“Agreed, sir,” Chandra said, an eager note creeping into her voice. “I was wondering if we should send a few agents over, covertly of course, to offer some assistance.”
“And to try to impress the Secretary General of the United Nations?”
“Two birds have sometimes been killed with a single stone, yes, sir.”
Taking in a deep breath, Dumas let it out slowly. “No, let the Americans handle this as a purely internal matter. But if any similar events occur outside their national boundaries...”
She gave a curt nod. “Absolutely! I’ll have a team prepared and ready to go in a moment’s notice.”
“Good job. Well done. I want detailed reports every day.”
“Yes, sir!”
After the director left, Chandra waited a few minutes before going to the washroom and then exiting via the side elevator.
Walking to her car, a small green Citroën, she drove down to the coast and bought a cell phone at a gas station. Getting back on the highway, Chandra drove into the mountains and parked in a secluded rest stop to tap in a memorized number.
“He gave oversight to me,” she said. “There will be no interference from us.”
“Good to know,” Hal Brognola said. “My friend was afraid there might be some of your people on the job.”
“No. We’re clear.”
“Excellent! I owe you one.”
“No, I still owe you six,” Chandra replied with a sigh. “But at least the ledger is starting to lean back in my favor.”
“Fair enough,” Brognola replied. “But any time you need something from me, just ask.”
“Go away, you crazy American,” she said. “I’m trying to be an honest cop.”
“Me, too. It’s a real bitch sometimes.”
“Preaching to the choir.” Chandra sighed, turning off the phone. Deleting the number for that call, she then dialed a number for the German soccer score, deleted that, also, and tossed the phone out the window.
It gracefully sailed over the cliff, tumbling and turning in the strong winds as if trying to fly, then crashed onto a jagged boulder, shattering into a thousand untraceable pieces.
Boston, Massachusetts
EARLY THE NEXT day, Bolan drove to an isolated section of the airport reserved for private planes. As he parked his vehicle, a 777 thundered upward from the airfield, the hot wash blowing across the macadam like a tortured summer breeze.
Before he turned off the car, a jumbo jet came screaming in for a landing, the array of wheels squealing loudly on touchdown.
Turning off the engine, Bolan glanced across the boisterous airport as he got out, watching the planes land and take off in a carefully orchestrated ballet of steel. He liked airports. Nobody could overhear a private conversation.
“Hypnotic, isn’t it?” said a familiar voice.
Turning, Bolan nodded at the lanky man leaning against the side of the private hangar.
Jack Grimaldi was an old friend, and one of the best pilots alive. These days, Grimaldi worked for Stony Man Farm. However, Hal Brognola was in charge of that, and Grimaldi had been more than willing to assist Bolan in any way possible.
“Glad you could make it,” Bolan said, coming closer.
“We aim to please. You know I’d make myself available to fly you straight into hell, if need be.”
“Bet you could get us out again, too.”
“Of course! Just go to the waterfall on the fifth level and ask the demon Geryon for a ride. Nothing to it, Sarge.”
Just then, an old 707 landed at the far end of the airport, while an Airbus took off nearby with a deafening scream of turbojets. The wash sent a roiling cloud of dust over the men, and they had to turn away to protect their eyes.
“Okay, I know this was short notice,” Bolan said, “but what were you able to get as transport?”
“Come see,” Grimaldi said, pulling out something that resembled an ordinary garage door opener.
He pressed the button on top and the massive doors of the hangar slowly rumbled apart to reveal a Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport.
Side by side, the two men walked into the hanger.
“Couldn’t find anything bigger?” Bolan asked in a mocking tone.
Grimaldi snorted rudely. “Not on this planet.”
The C-130 Hercules was a colossal airplane with enough power to airlift an Abrams tank full of lead safes, but Bolan had decided upon something a little less noticeable for the peaceful streets of Columbus, Ohio.
“Gonna be just like old times,” Grimaldi said, affectionately patting the smooth fuselage of the huge airship.
