the dead man for a moment, Emily then hawked and spat in his face.
“Feel better?” Montenegro asked with a grin.
Emily nodded. “Much better.”
Suddenly, the LAV-25’s engine surged into operation, and the headlights came on, filling the dark tunnel with harsh illumination.
Herding Emily into the armored vehicle, Montenegro helped the woman strap down into a wall seat while Kirkland closed and bolted the rear doors.
“How’s the fuel?” Montenegro asked, taking the seat alongside Emily.
“Just over half a tank, more than enough to get us back to civilization,” Bolan replied, awkwardly turning the vehicle around in the tight confines of the tunnel.
She smiled. “Good to know!”
Driving along the tunnel, Bolan turned off the headlights to keep from announcing their presence to any possible guards waiting in ambush, then he switched them back on, realizing the roar of the big Detroit engines was doing a fine job all by itself.
Climbing into the cupola, Kirkland inspected the 25 mm chain gun. Disgusted with what he found, the man shifted the belt of linked ammunition about until it fitted properly into the breech. Amateurs!
“Okay, Emily, we’ve kept our side of the deal,” Montenegro said, rocking in the seat as the vehicle lurched over something. “You’re free. Now tell us about Amir Bull.”
Keeping a grip on her safety harness, Emily took a deep breath. “His real name is Zafar Armanjani, Major Armanjani. Edgar didn’t like him very much because…well…”
“Because he wasn’t white enough,” Kirkland supplied from the cupola.
She nodded, then smiled. “But the men loved him! He was an excellent shot, and taught them knife-fighting and about swords, and…Zafar knew everything about military history. He was always telling the men stories about Rommel and Roarke’s Drift and such.”
“Which I’m sure made Edgar like him even less,” Montenegro guessed.
“He was also my… That is…we…” Unsure how to proceed, Emily paused to chew a lip.
“You were lovers,” Montenegro said gently. “After meeting Edgar, I wouldn’t blame you for making time with a gator.”
Blinking back tears, Emily tried not to smile, but did anyway, then burst into racking sobs.
Coming out of the tunnel, Bolan banked hard at the sight of five men in Swampfox uniforms sitting around a campfire.
“Showtime!” he barked, revving the engine to maximum. Ramming directly through the group, the armored prow of the LAV-25 sent their broken bodies sailing away into the dirty swamp water.
Looking confused and frightened, the sole survivor turned to race into the bushes.
“Three o’clock!” Montenegro announced, drawing her Glock and trying for the guard. But the angle was wrong, and she could only hit the Spanish moss hanging from t
he trees.
Just then, the guard reappeared holding an LAW rocket launcher. He barely managed to extend the tube when Kirkland cut loose with the chain gun, the hammering stream of 25 mm rounds tearing the man apart as he went stumbling backward into the muddy weeds.
“You were telling us about Zafar,” Bolan said, shifting gears.
“We… He talked a lot…afterward, you know,” Emily said, blushing all over. “He had big plans for taking over his homeland and restoring order. In a way, he sort of reminded me of Edgar, only much nicer.”
Couldn’t be any worse unless he drowned you in the bathtub, Kirkland mused privately. “Did he ever mention a base of operations, a mansion, castle, hardsite, anything like that?”
“He had several, the main one was a cargo ship,” Emily said. “I think it was called the Red Rose, or maybe just the Rose, something like that.”
Dodging a sleeping alligator, Bolan frowned. A ship could be anywhere in the world. “Did he have someplace that wasn’t mobile?” he asked hopefully. “A firebase, military installation or an island?”
“Fort Ithnaan,” she said, stumbling over the foreign word. “He used to boast that if anything went wrong, we would be safe there because of the constant cloud cover.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Whatever that meant!”
Driving around their abandoned airboat, Bolan scowled. Ithnaan was the Arabic word for two. That was probably the fallback position for Ophiuchus in case of trouble. The cloud cover would give them all the protection needed with unlimited lightning bolts. This was not what he had hoped for. However, Ithnaan base might just tell them where the Red Rose was located.
“Did he ever mention where the base was hidden?” Montenegro pressed gently. “Iraq, Kuwait or maybe Afghanistan?”
“Pakistan, Latveria?” Kirkland supplied. “Sheboygan, Kalamazoo, Outer Mongolia?”
Emily laughed, then abruptly stopped. “You’re going to kill him?” she said as a question.
“Yes, we are,” Bolan said honestly. “Major Armanjani is a terrorist and directly responsibly for killing thousands of innocent men and women.”
Rocking to the motion of the speeding vehicle, Emily said nothing for a long time, lost in somber contemplation.
“It’s true, we can prove it if necessary,” Montenegro said gently, sensing the other woman was on the cusp, but not yet ready to betray her former lover.
“Yes, I believe you,” Emily whispered, massaging her temple. “Or else you wouldn’t have wanted the files so much. I suppose.”
“Yes?”
“Mousehole.” Emily sighed, hanging her head. “It’s located at the bottom of a tin mine at someplace called Mousehole. That’s all I know.”
Immediately, Montenegro typed the word into her smartphone to start an internet search.
“It’s a small town in Cornwall,” Kirkland supplied, climbing down from the cupola. “But England has dozens of abandoned tin mines, maybe hundreds, and even more stone quarries.”
