“Looks like snow today,” the driver said. “If we finish soon enough, maybe I can roll up to Brighton and cut some pow.”
Bolan looked at the cloud cover, turning lighter in the growing light of day. “Ski or board?” he asked lazily.
“I board,” the driver said. “Started out skiing, but the plank really lets you have some fun. Do you?”
“More into snowmobiles,” Bolan answered. “All the lifting wrecks your leg muscles.”
The driver chuckled. “Yeah. That’s why I’m in the driver’s seat. Got your back brace?”
Bolan nodded. The driver meant the support belt and shoulder harness intended to keep back muscles from compressing from heavy lifting. It was a lie, though. The only belt and shoulder harness the Executioner wore was an improvised double-shoulder holster for his .44 Magnum Taurus and silenced Walther P-99, and a belt laden with assorted spare magazines and infiltration tools. “Never leave home without my harness.”
The driver pulled out a paper bag from the AFB commissary, bottles clinking inside. “I’ve got some bottled coffee and snack cakes. Gotta keep up that morning sugar rush, or you fall asleep. Like mocha?”
Bolan nodded. He stuck the cigarette, still relatively unburned, in the truck’s ashtray. He accepted a package of two chocolate-and-cream cakes and a small bottle of cold brown liquid.
“I know it’s not hot coffee, but when you’re driving, even a foam cup is a little too much to handle,” the driver admitted. “But you can pop six of these into a bag and haul ’em around.”
Bolan nodded, pretending mild interest as he peeled off the plastic wrapper. His eyes were on the road and the sky. No aerial surveillance tailed the convoy, and there was nothing at roadside that looked like a disguised set of cameras, especially since Bolan doubted that even Mojo could make a robotic lamb with telescopic camera eyes. He spotted more sheep flocks as they got closer to Dugway.
The herders hadn’t been put off by the containment breach decades ago. This was still good sheep country, and the sheep dug into the cold ground, freeing up grass to nibble on. There was little snow down here, despite the cold. There wasn’t that much moisture out here, as there was in the mountains, which became precipitation that gave the resorts their money making “fresh pow” as the skiers and snow boarders called the deep, powdery snow they raced across.
Bolan downed his coffee in four swallows.
“Cold, but good,” Bolan said. “I read somewhere that drinking cold liquids actually makes your body warm up more.”
“Yeah. I heard that, too,” the driver answered. “When we get to Dugway, though, they’ll have the hot stuff. It’s pretty good.”
Bolan nodded and let the cigarette hang from his lips after knocking a column of ash out the window.
Just another quiet morning, infiltrating one of the most heavily defended installations in North America.
If he was caught, either by the Dugway guards, or by Mojo’s conspirators, he’d be lucky to just be shot to death. Torture at the hands of the criminal mastermind was a certainty.
Just another morning for the Executioner.
THE FALSE LAMINATED CARDS worked. Kirby Graham didn’t doubt their effectiveness, though, since they’d been set up by Striker’s people back at Stony Man Farm. He clipped the ID to his collar and climbed back into his own truck. Country music warbled from the radio and the driver swung around and got back behind the wheel, singing along out of tune with a sultry singer’s “he done me wrong” song.
Graham endured the tonelessness of his companion’s voice as he glanced into the mirror, watching the Dugway security checkpoint fading in the distance behind them. There was another one up ahead, with head counts for the crews of the convoys.
Graham didn’t worry about the convoy on the way out. The three drivers they’d been saddled with were with Air Force Intelligence, part of the undercover effort ironically tasked with keeping Dugway and Hill safe from infiltration. And here they were, helping three ragtag crusaders slip in through one of the few flaws in security, to find a cancerous conspiracy that had grown, tangling in the guts of the proving grounds.
The drivers and their usual partners were accommodating Bolan and the others. The shotgun riders were snuggled in among the delivery supplies, and would take the infiltrators’ places in the cabs on the way out.
