But he wasn't uncomfortable in the wilderness. He felt at home there, with the predators and prey around him, living on the edge from day to day. He was dependent now on no one but himself, and if he chose to work with allies — his brother, Johnny, assorted others — they were allies of his own selection, warriors he would trust implicitly with life itself.
In Vietnam, despite his leadership of a successful penetration team, the Executioner had done his boldest work alone, behind hostile lines. He operated best when he wasn't concerned about the safety — and the possible mistakes — of others, when his mind was free to concentrate upon the enemy and his destruction. Bolan was a living testament to what a single man could do with guts, determination and a driving sense of duty.
He dreaded going back to Stony Man, revisiting the slaughter pen where precious lives had been sacrificed to turn back the tide of treason. In vain? Perhaps. His late experience with Hal Brognola proved that there would always be more traitors waiting in the wings. If he took his business back beneath the government umbrella, Bolan would be rubbing shoulders with potential enemies each waking moment, constantly distracted by the thought that this one might betray him, that one might intend to sell him out.
Distractions of that sort could get a combat soldier killed, and while the Executioner wasn't afraid of death, he didn't court it foolishly. Whenever possible, he weighed the odds and angles in a given situation, opting out if there appeared to be no chance at all for victory.
Unless he heard the duty call.
Like now.
The odds against him in Honduras would be long and mean, worse still if he was forced to enter Nicaragua proper. From the moment he accepted the assignment, Bolan was exposed to danger both from enemies and so-called "friends," subjected to the possibility of leaks that were a way of life in Washington. If word of his involvement with the White House should get out…
But that would be the President's concern, and he was clearly willing to accept the risks. The Man was worried, Bolan knew that much. He might be frightened, but if so, it wasn't showing yet. Unable to succeed himself in office, he would have no problem at the polls if someone broke the story, but impeachment was another matter altogether. Personal involvement with the world's most-wanted felon should be adequate to crank the old heave-ho equipment up in Congress. Charges of obstructing justice, harboring a fugitive, complicity in murder and the like would certainly ensure conviction and removal from the highest office in the land. Once that was done, it would be time to file the criminal complaints and see about a term in federal prison for the one-time chief executive.
The President had obviously weighed those risks before he had placed his call to Hal Brognola, asking for a sit-down with the Executioner. The Man hadn't survived this long in politics by underestimating the potential clangers of a given hazard situation. If he thought the risks were justified, worthwhile, then who was Bolan to dissuade him?
Having made a life-style out of risking life itself, the Executioner could understand the mind behind that famous face. The Man had seen his duty, and despite all of its attendant risks he couldn't turn aside. The danger to his office, to the country that he served, wouldn't dry up and blow away spontaneously. Swift, decisive action was required, unfettered by procrastination in the courts. Sometimes — this time — it was enough to simply recognize the threat, to know of an atrocity in progress, and the President wasn't inclined to let a massacre proceed while agents tried to gather evidence for an indictment.
The President had seen where duty lay. The Executioner had known it all along. Together, with determination and perhaps a bit of luck, they just might make a difference in the scheme of things.
"I'll do my best," the warrior said again, and shook the strong right hand that was extended to him.
After retrieving their weapons, Bolan and Brognola stood together and watched the Continental disappear in traffic.
"I can wait while you get packed," Hal said.
"I'm packed right now."
"I'll drive."
"You bet your ass."
7
Shenandoah National Park lies along the crest of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, sprawled between Front Royal to the north and Waynesboro to the south. From Skyline Drive, the only thruway running north to south along the Blue Ridge crest, tourists may observe the Shenandoah Valley to the west or the eastern coastal Piedmont. With scenery unparalleled throughout the eastern states, the park is heavily forested with hardwoods and conifers except for an occasional grassy meadow along the crest. Stony Man Mountain, one of the tallest peaks in the range at an altitude of 4,010 feet, overshadows Skyline Drive and broods above the Shenandoah Valley, eighty air miles west of Washington, D.C.
The valley's soil is steeped in blood and history. Here, Stonewall Jackson passed from glory into immortality with his classic Valley Campaign in the American Civil War. From 1861 through early 1865, the Shenandoah was a "valley of humiliation" for the Union troops who tried in vain to oust Confederates from their strategic strongholds. Here, for four long years, the simple courage of those men in butternut and gray withstood the power of a war machine impossibly superior in personnel and arms. It didn't matter in the end that they were fighting for a cause already lost, condemned by history as evil; sometimes, in the heat of battle, honest courage justifies itself. The fighting spirit of those valiant men in blue and gray, the fallen warriors of both sides, had consecrated Shenandoah Valley and made the rolling countryside a living shrine to courage under fire.
