“Stretch, let it go,” Graham said. “I mean…”
He pointed toward the crushed wall.
Reader nodded. “I was just trying to distract you.”
Graham nodded and Marrick shrugged.
“Right,” she said. “Where are you staying?”
“Park City,” Reader answered. “I own a condo near one of the resorts.”
Graham smirked. “He probably has a setup there that would make the Batcave look like a hole in the wall.”
Reader nodded at Marrick’s car. “It should be suitable for our purposes.”
Marrick led the others to her ride. “Next time throw him a little harder out the window. I actually understood that right away.”
Wonsan, North Korea
IT WAS NEARING DAWN as the Executioner pulled the Kawasaki closer to General Chong’s base. It looked for all the world like a meat processing plant, complete with cattle in pens. However, whatever went on in the slaughterhouse didn’t involve hammers or bullets to the brain.
While North Korea’s nuclear weapons development program was quite advanced, its chemical and biological capabilities were far less extensive according to various intelligence agencies. Trade between North Korea and nations with stronger biochemical production plans, like Syria and Libya, had been watched closely. China, one of Korea’s strongest trade partners, had also withheld the secrets of man-made and natural toxins from the Koreans because they had no desire to have those weapons turned against them.
Bolan knew, whatever was the plan of the conspiracy, it wouldn’t begin in this nation, not with the destruction of the submarine base.
He hid the motorcycle in some bushes. Its fuel tank was nearly empty, and it would only be deadweight from now on. Any transportation he’d need, he’d get from the covert base.
The sky was a dark gray now, the sun struggling to crawl up over the horizon. He’d have a half hour before the false dawn was replaced by open sunlight.
A car wound its way up the road and Bolan tucked into a roadside ditch, doing his finest impression of a clump of lifeless foliage. The headlights washed over him, but the driver paid no notice.
Every instinct in the Executioner informed him that this was a member of the conspiracy. The car was too new, too well-tuned, and to be driving at this time of morning, before dawn even broke on the horizon, there had to have been an emergency meeting.
Only ten minutes had passed since the thermobaric explosive had detonated, so he doubted that this meeting of minds was called on account of the underground base’s demolition. Another car was visible in the distance, down the road, far enough away that Bolan felt secure in rising and cutting through the forest huddling around the meat processing plant. Both Berettas had their sound suppressors affixed, and their loads were topped off.
He’d have to acquire a rifle inside the base, but it wouldn’t take much of an effort.
His goal was the meeting, however. Cutting through the bodyguards would be his priority, getting to the general and his staff before the conspiracy eliminated them.
Bolan could feel the countdown collapsing in on itself as his mind raced to figure out how his phantom enemy would strike next.
MI QUA HELD THE DOOR, nodding her head as Major Huan and his entourage stepped through. She smiled gently for the man, his assistants and bodyguards. She might as well have been a brass doorstop, however. The guards paid little attention to her except when a flash of soft, smooth cleavage poked out of the neckline of her black bodystocking.
Huan continued the hushed conversation he had held on the ride up, nattering on like a sexless drone. It was too early, and the unspoken threat of Dr. Kent Stevens was too prevalent for them to even entertain more than a brief moment of lustful lingering. Mi smirked, not minding in the least as her thumb ran over the smooth surface of the deadly little toxin launcher.
One press of the firing stud and Huan’s face would darken, swelling up as his blood vessels constricted. His tongue would bloat, and foamy spit would burble from his lips as his eyes shot through with red lightning. Death would come, mercifully, after fifteen minutes of strangulation and suffering.
It was no secret that Huan was more interested in the fresh-faced youth who followed him at his elbow, a military academy page who was still in his junior year.
Finally, the last of Chong’s crew pulled up in a convoy of vehicles.
Captain Pei.
“Almost late for your own funeral, you senile bastard,” Mi mumbled. The cars wended lazily up the driveway, coming to a halt in the last of the parking available for Chong’s staff.
She took a deep breath and dismissed her irritation, once more nodding, smiling, and holding the door for the old fool and his band of leeches, bowing just enough to show the old coot one last hint of the pleasures of the flesh before she gave him a splinter full of agony.
Pei smirked as he looked at her.
“Hello, darling Mi,” Pei said. “How are you this morning?”
“I’m fine, sir,” she answered, not looking him in the eye, but holding her head just enough so that the old lecher was able to drink in the curves of her supple, athletic body. “And you?”
“Ah, you know me,” Pei answered, resting his withered hand on her hip. “I’m keeping up appearances.”
He gave her young flesh a graceless squeeze, and his bodyguards chuckled as the old captain grinned. Mi fought off her revulsion at the senile bastard’s violation, because to give in to her feelings now, she’d have killed him on the spot, Stevens’s plan be damned.
It was enough to have that limp-dicked old bastard Chong pawing at her, trying to get his tiny member stiff enough for any form of intercourse. But Pei’s wandering hand made her skin crawl in a way that she couldn’t take enough showers to get rid of the feeling of disease creeping along her flesh. Mi smiled, her eyes still cast to his feet, and Pei chuckled, walking along to his doom.
She wanted to be done with all of this mess before the man in black arrived.
