Ballistic

by Don Pendleton

  “Not here,” Bolan replied. “Not now. Get up.”

  It didn’t take cue cards to know that Tan was stalling. In his ritzy neighborhood, it was a lead-pipe cinch that someone would have called for the police already, and response times typically grew shorter as the caller’s affluence increased. Even with riot squads tied up at Ancol Dreamland, there’d be cops to spare for a report of gunfire and explosions out of Cengkareng.

  Tan struggled to his feet, seeming a little dizzy, but it could have been another act. Bolan clutched Tan’s right arm with his left hand and steered his captive toward the patio, beyond the leaking corpses of his soldiers and advisers. They made squelching noises on the carpet and left ruby footprints on the paving stones outside.

  Bolan paused there, watching and listening for any sign of further opposition, then asked Tan, “Who else is on the property?”

  “No one.”

  “First shooter we meet, you hit the ground before he does,” Bolan replied.

  “There’s no one!” Tan repeated, angrily. “You’ve killed them all.”

  “Not yet,” Bolan replied, and steered his prisoner toward the front gate.

  A risky move, but it was Bolan’s only option. Covering his captive while they scaled one of the outer walls—assuming Tan could climb the wall—only invited an escape attempt. The last thing Bolan needed at the moment was a footrace through a residential district with police expected momentarily. He’d either have to drop Tan on the spot or let him go, a waste of precious time, in either case.

  Better to haul him out the front, dealing with any obstacles they met along the way, and hope that Maia Lee would make a pass before the cops showed up.

  It was another gamble, and the game was far from over, but the Executioner couldn’t afford to fold.

  * * *

  IT WAS DUMB LUCK that Maia saw them seconds after they had cleared the gate to Tan Sen Neo’s driveway. She was on her fourth pass through the neighborhood, reversing her direction on each circuit, after getting trapped once in a cul-de-sac. Driving with windows down, she’d heard faint echoes that she took to be gunfire, and then a louder sound, grenade-loud in the stillness of the night, that brought her speeding back to check the property again.

  And there they were. She didn’t recognize the man Cooper was supporting and half dragging after him, but guessed it had to be Tan. She blinked her headlights twice, the signal they’d agreed upon, then braked as Cooper crossed with his prisoner to her side of the street. He opened one rear door, checked high and low for any stray weapons, then shoved Tan forward and climbed in behind him, settling in the backseat.

  “Go,” he said. “But don’t be obvious.”

  Maia accelerated to the speed limit, no screeching rubber, and turned left at the first cross street. Left again, then right, and they were rolling out of Daan Mogot Estate, then out of Cengkareng.

  “Where shall we take him?” she inquired.

  “Nowhere,” Cooper said. “Just drive around and keep an eye out for police. I don’t have many questions.”

  “Few or many,’’ Tan Sen Neo interjected. “Why should I say anything?”

  “Because you’d rather live than die,” Bolan said. “And if you choose death, you’d prefer it to be quick and clean.”

  “How do you know what I prefer?” Tan asked.

  “You’re human, more or less. I’ll play the odds.”

  “Ask what you wish. I promise nothing,” Tan replied.

  “Two questions only. Jin Au-Yo has gone to ground somewhere in Banten Province. You know where he is. I need directions to his hardsite.”

  “And the other question?” Tan inquired.

  “How many soldiers should be with him, give or take?”

  Tan thought about it, then produced a mocking smile, reflected in the rearview mirror.

  “I will answer you,” he said at last, “because the truth leads to your death. The place you seek lies twenty-five kilometers southwest of Serang. There is a trading post that marks your turnoff from the Banten highway. Four kilometers from there, you find the camp. As to the force awaiting you, I cannot cite a number, but I trust that it will be sufficient for the task.”

  “They’re better men than you had, then?” Bolan asked.

