Arctic Kill

by Don Pendleton

  If Bolan had been in Sparrow’s shoes, he wouldn’t have risked making a move on the plane. It was much easier to lose any pursuers in the airport after disembarking. But Sparrow wasn’t Bolan, and when Bolan surreptitiously glanced back at the man, he could tell that the pressure was already getting to him.

  An hour into the flight, they were closing in on Seattle-Tacoma. The “Fasten Seat Belt” light was on, and the drink carts were being stowed. Sparrow looked like he was about to explode. He’d been getting more and more agitated as the flight progressed.

  Bolan wondered what was going through the killer’s mind. His face had taken on a waxy sheen and his eyes were bright with nervousness. Sparrow had no weapons, but he could still be dangerous. Bolan knew of at least six different ways to create a crude weapon aboard a plane. Sparrow probably did, as well.

  Bolan met Alvarez’s gaze and the other man nodded slightly. Sitting as close as he was, Alvarez could probably tell how nervous Sparrow was getting. When the latter stood abruptly and went to the lavatory at the rear of the plane, the air marshal stood, too, and followed at a discreet pace. Alvarez was sharp. He didn’t plan on giving Sparrow an inch of privacy.

  A flight attendant tried to block Alvarez, but he said something and her face went pale. Bolan unbuckled his seat belt and stood. Pulling himself along the aisle, his hands gripping the seats, he made his way to Ackroyd. Alvarez could keep Sparrow occupied while Bolan spoke to the old man.

  Ackroyd started as Bolan sat down beside him. “You,” he said. “But...”

  “You saved my life, Dr. Ackroyd, and I intend to return the favor.”

  “But my family...”

  “They’ll be fine,” Bolan said, squeezing the old man’s shoulder. “I’ve made sure of it. We’re going to take Sparrow in Seattle. When it goes down, you need to find cover and fast. Can you do that for me?”

  “Son, my cowardly rear was hunting cover before you were born.” Ackroyd grabbed Bolan’s wrist. “You’re sure about my granddaughter? Because if you’re not, I’ll... I don’t know what I’ll do,” he said, releasing Bolan and slumping back into his seat. The Executioner felt a stab of sympathy. He wanted to say something—anything—comforting, but nothing came to mind. There were some fears words alone could not dispel. Raised voices warned Bolan that Sparrow was done. The Executioner stood quickly, prepared to make his way back to his seat, when the sounds of a commotion drew his attention.

  Bolan turned just in time to see Alvarez slump against the lavatory door, shards of glass covering his face. Sparrow had grabbed the coffeepot from its warmer and smashed it across the air marshal’s forehead. The flight attendant screamed as Sparrow grabbed her arm and shoved her aside. His fingers curled and the heel of his palm danced across Alvarez’s throat with a velocity and force that was just this side of lethal. The air marshal gagged and shuddered and his coat fell open. Sparrow’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a feral grimace and he snatched the weapon free of its holster in a surprisingly fluid move.

  “I should have shot you in Reno,” he shouted as he spotted Bolan.

  “You’ll forgive me if I disagree,” Bolan said, stepping forward. Then, more loudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, please stay in your seats. My name is Matt Cooper and I’m with the Justice Department. Remain in your seats, and we’ll have you safe and sound in Seattle in a few minutes.”

  “Shut up,” Sparrow snapped, stalking forward. “Nobody is going anywhere until I say!”

  “We’ll see about that,” Bolan said. He helped the flight attendant to her feet. “I’m guessing this plane has enough fuel for—what—an extra hour of flight time?”

  “Just about,” she said. The pretty, middle-aged woman had black hair and refined features, but her eyes were as hard and sharp as kitchen knives as she glared at Sparrow. People often forgot that flight attendants were the last line of defense against those who might try to harm passengers.

  Bolan gently moved her behind him then looked back at Sparrow. “So nobody is going anywhere for an hour. Then this plane is either landing or falling. But that’s beside the point. You’re not in charge here, Sparrow.”

  Sparrow gnawed his lip. The gun didn’t tremble, but he wasn’t aiming it anywhere in particular. Bolan wanted to keep it that way. “I have the gun,” Sparrow said. He kicked Alvarez, who was sitting on the floor, his face a mess of burns and blood. The air marshal groaned. “And I have a hostage.”

