“I am.” Kal took two steps back, roared and threw the most powerful back-kick Bolan had ever seen. Kal’s foot shot through the blackened hole the double charge he had personally detonated had created. He retracted his foot and kicked three more times. Chunks of masonry fell away and light from the generator room spilled into the chamber. No bullets came streaming out at them. Salcido and Barnes began heaving at the edges and widening the hole. Kal stepped back and took a deep breath.
“That was amazing,” Bolan declared.
“I think I may have broken several bones in my foot.”
“Walk it off,” Bolan suggested. “Unless you want to crawl back.”
“Oh, hell no.”
Salcido and Barnes moved aside as Bolan stepped forward. The soldier slammed his ballistic shield into the hole three times to widen it, and crawled through. Most of the basement was taken up by the dull green, car-size bulk of a very old diesel generator and attendant fuel bunker. The generator thrummed away. The Aryans hadn’t been expecting a subterranean attack and apparently had heard nothing through the thick floor above and the sounds of sirens and shouting. Marilyn took her role of covering Bolan’s six seriously and appeared at his left elbow.
“So we cut the lights?” she asked.
“Can you see in the dark?”
“You’d be amazed at what I can do when the lights go out.”
“Every squad,” Bolan said, “has a comedian.”
“Comedienne,” Marilyn corrected.
“Yes, ma’am, and no, we’re not turning off the lights.”
Bolan’s team filled the basement. The soldier gave everyone his or her assignment. “We take the guardroom, slam every cell shut from the control panel and put A Block in real lockdown. With luck we’ll trap a few hostiles in their cells. If we’re really lucky, they have the nuke stashed in one of them with guards outside, and we isolate it. I’ll take point with the shield. Barnes, I want you behind me with the scattergun. Renzo, you’re right behind him, but forget us. I want you and your rifle watching the tiers. Grease anyone who’s armed. Rudy, I can’t run a tablet and fight at the same time, and you’re our only link to our outside resources. You’re hanging back. Patrick, I’d ask you to guard your dad, but I can’t spare you. You and Tavo are the second wave when we get in. I need to locate the bomb and take it. I need you two watching my flanks and capping anyone who gets froggy.”
The young Mafioso was out of smart remarks. To his credit he gave Bolan a serious look. “I have your back.”
“We both have your back,” Salcido agreed.
“What about me?” Marilyn asked.
“Patrick and Tavo have my flanks, and you are on my six and the guardian angel watching my ass.”
Marilyn did a Monroe-worthy simper. “I can do that!”
“Kal, they’ll have men guarding the control panel and the front gates. Grab a gun as quick as you can.”
The soldier nodded at his team and moved to the basement steps. “So let’s do this.” Bolan had good reason to bet the Aryans were outwardly focused. He moved up the stairs to the guardroom. “Rudy, is the basement door locked?”
Rudy checked the Bear’s program that was checking everything in Duivelstad. “Nope!”
“On go.” Bolan put his Glock in his waistband and his hand on the door. “Go!”
Bolan flung open the door and drew his pistol.
A bare-chested, heavily inked skinhead stood by the block control console wearing a pair of guards’ Sam Browne belts crossed over his shoulders like Pancho Villa. He also had a .38 duty revolver in each hand. That told Bolan the convicts had more than just the guardroom officer’s Glock. Someone had let them dip into the armory.
“Freeze,” Bolan ordered.
Pancho Skinhead didn’t freeze. He went gunfighter with the weapon in each hand. The con never got his pistols up. Bolan put a hole through the swastika inked on the skinhead’s forehead. The Aryans guarding the main gate shouted in alarm. More shouts came from within A Block. “Barnes! Lockdown! All cells and the main gate room!”
“On it!”
Barnes ran to the control panel and punched a button. Kal picked up the two fallen revolvers and reloaded them. The door that led from the main gate to the guardroom rolled shut, trapping the Aryans guarding the gate. Bolan was hoping they were the ones with the heaviest weapons. Barnes threw the main block switch. The warning buzzer sounded and every light on the cell control began blinking. Shouts of consternation came from A Block as every cell door rolled shut. Every light on the panel went from green to red as the doors locked. “On me!” Bolan ordered.