  Tan shrugged and said, “You must answer that yourself. As for me—”

  He lunged away from Bolan and had his door open before Maia could brake. The Executioner tried to grab Tan, but the triad underboss rolled clear and hit the pavement with a squawk. Behind them, traffic swerved, but not in time. Maia saw one car lurch as it ran over him, another driver close behind it slamming on his brakes too late and smearing Tan along the roadway.

  Another side street. Maia took it, sped along to reach another and turned there, as well.

  “Do you believe him?” she asked when they were clear.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Bolan said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Banten Province, West Java

  Jin Au-Yo switched off the sat phone, gave it back to Ma Mingxia and cursed with bitter feeling.

  Ma waited, obviously knowing better than to interrupt and ask the question that was on his mind.

  When Jin had calmed himself enough for civil speech, he said, “One of our men with the police. Of course, you know that. It seems that no one else remains to call me with the bad news now.”

  “Sir?”

  “Our enemies have taken Tan from his home and killed his guards. Some miles away, they threw him from a car and others crushed him. Traffic officers identified him from the papers that he carried. They couldn’t compare the photo from his driver’s license.”

  Ma said nothing. It occurred to Jin that he had never heard his houseman voice emotions about any subject.

  “They may be here, next,” Jin said. In fact, he hoped so. Finally, he could confront the vermin who had come so close to ruining his plans.

  So close, but not entirely.

  They would never find the one remaining missile now, even if they broke through all Jin’s defenses and eliminated him. He could die laughing in their faces, with his secret safely tucked away inside his brain.

  The plan had hatched from lack of trust, his own doubt that Nasir al-Jarrah would come through with the entire amount owed for the Brave Wind missiles on delivery. In case of any tricks, Jin had attached a GPS transmitter to each weapon with a two-ounce plastic charge and detonator. If the Saudi had absconded with the missiles prior to payment, Jin could press a button and destroy their guidance mechanisms anywhere within a ten-mile range. And far beyond that, he could track the missiles by the homing signals issuing from their transmitters.

  Well, one of them, anyway.

  The first device was vaporized when al-Jarrah had sunk the Eiland Koningin. That still left one, however, and its signal echoed strongly enough for Jin to plot its new location on a map. The missile wasn’t moving any longer, causing him to think that it had to be onshore, or else aboard a ship berthed near the nameless island found at the coordinates he’d calculated for the pulsing signal.

  Jin had no way of knowing what the Saudi madman had in mind, beyond a vague idea of chaos and destruction, but a thought had come to him while he was idling in his jungle camp, waiting for enemies who hadn’t shown their faces yet. If he could sell the Brave Wind missiles once, what would prevent him doing it again?

  If al-Jarrah hadn’t fired the second missile yet, Jin thought it would be relatively easy to retrieve it, advertise it through his underground communications network and arrange an auction to the highest bidder.

  Why not profit twice from one transaction, if he could? And if the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy bought its own toy back again, Jin thought, he might even become a hero in his nation’s eyes. A savior, as it were, who had a
verted tragedy.

  The prospect made him smile, for what felt like the first time in a month.

  “Is something funny, sir?” Ma asked.

  “It’s possible,” Jin said. “It just may be.”

  Tangerang–Merak Toll Road

  BACK THEY WENT, westbound along the AH2 Banten highway. Bolan held the Toyota Fortuner at a steady sixty miles per hour, watching out for cops along the way and meeting none. Highway patrol didn’t appear to be a top priority on Java, and that was working in their favor now.

  He hoped the law would be as scarce when he and Maia found Jin’s rural camp.

  There was a chance, he realized, that Tan Sen Neo had deceived them, given false directions, but he’d sounded straight to Bolan. Fatalistic, playing out his string and hoping that his brothers of the Flying Ax would rally to avenge him. That was fair enough. You couldn’t fault a guy for being pissed when he ran out of time and luck.

