Ballistic

by Don Pendleton

  Then, it would become a waiting game. Al-Jarrah was accustomed to delays, postponements and procrastination in his war against the festering Great Satan and its allies. Nothing ever came easily to God’s chosen warriors, an anomaly that al-Jarrah had finally resolved by treating each new setback as a test of faith. Only when he was purified by sacrifice and suffering would al-Jarrah be worthy of his own reward in Paradise.

  But how much longer would he have to wait?

  He muttered an apology to God. Even thinking such a question could be blasphemy. A true believer kept the stout doors of his mind and heart locked tight against insinuating and subversive doubt. To question was to falter, and to falter was to fail.

  He saw Usmar Malik approaching, stood and waited for the Indonesian to approach.

  “It is nearly finished,” Malik stated.

  “What progress with the fleet?” al-Jarrah asked.

  “No sighting on our radar yet,” Malik answered. “When they reach us, you will be the first to know.”

  The makeshift radar station sat atop their nameless island’s highest peak, six hundred feet above sea level, well positioned for surveillance of the Bali Sea westward and the Flores Sea to the northeast. Neither were likely waters for investigation by the great U.S. Pacific Fleet, but al-Jarrah would make it happen. When reports from loyal coast-watchers told him any portion of the target fleet was visible, he would begin broadcasting exhortations to jihad from the Thunderbolt, already anchored well offshore. They would expect to find the second missile on a ship, would field aircraft against the Thunderbolt when efforts at communication failed.

  And while their eyes were on the decoy, Nasir al-Jarrah would strike.

  The carrier, whichever one they sent, was his primary target, but he would be more or less content with any fighting ship obliterated. Amphibious assault ships, smaller versions of an aircraft carrier, each had two thousand crew members aboard, on average, not counting their Marines, and cost three-quarters of a billion dollars to construct. A guided missile carrier, including armament, cost about one billion dollars, carrying some four hundred officers and crew. Destroyers cost about the same, including the expense of weapons systems, with an average complement of three hundred-odd sailors.

  All worthy targets, but al-Jarrah wanted the biggest, most expensive ship available. He wanted to outclass Osama bin Laden’s great blow to the West, and while he knew that competition was unhealthy, it was still a part of human nature.

  “If you don’t mind,” Malik spoke up, “I am hungry.”

  “I do not mind,” al-Jarrah replied. “But you will wait until the work is finished, like the rest. Set an example for the ones who labor in our righteous cause.”

  “It shall be as you say.”

  “And while you’re waiting,” al-Jarrah said, “check the radar operator. Make sure he’s awake and that he knows his life depends on making no mistakes.”

  Cikaret Utara, South Bogor

  METH LABS HAD a smell all their own, ammonia and ether combining to produce a stench a person might expect if several hundred cats had urinated in a room filled wall-to-wall with rotten eggs. The cookers did their best to clear the air—and to keep the pent-up toxic fumes from killing them—which called for odd experiments in ventilation for the standard drug house. Blowers pumping fumes into the nearest sewer outlet was a classic, and the crew in Cikaret Utara had employed it, but a cat-urine smell still emanated from the house they’d purchased on the cheap and turned into their workshop.

  “Smell it?” Maia asked, when they were half a block away.

  “It’s hard to miss,” Bolan replied.

  The neighbors weren’t complaining, since the houses on each side of the meth factory were vacant, windows without drapes staring across Jalan Pulo Empang like blank eye sockets in a pair of skulls. Bolan supposed it would have been no problem for the Flying Ax Triad to buy the tenants out or chase them off, either before the lab went operational or when it started to produce complaints.

  Bolan knew they could do the job two ways. The simple way: hang back and lob a 40 mm HE round or two in through the meth lab’s windows, strike a fatal spark inside and watch it blow sky-high. The flames would likely be confined to the immediate vicinity, meaning the two abandoned homes on either side. That would eliminate the lab, its personnel and send another jolting message to the Flying Ax.

