Toxic Terrain

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan had run out of options for moving to a new location, and he still had at least nine men below trying to kill him. He needed help, and the grenades in his drop pouch would provide it. He pulled one of the primitive Soviet-style grenades from his drop pouch, untwisted the cap and yanked it, priming the fuse. The Soviet grenades had four-second fuses; since Bolan didn’t know how long the fuse lasted on these Chinese replicas, he decided to err on the side of caution and counted off only two seconds before tossing the grenade toward the men below him.

  Not waiting the full three seconds turned out to be a good move; a second after he’d tossed it, the grenade detonated, just as it landed among the enemy. Fortunately, the grenade seemed to have the same sixteen-yard kill radius as the Soviet original. After the grenade detonated, Bolan stood up and fired on the survivors below, putting rounds into anything that moved until all was still.

  Bolan was certain there would be more men coming down the path; he had no idea how many, but he knew that he couldn’t count on his luck holding out forever against seemingly insurmountable odds. He stood about a quarter of the way up a steep, rocky ridge on what would have been a foothill of the Killdeer Mountains. The ridge stood about two hundred feet high and separated him from the main Ag Con facility.

  The path the guards had taken wound around the base of the ridge, and that would be the route that the next wave of gunners would take. Bolan decided that his best bet was to take the route less traveled: scale the ridge and attack from high ground. The soldier crawled up the near-vertical ridge, using exposed rocks for handholds and wedging his feet into the cracks eroded into the cliff face over thousands of years. The near constant beating to which he’d subjected his body over the past several days may have slowed him, but not enough so that anyone observing him would notice. Years of relentless training and exercise had turned the soldier into a high-functioning machine.

  Although it wasn’t obvious from below, the top of the ridge was more of a butte. The area atop the ridge was relatively flat, Bolan saw, forming a small meadow about thirty yards across at its widest point. The highest point was an outcropping at the southeastern edge of the meadow. The soldier scaled the rocks and nestled into a position that gave him an excellent view of the Ag Con facility. The central building seemed to be a large, old-style hip-roof barn. It was a massive building, and seemed to have two floors below the haymow, judging by the second row of windows placed high in the sidewalls. An anthill of activity emanated from the barn, but there seemed to be plenty going on around the other buildings, too. Vehicles moved in and out of a couple of large steel-pole-framed sheds, and a steady stream of people came and went from the farmhouse on the eastern edge of the building site.

  A large group of guards was moving out of the building site toward the area in which Bolan had engaged the last group. He counted at least fifteen men, but it appeared that at least some had moved beyond Bolan’s field of vision before he’d spotted them, meaning there were at least fifteen mercenaries intent on killing him located somewhere between him and Harry Kadrmas’s favorite horse—and most likely more.

  Bolan scanned the area through his rifle scope until he found what he was looking for—a Caucasian who appeared to be about average height. Using the man in his scope as a reference, the soldier estimated that he was just a bit over five hundred yards from the center of the compound. That was a long shot for the 5.56 mm NATO round through the short-barreled QBZ, but the two-hundred-foot drop would compensate for that distance somewhat. There appeared to be at least fifty or sixty men moving around in the compound. If the Executioner could reduce the number, it would make his entrance at least somewhat less dramatic. Since he’d already lost the element of surprise, he figured he might as well do a little sniping to try to rig the odds a bit more in his favor. If his aim was true, he’d be able to take out quite a few men before anyone below could get an accurate fix on his position, and he was well-situated to protect himself from any attacks from behind.

  He estimated the bullet drop from his elevated position, calculated the wind speed and adjusted his point of aim accordingly. It would have helped for him to know the weight of the bullet and the strength of the powder charge, but Bolan had long ago learned to improvise with whatever was available. He hoped his best guess was accurate and squeezed the trigger.