  They didn’t have precise coordinates, but in the end, Tan’s pointers brought them to the trading post he had described, a run-down place with signs out front that Bolan couldn’t read, a dried and mottled python’s skin stretched out across the joint’s facade above the door and grimy windows. Bolan didn’t know or care what they were selling during business hours. The place was closed now, meaning that no witness saw them make their turn.

  He kept an eye on the odometer, slowed and switched from headlights to the smaller fog lights, then killed those as well when they had covered half the distance to Jin’s camp. He found a turnout, made the most of it and nosed the SUV some thirty feet off-road, where drivers passing by from north or south would miss it if they didn’t make a special point to stop and peer around.

  The night was silent for a little while after they parked, except for engine ticking sounds, then it came slowly back to life. Bolan and Maia stood outside the SUV, its dome light off, and dressed for battle in the dark. When both were squared away, as comfortable as they could be, they faced north toward their target.

  Now, the choice. They could save time by striking off along the access road that led directly to the compound, but they might meet vehicles along the way and it was likely to be watched by sentries, maybe even booby-trapped if Jin was really nervous. Option two: hike in the same direction through the forest, risking more noise in the undergrowth, sharing the dark with snakes and who knew what else, while the threat of lurking guards and traps remained.

  They settled on plan B, knowing the road would rate more guards. Even if Jin had brought an army with him, they would have to be spread thin along the camp’s perimeter, a bunch of city boys jumping at every sound the forest made past nightfall. And the jungle after dark was Bolan’s happy hunting ground.

  Bolan led the way, using all the tricks he’d learned in Special Forces training and on battlefields around the world to keep the two of them on course. Two klicks came down to a mile and one-third, more or less, a half hour’s walk on flat ground for the average person. Bolan reckoned they might double that time, planting one foot in front of the other with ultimate care, and what of it? The hours from three to five o’clock were perfect for surprises, when the human mind and body went into a slump dictated by biology. More people died in hospitals during those hours than at any other time.

  In jungles, too.

  The Executioner was hunting. He could almost smell his prey.

  * * *

  MAIA DIDN’T SEE the lookout waiting for them in the shadows. Cooper had picked him out somehow, stopped her with one hand on her arm and leaned in close enough that when he whispered, it was barely breathing.

  “Wait here.”

  Maia nodded, watched him go, her index finger resting lightly on the trigger of her silenced submachine gun. If she couldn’t see the enemy, at least she had a fair idea of where he was, and she could always spray the forest with a whole magazine if she needed to. Something was bound to die, in that event.

  Perhaps two minutes after Cooper left her alone, she heard a muted thrashing in the undergrowth ahead, perhaps a burbling gasp, then Cooper came back to fetch her.

  “Clear,” he whispered, and she fell in step behind him once again, trying to place her feet as he did, with a minimum of noise.

  The forest wasn’t silent as they passed, which boosted Maia’s confidence a little. In her mind, she knew she wasn’t making that much noise, but she still worried that a rustling bush or snapping twig would loose a storm of automatic fire from hidden watchers, stopping them before they dealt with Jin Au-Yo.

  Or his men dealt with them.

  They had been bucking lethal odds since she’d teamed up with Cooper, and each engagement stretched their luck a little further. Somewhere, Maia knew, there had to be a breaking point. If this was it, if she was fated for a jungle death, at least she meant to go down fighting. Take as many of the bastards with her as she could.

  The camp was sleeping when they reached it, more or less. A generator grumbled in its shed, but few lights showed around the compound. One was burning in what Maia took to be the camp’s communication hut, a satellite dish and several ship antennae mounted on its sloping metal roof. Also a larger prefab building, possibly Jin’s private quarters based on size, had dim light showing through a window covered by frosted privacy film.

  Cooper chose a spot on the perimeter where everything was visible and crouched with Maia at his side. He spent a moment studying the layout, marking half a dozen sentries at their posts, then leaned close and said, “Stay here. I’ll work my way around and start the party when I’m situated.”