  But it wouldn’t provide Mack Bolan with the information he required: an address or coordinates to help him find the man in charge.

  So they had chosen option number two: entry at risk. Bolan had left his automatic rifle in the car, bringing his SIG-Sauer pistol only, with its sound suppressor attached. This time around, the muzzle tube would serve as a flash suppressor, minimizing danger from a flash-fire in the lab. Same thing with Maia’s PM2, quiet and more or less unlikely to ignite whatever fumes still lingered in the cookhouse.

  It was a risky operation overall, made doubly so by poor advance intelligence. They didn’t know how many people were inside, how heavily the crew was armed, or whether they’d been placed on high alert after the recent blowout with Cai Shu. All variables that could make a crucial difference when it came down to survival, but no battlefield intelligence was ever perfect. No fight went precisely as it had been planned, without surprises.

  When they reached the empty house south of their goal, Bolan and Maia veered off the sidewalk and crossed a small yard rife with ankle-high weeds. The rear of the house was even worse, with grass up to their knees that rustled as they walked, bringing to mind a thought of snakes. Bolan ignored that primal tremor, focused on the serpents waiting for him in the house that lay ahead.

  “Remember,” Bolan said as they approached the target, “we want one of them alive.”

  “If they cooperate,” Maia said. And he could have sworn she smiled.

  Banten Province, West Java

  JIN AU-YO WAS SICK and tired of telephones. It made him grimace when he saw Ma Mingxia coming toward him with the sat phone in his hand again, anticipating more grim news that would contribute to his sense that matters had begun to slip beyond his grasp, subverting his control. That feeling troubled Jin more than the actual events provoking it, since he had learned from adolescence to rely upon his own self-confidence. If that deserted him...

  “Who is it this time?” he asked before he took the telephone in hand.

  “Beijing,” Ma said. “The deputy.”

  Not Wu Guchan, at least. Jin had deliberately stalled communication with his godfather, until he had news to report that wouldn’t make him seem an abject failure. If Wu sensed the slightest weakness, he would waste no time dispatching someone to replace Jin—and to eliminate him for the damage that the Flying Ax Triad had suffered through his paucity of leadership.

  “What news?” he said into the telephone.

  Chou Hua Tian’s familiar voice replied, “The man I mentioned to you is en route. He should be landing in Jakarta in—” a pause, presumably to check a timepiece “—two hours and twenty-odd minutes from now.”

  Jin frowned. How much more damage could his adversaries do within that time? Deciding not to think about it, he replied, “You’re certain that he will be able to make contact?”

  “I have every confidence,” Chou said. “He was a good friend of the other operative.”

  Meaning that damned Maia Lee. A false note in Chou’s voice alerted Jin.

  “You say he was, or is a friend?”

  “They trained together. That creates a bond,” Chou said. “They’ve kept in touch despite assignment to different branches of service.”

  Jin clenched his teeth, thinking the whole thing sounded like a reeking pile of crap. “So they went to school together,” he replied. “What makes you think she’d risk her life to meet him now, with all that’s happened?”

  “It’s human nature,” C
hou replied. “She’s dedicated to the service and must see now that she’s lost her way. The opportunity to reconcile and be forgiven—”

  “Are you serious?” Jin challenged Chou. “How stupid is she, to believe there’d be no retribution?”

  “I prefer to call it hopeful.”

  “Hopeful?” Jin could barely stop himself from laughing. “She would have to be insane.”

  “Or desperate,” Chou said. “Her friend will offer aid, a chance to put it all behind her. Anything she needs.”

  “All right,” Jin said, determined not to let himself be bogged down in Chou’s flight of lunacy. “Just tell me where to send my men.”

  “You know the tourist park called Dreamland?”

  “Yes, of course. A strange choice, I must say.”

  Jin pictured Ancol Dreamland on Jakarta’s waterfront, its Dunia Fantasi theme park, the SeaWorld aquarium, the Atlantis Water Adventure, the animal shows and 4D theater at Ocean Dream Samudra—all crowded with tourists, young lovers, hordes of squealing children.