  “No, what you have is a problem,” Bolan said, edging closer. “You’re only going to get one shot, and I’m fairly certain you’re not good enough to hit me, even this close. If you miss—assuming you don’t hit one of the innocent people around us—one of four things will happen.” Bolan slid forward another few inches. “One, you’ll punch a hole in the plane itself. Not a big deal, really, despite what movies would have you believe.”

  Sparrow was staring at him with wary fascination, like a rat watching an approaching snake.

  “Two, you’ll pop a window, which is worse. Someone could get sucked out, and the cabin will be filled with so much flying debris that a concussion will be the least of your worries. That’s if the sudden drop in pressure and oxygen doesn’t do you in. You’re not in your seat, and I’m not planning on handing you an oxygen mask.

  “Three, your bullet clips some wiring. You might stop the in-flight entertainment or you could kill the radar or something worse. And four—four is the big one—your shot could puncture one of the fuel tanks. Which, if we’re lucky, just causes a fire, but if we’re not...” Bolan spread his hands. “Boom.”

  Sparrow hesitated. Then, with a shrug, he said, “I’ll risk it.”

  Bolan, who’d been ready for that response, moved like lightning. As Sparrow took aim, the Executioner grabbed the headrests of the seats on either side of him and swung his legs up, kicking the pistol from Sparrow’s grip. Still balancing on the headrests, he then drove both feet into the other man’s chest, sending him flying backward down the aisle and into the food area. Bolan dropped to his feet and lunged, fingers curved into hooks. He crashed down onto Sparrow and bounced his opponent’s head off the floor.

  Sparrow grunted and his fist jabbed pistonlike up into Bolan’s solar plexus. Dazed as Sparrow was, there was still plenty of fight left in him. He punched Bolan again and shoved him back. Bolan reeled and then lunged forward again, even as Sparrow got his feet under him. Crouched in the aisle, inches apart, the two men traded vicious blows.

  The Executioner caught Sparrow’s fist as the latter sent a short, sharp blow on a collision course for Bolan’s jaw. Bolan’s fingers tightened, vise-like, on Sparrow’s hand. Bone creaked and cartilage popped, eliciting a yell from Sparrow, who slumped back, clawing at the hand that held his. Bolan rose to his feet and dragged Sparrow with him. He twisted his opponent’s wrist, contorting Sparrow’s arm to an unnatural degree. Sparrow howled and jerked, unable to break Bolan’s steely grip.

  Then, with a finality that reassured the wide-eyed passengers who had watched the fight in stunned silence, Bolan’s fist fell across Sparrow’s jaw. He went still and Bolan released him, letting him fall to the floor, unconscious.

  The pilot, as yet unaware of what had transpired, came on the intercom to announce the flight’s arrival at Seattle-Tacoma. Bolan picked up Alvarez’s pistol and stuffed it into his waistband as he helped the flight attendant get the air marshal into an empty seat. She retrieved a first-aid kit and began to see to Alvarez’s wounds.

  “Sorry about that, Cooper,” Alvarez croaked. “I thought if I braced him in the john, he might give us less trouble. I figured I could wrap it all up neat and quick.”

  “Nothing to apologize for,” Bolan said. “I might have done the same thing myself, if I’d been sitting where you were.”

  “You got him, though?”

  “We got him,” Bolan said. He turned as Ackroyd made his way tow
ard them. “Is there anything I can do?” the old man asked.

  “Yeah,” Bolan said, straightening up. “You can tell me what this has all been about.”

  Ackroyd looked startled. “You mean...you don’t know?”

  “No. This wasn’t my game, Dr. Ackroyd. I just happened to deal myself in. Why did these guys want you?”

  “I—I don’t know that I can tell you, son,” Ackroyd said.

  Bolan grunted in exasperation. “You’d better figure it out. I don’t like fighting shadows, and I hate when people value secrets over the lives of innocents.”

  Ackroyd flushed. “You sonnuva—”

  Bolan leaned close to the old man. “Probably. God knows I’ve been called worse. But that doesn’t change anything. I need to know what’s going on, and I need to know now.”