  Maia nodded, was afraid to speak. What would she say? Be careful? Don’t get killed? The possibilities sounded redundant and ridiculous.

  Cooper eased away from her, and in another moment he was gone, swallowed by darkness. Maia couldn’t track him aurally and dared not break off observation of the camp to search the shadows for him. She would know when he was ready. It would be no secret.

  Seven minutes later by her watch, kneeling beside a giant tree that she couldn’t identify, she heard a pop, and then the crump of an explosion in the camp as the communications shed collapsed in smoke and dust.

  Sighting on the nearest startled sentry with her SMG, she took a breath and held it. Almost smiling, she cut him down.

  * * *

  THE BLAST WOKE Jin Au-Yo from fitful sleep, from a dream in which he was pursued by something large and ravenous, yet seemingly invisible. He rolled out of his camp bed, found the AK-47 he’d positioned on the floor within arm’s reach and found his balance in the four long strides it took to reach the front door of his quarters.

  He froze with one hand on the doorknob, listening. After the shock of the explosion, Jin could hear his men calling to one another, most groggy from sleep but struggling back to full awareness in an instant with the threat of sudden death upon them. None was firing yet, a sign of discipline, but how long would that last?

  All of the men he’d chosen to defend his forest camp were seasoned fighters, some of them ex-military men, but Jin had no idea how they would fare against his present enemies until the battle had been joined.

  Right now.

  He turned the doorknob, eased his way outside, nearly colliding with a sentry on his way to rouse the boss. Before his soldier had a chance to speak, a burst of automatic rifle fire ripped through the camp from somewhere on Jin’s right, to the east. One of his men fell, crying out in pain, and then a dozen of them started firing into darkness on the camp’s perimeter. They had no target, Jin could see that much, but they were doing something, and at least they had the general direction of their enemy correct.

  Or did they?

  From his left, another cry of mortal pain, and Jin’s head snapped around in time to see another of his soldiers fall. He’d heard no hostile shots that time, uncertain whether they were covered by the firing by his men, or
if the sniper on that side had used a silenced weapon. Either way, he saw that they were in a cross fire, meaning that at least two adversaries were in play.

  The woman and her American? If not them, who else could it be?

  Jin ducked off to his right, in the direction of the first incoming fire. His men needed a leader in the heat of battle, and the role was his to fill. Anger supplanted his initial pang of fear as Jin moved toward the dark trees shadowing his compound, jogging with the sentry on at his heels. Another moment, and—

  Another burst of firing from the woods. He saw the muzzle-flash this time and knelt to steady his Kalashnikov before returning fire, then rocked off-balance as the sentry who’d been following him slumped across Jin’s shoulders, bearing him to earth. Warm blood splashed over Jin, streaking his face and drizzling down inside the collar of his shirt.

  Cursing, he shoved the body backward and away from him, sleeving a blur of crimson from his left eye, feeling suddenly exposed. He grappled with his weapon, looking for the target he had lost, but had not found it when the world exploded in his face.

  * * *

  MAIA FED her Pindad PM2 a fresh magazine, cocked the weapon and peered cautiously around the southeast corner of the prefab building she had taken for the compound’s mess hall. Close now, she could still pick out the cooking smells that lingered there, despite the cordite reek of gunsmoke and explosives wafting through the camp.

  She had lost count of bodies since the shooting started, would have claimed seven herself, but couldn’t say for sure that all of them were dead. Say seven hits, then, understanding that the 9 mm Parabellum rounds her SMG spit out traveled at 1300 feet per second, striking with 420 foot-pounds of force. Jin’s men weren’t wearing body armor, so even a flesh wound would ruin one’s night. Maybe ruin one’s life.

  Maia supposed she should feel something other than excitement in the midst of deadly battle, but she’d given up waiting to mourn the men she’d killed since teaming up with Cooper. More than a full day they had been together now, and Maia’s only true regret was her betrayal by the ministry she’d loyally served for years.