Montenegro scowled at the map displayed on the smartphone’s screen. The whole peninsula was a warren of tunnels, cisterns, aqueducts, quarries, caves and mine shafts. “How can we find the right one before the major blows us off the face of the map?”
“We check the weather reports,” Bolan said, shifting gears again.
“For rainstorms?”
“No,” he said grimly. “Smog.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Washington, D.C.
A warm rain fell across the city as Hal Brognola stood on the balcony just outside the Oval Office. Until Bolan called, there wasn’t much he could do, so the big Fed decided to stay as close to the President as possible. If the snake charmers attacked, he might see something important that the Secret Service agents would miss. After all, their attention was focused on the President, while his was on the sky. Big difference.
His cell phone buzzed. Snapping it open with a flip of the wrist, Brognola grinned when he saw there was no caller ID. Thank God!
“Brognola,” he said into the phone, knowing the signal would be scrambled. “Go ahead, Cooper.”
“They’re hidden somewhere in a tin mine in Cornwall,” Bolan announced without preamble. “No precise location yet. We’re checking the weather reports for unusual amounts of smog.”
“The ozone from the equipment,” Brognola said in slow comprehension. God, that was brilliant!
All electrical devices created trace amounts of ozone, an unbreathable version of oxygen. The bigger the equipment, the more it made. Logically, controlling lightning had to use a lot of power, and trapped inside the closed environment of a mine, the ozone would soon prove fatal to the terrorists. They would be forced to constantly vent outside, which would create localized smog.
“Okay, now what?” Brognola asked. “Do we send in the troops, or bomb them from orbit?”
Bolan’s reply was lost in a burst of static. A split second later, lightning flashed to hit the decorative iron tables in the Rose Garden. Partially melted, the furniture tumbled away to hit a window and bounce off the bulletproof plastic.
“Red alert!” a hidden speaker blared inside the White House. “Repeat, this is a red alert!”
“Cooper?” Brognola asked, but there was no response. Damn! Snapping the phone shut, he quickly went back inside.
Surrounded by a living wall of Secret Service agents, the President of the United States was bent over his desk, both hands full of top secret documents.
“What’s the situation?” he demanded in a rich, cultured voice.
“Storm clouds cresting the horizon,” Brognola said, checking his laptop.
“Sir, we have to get you to the bunker right now,” said the FBI liaison.
“No more delays!” added the head of the CIA with a stern expression.
Still rifling through the decoded papers on his desk, the President frowned. He hated the bunker; it sent a bad message to the people of America. Built under the West Wing as protection against a nuclear attack, the bunker should prove resistant even to lightning.
“Time to go, sir,” Brognola added curtly.
“I’m sorry, Hal, but that’s still impossible.” The President sighed, then gasped in surprise as two of the larger Secret Service agents grabbed him under the arms.
“Sorry, sir, we make the decisions when it comes to your safety,” the special agent in charge stated bluntly.
With that as their cue, the cadre of agents bodily hauled the duly elected leader of the nation out from behind the desk and across the room.
“Y-you can’t do this!” the President said furiously, struggling to escape. “I order you to stop!”
“Sorry again, sir, but you have no direct authority over us,” the chief agent replied curtly as the President went out the door.
“Hal, do something!” the President ordered as his entourage of Secret Service agents rushed through the maze of deserted secretarial desks.
“Absolutely, sir. Move faster, guys!” Brognola yelled as the agents took a corner and disappeared from sight.
In stony calm, an Air Force lieutenant with a steel briefcase handcuffed to his wrist calmly walked from the office. Several of the remaining Secret Service agents followed close behind, drawn pistols in their hands. Softly in the distance, they heard a low peal of thunder.
In Washington, D.C., slang, the lieutenant was the quarterback, and the briefcase was the football. It contained the launch codes for America’s imposing arsena
l of thermonuclear missiles. Day or night, it was never more than fifty feet away from the chief executive.
“How soon until Eagle is safe?” Brognola asked, closing his laptop.
“Already is,” the SAC said, glancing at his watch.
Stuffing the computer into a briefcase, Brognola arched an eyebrow at that statement. “Really?”
“We’ve practiced this a hundred times before with the chief of staff as a stand-in,” the SAC explained as the clouds rolled over the building, casting it into dark shadows.
“Good to know.” Brognola exhaled in relief. “What about the First Family?”
“They’ve been in the bunker since we heard from what remains of Cheyenne Mountain,” the SAC replied, slapping a small discolored section of the executive desk.
As the disguised biometric reader identified the special agent in charge, every drawer slammed shut and triple locked, the telephone went dark as the internal memory chips melted, and everything inside the nearby waste basket flashed into carbonized ash.
“Okay, let’s go,” Brognola said, stuffing the laptop into a nylon carrying case.
Rising from chairs around the office, a dozen men and women briskly exited using different doors. Along with the head of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and several other members of the alphabet soup club, Brognola had been discussing contingency plans with the President in case Bolan failed in his mission.
Unfortunately, nobody had been able to come up with anything worth considering. There simply wasn’t enough information about these impossible attacks. Maybe they were terrorist strikes, or perhaps just a long series of freak events. Such things had happened before in the history of the world, just not on this devastating a level. However, as the old saying went, there was always a first time for everything.
Without warning, a platoon of U.S. Marines in Class-A uniforms crashed into the Oval Office, their weapons at the ready.
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