  LIANG HEARD the first shot just as he swung his leg down to dismount his horse. He moved as quickly as possible through the dense underbrush, but the sage and vinelike branches of the young juniper trees grabbed at his legs and slowed him. He hadn’t gone far when he discovered the first pair of casualties.

  Liang examined the bodies of his men. Neither appeared to have been shot. One’s head had been smashed so thoroughly that Liang could not identify his features. The other one appeared to have been stabbed through the top of the head. The sight of his dead comrades increased his determination to kill Cooper.

  That was when Liang heard an intense volley of rifle fire. It seemed to be coming from the passage through the fence on the northwest corner of the property, which was still a few miles from Liang’s position. By now he was on a fairly well-worn path that his troops used when they patrolled outside the fence and he was able to make better time, but it still took far too long to reach the gate. Along the way he came across two more bodies. They were carefully concealed, and he would have missed them if he hadn’t nearly tripped over one of them. The man he stumbled over appeared to have been beaten to death; the only blood coming from his corpse originated from the man’s ears, mouth and nose. The other man suffered a much more gruesome fate—he appeared to have been completely eviscerated, and his entrails were on the ground next to his body.

  He was looking at the hideous sight when he heard a grenade explode, followed by a number of single shots being fired. After that the battle seemed to end. Liang continued toward the gate and discovered two more of his men dead. Although he hadn’t been keeping count, Liang knew that he was down to fewer than five of his own troops; he was going to have to rely on the B&B mercenaries to help him exterminate Cooper.

  The scene that greeted him just inside the fence told him that there would also be far fewer Build & Berg mercs to aid in the task. Although it was impossible to tell for certain because many of the bodies had been blown to pieces by the grenade, the body count seemed high. Worse yet, Cooper did not appear to be among the dead.

  Liang broke into a run for the main building site. He’d just rounded the base of the ridge separating him from the building campus when he was nearly run down by a large group of B&B mercenaries.

  “Did any of you see Cooper?” he asked. He took their silence to mean “no.” “Then he must be in this area. Spread out and search for him. There is a $10,000 bonus for the man who brings me his body.” The men fanned out and began searching the area. They found no trace of Cooper, and when Liang began to hear shots being fired from the ridge above them, he knew why. He pointed to the top of the cliff and shouted, “Up there! Get him! Now!”

  ONCE BOLAN HAD a good sense of his point of aim, he worked fast, dropping one person after another in the compound below. He selected the loners and strays in order to keep his attack as low-key as possible, allowing him to score even more kills. He’d reduced their number by twelve before anyone below realized they were under attack. Even after they grasped the situation, they had no idea where to hide from the rifle fire raining down upon them because they didn’t know where the shots were coming from. The Ag Con facility housed several high-powered diesel generators used to provide electrical power for the research facility. Chen knew that the intense power requirements that the facility required to produce the prion-infected material would raise suspicion at the local power cooperative, hence, the diesel generators. The generators provided the required electrical power, but at the expense of creating an intense amount of white background noise. Normally this was a mere annoyance, but with the Executioner raining death on the compound, that annoyance had become lethal because i
t prevented the men from pinpointing the source of the sniper fire.

  Bolan sighted his rifle on a man who had taken shelter behind a small tractor with a loader. Had the man chosen the correct side of the vehicle he would have been safe, but instead he elected to crouch on the side that faced Bolan. It was a fatal mistake.

  Four men carrying identical rifles to the one Bolan was using ran from the house toward the walk-in door at the side of the barn. They moved too fast for the Executioner to get an accurate shot, but when they reached the doorway they were forced to change direction, making themselves targets. Bolan dropped the first man who attempted to enter the building, tripping the sentry immediately behind him. Before the man regained his footing, the soldier had placed a round directly through the guy’s abdomen. It wasn’t a clean shot, but it took the man out of play and stopped his two remaining comrades cold. They dropped to the ground, but from the angle Bolan was shooting, they still presented more than enough of a profile for him to put a round through each of them.