“Sure as hell hope not,” Bolan muttered. “Be nice to leave a drop zone without lead in my ass for once.”
“Complain, complain.”
Bolan glanced around for any cargo pallets or shipping trunks. Normally the TSA would check every trunk, even those going onto private planes inside private hangars. Brognola had helped out there.
“Did the supplies arrive?”
“Less than an hour ago. You’re scheduling this pretty tight.”
“Have to. TSA gets better all the time.”
“However, we now have enough munitions to storm Iran.”
“I expect some resistance,” Bolan said, pulling open the side hatch. Inside the plane were numerous plastic crates, all neatly sorted and securely lashed to the floor by heavy canvas straps. “However, this is not a blitz. We’re going in to stay and take over. I need the factory intact and operational.”
“Which explains all of the rubber bullets and stun grenades. Still, a gunfight in a meth lab,” Grimaldi drawled, tilting back his cap. “One stray bullet into the wrong vat and we land somewhere in the hills of Kentucky as a fine red rain.”
Bolan grunted in reply. Unfortunately, what the man said was absolutely correct. Meth labs were a devilish combination of high-explosive chemicals, fire, poison gas and idiots. They exploded on a regular basis across the country, or worse, leaked a form of crude phosphine gas that dissolved the lungs of anybody who got a whiff. It was a very bad way to die.
The basic ingredients were easy enough to get: cold medicine, coffee filters, road flares and such. But one wrong move in mixing them, one slip, one dropped beaker, and everybody in the lab died in agony coughing out bloody chunks of their dissolving lungs. Not even regular gas masks would protect them. The cooks needed military gas masks, which were incredibly expensive and carried a stiff sentence just having them in your possession. The only reason anybody made meth was for the enormous profit.
Ignoring the even larger debt of human misery, Bolan added privately.
After Castle was destroyed, he would call the DEA and have the Ohio factory dismantled brick by brick. But first he had to seize control of the powder keg without blowing it up.
A dark green bus stopped in front of the hangar, the air brakes hissing loudly.
Sounding the horn, Leo Turrin waved from behind the steering wheel. “Morning!” he called, turning off the rumbling diesel engine.
As it died, the doors of the vehicle opened and the passengers climbed out. Bolan counted four men and two women. All were dressed in casual clothing and carrying military python bags.
Each also carried what Bolan sometimes called the Mark of the Beast—a defiant attitude mixed with a sort of dogged world-weariness. These people were professional criminals, sure enough. He only hoped they were good.
“Who’s in charge?” asked a handsome Latino, his smile flashing like lightning across the night sky. He had a neatly trimmed black mustache, a long scar on the side of his neck and a huge revolver tucked into his Garrison belt.
“I’m Giancova,” Bolan said, walking closer. “Anthony Giancova.”
“Hector Gonzales,” the man said, jerking up his chin in greeting.
/> “What are you good at, Hector?” Bolan asked.
“Cracking safes,” Gonzales replied, flashing his smile again.
“Hector could teach Houdini some new tricks,” Turrin added, setting small suitcase onto the pavement. “Best fingers in the business.”
“Funny, I thought you couldn’t come?” Bolan said in a disapproving tone.
“My crew, my rules,” Turrin stated, looking back steadily.
Mentally debating the matter, Bolan finally nodded in agreement. If Turrin was determined to come along in spite of suffering a serious injury last time he was in the field, then he could always help Grimaldi guard the plane while the rest of them stormed Belvedere Fertilizer.
“Call me Glenn,” a big man said. “T. J. Glenn. I’m the chef.” He was tall and lanky, resembling a professional athlete, with his long hair tied off in a ponytail.
Turrin jerked a thumb in his direction. “Never seen anybody who cooks books better than T.J.”
“Thought you were a lumberjack.” Gonzales chuckled.
Glenn glowered at the other man. “I thought you were a leprechaun.”
The two men sneered at each other and Bolan guessed they’d soon become close friends or kill each other.
“Rhan Cosentini,” a bald man rumbled without preamble. “I kill people.” He was the only person carrying two python bags, the contents of one jutting out at strange angles.
