Bolan nodded. “We are completely committed.”
Daei nodded in return. “I have absolute faith in it. You may dress.”
Bolan and Kengo donned black technical turtlenecks and dark cargo pants. They were raid suits until they donned their sports jackets. Shushan was wearing a little white cotton sundress for Armageddon. Her .22-caliber pistol slid into a thigh holster. Gholam Daei strode through the back door of the conference room. “Come with me.”
The Executioner got a bad feeling as he followed the big man down the emergency stairs. They left the top deck and descended floor by floor. There were no boats currently docked to the Floatel. Bolan had severe doubts about an amphibious tank or armored personnel carrier paddling up to the side of the floating luxury hotel by the dawn’s early light. His worst fears were confirmed as the giant opened a door that opened out onto the Hooghly. A green awning covered the emergency exit area.
Beneath the awning was the sail and open hatch of a submarine.
Bolan had seen the model before. It was a Russian minisub. Their construction had been a cottage industry during the cold war. They were tiny, cramped and slightly on the suicidal side. Their most promising feature was the fact that they had tank tracks that let them crawl along the bottom along enemy coastlines. Their main purposes were probing enemy coastal defenses and the deployment and extraction of espionage agents or special forces teams.
The Farm’s satellite surveillance would be useless. Unless Keller or Babar had spontaneously thought to equip their makeshift attack boat with depth charges, they would have no countermeasure against it, much less ever detect it. How the enemy had gotten hold of a Russian minisub was a moot point. Except for weapons straight out of their nuclear stockpiles, the Russians were willing to sell just about anything to anybody who had the cold hard currency to pay for it.
The giant leaped lightly into the sail and squeezed his frame down the hatch. Bolan, Kengo, Shushan, Karrar, V. and a pair of Ismaili Assassins followed. The minisub’s main cabin was a spare barrel of steel with folding benches on both sides. “Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. Our journey is not long, but it is close and tedious. Once we seal the hatch it will be unpleasant.” Bolan and Kengo sat together. Shushan sat across from them. The giant dropped to one knee on the steel deck and unfolded a map. “Listen carefully.”
Shushan pulled an air pistol from her purse and shot Kengo in the chest.
Half a dozen pistols stared Bolan in the face. Kengo’s hand shook as it reached up and pulled out the dart. Sweat literally burst from his brow. White foam oozed from the corners of the ninja’s mouth as his eyes rolled back in his head. Kengo fell onto the deck in violent convulsions.
V. literally waggled his eyebrows at Bolan. “We are to understand you are aware of the Sweetness of Kali.”
Bolan was well aware of it. He had once had the drug coursing through his veins. In the proper amount the Sweetness of Kali was a trip to Nirvana that heroin couldn’t hold a candle to. Kengo had been given a hotshot, just like Bolan had once, and that was a trip straight to hell.
“Indeed, if our information is correct, you have tasted her sweetness.”
Shushan gave Bolan a happy smile. “I told you you should have slept with me.”
Bolan ignored her and glanced down the barrel of Karrar’s Glock. “Shut up and do it.”
The giant laughed. “Do it, O Mighty One?” He measured Kengo. “He is not Whispering Pine. He is—how do you say it?—the real deal. When he wakes from his ordeal, if he wakes, he will tell us many fascinating things.”
“Ninjas don’t break.”
“Not under torture.” Daei nodded. “But after one, two, three tastes of Kali’s sweetness? I am told that much like an LSD trip, it is best to have a guide. Kengo-san will be led out of his third or fourth nightmare, and that journey will unlock his mind.”
V. gave Bolan a happy smile. “Is it true, brother? You have tasted her sweetness? What shall happen to you when you taste it again?”
Only the chemicals Kengo had put in Bolan’s face kept his expression neutral. The last time he had fought the Thuggees had taken him to his limits.
Daei nodded as he saw through Bolan’s mask. “I am very interested to learn of your relationship to the United States government.” He nodded to an Ismaili. “I wish to keep their swords as souvenirs. Other than that, I wish no unsecured weapons.”