The team assaulted A Block.
Some cons shouted in rage from the cells, but far too many were on the ground floor and outside. Bolan estimated he had a good seventy-five opponents before him, and way too many of them had guns. A bullet spalled against Bolan’s shield and then another. Two Aryans were firing revolvers as fast as they could pull the triggers, and cons fell into a screaming shooting wedge behind them. The soldier aimed around his shield and took the leading men with a pair of double-taps. Barnes’s shotgun blasted, and another Aryan screamed and fell.
The revolvers and shotguns the cons had were antiquated. A tactical center in Bolan’s mind deduced that Warden Linder had never thrown anything away when his prison armory was upgraded, and had kept a secret stash of weapons. As antiquated as the firearms were, buckshot and .38 Specials had probably killed more people in the U.S. than any other calibers.
Bullets thundered against Bolan’s shield. He put three more men down. Convicts twisted and fell. Marilyn, Salcido, Kal and Patrick began unloading. The battle for A Block had turned into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Both sides just stood and shot at each from spitting distance. A rifle bullet punched straight through Bolan’s shield and cracked an inch from his ear. “Renzo! Sniper!”
Bolan heard the crack of the carbine behind him and a man with a scope-sighted rifle fell from the third tier. The Aryans surged forward to overwhelm their opponents. The soldier’s weapon clacked open on empty, and he knew he wouldn’t get the chance to reload. The battle was about to go hand-to-hand.
Renzo stepped forward and flicked her carbine’s selector lever. She had no illusions about what would happen to her if her team lost. “Let’s rock!”
Renzo emptied her magazine into the mob.
The thunder of the carbine firing on full-auto thundered against the block walls. Men screamed and fell. Others tried to turn back, or threw themselves down. The Aryan formation began to break apart as men scattered. A space opened in the crowd. Rollin stood there wearing nothing more than a bandage, like a diaper. Sawyer Love stood beside him, armed with a revolver. Both men aimed at Renzo as she reloaded.
Bolan raised his shield and charged.
The soldier’s shield vibrated and shuddered when Rollin unleashed a 50-round drum into it. Love threw his smoking revolver at Bolan and stepped forward. He grabbed the shield and ripped it out of his grasp. Bolan let him. The soldier slammed the butt of his empty Glock into Love’s chest right above the heart. The man dropped dead for the second time by Bolan’s hand.
Rollin slapped a fresh drum into his Tommy gun.
Bolan took a page out of Love’s book and flung his empty Glock into Rollin’s face. The Aryan’s head snapped back as he took over a pound of metal and plastic in the teeth. Bolan dropped to one knee and spear-handed Rollin in the bladder.
Rollin fell, vomiting as if shot through the bowels. Bolan rose and ripped the Thompson from his hands. The Aryans rolled over the soldier like a wave. He saw stars as a fist hit him in the back of the head. Hands clutched and tore, and fists struck him from every direction, while others tried to pull him down. Bolan hunched and just managed to rack the action on the Thompson as two different pairs of hands grabbed the barrel to rip the gun from him.
Bolan squeezed the trigger.
Two bursts were enough to clear the space in front of him. Bolan surged against the hands grasping at him and twisted to his left. Men screamed and fell as the soldier held the trigger and his attackers fell away. Bolan spun to his right and fired two more bursts to give himself elbow room. The soldier heard Renzo’s rifle spraying again, and more of the Aryan mob seemed to be running in all directions. It was a terrible risk, but Bolan lunged forward and vaulted up onto one of the tables.
He threw a glance backward and saw that Kal, Salcido, Marilyn and Barnes were down. Patrick and Rudy stood by Renzo as she reloaded, but none of the Aryans were shooting anymore. Most had flung themselves to the floor. One of the nice things about automatic weapon fire was that it had that effect on people. Others had run for their cells in blind panic, only to find the doors barred to them.
