Toxic Terrain

by Don Pendleton

  He’d only made it a few steps when a man lunged at him, knocking him off his feet. Bolan and his assailant tumbled twenty feet down the side of the hill, their arms locked around each other, trying to gain the upper hand. Bolan recognized the features of his attacker—he was the same man who had shot the soldier as he’d fled the Trotters facility on horseback. It was Liang.

  Bolan was much larger than the colonel, but Liang proved to be an excellent fighter. He managed to position his body so that it stopped rolling, while at the same time hurling Bolan over him and down the hill. When the big American landed, his right shoulder struck a sharp rock, breaking open the stitches and sealant over his bullet wound. He could feel blood running down his shoulder. He only hoped that the wound had healed enough by now so that he wouldn’t lose too much blood and be able to keep functioning.

  Liang dived down the hill after Bolan, a knife in his right hand. The Executioner thrust up his left arm and caught his adversary’s wrist. At the same time he kicked upward with all the strength he had. This time Liang went hurtling down the side of the hill. The area on this side of the butte was much less steep than on the side Bolan had ascended, but Bolan had thrown his opponent with tremendous force, and Liang tumbled nearly to the base of the compound before he came to a stop.

  The colonel remained still at the base of the hill, most likely unconscious, but Bolan wasn’t going to take any chances with the tenacious and deadly man. He raised his battle rifle and was about to make certain that Liang’s stillness became a permanent situation when he found himself being fired upon from above.

  Cover was much harder to come by on this side of the ridge, and the only thing near Bolan was a small boulder, about the size of a large dog. He dived for the minimal safety the rock provided and returned fire at the top of the hill. Two men stood at the edge of the butte, and through his scope he could see that both men were wounded and bleeding profusely. He couldn’t see anyone else. The men fired down at him, but they appeared shaky and their shots went wild.

  Bolan wasn’t in much better condition himself with the reopened wound in his shoulder, but he was used to fighting through pain, and his shots were much better placed. He dropped both men with a 3-round burst to each of them.

  After he’d scanned the top of the hill to make certain no one else was coming at him from that quarter, the Executioner turned back to finish off Liang, only to find that he was gone.

  10

  Chen’s SUV had just turned onto the main highway when he heard the explosions from the direction of the Ag Con facility. It looked like he had finished his work there just in time. It seemed impossible that a single person could wreak such havoc on a facility that well-protected. But apparently Cooper was something more than an average single person. Chen felt fortunate to have escaped from such a force without having his plans thwarted. Certainly the scope of what he was planning had been diminished, but only slightly. With the amount of product making its way to the Iowa feed-processing facility, he could be sure that the loss of life would number in the millions.

  The American financial system, indeed, the entire American social fabric, was so weak that the slightest crisis could topple the entire structure, and Chen was preparing to unleash a disaster of epic proportion.

  With the United States out of the way, China could assume its rightful place as the world’s only remaining super power. Currently the United States enjoyed hegemony in the world’s energy market, and all other countries were forced to play by the rules the U.S. set. Once the United States were no longer united states, China could dictate the rules of the game. And Chen would see to it that the game was governed by socialist rules, not capitalist rules. Not only would the glory of Communist China be restored, but it would be elevated to undreamed of heights.

  The excitement of almost achieving what he’d worked for all these years nearly overwhelmed Chen, but he knew it was too early to engage in self-congratulation. He still had to get both himself and the product to the Iowa feed-processing facility. The fact that the Gould cousins were not waiting at the Weydahl Field Airport north of the small town of Killdeer drove home the fact that his plan would not be a success until prion-infected meat entered the food supply.

  Chen scanned the sky, looking for signs of the twin-engine Beechcraft, but saw nothing. He dialed Gordon Gould’s number on his sat phone. “Where are you?” Chen demanded.

  “We’re still at the Watford City Airport,” Gould said.

  “And why is that?” Chen asked.

  “We’re waiting to fuel up the plane.”

  “There is a long line for refueling at an airport that size?”

  “No,” Gould said.

  “Then what is the problem?”

  “They’re filling the underground tanks, and we have to wait until the tanker truck finishes before they’ll turn on the pumps.”

  “This is unacceptable,” Chen said.

  “Well, what in the Sam Hill do you expect us to do about it?” Gould asked. “If we make a scene, it’s going to draw attention. Given that I had two dead bodies in my recreation room, one of whom was a law-enforcement agent, I don’t expect drawing attention to ourselves is a particularly good idea right now.”

  “Fair enough,” Chen replied. “How long do you think it will take for them to turn on the pumps?”

  “However goddamned long it takes, I suppose.” Gould had lost patience with the demanding Chinese and no longer cared about what repercussions his insubordination might have. He just wanted to get the miserable son of a bitch out of his life once and for all. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

  LIANG WAS RUNNING for cover before he’d even fully regained consciousness, moving on pure instinct. While he ran, he formulated a plan that became clearer as he shook off the blow to the head he had received on his tumble down the side of the hill.