From the shape, Bolan took an educated guess that the bag held an M134 electric minigun, shoulder frame and battery pack.
A modified Gatling gun, the six rotating barrels of the M134 threw out eight thousand rounds per minute. Anchored in a steel frame, the 7.62 mm version was used to defend fortifications such as the Pentagon, NORAD and the White House. Unfortunately, the monstrous recoil was impossible for any soldier to control in the portable version, despite what Hollywood showed in the movies.
However, the 5.56 mm version was controllable, although even at the slower rate of fire of three thousand rounds per minute, any portable ammunition pack was quickly depleted. But for a few thundering seconds, any enemy facing the M134 thought the gates of hell itself had opened wide just for them.
“I’m Becca Weinberg,” the tall brunette said. “Best not to get me confused with Bekki.”
“Bekki Kolawski,” the short blond woman added in a defiant tone.
“Becca and Bekki?” Bolan asked, a touch of a smile on his lips. “Which of you is the Samurai?”
“Me,” Kolawski said, running stiff fingers through her long golden hair.
Without expression, Weinberg spread her leather duster open wide to show the double shoulder holster underneath carrying a brace of Uzi machine pistols. “I’m the cleaning lady,” she said in a monotone.
“Any good?” Grimaldi asked curiously.
She started to shrug and suddenly Grimaldi was looking down the barrel of her Uzi.
“Wow.” Grimaldi laughed. “Okay, you’re fast.”
“None better,” Weinberg stated, resting the stubby weapon on a shoulder. Then she saw Bolan was aiming a Beretta and a Desert Eagle at her. “Now, how the hell did you... When...” She gave a short chuckle. “Done some wet work yourself, I see.”
“A little,” Bolan said, tucking away the weapons. That was when he noticed that Cosentini was cradling a sawed-off shotgun in his hands, both barrels pointed directly at Weinberg.
“Now, everybody just calm down,” Turrin said, walking boldly between them. “We’re all badasses, meaner than snake piss. There’s no need to try to impress the boss. I’ve already told Mr. Giancova everything about each of you, and you got the jobs.”
“A thousand a day, plus expenses,” Gonzales stated, holstering his .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver. “That’s all I care about.”
“In cash, if you want it that way,” Bolan added.
“Cash works for me,” Glenn rumbled.
Silent, the last man stood leaning against the green bus, his thick arms crossed. There were crude prison tattoos on his neck and wrists, and a long scar on his jaw where somebody had obviously once tried to cut his throat but failed.
Bolan looked at him expectantly.
“John Hogan,” he said in a deep voice. There was just a faint trace of an Australian accent, as if the man had worked very hard to remove it and nearly succeeded.
“Giancova.”
Hogan asked, “We really going to take over Ziggy Nine’s operation?”
“If possible. What’s your specialty?” Bolan asked.
“High explosives. I can blow the feathers off a chicken and not crack the egg inside.”
That would come in handy. Bolan expected a lot of resistance gaining control of the hidden meth lab.
“Funny, in the bus you claimed to be some kind of a martial artist,” Weinberg said with a scowl.
Hogan shrugged. “Used to be a Bushmaster in the Australian Army, so I know Double H.” He frowned. “I also know a good thing when I hear it.” Without another word, he jerked both arms forward and something dark inside his sleeves began loudly spitting flames.
With a strangled cry, Kolawski fell back with a piece of her forehead gone, a spray of brains and blood splattering across the fuselage of the Hercules. Spinning, gushing blood, Turrin hit the ground hard and did not move.
As everybody else clawed for a weapon, Bolan dived to the side and opened fire with the Beretta. But Hogan was already behind the bus, his trick guns firing at the hard pavement.
Dropping to a crouch, Glenn swung up Weinberg’s laptop just in time and the ricocheting slugs flattened on the Lexan housing of the military laptop. Cosentini unleashed both barrels of his sawed off, the double charge rocking the bus so hard that the springs squealed.
