Rogue Force

by Don Pendleton

  He shook his head, emerging from the momentary reverie. He didn't even know precisely where "there" was yet. Before he let imagination run away with him, he had to deal with priorities. And survival through the next few hours topped the list. Once he had cleared Tegucigalpa and booked himself a European flight, he could begin to think about the future. Until then, he was walking on the fringes of a combat zone, and any slip might put his ass directly on the firing line.

  It was McNerney's fault, together with the other bastards who had cooked up this scheme in the first place. He had been a fool to play along with them, but it had sounded like a winner at the time. Now, with the clarity of hindsight, Travers realized that there was nothing he could do to save the operation. He would be damned lucky if he could find a way to save himself.

  His secretary was at lunch, and Travers passed her vacant desk without a backward glance. He wouldn't bother leaving her a note. She had been fair in bed, but this was no damned time for sentiment. Let her assume that he was out on an assignment. That way, if anyone came asking after him, they might waste hours waiting for him to appear.

  His bags were in the car, and he wouldn't be going back to his apartment. It was early yet for any stakeouts, but he wasn't taking chances. If the San Felipe set had gone to hell, there was no telling who might be involved, what information they might now possess. For all he knew, some other faction of the Company might be involved. That kind of convoluted shit was big at Langley, playing off both ends against a middle that was never perfectly defined.

  For just a moment, Travers wondered if he might be making a mistake. The loss of contact with McNerney's raiding party might mean anything — or nothing. Communications had been known to fail for reasons other than destruction of the radio or operator, and yet the whole damned thing felt wrong somehow.

  No point in stalling. If he wasted too much time, it might be too late. He left the light on in his office, left the door wide open. From appearances, he might have just stepped out to get a cup of coffee.

  They made great coffee at his favorite restaurant along the Zurichsee. If Travers never heard from any spokesman for the Company again, it would be too damned soon.

  * * *

  Mack Bolan fed a fresh clip into the Kalashnikov. Crouching in the shadow of a bullet-punctured market stall, he listened to the sounds of battle echoing around him, wondering if either side had gained a clear advantage yet. The ambush had been professional, but the Honduran troops had been outnumbered from the start. He could see a number of them sprawled around the plaza now in awkward attitudes of death.

  Deprived of transportation when the choppers blew, McNerney's raiders were committed now to victory or death. Retreat would be impractical while any of the local troops survived. The strike force couldn't risk the possibility of yet another ambush in the forest by a larger force of regulars. For all they knew, Honduran reinforcements might be on the way already, moving in to close the trap behind them.

  Across the square two Contras burst from cover, running zigzag patterns toward the village church. He raised his AK-47, sighted on the leader, ticking off three heartbeats as he firmed the shot, and put a single round between the runner's shoulder blades. The impact pitched him forward on his face, and Bolan knew the man wasn't about to rise again.

  His comrade hesitated, breaking stride, a fatal error given the situation. Looking back across his shoulder, he was braced to run again, when the Executioner's next round exploded in his face and took him down. His body quivered for a moment — short, chaotic messages imparted from his shattered brain to dying muscles — then lay still.

  How many down? How many left to go? They had begun with something better than a hundred guns, against perhaps two-thirds as many on the ground. Both sides had taken heavy casualties, but Bolan had no idea of numbers, either way.

  Upstairs, across the plaza, the machine gun opened up again, raking the open ground with short, measured bursts. He risked a glance, saw muzzle-flashes in the darkened window, angled toward a line of market stalls and knew that there would never be a better time to make his move.

  Charging up and out of cover, Bolan pounded toward the nearest buildings toward what seemed to be a sort of general store. The windows had been shattered, the facade defaced by small-arms fire, but it was standing, and the stout adobe walls provided more protection than the flimsy wooden stalls.

  Behind him, the upstairs gunner saw him and swung his weapon right around to bring the Anglo runner under fire. Bolan wondered which of Katzenelenbogen's men might be about to kill him. Twenty feet to go, less now, and Bolan's lungs were on fire, his pulse a driving hammer in his ears. He heard the big M-60 sputtering, a long burst eating up his tracks and gaining, gaining…

  Suddenly a human silhouette rose before him in the vacant window of the store, an AK-47 angling across his shoulder, pointing at the buildings opposite. Bolan veered a few degrees off course and hit the wooden door full tilt, bursting through and collapsing on the littered floor as Jason Rafferty laid down a burst of cover fire from his Kalashnikov. The opposition raked his window with a burst of 7.62 mm, but Rafferty had already gone to ground, cursing under his breath.

  "We fucked this, Frankie. Man, I'm tellin' you, we royally fucked this up."

  "What happened to the others?" Bolan asked him, winded.

  "Crane and Steiner bought it right away," the sergeant answered, craning for a glance around the plaza, ducking back before he could become a target. "Broderick's over by the church… or, anyway, he was, the last I saw of him. I haven't seen DiSalvo."

  "That leaves you and me."

  "I guess." And something in "Lambretta's" voice alerted Rafferty to danger, made him turn to face the Executioner, his automatic rifle tracking, hesitant but ready. "Jesus, you're with them."