With its proximity to Washington, its relative seclusion in the midst of so much tourist traffic, Shenandoah Valley was a natural location for the hard command post of Brognola's Sensitive Operations Group, aka the Phoenix Project. Nestled in the shadow of the peak from which it drew its name, Stony Man Farm was an enigma, melding modern high-tech expertise with mystery. The "farm's" location, even its existence, had been strictly need-to-know from the beginning; there were no more than twenty people in the whole of Wonderland who knew about the place at all, and less than half of those could point their finger at a map with any accuracy. The Phoenix base could run on its own in case of an emergency, but SOG wasn't a secret government unto itself. Responsive to the Oval Office, handling the dirty jobs that other agencies found inconvenient or impossible, the personnel of SOG were picked in equal measures for their loyalty and abilities.
There had been one brief problem, true, but it was never spoken of within the Stony Man perimeter. Survivors needed no reminder of the treason in their ranks, which had resulted in the loss of precious lives and the banishing of one among them into outer darkness. New additions to the team would never hear the story to begin with; it wasn't something they would need to know.
Observed by aircraft — or by satellite — the base appeared to be a rich man's hideaway, perhaps, or the executive retreat of some well-heeled conglomerate. The house was large — three stories — with a tractor barn and other outbuildings nearby, but even infrared photography wouldn't reveal the secrets locked away inside. A private airstrip in the northwest sector took advantage of the natural terrain; it had been built to handle whirly-birds and Lear-size jets, but it could take the latest navy-air force fighters as well. If tourists lost their way on Skyline Drive and happened down the narrow access road that served the farm, they might be treated to a scene of tractors in the field, or pastures lying fallow in the winter. If they tried to get beyond the barbed-wire fencing, they would see another side of Stony Man; a side that none would soon forget, provided they survived.
It was a hundred miles from Arlington to Stony Man by car, and the drive took Hal two hours with a stop for lunch in Warrenton. Mack Bolan ordered light and scarcely touched his food, preoccupied with private thoughts and memories, while Hal wolfed down his burger, fries and milk shake. They had driven almost fifty miles in silence, Bolan speaking only when Brognola spoke to him, his answers terse, distracted. Hal knew what the guy was going through, and there was nothing in the worl
d that he could do to make it any better.
Going home again was never easy — some guys made a living out of telling others that it was impossible — but Bolan would be forced to try it all the same. Throughout the early days of his new war, the base at Stony Man had been his home, of sorts, and he had left a portion of his heart there. In the wake of everything that had befallen him, the Executioner had never contemplated going back until Brognola had played his hole card in the presence of the chief executive.
He might have felt betrayed, but somehow Bolan didn't. He and Hal went too far back to harbor grudges. The man from Justice had a job to do, and he was in too deep. Instinctively the lifeline had been thrown toward Bolan, and the Executioner had picked it up, as Hal had known he must. It didn't matter that the men of Able Team and Phoenix Force could almost certainly have done the job without him. Bolan knew about the mission now and the stakes involved, and he could no more pass his turn than he could simply drop his everlasting war and walk away from it. At the heart of it, the mission and his war were inextricably entwined; suppression of the savages was what Mack Bolan's war was all about.
From Warrenton they followed Highway 211 on through Sperryville, in Rappahannock County, to the interchange with Skyline Drive. Their destination lay beyond the Blue Ridge crest, but Hal enjoyed the scenery, and he explained that driving south to Swift Run Gap and Highway 33 would put them at the farm no later — and perhaps a good deal sooner — than the lowland run down sinuous Highway 340. It didn't matter to Mack Bolan either way; with scarcely an acknowledgment, he settled back to scan the silent trees on either side of Skyline Drive.
Their turnoff was an unmarked access road, the entrance left deliberately overgrown with weeds and inhospitable in its appearance. It would take a foolish tourist or determined off-road sportsman to desert the friendly pavement for that one-lane track to nowhere. Several had tried, but none had ever breached the farm itself.
It had taken a traitor from within, the Executioner recalled, to break security at Stony Man and very nearly bring the Phoenix program down in flames. Experienced with treachery, the soldier had no difficulty in believing that a group of military officers might turn against the government they served, endeavoring to make new policy instead of merely taking orders from the chief executive. The problem lay not in believing, but in coping with the threat before it could be realized in further acts of violence.
Hal put his unmarked Chevy through the turn, and they bounced along for twenty minutes on a rutted road before they struck new pavement and the roadway widened once again. They had already passed two hidden checkpoints, Bolan knew. If they hadn't been expected at the first, a truck or tractor would have blocked their way before they'd reached the blacktop, gunners closing from the trees behind in case the "tourists" proved to be a threat.
But Hal had phoned ahead, of course, secure in his knowledge that the Executioner would not — could not — refuse the mission. Bolan might have been upset by Hal's presumption, but he knew the Fed too well to take offense, and there were other matters on his mind just now.
Like going home.
The trees began to clear, and Bolan had a glimpse of rolling meadows as the Chevy trundled downslope toward the farm. The one and only gate was situated at the northeast corner of the property, observed by cameras hidden in the nearby trees and patrolled discreetly by a "farmhand" who consumed the daylight hours, every day, with efforts to repair his pickup truck. In fact, the truck worked perfectly, as an intruder would have learned if he or she had tried to breach the northern fence. Because Brognola was expected with a passenger, the farmer had no qualms about admitting him this morning, never bothering to reach for the Beretta tucked inside the waistband of his overalls or the Uzi resting on the pickup's seat. To play it safe, however, he would radio ahead with the news of their arrival in case someone was dozing at the television monitors and missed the only action of the day.