The Ismaili took the ninja blades and stored them in a locker beneath the bench. He took Bolan’s and Kengo’s H&K PDWs and heaved them out of the hatch into the Hooghly. Daei produced a pair of handcuffs and shackles, and slid them across the deck to Bolan. “Restrain yourself.”
There was no recourse except to stay alive and conscious as long as possible and hope opportunity presented itself. Bolan manacled himself. “How did you find out?”
“Seal the hatch. Rig for silent running.” An Ismaili closed the hatch and spun the wheel. The cabin throbbed as the screws began to turn.
“Your face,” Daei said. “Tell me about it. I can see the Mighty One in the FATA, but this is quite spectacular.”
Bolan saw no reason to lie. “Call it secret ninja magic.”
“That is one reason why Kengo-san still lives. We will learn this.”
“How’d you learn about me?” Bolan repeated.
“Can you not guess?”
Bolan could. “Farkas.” V. smiled. “Yes, you took him and his family from beneath the knives of the Assassins.” The giant Ismaili scowled. V. gave him a bow. “So I arranged, with the help of the Whispering Pine, that Agent Farkas taste the Sweetness of Kali. He tasted deeply, and, I will tell you, he is a most sweet, devoted slave of the goddess. When ordered, he will vector Keller’s team into an ambush where they shall be slaughtered.”
Bolan ran his eyes around the cabin. “I never figured Assassins and Thuggees as suicide troopers. Figured you’d get others to do that for you. We’re just going to roll up out of the weeds and fuse yourselves and everything else for ten miles into glass?”
V. and Karrar looked to the immense Ismaili. Gholam Daei scratched his beard bemusedly. “We have a few moments to spare, so I will tell you. We are prepared to die, but we are not suicidal. Our goal is not martyrdom. Our goal is victory, and I fear your friend Babar did not tell you everything about his nation’s nuclear secrets.”
Bolan had thought the sinking feeling in his guts couldn’t sink any lower.
“Pakistan and India have fought before. Arguably, it can be said that Pakistan has won most of these engagements, but facts are facts. These engagements were limited in scope and took place in remote corners like Kashmir and what was to become Bangladesh. The fact is, the Indian army, navy and air force are all twice as large or larger than Pakistan’s. India is a far larger and richer country. They have been rapidly expanding their armed forces and the sophistication of the weapons they wield. Come the day of a real war between these countries, all that separates most of India from Pakistan is the Great Indian Desert. Most of it is flat. How to stop the endless hordes of Indian infantry and armor divisions?”
Bolan knew the answer. “Enhanced radiation weapons.”
“Neutron bombs, yes.”
“The Pakistanis don’t have any.”
“Not yet, but the Chinese do. I know this because I happen to have one of their warheads in my possession.”
“A Chinese weapon delivered by the Pakistanis that kills the U.S. and Indian presidents.” It wasn’t quite Armageddon, but Bolan knew it was a damn good start. “Kolkata gets irradiated rather than blasted into a smoking crater, and you sail away with two hundred feet of water between you and the radiation wave.”
V. nodded happily. “Kolkata is Kali’s city. When she wishes it destroyed, it is she who shall turn the City of Joy into the joyous burning ground.”
Bolan shot a look at Kengo. He was really hoping the man might pull some ninja power out of nowhere and equalize the situation. Kengo continued to lie on the deck eye-rolling
and frothing.
The sub’s pilot called back from his station. “Estimated time to target one hour.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Computer Room, the Farm Annex
“They’ve been in that floating funhouse for over an hour,” Hal Brognola growled. “Something’s wrong.” Aaron Kurtzman sat at his workstation. The big Fed’s unsmiling face on one screen took up about one-sixteenth of his attention. The multiple, high-intensity imaging satellite feeds had the rest. Brognola was right. Bolan, Kengo and Shushan had walked into the Floatel more than an hour ago. No one had come out. The only people who had left the “floating funhouse” appeared to be guests, and all had exited the premises across the footbridge. No boats had come or gone. Certainly no amphibious armored vehicles.
Something was wrong.