Bolan fired a short burst into the air. “Everyone on the ground! Hands behind your head!” The soldier used the refrain from the yard that every inmate had been trained to respond to. “We resume shooting in five, four, three, two—” Bolan scanned the block. Everyone on floor level had dropped or been dropped. “Rudy! Open the left-hand cells on floor level!”
Rudy went into the control room and the cell doors rolled open.
“Everyone who can walk get in the cells! Now! Keep your hands where we can see them!” The ambulatory Aryans rose and shuffled toward the cells. The dead lay scattered everywhere and the wounded moaned among them. “Lockdown!”
The cell doors rolled shut once more.
“Rudy, open Unit 1, floor level, then see to Barnes! Patrick, police up the weapons and put them inside! Renzo, cover him! Shoot anyone playing possum! What’s our status?”
“Barnes has one through the shoulder and one through the leg. Kal’s a mess. Tavo and Marilyn are gone.”
Bolan stared down at Rollin, who lay clutching himself in a pink-tinged puddle. “Where’s the bomb?”
“Fuck you!” Rollin groaned.
“Tell me or I’ll shoot you in the stomach and ask someone else.”
Rollin groaned in real distress. “The Force’s house! Last door on the right! Floor level!”
Bolan stepped down off the table. He took up the bag of ammo drums and reloaded the Thompson. “I need the last cell on the right! Floor level! On my signal!” The soldier stepped through the sea of bodies and strode to the end of A Block. He stopped in front of Scott’s cell with his Thompson leveled. No one was home except for a nuclear weapon.
Most nuclear demolition charges Bolan had encountered looked like small suitcases. This one was shaped like a medium-size cannon shell, which told Bolan it had been designed to be dropped from a plane, carried in a backpack or, indeed, shot from a cannon. “Rudy! Open her up, and I need you!”
The door to Scott’s cell rattled open and Rudy came at a run with Renzo’s tablet in hand.
“Put the camera on that for the Bear.”
Rudy tapped an icon and turned on the speakerphone and the video function.
“Bear, A Block is secure, but we have a lot of dead and wounded.”
“Do you have the weapon?”
Bolan nodded at Rudy, who aimed the tablet at the bomb.
“Do you see what I’m seeing?” Bolan asked.
“Oh, I see it,” Kurtzman replied. “That has got to be one of the rumored Vietnam nukes.”
“How do we stop it?”
“That is serious 1970s retro technology. Get me a closer look at the nose.”
Rudy squatted on his heels and ran the camera over the area. Bolan examined it, as well. The nose was a separate unit from the body, like the fuse of a cannon shell, only slightly longer and more complicated. It looked as if it could be twisted in several places and multiple gradients and numbers lined the seams.
“All right, from what I can tell, you set it like you would a cannon’s fuse. All the gradients and numbers seem to be aligned sequentially. Nothing is out of sequence, so I’m willing to suggest the weapon isn’t set for an impact detonation and that it’s not on a timer.
“So it’s waiting for someone to phone it in.”
“Exactly. And since we’re talking the 1970s it will be a radio transmission.”
“You got a bird that can jam across all frequencies?”
“I have one that can jam most frequencies, but I had it tasked with scanning across most frequencies in case you tried to send out a radio signal.”
“Jam as far across the spectrum as you can, keeping a 1970s detonation signal in mind.”
“You’ve just had a prison fight, a wall blown down and hundreds of escaped convicts. That is going to play hell with police, fire, rescue and the National Guard.”
“A ten-kiloton surface detonation will be worse.”
“Well, there is that.”
“Can your bird scan and jam at the same time?”
“It can.”
“Look for the detonation signal.”
“That is going to be very short. It will literally be your needle in the haystack.”
“But I’m betting Scott will push the button several times when he doesn’t hear the big boom.”
“Nice. I will see if we can pick it up and get you a triangulation.”
“Thanks, Bear.”
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s no evidence Linder or Scott left by the main gate. I think the old sewers must link with the sulfur mines. I’m going back down.”