  Bolan scanned the compound through his scope and saw that another guard had sought refuge behind the tractor. This target, however, had chosen the correct side of the vehicle. The soldier couldn’t see the man’s body, but he had a clear shot at his legs beneath the tractor’s undercarriage. The Executioner put a round through his left thigh, dropping the man into view. A bullet to the top of his head ended the man’s life.

  Another sentry crouched behind a large aboveground diesel tank. Bolan could only see the man’s knee, calf and ankle sticking out from behind the tank, but it was enough. He squeezed off a shot and the knee exploded. The man threw himself backward, pulling the tattered remains of his leg with him. Bolan was unable to get a second shot before the guy disappeared, but the copious amounts of blood that sprayed the surrounding area told the Executioner a second shot would not be needed.

  A smaller aboveground tank likely housed gasoline, because when Bolan had started shooting he’d noticed a man filling a Chevrolet Tahoe from it. Since diesel-powered Tahoes were nonexistent in the U.S. market, Bolan guessed the tank contained gasoline. The man filling the Chevy SUV had been one of Bolan’s first targets. He’d been holding the nozzle for the fuel pump when the Executioner dropped him, and in his death throes he had to have squeezed the handle and locked it open. His body was now surrounded with a large pool of gasoline.

  Several men hid behind the tank. Bolan could see bits and pieces of their clothing, but he couldn’t make out enough to get a good shot at them. But he could get off a shot at the growing pool of gasoline. Bolan fired a round, and the bullet generated a spark when it hit the rocky soil. That spark set off the pool of gasoline like a bomb. But that initial explosion was a mere trifle compared to what happened when the flames followed the hose to the pump and the gasoline tank itself. The entire compound was enveloped in a massive fireball. Bolan felt a hot wind wash over his position, more than a quarter mile away.

  The explosion of the gas tank was followed by several other smaller explosions. Three SUVs were waiting to be refueled, and when the pool of gas ignited, all three of them went up in flames. The subsequent explosions had been caused by the SUVs’ gas tanks erupting.

  When the thick cloud of black smoke let up, Bolan couldn’t see anything moving in the compound, so he started scanning the windows of the buildings. Through an upstairs window of the house, he could see a man holding a rifle scanning the hillside. Since Bolan saw him first, the soldier got off the first shot. He’d adjusted the angle of the shot to compensate for the spalling that would occur when the bullet passed through the window glass. His adjustment had to have been accurate because he saw the man lurch backward. He fell to the floor and didn’t move.

  Bolan was just about to sight in on another man he saw through the large open door into the upstairs haymow when he heard a booming report. At the same instant, a large chunk of rock just inches from his head burst apart. Shards of stone lacerated the soldier’s face and he started to bleed, but the injuries were superficial and his eyes seemed to have been spared.

  The Executioner ducked and quit firing. Remembering the last time he’d engaged an Ag Con compound, he had a pretty fair idea where to find the sniper firing the large caliber rifle—the cupola atop the barn. Bolan cut a branch from a scruffy, stunted juniper tree and carefully placed it at the outer edge of the rock he was hiding behind. Then he did the same with another branch. He repeated the process until he’d constructed an artificial bush. So far there had been no further large-caliber rifle fire, but that just meant he was facing a professional sniper and he was waiting until he got a clear shot rather than spraying him with random fire.

  YAO RUI CURSED himself for taking the shot at Cooper. He knew full well that the reason he’d failed to hit his target was his own wounded pride. He had lost face when he had missed Cooper at the Trotters facility, and he had been so anxious to redeem himself that he had become impatient. When he’d seen the top of Cooper’s head through his scope, he knew he didn’t have enough of a target to get off a kill shot. He’d waited as long as he could stand to wait. He’d waited while Cooper shot his comrades and caused the gasoline tanks in the compound to explode. But when Cooper started firing on the occupants of the farmhouse, he could wait no longer. He convinced himself that he had a kill shot and he’d squeezed the trigger on his M98.