Kurtzman adjusted the grain on the thermal satellite image. The heat of the Floatel’s generator and her kitchens were globs of glow on his screen. He continued to dial down, easily making out patrons on the restaurant deck taking their breakfasts as steam and migratory birds rose from the water as the sun rose. The satellite could even penetrate to the deck below, but from there the images began to become confusing as different thicknesses of superstructure and smaller heat sources changed the images into smears and ghosts.
Kurtzman touched a key. “Agent Keller, what have you got on the ground?”
Keller came back from their makeshift patrol-attack boat. “I’ve got nothing. No movement.”
He hit another key. “Farkas, is there anything you can think of on your end?” The computer expert frowned and tapped the key a little harder. “Farkas?”
“Yes! I mean no! I mean, I’m here.”
Brognola snarled across the link. “Get your shit together, Agent. I think we have a problem.”
“No, I mean yes, sir! Understood!”
Kurtzman’s finger hovered over a key. The NCIS agents weren’t allowed to see Farm personnel other than Bolan. Hal Brognola openly worked for the DOJ, but his role with Mack Bolan and the Farm was a closely guarded secret. Kurtzman’s and Brognola’s video feeds were blocked to all on a need-to-know basis. Any time you opened a feed on someone, you left open the possibility the enemy could detect it and peek back. The computer wizard decided to take a slight risk. He had spoken with Farkas on several occasions. There was something in the NCIS agent’s tone that Kurtzman didn’t care for, and it was something more than nerves on the morning of Armageddon. He punched his key decisively. There was a chance that Farkas’s computer would inform him that his video camera had just turned on. Agent Farkas’s face appeared in a window on his screen.
The NCIS agent was shaking and sweating like a malaria victim.
“Agent Farkas, are you all right?”
Farkas jumped. “What? I mean— What do you mean?”
Kurtzman hit another key, and back in Washington Brognola began to receive the same video stream. It took the big Fed about a heartbeat to put two and two together.
“Son, you look like hell. Tell me what’s going on.”
Farkas’s head whipped around the CIA secure communications room as if he were looking for the invisible men spying on him. His eyes suddenly focused directly on the camera lens of his computer monitor. “Oh God… Oh God… Oh God…”
“Son, what’s going on? You need to tell me. If it’s your family, I know exactly where they are, and I can get you a live video link to them in thirty seconds.”
“Oh…God…”
Brognola didn’t like what he was seeing. “Agent Farkas, think about your duty. Think about your oath. All I’m asking you to do is talk to me.”
Farkas suddenly went disturbingly calm. “Sir, I’m so sorry.”
“Agent, listen to me. I’m here to help. All I—”
Farkas stuck the muzzle of his .40-caliber SIG-Sauer service pistol beneath his chin. Brognola and Kurtzman shouted at the same time. “Farkas!”
NCIS Agent Farkas blew out his brains live on video. He slumped forward in his chair and disappeared from the monitor camera view.
The big Fed spoke first. “This isn’t good.”
“No.”
“Suggestions?”
“Where is the President now?”
Brognola checked the President’s itinerary. “Finishing breakfast with the Indian president. Then they’re going to drive together to the concourse to deliver a speech and field questions from the international press.”
“My best guess? Whether Mack is dead or not, the bad guys are still game on.”
“How?” Kurtzman replied by focusing the lens of a camera over a mile up in the air on the rear of the Floatel. He highlighted an awning that stretched out over the water. Brognola got it. “They’re not amphibious.”
“They’re subaqueous,” Kurtzman concluded.
“Damn it…”
The computer expert did some very rough math. “Figure your average minisub can manage about five knots. One knot equals 1.16 miles per hour. We’ll call their maximum speed 5.8 knots. Of course they’re trying to be quiet. Let’s say they’re sailing half speed, so two and half. We assume they’re heading north for the concourse. If they have tracks, they’ll drop down and crawl the last bit. Whatever bomb they’re using, they don’t want water beneath them. The blast would shove downward and a significant amount of effect could be smothered by the Hooghly. They’ll want to creep out of the reeds and deploy the bomb on land. If they have a sub, this is no longer a suicide mission. They may be figuring to escape. What time is the speech on the concourse set for?”