The open fields were soon behind them, and they drove through scattered trees for half a mile before the manor house came into view. For just an instant — no more than a heartbeat, really — Bolan felt as if the intervening months had been erased somehow, and that he had never really left the farm for good. It was an eerie feeling, and he was uncomfortable now. It might not be impossible to visit home again, but he had no intention whatsoever of returning as a full-time tenant.
"The old town looks the same," Brognola warbled, "as I step down off the train…"
"You're no Tom Jones."
"I'm hurt. You've cut me to the quick."
"I seen me duty, an' I done it."
"Seriously, though, you'll find that things are pretty much the same, except for the additional security. We've beefed up the perimeter defenses, and we've also gone the extra mile on personnel. We put them through the polygraph and vocal stress evaluator, with the Pentothal as backup if we have the slightest shadow of a doubt. The shrinks and medics help us all they can. We test for drugs and mental aberration, with an in-depth physical from A to Z. We run a background check that would have weeded out J. Edgar Hoover, with a reexamination quarterly. There's no such thing as foolproof, but you're looking at the next best thing."
"I'll trust you," Bolan said… and meant it, as far as Hal Brognola was concerned. He knew some of the other personnel at Stony Man, the ones who had survived the assault, and he trusted them as well. As for the rest, the soldier didn't plan to be around that long.
Brognola pulled around behind the manor house and parked his Chevy near the tractor barn. It was a short walk back, but someone was already waiting for them on the wide back porch. The instant recognition brought a sudden lump to Bolan's throat. He swallowed angrily and forged ahead.
Despite confinement to a wheelchair, Aaron Kurtzman was a hulking figure. Dubbed "the Bear" in adolescence, when he'd been a member of his high school wrestling team, he had progressed to pumping iron as an adult. But Kurtzman's intellect had blossomed in proportion to his strapping body. Aaron was a genius with computers and communications, and with cooperation from the likes of Hermann Schwarz, he had designed or modified most of the high-tech gear in use at Stony Man. A charter member of the Phoenix project, he had proved himself invaluable to the team.
A bullet in the lower spine had taken Kurtzman's legs away from him, and now his wheelchair was another grim reminder of the treacherous assault that had almost finished SOG. Andrzej Konzaki, April Rose and others had been killed in the engagement that had left Aaron paralyzed below the waist, but the Bear had managed to survive his wounds and had come back on full duty once the therapists and surgeons had finally cut him loose. Kurtzman might not have legs to stand on, but maneuvering a wheelchair had already doubled his considerable upper body strength, and the computer whiz's mind was vibrantly alive, apparently unscathed by his near-lethal ordeal.
Bolan shook the hand that Kurtzman offered, doggedly refusing to surrender in the viselike grip. "Long time," he said at last.
"Too long."
"You're looking good."
"I feel like a half a million bucks."
"Not bad, considering inflation."
"Same old Striker."
"Same old Bear."
Kurtzman led the way inside, and Bolan noticed that he had resisted the temptation of conversion to a powered chair. As Bolan and Brognola trailed him, Aaron wheeled the standard model with a speed and effortless precision that belied his size and weight. The muscles of his forearms bulged like cables underneath the flesh, and Bolan noted also that his hands were bare, unlike so many occupants of wheelchairs who resort to wearing gloves. If Kurtzman had a choice, he would attack a problem in the hardest way imaginable, bending circumstances to his will instead of looking for the easy out. You had to admire a guy like that… and wonder, sometimes, how he pulled it off in spite of everything.
On entering the ground floor level, they found themselves in the dining room where Bolan had so often bolted hasty meals before departing for the hellgrounds. The dining room wa
s empty, but before they had a chance to steer for the security HQ another member of the Phoenix team emerged from the adjacent kitchen, stopping dead at the sight of Kurtzman and his two companions.
"Oh, excuse me."
For an instant Bolan felt his heart freeze inside his chest, constricted by the sudden shock of déjà vu. When it began to throb again, the rush of blood was almost dizzying; he fought an urge to stretch a hand out and brace himself against the grips of Kurtzman's chair.
For just a microsecond there, he had believed that he was seeing April Rose. The hair was wrong, of course: ash blond instead of rich auburn. The face was different, if no less beautiful, and while the lady's jumpsuit did its utmost to conceal her figure, ample nature couldn't be disguised.
Kurtzman beamed at her. "No problem, Barb. In fact, I'm glad you're here. You know the boss, of course, but it's high time you met his sidekick." Aaron wheeled his chair around, half facing Bolan, a playful grin already crinkling his features. "Barbara, say hello to Colonel Phoenix. Colonel Phoenix, Barbara Price. My legs."
"They're looking better all the time," Brognola quipped.
The lady held a slim hand out to Bolan, and he took it gingerly, releasing it at once.
Rogue Force Page 7