Graham watched as sentries passed around the truck, their pole-mounted mirrors scanning the undercarriages for bombs, in case a terrorist had somehow managed to slip high explosives into the framework of the vehicle.
Graham didn’t blame them for their paranoia, and despite the fact that Security could have discovered their ruse, he actually appreciated the proving grounds’ defenders. The perimeter was heavily defended, which would make the interior subsequently more lax. It wouldn’t be a cakewalk, and there was still a strong possibility that they would be noticed, but there would be less attention paid to those already in the area than there would be at the gates.
Graham was reassured by the balanced weights of his .45 and his Glock, even though he knew that if anyone frisked him, they’d find the powerful handguns. He looked back as the sentries continued down the line of trucks, keeping up their vigilance against molded blobs of plastic explosives or bound bundles of TNT. He wondered how Stan Reader was holding up.
He seemed to have recovered from his sense of guilt over Rachel Marrick’s fate. He also hid his nervousness about joining the convoy of delivery vehicles quite well, but there was no guarantee that he could maintain that calm. Even Graham felt the tension twisting in his gut at the possibility of discovery.
Neither of them were spies. Sure, Graham had gone undercover a couple of times, but those instances had been nerve-racking affairs. Reader, despite his contract work for the FBI and his private investigations, was by far the least experienced in the kind of skullduggery that they were engaging in.
“We’re getting close,” the driver said. “One more checkpoint, and then we can start unloading.”
Graham nodded. The drivers were average-looking and-sounding men, engaging in mind-numbing small talk. It was a change from the armed young soldiers whom they’d seen in the briefing rooms. Their quiet intensity was buried under a layer of apathy and normalcy, so that if anyone paid attention, they wouldn’t see covert, counterterrorism-trained Air Force Intelligence operatives ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat, but guys burning up their military careers until they could leave and get a job driving for parcel services.
It was brilliant camouflage, hiding in plain sight. On the day that someone tried to take advantage of the convoy, they’d end up on the receiving end of an explosive response as the covert security team burst into swift violence to head off anyone daring to attack. Graham’s heel scuffed against the folded stock of a Heckler & Koch Personal Defense Weapon under his seat. There was another under the driver’s seat. It was the only hint that there was anything untoward about the driver and his partner.
Other drivers were unaware of their true identities, according to the quick briefing they attended.
Once they reached the offloading point, the drivers would let their partners out, and there would be a quiet transition as Bolan, Graham and Reader disappeared into the base.
STAN READER HOPPED OUT of the cab of his truck. The driver’s partner came out of a compartment in his vehicle and the two men didn’t even acknowledge each other as Reader broke for the shadows. Disappearing behind cover, he spotted Bolan and Graham and wended his way between stacks of crates to where they’d assembled.
He unzipped his coat and reversed it. The jumpsuit landed in a puddle of useless cloth at his ankles, and underneath was a set of rumpled BDUs. His arms had felt constricted by the bunched cloth and he tugged the sleeves and pant legs straight. The material shook off its wrinkles quickly, and Reader rolled his shoulders around to uncramp. He felt his Skorpion bounce under his left arm, and under his right, his backup pistol, another silenced Walther P-99 in .40 caliber, tapped
his ribs there.
“All loose?” Graham asked.
Reader nodded, gathering up his jumpsuit. Bolan opened a vent and stuffed it away. The Air Force security men that they’d ridden with would collect the jumpsuits on the next day, provided there was a tomorrow for Dugway Proving Grounds.
Reader plucked his bulky PDA from its spot under his BDU jacket and keyed it to life. It took thirty seconds of scanning the area before the display showed a star field of surveillance and security cameras dotted throughout the warehouse complex they were in, and the rest of the base. Soundlessly, he pointed this out to Bolan and Graham.
“I’ll take the lead,” Reader said. He snaked an earphone into his ear, its wire leading down to his pocket computer. “I can understand the sound cues from my camera scanner.”