“Half an hour.”
Kurtzman opened his link with the strike team. “Agent Keller?”
“Yes, Bear?”
“Farkas has betrayed the mission. He’s committed suicide. I need your team to get three miles north up the Hooghly and start slowly working your way backward. You’re looking for a minisub.”
Keller took the news with remarkable professionalism. “The first speech on the concourse? Thirty minutes?”
“We believe so. I’m walking our satellite imaging three miles north now and initiating a grid-by-grid walk back. If we see anything first, we will vector you in.”
“Infiltration team status?”
“Unknown,” Kurtzman replied.
Keller paused only for the briefest second. “Copy that. Strike team inbound.”
THE LITTLE SUB ROCKED as it rested on the bottom of the Hooghly. Gears ground and the cabin lurched as the caterpillar tracks engaged and dug into the mud. The sub tilted as it began going up the incline of the riverbank. Daei smiled. “It was a risk to bring you and Kengo-san to the Floatel. It was a risk to bring the weapon to the Floatel. It was a risk to bring the sub there, as well, but you, my friend, ruined the catacombs for us. What is Kengo’s real name, by the way?”
Bolan focused his attention stoically on Shushan’s cleavage. Shushan beamed sunnily.
“What is yours?” Daei asked.
The air in the sub was hot and close. Bolan watched a rivulet of sweat battle between gravity and surface tension as it crawled down a curve of Shushan’s flesh. This was probably about as good as the rest of his life was going to get.
Daei’s lashed out with the back of his hand. Bolan’s head rubbernecked and purple pinpricks danced across his vision. He was grateful for the numbing effect of Kengo’s ninja facelift. “How you shall suffer beneath my hands,” Daei rumbled.
“Periscope depth!” The pilot called. There was a pause as his copilot gave the scope a 360-degree turn. “We are clear in all directions!”
“Take us up.”
The sub lumbered up the ever-increasing incline. The movement of the vessel slowed and became muddy as it lost buoyancy and climbed onto the land. “We are ashore!”
Daei cracked his knuckles and stretched. “Prepare to deploy the bomb. Karim, Azimi stay here and watch the prisoners. Na’ama, you will stay and assist them.” Dazzling light flooded into the hold as Daei flung open the hatch. He took up a rifle and
clambered up into the fresh air. V. followed him awkwardly with one hand. Karrar and two Assassins brought up the rear. The pilot and copilot relaxed and lit cigarettes. Karim and Azimi looked back and forth between Bolan and Shushan and the overdosing ninja on the deck. The Executioner kept his eyes between Shushan’s breasts. Shushan kept the muzzle of her weapon aimed between his legs. Bolan smiled. Shushan’s single violet eye narrowed. “What?”
“Is it too late?”
Shushan cocked her head.
“Ever had sex in a minisub?”
Shushan smirked. “No.”
“I have.”
Karim scowled. Azimi looked interested.
Shushan glanced at the bulkhead inches over her head. “A bit cramped, a bit close.”
Bolan shrugged. “I do yoga.”
Karim lashed out. It wasn’t quite the atomic bitch slap that Daei packed, but Bolan spit blood. The Executioner kept his eyes on Shushan. “Last chance for romance.”
Karim cocked his hand. “This conversation is—”
Shushan gave Karim two .22 rounds in the temple. Before Azimi could blink, she gave him the same. The brothers slumped nearly simultaneously. The pilot and copilot leaned around to see what was happening. The pilot took two in the left eye and the copilot two in the right. Shushan dropped her smoking empty pistol to the deck. “When I learned Farkas had betrayed us, I was at something of a crossroad.”
“I can imagine. How did you get them to trust you?” Bolan asked.
“I told them everything I knew. I told them I could have escaped, which was true, but that I wanted to sleep with you before I killed you, which was true, as well, and that I was much more useful to them as an insider.”
“Bit of a risk.”
“Everything I told them, and you, was true. After you made me lose my eye, I was really of two minds about who to side with.”
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