  Chapter 9

  Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

  Hal Brognola was waiting on the tarmac outside the arrival terminal. The passengers had already been ushered off the plane and into the terminal by airport security. The immediate area had been cleared of bystanders and a number of people wearing sunglasses and suits that shouted “Federal agent” now occupied it, looking uncomfortable beneath the open sky. Brognola was chewing on a cigar, his face set in an expression that Bolan rated as being equal parts determination and frustration. The Executioner and the flight attendant helped guide Alvarez down the stairs. The air marshal was swiftly retrieved by a duo of paramedics who had been standing by, and he gave Bolan a thumbs-up as he was loaded into the waiting ambulance.

  Bolan stepped aside as several of the suits-and-sunglasses rushed onto the plane to retrieve Sparrow, whom Bolan had handcuffed to a seat. He handed the air marshal’s pistol to Brognola after extracting the magazine. “I take it you managed to cut through the red tape,” he said drily.

  “Not as much as I’d like,” Brognola grunted, shoving the weapon into the hands of an agent. “I brought your standby gear, and Kissinger says hello, by the way.”

  Bolan smiled. If Kissinger had been involved in procuring his replacement weapons, they would be reliable. The smile faded. “What about Ackroyd’s family?”

  Brognola’s expression was stern. “They’re safe. We got the gunmen.” He shook his head, answering Bolan’s next question before the other man could ask it. “They went hard, every mother’s son of them. We made them easily enough, but they put up a hell of a fight, and in public. We’re spreading the gospel it was a bank robbery gone wrong.”

  “How many were there?”

  Brognola held up three fingers. “They were armed like the ones in Reno. Terrorist-chic, AR-15s. Two of them had records—neo-Nazi skinhead bullshit. The other was English and a member of one of their nationalist parties.”

  “There was a German in Reno. And a Russian, as well,” Bolan said. He scrubbed his chin, thinking. “Kurtzman said this Society of Thylea was global.”

  “Most terrorist groups are,” Brognola pointed out.

  He took the cigar out of his mouth and eyed its soggy end speculatively. He tossed it aside with a grunt. “It’s a rigged game, Striker.”

  “Ackroyd intimated as much,” Bolan said. “He refused to talk about it.... Said it was classified.” He crossed his arms. “I saw that you came with a full complement of civil servants.”

  “Denizens of the darkest depths of Alphabet City,” Brognola said. He pulled a new cigar from his breast pocket and carefully peeled off the crinkled plastic wrapper. “DARPA, NSA, FBI and at least one CIA guy, too, though he won’t admit it. There are more of them scattered all over this airport. I’ve got them looking for your playmate’s contacts.”

  “He doesn’t have any. This is just a layover,” Bolan said. He shook his head. The more government letters that got added to a situation, the more complicated it seemed to get. The men and women who staffed those assorted agencies were competent, but the ever-expanding bureaucracy they were part of was far too stifling. Men and women—good people, effective people—were buried in seas of paperwork and remit, unable to accomplish even the simplest task without filing for permission in triplicate. And those who took no notice of the regulations were either punished or promoted. The latter were usually the wrong ones, in Bolan’s estimation.

  “I know. I just didn’t want them getting under-foot.” Brognola stuffed the cigar between his teeth and began masticating it with vigor. Once again, Bolan was reminded of the vast chasm between his sort of battlefield and the arena in which the big Fed fought, and he felt a jolt of relief.

  “They’re all competing to see who gets to blame the others first,” Brognola said. “That group you took out in Reno? They killed an FBI agent, a guy from the Las Vegas office. Frank Ogilvy—he was a Hoover appointment. He was also our Dr. Ackroyd’s handler.”

  “They tortured him,” Bolan said. Unfortunately, that was a given, but the mention of Hoover had piqued his curiosity. How old were the secrets that Ackroyd held? It couldn’t be weapons—any weaponry, biological or otherwise, would be so out of date as to be worse than useless. Better to buy something on the black market than go through all this trouble. But Bolan had never been able to fathom the minds of fanatics, and if anyone fit the description, the Society of Thylea seemed to.

  “They tortured a lot of people, one after the other, to find the next name on whatever list they’re working off. They’re determined, Striker, and they’ve left a lot of human wreckage to get to this point.”