“Fair enough,” Bolan said. “I’ll handle rear security.”
Reader swallowed, then settled into a walk. Their Battle Dress Uniforms helped them to blend in with the staff on the base, but it was a thin, tenuous disguise at best. They would have to avoid the security cameras so as not to attract attention to the fact that three unaccounted-for soldiers were traversing the facility, heading for areas they were not supposed to be. The weight of the double-pistol harness he wore also hung on his mind. While the layers of disguise and winter clothing masked the presence of the weaponry, even casual contact might reveal them. They were armed in case Kent Stevens fought to defend his conspiracy, but silenced handgun fire was not completely stealthy, and would alert Dugway Proving Grounds’ legitimate defenders. As dedicated as he was to stopping the murderous conspiracy, Reader loathed the thought of shooting at legitimate U.S. soldiers in the commission of their duty.
If they encountered Dugway’s official security in the middle of a firefight, Reader was certain he’d be gunned down.
Bolan, as he’d briefed Graham and Reader, had also stated that conflict with uninvolved military men was to be avoided at all costs.
It was a dichotomy. The man Reader knew as Striker had the authority to drop a nuclear weapon that could kill all the personnel on the base, but he would not shoot them in self-defense.
Reader understood Graham now, when the Fed stated that his covert service was of impeccable devotion to justice. Bolan wasn’t a casual murderer, and he was devoted to his crusade, but not at the cost of innocent lives. The nuclear option would only be brought into play when there was a containment breach, which would already infer that everyone on the base would be exposed to lethal microbes and dying anyway.
The base would die so that a city and its surrounding towns would live. A few thousand lives in exchange for a metropolitan area containing millions.
Reader edged out his PDA, bringing up a map of the base.
Naturally, his satellite access didn’t allow him to observe top-secret military facilities, but Bolan’s computer support team had hooked up with Reader, allowing him maps and other data that would be necessary for their mission.
He looked back to Bolan who was also consulting the map.
“We have the munitions warehouse here, and that’s the Biological Warfare Research laboratory,” Reader pointed out. “This is where we split up.”
“You can handle it by yourself,” Bolan said.
Reader nodded. He knew the plan. Graham and Bolan would check out the munitions warehouse, most likely the area where Stevens would have placed more security. Reader would infiltrate the laboratory complex, where his scientific expertise would at least allow him to figure out what to look for. He focused on the computerized composite sketch that Bolan had assembled of what Chong and others had said Kent Stevens looked like on his visits.
Mojo would be the man he looked for.
“Good luck,” Graham said.
“You, too, brother,” Reader whispered.
The infiltrators separated.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pave hit the button on the coffee machine, filling a paper cup with hot liquid. He fished out more coins from his pocket and fed them into the coin slot as he poured the contents of the paper cup into his thermos. It took him two dollars to fill it. He grabbed a handful of sugar and cream, then walked along with his half-full thermos. Usually, the machine’s coffee was too hot, so he added tap water to get it just right. In addition, the force of the tap helped churn in the cream and sugar to blend it to that perfect solution of supersweet, creamy sludge he enjoyed sucking down to wake him up.
He checked his watch.
Ever since the mysterious wraith had arrived in Utah, he’d been awake, coordinating with the conspirators still on base and with Mojo. The munitions warehouse was still being emptied, according to his watch and his knowledge of their schedules.
The timetable was nearing its end, and he wanted to be finished before the wind shifted.
Pave ran the tap, feeling his thermos fill. He was used to Dugway, and he would regret breaking out of the habits he’d developed, but Stevens had promised a life of luxury in the South Seas.
He’d expected to have Clarice Mi as his companion on the island, taken away from a world collapsed into barbaric anarchy by a wave of biological terrorism and governmental totalitarian response. Instead, the tiny, busty little Asian was dead, slain by the mysterious wraith who had killed Shock and his mercenaries.