Mi Qua wondered if she was too late.
THE FENCE PROVIDED little defense against Bolan and the wire cutter attachment on his knife. An electrified fence would have attracted too much attention, especially around a simple meat processing plant. Instead, General Chong and the North Korean government counted on near total secrecy and alert guards as a wall of defense. The fact that the Korean peninsula was impregnable to all but the most determined intruders also bought them a buffer.
Westerners would be foolish to try to sneak through the heavily policed and guarded Communist stronghold.
Foolish, or superbly well-trained and equipped, Bolan corrected himself as he bent the fence back together and sprinted a short distance to cover. The sky grew lighter, the gray paling and tinging with the pink of the first rays of the sun stabbing over the horizon. He didn’t have very long.
Luckily, from the road, he was able to determine where the bigwigs were assembling, their cars amassed, slowly trickling in. Bolan figured from the last two sets of vehicles, and the size of the main office center’s lot, that everyone was present who was supposed to be. The meeting would soon start.
In the back of his mind, Bolan continued to weigh the possibilities of the elimination of this particular band of savages. Conventional weapons strikes, like a guided missile launched from the submarine, were possible, and they would handily kill everyone at the meeting.
Unfortunately, a missile blast would raise far more attention to the masterminds of the conspiracy than it would cut off. The destruction of the underground submarine pens could be explained as an earthquake, and the administration would do its best to cover up any hint that it had such a covert facility, hampering their own investigations into the mishap as well as obfuscating the conspiracy. A building, smashed by high explosives, however, would attract international attention. Outside agencies would be looking in on the scene, and any survivors would likely be snatched by foreign intelligence services, if the government didn’t capture them an
d subject them to “intensive questioning.”
Bolan shook off a wave of revulsion as he had encountered far too many victims of “intensive questioning” during his long career. Bodies destroyed to the point where they resembled no bipedal life-form on the planet, they often ended up living in a netherworld of mute suffering and agony after the monsters who operated on them finished, left to live and suffer as sentient, mutilated meat, quivering helplessly on a table for as long as it amused their tormentors. Too many times, Bolan had to end their suffering with one of his own bullets, releasing their souls from the hell they were left to flounder in.
Torture was a last resort that even Bolan had to depend upon from time to time, but even those tactics were survivable, and those he interrogated would go on to live their lives, if they weren’t killed immediately. The things left over from the “turkey” doctors that his enemies employed might survive, but without limbs, without eyes or the ability to speak or hear, fed through intravenous or nasal-gastro means, were only kept alive as cruel entertainment for the sick men who crafted them from once-living flesh.
A guard crossed Bolan’s path, breaking his contemplation. Though the Korean was jumpy, nervous at the thought of so many members of the base’s brass coming in at an unreasonably early hour, he hadn’t noticed the Executioner stalking in the shadows behind him. Bolan drew his knife, knowing that a silenced gunshot would pull down too much heat, no matter how soft the suppressed bullet sounded.
Besides, if things got truly hairy, he would need the Korean’s rifle.
With a panther-like lunge, he dropped on the guard. Six inches of black steel parted flesh, severing arteries. The guard thrashed helplessly in Bolan’s powerful grasp, but only for a few seconds; his aorta cleaved apart. The Korean slumped instantly, dead in the Executioner’s arms.
Bolan hauled the corpse to cover, sliding it beneath a garbage bin after stripping its rifle, ammunition and a spare pistol.
One enemy down. He wondered how many more there would be as the doomsday numbers flew by.
CHAPTER TEN
Kirby Graham clenched his jaw, knuckles whitening as he flexed his fists. That was all that Rachel Marrick needed to notice when she glanced in the side mirror. The sudden hardening of her partner indicated immediate danger.
“We’re being followed,” Reader said bluntly, looking out the rear window.
“They’ve been trading off,” Graham rumbled. “At least three vehicles, and they’re probably in radio communication.”
Reader quirked an eyebrow, then reached into his jacket. “If that’s the case…”
“They’ll probably be encrypted,” Marrick noted. “I don’t know how good your scanners are.”
Reader frowned as he pulled out a bulky-looking PDA. She wondered why he didn’t have a sleek little item like a Bluetooth device, when she realized that not only was this device probably of the polymath’s own design, but it likely possessed capabilities that outstripped her brand-new, FBI-issue laptop the same way that device outstripped a Pong console. Marrick kept her eye on the road, but the occasional glance into the back seat gave her an eerie feeling that her passenger was Mr. Spock with a tricorder.
Reader looked up. “Four in pursuit. Three rotating in orbits according to their patterns, with a fourth vehicle on a parallel road, coordinating the other three.”
“Nice to be wanted,” Graham said. “How’s the encryption crack coming?”
Reader continued to work his stylus on the screen, his dark eyes flashing with a focus and intelligence that Marrick felt wash off him like shock waves from an avalanche. “Another thirty seconds and I’ll be able to listen to their communications traffic.”
Reader plugged an earpiece into the hand computer and hooked it over his ear. A flat microphone hung snug to his jawline as he continued to tap rapidly with his stylus.
Marrick held her speed, forcing herself to drive casually. Graham opened his suit coat to provide easy access to the customized combat pistol in his holster.