  The move was slick and fast, but he was covered from the jump and really had no chance at all. A stunning double punch ripped through his chest at point-blank range, the impact lifting Rafferty and slamming him against the nearest wall. From there, he slid into a seated posture, exit wounds inscribing traces of himself upon the pale adobe wall.

  Bolan pulled the AK-47 from the sergeant's twitching hands and held the rogue soldier's head up, one palm cupped beneath his chin. He waited for the dying eyes to focus on his face.

  "Fu-fucking Judas. I thought you were an American."

  "I need names," he said. "The buffers between Crane and McNerney."

  "I can't hear you, man."

  "One chance to clear the slate. You haven't got that long."

  "Go fuck yourself, okay?"

  The sergeant blew a crimson bubble, shivered, and the light went out behind his eyes. Retreating to the doorway for another look around the plaza, Bolan left him there, still seated with his back against the wall.

  It had been a long shot, but he had to try. It would be left to others now to name the players in Tegucigalpa. Bolan was preoccupied with matters of survival, scouting for the rogue Americans who were still unaccounted for. Whatever else went down in San Felipe, he was pledged to save the honor of the Green Berets and remove this stain with cleansing fire. He would confirm the kills on Broderick and DiSalvo, or die in the attempt.

  * * *

  "Heads up. Is that the guy?"

  Schwarz double-checked the mug shot to be sure. "Bingo."

  "Where the hell's he going?"

  "How should I know?"

  Lyons had a hand inside his jacket, tugging on the holstered Python, ready for the tag before Schwarz stopped him.

  "Hey, not here."

  "Why not?"

  "Too public. Anyway, I want to check that bag he's carrying."

  "Forget his bag," the Ironman groused. "He's gonna get away."

  'We're on him, man. This piece of shit's not going anywhere."

  Across the street, Lane Travers had already stowed his briefcase in the front seat of a dark sedan, and he was climbing in behind the wheel. If he had made his two-man audience, he gave no sign.
<
br />   Carl Lyons fired the rental's engine as their quarry left the curb, proceeding in the opposite direction. Lyons gave him half a block, then cut a tight, illegal U-turn in the middle of the street, arresting traffic as he powered after Travers.

  "Not too close. You'll spook him."

  "I know what I'm doing."

  "There, he's turning."

  "I can see, okay?"

  "Stay with him, there."

  "You want me closer, now?"

  "You think he's headed for the airport?"

  "Maybe."

  "If he is, we've got an open stretch a few miles farther on."

  "I know that."

  "We can take him there."

  "I should have tagged him when I had the chance."

  "Too risky. This is better."

  "Yeah, unless he fucking gets away."

  "Relax. We've got him covered."

  "He might be connecting with an army out here."

  "No. He's running."

  Travers took the cutoff to the airport, and they followed him, immediately losing most of the surrounding traffic. He was leading by perhaps a quarter mile when Schwarz checked out the rearview mirror and decided it was clear enough.

  "Let's do it."

  Lyons stood on the accelerator, changing lanes and coming up on Travers from the driver's side. The target didn't appear to recognize his danger, holding steady at an even sixty miles per hour, both hands on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  "Come on, already!"

  "Frigging back seat drivers."

  They were still accelerating, pulling up to pass, when Travers saw them. There could be no mistake about it. Just a sidelong glance, at first, and then he did the classic double take, alarm as visible as acne on his face. He punched it, but the Ironman had him, already pulling out into the lead, the rental trembling at seventy-five, its speedometer needle edging toward eighty.

  Lyons cut the wheel hard left, across the other lane, and even though he braced himself, Schwarz bit his tongue when they collided with the target vehicle. He tasted blood, but ignored it as he rummaged for the big Beretta underneath his jacket.

  Travers lost it heartbeats after impact, jamming on his brakes and locking them, his four-door rolling through a cloud of dust across the shoulder of the highway, nosing down into a ditch. Lyons swerved the rental to a standstill and was out and running as the engine died, the Python in his hand. The windshield of the government sedan was seamed with cracks where Travers's head had cracked against the glass, but Lyons wasn't taking any chances. Standing three feet from the driver's open window, leaning in to skin-touch range, he slammed a Magnum round through Travers's temple, speckling the seat and dashboard with the target's brains.

  "Case closed."

  "Not quite."

  Schwarz circled to the other side and opened the passenger door, making sure to smear his fingerprints in the process. The agent's bag was dripping, but it wasn't locked, and Gadgets spent a moment riffling the contents, finding nothing that related to McNerney or the raid on San Felipe.

  "Well?"

  "No go. If anything was written down, he stashed it somewhere else."

  "So let's get moving. We've got places to go and people to do."

  "I'm coming, dammit."

  Lyons cut another U-turn, jounced across the grassy median and headed back toward town. He whistled as he drove, and Gadgets wondered if the wet work wasn't getting to him, just a little.

  Christ, sometimes Schwarz wondered about himself, and more than a little. He began to wonder if there weren't limitations to the violence that a human being could observe, in which he could participate, without surrendering humanity. At what point did the killing cease to be a duty and become a pleasure?