“I lost you on the tablet when you were in the tunnel.”
“I know. Download the ground-penetrating radar imaging to me. We’ll go from there. Linder is a strong man, but he’s not at fighting weight, and Link is an old man. They’ll be loaded down with the nuke, weapons and the money I suspect they’re lugging out. They won’t be moving fast. That’s why the bomb hasn’t gone off yet. They’re nervous about lighting it up while they’re still underground.”
“That’s as solid an assessment as I we think we’re going to get. The Pentagon is scrambling together a team to defuse the weapon.”
“I’ll keep A block in lockdown until they arrive. I’ll make contact again when possible. Striker out.”
Bolan ran back to his team. Salcido’s face had been ruined by a shotgun blast. Marilyn’s was still beautiful, but the pattern of buckshot on the left side of her chest had broken her heart forever. Barnes was gasping and pale, but Patrick had bound up his shoulder and leg fairly professionally.
Kal lay on his back, clutching a wadded shirt over the bloody bullet hole is in his stomach. “Did you disarm it?” he gasped.
“We put it on quiet time. I give it a good eighty percent chance it won’t go off before guys arrive who can take it apart.”
“That’s the best odds anyone ever had in D-Town.”
“Oh, it gets even better.”
“How’s that?” Kal asked.
“You’re gut shot. You can linger for days.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I gotta go.”
“Hey, that presidential pardon. You really mean that?”
“You mean to go back to California?” Bolan asked.
“Leaving L.A. was the biggest mistake I ever made.”
“Then if I’m alive by next year, I’ll look you up. We’ll surf Redondo,” Bolan told him.
“The first beer will be on me.”
“Deal.” Bolan turned to Renzo. “You’re in command of A Block. Keep it in lockdown until the Feds show up, and don’t let anyone in Scott’s cell until the Pentagon boys arrive.”
“I don’t surf, but if you’re alive around this time next year I want dinner.”
Bolan smiled. He owed Renzo. “One condition.”
“What’s that?”
; “Lend me your rifle,” Bolan said.
Renzo sighed and handed over the weapon and her four remaining magazines. “His name is Buddy, and I want him back.”
Bolan tossed the Thompson to Patrick. “Merry Christmas. Try to keep your bursts short.”
“Sweet!”
“Rudy, grab a shotgun and two flashlights. We’re going back down.”
Chapter 19
BOLAN STRUGGLED BENEATH the earth, which sought to reclaim its own. Moving back along the path from A Block, he found the branch that led to the old sewers turned from a fork in the road to a buttonhook from hell under the earth. Trying to crawl it backward would be impossible for exhausted men. There was no choice but to try to turn around at the junction, which was a question of inches and angles; and the underworld was not forgiving human frailty. The beatings Bolan had suffered had sapped his strength, and the bruising had taken a terrible toll on his flexibility. He was stuck fast, and the pride of B Block was coming dangerously close to becoming his grave. He set down the tactical light and sank his fingers into the earth. “Patrick!” Bolan said through clenched teeth.
“Yo!”
“Push my feet!”
“Umm...okay!”
He felt Patrick’s hands close on his feet, and the young man pushed. The soldier tried to go with the pressure and draw his knees up. The act of folding up like a cricket to get his legs around the corner did nothing good for his internal injuries. Bolan grimaced with effort. Soil sifted down. “Harder!”
Patrick coiled himself and shoved. Bolan groaned as his knees came closer to his chest. “Harder!” Patrick shoved as hard as he could with what little leverage he had. A shout tore from Bolan’s throat as he convulsed his body to break the logjam. Then his feet scraped the tunnel wall and his legs suddenly uncoiled behind him. He flopped, half in and half out of the fork in the tunnel. The soldier lay in the earth on his side, gasping like a fish.
“You all right?” Patrick asked.
Rudy’s voice came from behind. “Is he all right?”
Bolan ran a mental check of himself. The Mack Bolan machine was running at a low forty percentage of fighting fitness. His insides hurt, but he didn’t think he’d ruptured anything.
Prison Code Page 18