Switching to three-round-burst mode, Bolan racked the entire length of the bus with 9 mm rounds from the Beretta. Holes appeared along the chassis and several windows shattered, covering Hogan in broken glass.
Cursing, Hogan disappeared fully behind the bus and a pair of tubular machine pistols hit the pavement to skitter away.
As a descending 757 roared overhead, Hogan reappeared cradling a weird-looking machine gun, the compact weapon chattering steadily.
Blowing a tire on the bus with his Desert Eagle, Bolan saw the chassis hit Hogan, throwing off his aim. The stream of bullets hit only sky until he got the weapon back under control.
Bolan wanted the traitorous bastard alive for questioning, but he recognized the new weapon as a Chang Feng, a dual-feed 5.8 mm machine pistol. The range was poor, but it threw out a wall of lead, and at this range it was more than good enough to cut down everybody.
Taking cover behind their python bags, Glenn and Gonzales returned fire with handguns, while Bolan rolled across the pavement, firing the Beretta nonstop. The barrage of 9 mm rounds stitched a crazy pattern of holes into the bus. Gasoline gushed from a ruptured fuel line, sparks flew and a fire started. Then Hogan cursed as his ankle erupted into bones and blood from the arrival of a 9 mm Parabellum round.
The prolonged chatter of an M16 came from the direction of the Hercules.
Slapping in a fresh magazine, Bolan saw Grimaldi firing the military assault rifle through the tiny sideview window of the cockpit of the colossal airplane. The angle was wrong, but the noise had driven Hogan down for cover, which was all Bolan needed.
Rising from behind the stacks of supplies, Weinberg sprayed the bus with both of her Uzi machine pistols. The double discharge was continuous, the arching spray of spent shells flying high and wide. The bullets tore pieces off the bus, shattering windows and the sideview mirror and exploding two more tires, and then steam loudly hissed from the puncture radiator.
Charging directly at the explosion of green steam, Bolan used it as cover to get close to the bus, and then he broke away and dived past the vehi
cle with both weapons blazing. Caught in the act of reloading, Hogan was startled at the appearance of Bolan; the 9 mm Parabellum rounds drilled into his torso.
Staggering blindly, Hogan tried to fire back and Bolan shot once more, the booming .50 round from the Desert Eagle blowing open the back of his target’s head. Twitching horribly, Hogan slumped to the pavement and went still.
“Son of a bitch!” growled Cosentini, appearing out of the smoke and steam. He aimed the sawed off, then stopped and sauntered away slowly. “He’s dead!”
“Good,” Glenn said, glancing around. “Anybody hurt?”
“The blonde, Becca, is dead,” Gonzales said, making the sign of the cross.
“She’s Bekki,” Weinberg said, slapping a fresh magazine into one of her smoking weapons. “Think Ziggy sent him as a warning?”
“Ziggy is out of the picture. Hogan was alone, just trying to cut us out of the deal for himself,” Bolan said, checking the pockets of the dead man. He had no wallet, no keys, not even a cell phone. Just a Swiss army knife, cash and spare magazines.
“If the word is on the street that the lab is in play,” Cosentini growled, “we’re going to have to move fast to secure it before others do.”
“We’re also going to need a new hacker,” Bolan said, slowly standing.
“I can do it,” Glenn stated as a shadow passed over the group from a descending airplane.
Bolan scowled. “You sure?”
“Unless we need to hack into the NSA mainframe, I can do the job,” Glenn stated confidently. “Never knew a meth addict who had more brains than a high school freshman.”
“Hey, Leo got hit!” Grimaldi called from the other side of the burning bus.
Quickly rushing over, Bolan saw that Turrin’s pants were soaked with blood and his silk shirt had been torn to shreds, but underneath was molded body armor with several flat gray lumps across the front.
“You had me worried there for a minute,” Bolan muttered, feeling the tension flowing from his shoulders.
“Déjà vu all over again,” Turrin quipped.
“Watch him, I’ll get a med kit,” Grimaldi said, breaking into a sprint toward the Hercules.
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