  A potential slaughterhouse.

  “It all goes with the training,” Chou explained. “Seek public places. Minimize the danger.”

  “Not this time,” Jin said.

  “I leave the matter to your sole discretion,” Chou replied.

  “And what about your man?”

  Chou’s shrug was almost audible. “He knows the risk involved in fieldwork. He’s expendable.”

  “You’re one cold bastard,” Jin said, with something close to admiration.

  “Cold? It’s part of doing business,” Chou reminded him. “But not a bastard. I have paperwork to prove it.”

  Jin did laugh then. Might have thanked Chou for relieving his foul mood, but there was no time as the line went dead.

  Cikaret Utara, South Bogor

  HU XIUQUAN MOVED through the meth house, checking on the cookers and the packagers, before proceeding to his own small office at the rear. It may have been a pantry once, was barely large enough for him to turn around in, but he had a small desk and a metal folding chair that made his rear ache until he went out and bought a cushion for it. Hardly the comforts of home, but at least the closed door gave him some privacy.

  Cai Shu had placed Hu in charge of the lab as punishment for being drunk on duty two months earlier. Hu might have managed to escape the discipline, but drinking made him mean and he had pistol-whipped a rowdy player at the Bogor gambling club he’d been in charge of managing. How could Hu have known the little bastard was the son of a police captain in Lebak Regency who would insist on shutting down the club unless his bribes were doubled?

  Hu still had another month to serve in meth-lab purgatory, breathing in the stench of chemicals that never left his clothing, before he would be freed for normal duty. What his new assignment might entail was anybody’s guess, but Hu suspected that he wouldn’t have another cushy job that let him skim a little something extra from the house each night.

  He was considering revenge against the bastard who had riled him in the first place, knowing it would have to be a subtle, surreptitious action, but he hadn’t settled on the proper payback yet. The worm did have a very pretty girlfriend. Hu could always visit her—disguised, of course—and leave a message for her boyfriend that wouldn’t soon be forgotten.

  A shout reached Hu’s ears through the closed door of his tiny office, interrupting his latest revenge fantasy. He cocked his head, waiting to hear the sound repeated, wondering what could have happened to provoke a yelling match between the meth-lab workers. If there was no further noise—

  Another shout, and then a woman’s scream, immediately followed by a blast of gunfire rattling through the house. Hu rolled out from behind his desk and drew the Walther 99 pistol he wore in a holster at the small of his back. It was the .40-caliber model, twelve rounds in the mag and one in the chamber, but Hu hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it in the house, where any errant spark could turn the place into a mini-holocaust.

  Hu snagged his left foot on the desk’s forward strut and kicked back viciously to free himself, sending a bolt of white-hot pain lancing between his shin and hip. Cursing and limping, Hu slammed through the doorway to a corridor outside his office, turned right and began to hobble toward the sounds of mayhem. More shots now, one of the women squealing, glass and God knew what crashing on impact with the floor.

  * * *

  MAIA HADN’T ABSOLUTELY planned on shooting anyone, although she knew it likely would be necessary. It was strange, even disturbing, how she’d taken to violence so naturally since her rescue from the pirate camp by Matthew Cooper. Was it some innate facet of her character that she had never recognized before, or just a natural reaction to the violence she’d suffered and the urgency of wrapping up her mission?

  There was no time to consider weighty matters as they slipped into the meth house through a back door left unlocked. Perhaps ironically, the kitchen that they entered first bore few signs that meth or anything else had been cooked there. Its counters were spotless, from what she could see, an old refrigerator humming in one corner and a drippy faucet leaking water into the sink.

  Her partner was proceeding toward the nearest door leading to the other rooms beyond the kitchen when a scrawny Filipino wandered in making a beeline for the fridge. He spotted them a heartbeat later, focused on their guns and squawked a warning cry that rang out through the house.