  “All to find him,” Bolan said. An agent hustled Ackroyd off the plane. Bolan moved quickly, intercepting them, and Brognola hurried after.

  “Cooper!” Ackroyd burst out as he spotted Bolan. “My family—are they...?”

  “Safe,” Bolan said. Ackroyd sagged in relief.

  “Out of the way,” the agent snapped. “This man’s in protective custody—”

  “Yes, mine.” The Executioner’s tone brooked no argument, but the other man was either oblivious or brave. He matched Bolan’s serene gaze with his own hairy eyeball and reached out as if to push Bolan aside.

  “Look, pal, I don’t know who you are, but—” the agent began. His face flushed beneath his government regulation haircut as Brognola grabbed his hand a fingertip’s width from the Executioner’s shoulder and tossed it aside. Before the man could react, Brognola thrust himself forward, and his index finger jack-hammered the agent’s chest as he spoke.

  “This? This, son, is Agent Matt Cooper, Justice Department. And me, well, you already know me, because I’m the man who got your boss out of bed,” Brognola snarled. The agent took an instinctive step back, trying to escape the finger. “Now, seeing as Agent Cooper has, to this point, been the only damn one of us to actually be involved in this situation, maybe you could see fit to turn Dr. Ackroyd over, hmm?”

  Despite the torrent of authority, the agent still made to reply. But his mouth clamped shut as a new voice intervened. “Ease off, Jenkins.” Bolan turned and saw an African-American man walking toward them across the tarmac. He was of an age with Brognola, and he had the hard, square features of someone who’d spent a lifetime in interrogation rooms, drinking coffee until his blood was likely coffee-brown rather than cherry-red. His close-cropped hair was gray and his suit was off-the-rack. “Agent Cooper, I’m Ferguson, FBI.”

  “Las Vegas branch office?” Bolan hazarded a guess.

  Ferguson’s chin dipped. “Ogilvy was one of mine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bolan said.

  “He was an ass.” Ferguson held out a hand to Ackroyd. “Dr. Ackroyd, good to see you again.”

  “Frank’s really dead?” Ackroyd asked.

  “Yes,” Ferguson replied.

  Ackroyd shook his head. “Hell. I need a cigarette. I need a pack of cigarettes.” He looked at Bolan. “Make it two packs.”

  “I’ll buy you a carton as soon as you
tell me what I need to know,” Bolan said harshly. The Executioner’s almost inhuman patience was being tested.

  “Hal,” Ferguson said, “I told you over the phone—this thing isn’t some hush-hush operation you can just bully your way into. It’s been classified for close to fifty years.”

  “Then it makes sense to air it out a bit, don’t you think?” Bolan asked.

  “It’s not up to me,” Ferguson said. He sounded resigned.

  “Sounds like it’s not up to anybody,” Bolan said softly. He’d seen this type of situation before—somewhere, at some time, the responsibility for HYPERBOREA had passed into the labyrinthine corridors of the U.S. bureaucracy and disappeared. No one was quite sure, and no one wanted to take responsibility just in case it blew up in their faces. Just another game of CYA—cover your ass—Bolan thought.

  Ferguson didn’t reply, but Ackroyd made a sound. It took Bolan a few moments to realize that he was laughing. It wasn’t a happy sound. Bolan was reminded of the caw of an old crow.

  Ackroyd looked up and said, “God Almighty, I should have known.” He took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt, shaking his head all the while. “I knew it would come to this. The day we found it, the day we lost...” He trailed off. Then he said, “Yeah, hell with it.”

  “Doctor,” Ferguson began, but his warning was halfhearted. Bolan wondered for a moment whether the FBI man had hoped this would happen. Bolan glanced at Brognola and saw that the big Fed had a knowing look in his eye. Brognola and Bolan both knew what it was like to lose a man in the line of duty; Ferguson wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t wanted payback, his opinion of Ogilvy notwithstanding.

  “No,” Ackroyd said. He looked directly at Bolan, his gaze steady. “I’ll tell you everything, Presidential Directive be damned.”

  Ferguson threw up his hands. “I can’t hear this. In fact, we can’t be doing this out here.” Despite his words, Bolan noticed he was grinning.