Whoever the man was, Pave owed him. He owed the bastard in black pain and suffering.
When he left the bathroom, he bumped into a slender man in fatigues, nearly dropping his Thermos.
“Excuse me, sir,” the skinny guy apologized.
Pave looked into the face of Stan Reader, recognition clicking in the huge bodyguard’s eyes.
Stan Reader would have never known that Pave had been part of the conspiracy if it hadn’t been for the shock crossing his face. Reader took a step back as Pave let his thermos crash to the tile floor, coffee pouring out in a mess.
“You!” Pave gritted.
Reader thought about pulling one of his guns, but one trunklike arm nearly swept his head from his shoulders, Pave’s forearm clipping him across the ear. The slender scientist buckled almost to his knees, as much from reflex as the force of the impact, and he snapped a hard punch into Pave’s big gut.
The massive bodyguard shrugged off the snap-blow, and kicked between Reader’s legs. Reader lunged aside as Pave’s shin barked on the inside of his thigh, only missing his groin by an inch. The FBI contract agent tumbled over one shoulder, rolling behind Pave. The big, ponytailed thug started to whirl, but Reader snapped both of his legs out, snaring them in Pave’s shins and ankles. It was too late to stop turning, momentum had taken hold, and on the coffee-slicked tile, the heavily built conspirator lost his balance. He crashed headfirst into the wall, his balding forehead splitting as he cracked a crater in the drywall.
“What the hell is going on?” an office worker in BDUs asked, confused by the mayhem.
Reader lurched to his feet and rushed down the hall as Pave shoved off of the wall.
“Richard?” the office worker asked, calling Pave by his assumed name.
The bloodied bodyguard was livid with rage, and his prey was escaping down the hall. With a surge fueled by fury, he elbowed the support staffer under the chin, hurling him back over his desk with a sickening crack. Windpipe collapsed by the vicious reflex, vertebrae fractured on the hard metal desktop, the soldier twisted and began dying in a messy spurting of bloody froth.
Pave ignored his victim, stomping after Reader, slipping as he skidded through his own puddle of coffee, his eyes rimmed with rage.
“KIRBY!” READER’S VOICE CUT OVER their headsets. “Kirby, I’ve been made.”
“Base security?” Bolan asked.
“No. Some huge hulk of a thug. He tried to rip my head off, but I got away…but he’s chasing me through the lab complex,” Reader said, breathless. “They must have recognized me…these have to be the people who’ve been sending assassins after us in Salt Lake.”
“Hold tight,” Graham began. “I’ll—”
“I can handle myself. But watch yourself. The bad guys know we’re here and…Oh, jeez…”
There was the wild rush and rattle of fabric across the microphone on the other end.
“Stretch?” Graham asked.
“That hulk must have found him,” Bolan said. “We have to keep on our mission here.”
Bolan caught the anger in Graham’s eyes at the suggestion that he abandon his friend, but reason quickly took over.
“He’s on the run, he can escape, and alarms haven’t been sounded yet,” Bolan told him. “We’ve still got time.”
“All right,” Graham growled.
Bolan pulled a screwdriver and took apart the vent in the roof of the munitions warehouse. They’d managed to get to the top before Reader’s call, and made certain that there were no sensors attached to the vent system. Because of the danger of contained, vaporized explosives and fuel, the vent tunnels were large enough to pump fresh air in and detonating fumes out into the atmosphere to prevent a deadly blast.
Slipping through the vents was easy, even for the broad and powerful pair of men. They moved quickly, but carefully. They reached a maintenance catwalk after a few minutes of crawling, Graham’s expression turning darker with concern for Reader as he didn’t call back. He drew his Glock 23 and made certain that the suppressor was affixed to its muzzle before sweeping the munitions storage area for trouble.
There was motion below as a forklift transported palettes of artillery shells toward the loading dock.
“According to the commander at Hill, there wasn’t supposed to be testing today,” Graham whispered.
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