  And he’d missed. Again. He tried to contact his partner on his radio, but he feared his fellow sharpshooter had been Cooper’s target in the house. Yao could see no other movement in the compound. Other than the B&B mercenaries who had left to go aid their comrades on the north end of the property, Yao appeared to be the lone surviving defender. He knew that there likely remained the laboratory workers deep in the basement beneath the barn, and probably several administrative workers cowered somewhere in the house, but not one of those men had ever held a weapon of any type. They would be of no use.

  That meant that everything rested on Yao’s shoulders. That pressure made him even more remorseful about letting his own hubris prevent him from waiting for a kill shot before he attempted to take out Cooper.

  Yao scanned the rocks, looking for any sign of movement. There didn’t appear to be any possible way for Cooper to escape from his position without putting himself in Yao’s line of fire. All he had to do was wait. Cooper would either make a fatal mistake and expose himself in Yao’s rifle scope, or the B&B troops would catch on to the man’s location and attack him from the north.

  At one point Yao noticed a bush that he hadn’t remembered seeing before, at the bottom right-hand side of the pile of rocks behind which he had Cooper pinned. He studied the bush, but once he’d identified it as a natural feature of the terrain, he stopped focusing on it and resumed his search for some sign of Cooper.

  When he once again looked at the bush, it appeared to have grown. He studied the bush again and something did not appear right. It took a few moments, but he finally realized that there was something in the bush. Gradually his eyes made out the shape of a gun barrel. Before he could react and squeeze his trigger, he saw the gun barrel in the shrub flare up. It was the last thing Yao saw before the bullet tore through his forehead.

  AFTER BOLAN KILLED the sniper in the cupola, he returned to his position and scanned the area for survivors. He determined that anyone still alive was most likely a noncombatant. He was about to move down to extract Bowman and Grevoy when he heard a sound coming from north of his position.

  Bolan barely had time to aim his rifle in the direction of the noise when the first opponent appeared atop the ridge. The soldier quickly registered the fact that this man had European rather than Asiatic features before he fired upon him, knocking the man back down the hill.

  The Executioner’s shot was met with return fire from multiple positions. Apparently the men who had gone to aid their dead comrades had decided to scale the cliff themselves and attack him from the rear. Bolan couldn’t blame them—it’s what he would have done himself.

  Tho
ugh he was outnumbered, Bolan enjoyed an advantageous position. He could hold the enemy off as long as they didn’t skirt the edge of the butte and attack him on two fronts. He saw the top of a head poke up from behind the cliff and managed to get a shot off at it before it popped back down. He was rewarded for his efforts by the sight of a hunk of hair, bone and brains exploding backward.

  Bolan noted that much of the fire coming his way was clustered around one particular area. He was unable to locate a target through his scope, but the area was only twenty yards away. The soldier unscrewed the cap on another of the Soviet-style grenades, yanked the fuse, counted off two seconds and hurled the bomb. Though it was a crude and antiquated device, the sticklike shape of the grenade made it ideal for throwing long distances. It spun through the air like a well-balanced knife and dropped below the horizon just about where the cluster of gunfire was most intense.

  The Executioner had no idea how many opponents he’d taken out with the grenade, but he saw multiple body parts raining through the air, and after the dust settled the gunfire coming his direction was much more sporadic.

  Bolan knew he could hold off the remaining men from his position, but he also knew he couldn’t rescue Bowman and Grevoy while he was pinned down in a standoff situation. He decided to make a run for it. He identified at least six positions from which he was receiving fire and in rapid succession he lobbed his remaining replica grenades along with the four 86P grenades at each of those positions. The blood-curdling screams that came from his opponents let him know that at least some of them had been taken out of the fight. Judging from the lack of return fire, it seemed possible that he’d eliminated all of them. Though he received no more fire, he sprayed the opposite side of the butte with harassing fire, then leaped over the rocks and began scrambling down the side of the cliff.