  Maia shot him where he stood. Why not? For all she knew, his baggy shirt concealed a weapon, maybe several. Three bullets to the stranger’s concave chest removed whatever threat he may have posed to them.

  The American leaped across the fallen body, cleared the kitchen exit and recoiled immediately from a burst of gunfire aimed his way by someone to their left. The hostile weapon had no suppressor attached and sounded like some variant of a Kalashnikov. Its bullets, ripping through the nearby lathe-and-plaster wall, encouraged Maia to return fire, her 9 mm Parabellum bullets stitching holes across the same wall, just below a line of hanging cabinets.

  Maia couldn’t tell if she’d hit anyone or not, but when the next burst from the automatic rifle came, immediately after hers, its bullets buzz-sawed through the kitchen cabinets and etched a ragged pattern on the ceiling. Cooper was moving then, ducking around the doorjamb, nearly on the floor, and fired two muffled pistol shots that stopped the rifle fire.

  “This way!” he snapped, and disappeared into the corridor. Maia ran after him, careful to check her righthand side as she went through the kitchen’s exit. Nothing but a dead end at a blank wall there, which meant she wouldn’t have to watch her back as she went after Cooper.

  There was chaos in the house now, since the Filipino’s shout and burst of rifle fire had warned the lab crew of intruders on the premises. Maia picked out the rifleman that Cooper had dropped, his flowered shirt a mess of blood and other fluids that suggested half a dozen wounds. Another hit for Maia, then, and where she once might have expected to feel something like revulsion, there was nothing but relief and satisfaction with another job well done.

  How many people still remained inside the house who might be armed and ready to defend the drug lab? From the range of voices she could hear, Maia suspected six or seven individuals remaining, but she hoped that most of them were simple workers with no stake in dying for their boss.

  * * *

  ANOTHER BURST of automatic fire blazed at the far end of the corridor, its muzzle-flash an invitation to disaster in the meth lab’s warren of rooms. The ventilation system might be drawing off the bulk of fumes, but Bolan knew it only took one bullet smashing through the wrong beakers or bottles to ignite a flash-fire that would sweep the house, incinerating anyone who wasn’t blasted through a door or window by the shock wave.

  Dangerous, but he couldn’t advance without returning fire. He edged along the murky hallway, staying lo
w, and waited for the next flash to reveal his enemy’s position. When it came, Bolan responded with a nearly silent double-tap and heard the guy on the receiving end cry out in pain. It came down to a rush then, charging past some open doorways where, for all he knew, an enemy was hidden, waiting for him, but he reached the fallen, twitching soldier and disarmed him, crouched beside him, Maia closing up behind him, covering his back.

  “Where is Jin Au-Yo?” Bolan asked.

  “Qu ta ma de ziji,” the wounded shooter rasped.

  “Translation?” Bolan asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” she said.

  “You ask him,” Bolan said. “An address for his life.”

  Another shot rang out, and Bolan lurched back as a bullet drilled the fallen gunman’s face, painting the wall beside him with an abstract pattern, gray and crimson. Bolan spun to face the latest threat, as Maia swiveled with her SMG, both firing at a man who limped along the hallway toward them, lining up another pistol shot.

  He went down in a heap with half a dozen bullets in him, shuddering. Maia relieved him of the weapon, Bolan leaning in to lift his head, repeat his question, but he saw the life-light flicker out behind dull eyes.

  They backtracked, sweeping rooms, and found four of the lab rats huddled in a room where Bunsen burners sizzled under flasks of liquid and several devices resembling small moonshine stills simmered in a line on a cafeteria-style table. Bolan covered them while Maia asked the questions, getting headshakes and blank stares in return.

  “Nothing,” she said at last, stating the obvious.

  “Do you believe them?” Bolan asked.

  “I do,” Maia replied. “They’re only what you would call flunkies. They may know Jin’s name, though not necessarily. No one from the Flying Ax would tell them where or how to find him.”

  “All right. We’ll cut them loose, then torch the place.”