  Not yet, though. The very fact of his concern was proof, at least, that Gadgets hadn't crossed the line. Not yet. Today he was still all right. And so, he thought, was Lyons.

  Tomorrow, if it ever came, would take care of itself.

  * * *

  Calvin James stitched another short burst through the nearest market stall and sat back, scanning the plaza. It was a charnel house down there, the dead and dying sprawled together, some of them in tidy rows where automatic fire had dropped them on the run, others scattered in an abstract pattern. James had accounted for a number of them with the big M-60, and he knew there would be more before a cease-fire was declared. Below him, firing was sporadic but intense, with pockets of defenders and attackers trading rounds across the square.

  He wondered briefly whether anyone had thought to call for reinforcements. James wasn't convinced that they were winning, even though the enemy had lost his transport, even though he wasn't going anywhere just now. The tide could turn at any moment, and it didn't take a genius to realize the battle wasn't over while a single enemy was still alive and armed.

  A flying squad of "peasant" soldiers trundled into view below him, and he recognized McCarter in the lead. James tracked them, waiting for the opposition to reveal itself instead of simply throwing rounds from every side. He needed targets, dammit, or he wasn't any good at all.

  One of McCarter's men went down. Another. That left five, and they were veering toward the church, toward cover, when a skirmish line of Contras suddenly materialized downrange. Their point man was a tall American in tiger-stripes, and all of them were pouring automatic fire into McCarter's squad. James saw two more defenders fall. A third — was it McCarter going down? — and then he had his finger on the big M-60's trigger, firing in response.

  His heavy NATO rounds ripped through the enemy as if they were made of straw. Two down, then three. The tall American was ducking, dodging, but the effort was too little, far too late. James held the bastard in his sights and poured it on, a rising burst that pinned the target and somehow kept him on his feet and dancing while the slugs tore into him.

  James lifted off the trigger and watched the two surviving Contras dive for cover, running for their lives. He saw McCarter on his feet, blood soaking through one pant leg as he tried to drag a wounded friendly off the field. They made it, and James could only wish them well. He wondered if McCarter was the only one to take a hit so far. With all the lead and shrapnel flying in the plaza, it would be remarkable if none of them were killed in the exchange.

  As for himself, there was more killing to be done. He heard the Contra gunners when they crashed in on the floor below him, knew the friendlies wouldn't bother coming up. With boot heels pounding on the wooden staircase, angry, frightened voices drifting to him through the open door, James lifted his machine gun, tucked it underneath his arm and turned to face the enemy.

  Two gunners led the way, and he knew there would be others in the stairwell, bringing up the rear. He hit them with a spiral burst that pinned them to the wall. Behind them, the adobe wall was pocked with bullet scars and smeared with blood.

  James chased them with another burst to clear the landing, edging through the doorway with his M-60, belts of ammunition draped across his shoulders. Scattered rifle fire erupted from the stairs, most of it peppering the ceiling. Towering above them on the landing, James released a stream of autofire that swept the stairway clear of life, depositing the riddled corpses of his adversaries in a heap below.

  There were no further sounds of opposition from the ground floor now, but James knew he would have to watch his back. The Contras had him spotted, had recognized the threat his machine gun posed, and there was every chance that they might try again to root him out. He dared not let them catch him by surprise.

  He heard more firing in the plaza, punctuated by grenades as one side or the other launched a drive against the opposition. Shrugging off the danger, knowing it would take some time before the raiders decided their patrol had bought it and worked up sufficient nerve to make a second pass, Calvin James returned to his position at the window. In the square below, he saw a squad of Contras, blood and dust discoloring their olive drab, begin a loping drive against the nearest pocket of defenders.
Tracking with his weapon, James resumed the hunt.

  28

  Michael John McNerney finished threading the silencer onto his Walther automatic pistol, then placed the weapon in his lap. One final chore before departure, and he would be glad to have it all behind him. His travel documents were safely stowed inside the briefcase on his desk: a passport with his photo in the name of Ernest King; a driver's license and assorted other documents created to substantiate the false identity; sufficient cash to keep him mobile and well fed for several weeks in the United States.

  It wouldn't take that long, of course. What Mike McNerney had to do was best done quickly, striking while the iron was hot. There would be charges, countercharges and recriminations in the media for days when news of San Felipe leaked, as it was bound to do. But some powerful Americans were going to support the action that McNerney and his sponsors had attempted. Some of them were not averse to the suggestion of a military government, with suitable protections for free enterprise, of course. You couldn't be conservative enough to please the fat cats, just so long as business was defended, unions penalized and price controls avoided like the plague.

  The backup plan was risky, even suicidal, but McNerney was convinced that it could work. Would work, if he could keep his wits about him, let his dedication to a free America shine through each word, each deed. The people would support him, not the ravening minorities who sat around all day with both hands out for charity and drugs, but real Americans of substance, those with an interest in their nation's future. His approach would shock them at the outset, but with time the true Americans would realize that radical techniques were necessary sometimes. If an arm or leg was gangrenous, you didn't spend a fortune trying to revive the lifeless tissue. You cut the bastard off, and it was time for some corrective surgery to help the body politic as well.