“Just in case it gets messy,” Graham promised.
“They’re only conducting surveillance,” Reader announced. “Apparently our previous encounters with them have dissuaded them from further immediate—”
“Yeah. They’re shaking in their panties,” Graham interjected. “I figured that out.”
Marrick took a deep breath. “So, after failing to kill us…”
“Losing five of their own in the process,” Graham added.
Marrick shot Graham a hard look. “When were you going to tell me?”
“When we were safe and sound and relatively secure in my lodge,” Reader explained. “We didn’t think that mentioning further deaths in addition to your recent—”
“I’m not some fragile flower,” Marrick snapped.
“Sorry,” Reader answered. “It just didn’t seem appropriate.”
Marrick fumed as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel, then let out a breath. “No, it wasn’t. We were more worried about injured cops and one dead officer. But the hell with these chumps. If they die trying to kill us, it’s the least they can do.”
Marrick looked at the two of them. “You two are acting like dinosaurs from the fifties, thinking I’m so delicate that I can’t deal with you taking out a group of murderers. I strapped on a gun with my badge.”
“Sorry,” Graham said. “You just seemed to take—”
“That cop died because these assholes were trying to murder me,” Marrick replied, keeping her eye on the road. “I’m feeling guilty.”
She sighed, then gave Graham a slap on his arm. “And so are you. What happened?”
“One of the gang members’ kid brothers, and either a girlfriend or a sister. They didn’t leave much for me to recognize,” Graham began.
Marrick rested her hand on Graham’s thigh. “It’s okay. I get it. You were feeling brittle enough.”
“I’d thought that killing some of them would make me feel better, but it didn’t work,” Graham admitted.
“What will improve your disposition will be fully uncovering the source of this operation,” Reader stated. “Both of you.”
“Right, and you’re not feeling anything?” Marrick challenged.
Reader looked at his PDA.
“Stretch isn’t too good on admitting his feelings,” Graham said. “Usually when he’s retreating into bigger words and high technology—”
“Who made you an expert on my psychological condition?” Reader asked.
“You did. Across about fifteen years, in case you don’t remember,” Graham snapped. “You’re my best friend, and I figured you out a long time ago.”
Reader’s face reddened, then he looked at his PDA screen. “You’re correct.”
Graham stared at him for a long, tense moment, then chuckled. “He must think he’s paid by the syllable.”
Marrick took a deep breath as the tension lessened in the car. “Think we can pay attention to the bad guys instead of our own personal soap opera moments, then?”
“I never ceased my observations of their movements,” Reader returned, rolling his neck a little, tendons snapping to relieve stress. “They’re still on our tails.”
Marrick’s lips pulled tight. “Good. At least we know where they are.”
“And where to send the beating when they make their move,” Graham added, flexing one big fist.
Twenty miles outside Wonsan, North Korea
THE EXECUTIONER SLID through the darkness, cutting through shadows like a black wraith. The dead guard’s rifle hung on his back, his knife’s black-phosphate finish sucking in light instead of reflecting a giveaway gleam. He was a nightmare, stalking the leaders of the North Korean end of the conspiracy. The last fleet of cars was pulling into a halt in front of the office building.
Bolan raced toward a side entrance, using the bulk of a transport truck to disguise his movements. He paused as he stooped by the door.
Stealth would get him closer without incident, but
given what had transpired at the submarine pen, the enemy might have an assassin already at work. However, he doubted it; the last of the North Korean officers had only just shown up. They would have to be eliminated all at once.
A bomb wouldn’t work, but some form of deadly weapon…
Bolan’s eyes narrowed. Dugway Proving Grounds not only stored biological weapons, but also lethal chemicals like nerve gas. His instincts told him that a chemical release inside the office building would do the job just as readily as a bomb. The meeting was undoubtedly a trap, and he wondered at the atmospheric seal of the building.
Opening the door, he noticed that there was no attendant breeze. At least the first floor wasn’t under negative pressure, which meant that the assassins might have localized their weapon. It only made sense.
The National Security Agency had pegged this “meat packing plant” as a biological weapons development center. Hence the need for cast-off hookers and livestock, Bolan assumed. They were test subjects, because the North Korean administration might actually take notice of increased numbers of political prisoners being killed in weapons testing, curious about the improved efficiency of a supposedly floundering bioweapon program. Naturally produced toxins would explain the deaths of everyone in the building, though it was doubtful that such a disease vector would be able to kill that quickly. That left nerve gas as a stand-in for the germ warfare.
Bolan had to diffuse the effort immediately, and he knew only one surefire method.
He unslung the rifle and flicked the selector to full-auto.
Two North Korean soldiers sitting at a desk smoked and laughed at each other’s jokes. Bolan sighted on the desk and opened up, bullets tearing into the sheet metal in a loud rumbling thunderstorm of autofire. The guards cried out in dismay, diving for cover as Bolan emptied the magazine and retreated. Their rifles cracked loudly, chewing walls in a display of panic that only increased the cacophony.
The whole bioweapon base woke up. Alarms sounded instantly, their wailing blares cutting through the sleepy moments of dawn’s break.
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