  Cooper was coming into the compound with one purpose—rescue the veterinarian and the county extension agent being held captive at the facility. Even if Cooper knew about the prion production taking place, the B&B men Liang had encountered on the other side of the butte had told him that Chen had loaded the product aboard the remaining helicopter. If that was true, then Chen himself had most likely escaped from the facility.

  Liang had every intention of doing likewise, and he realized that the best way to get past Cooper was to use the two prisoners as hostages. The colonel made his way to the barn where the prisoners were being held and entered the lift that led to the lower levels. He leaped off the lift platform even before it hit the stops embedded in the concrete below. He grabbed the keys for the cell from the cabinet in which they were kept, along with two pairs of wrist restraints. He opened the cell door, walked in and hit the extension agent in the back of the head with his rifle butt, knocking the man to the floor, dazed, but conscious. Before the woman could react, Liang had twisted her arms behind her back and placed her wrists in the restraints.

  The man was trying to get up, but Liang hit him again with the butt of his rifle, knocking him back down. The colonel rolled him over and put the second pair of restraints on his wrists.

  “Get up!” he shouted at the man, raising his rifle as if to hit him again. A third blow proved unnecessary. Grevoy struggled to his feet.

  “Move,” Liang ordered, motioning toward the door with his rifle. “Now!”

  The prisoners did as they were told. Liang motioned for them to walk toward the lift. Once they’d entered the cage, he pushed the lever to go up, but instead of stopping at the main floor, he kept going all the way up to the cupola they used as a guard post.

  “Down on the floor!” Liang ordered once they’d arrived in the oversize cupola. This was a particularly unpleasant task, given that most of the floor’s surface area was covered with Yao’s nearly headless body, and both Bowman and Grevoy hesitated. Again Liang raised his rifle butt, but this time he brought it down between the woman’s shoulder blades, knocking her to the floor. He aimed the barrel at the man and s
aid, “Down! Now!” This time the man complied.

  The colonel took the binoculars from a small shelf built below the observation window and peered out the window, looking for Cooper, but the big man was nowhere to be seen. Once again he ordered his captives to move, and this time they were quick to comply. The pair rose from the floor covered in blood.

  Liang lowered the lift to the haymow level, managing to stop it just about level with the floor. “Move!” he once again ordered his hostages, pointing toward the rear of the building where a rickety wooden staircase descended to the back of the main barn. They’d been using the area at the back as a garage, and Liang knew that this was where he had the best chance of finding a vehicle that hadn’t been destroyed during Cooper’s onslaught.

  BOLAN SCANNED the Ag Con facility for signs of Liang and caught just a glimpse of him as he disappeared into the barn. The soldier ran toward the building, slinging the rifle and pulling his Beretta from shoulder leather; he preferred to use the compact machine pistol in close quarters. Once inside he found all manner of weaponry, including a rocket propelled grenade launcher and several cases of grenades, but he couldn’t find a trace of Liang. He checked out the RPGs. They were Chinese Type 69 units that fired 85 mm grenades. He made a note of their location, thinking they might come in handy later. Just as he was about to leave and search another building, he heard an electric motor start to whir somewhere above him.

  Bolan traced the sound to the area just behind a wooden staircase that led up to the haymow. He heard something moving right behind him and saw a door that looked as though it led to a storage compartment behind the staircase. He opened it and saw a pair of ropes working along rails that ran down into what looked like several layers of bunkers below the barn. He looked up and saw several people through the bottom of a steel-grate platform that was moving down from the top of the building. The lift stopped at the haymow level and the people got off the platform.

  The soldier rushed up the staircase and found himself in a dormitory area on the second floor. Rows of bunks spread across the floor, and storage lockers lined one wall. A large, open double door led to what looked like a bathroom and shower facility. He didn’t see any other people, nor did he see a staircase leading to the haymow area.

  A scan of the space revealed a door at the back of the large dormitory room. When he strode forward and turned the knob, he found it locked. Bolan gave it a test kick, surmised that it wasn’t reinforced and kicked the door down with ease. Behind the door he found a makeshift kitchen area. In the rear of the space, which appeared to be used for storage, he found what he was looking for—a staircase leading up to the haymow. The stairs appeared to have seen little if any use for a long time, and the wood looked rotten. Bolan tested the first step and it held his weight, but just barely. He’d have to step gingerly to make it up the stairs without falling through.

  He’d just made it to the third step when Liang, Grevoy and Bowman appeared at the top of the stairs. Bolan raised his Beretta, but Liang was using Grevoy and Bowman for cover. In the dim light Bolan couldn’t get a clean shot at him.

  “Drop your weapon,” Liang ordered. “Drop it or I will shoot the man.”

  Bolan could see that Liang had the barrel of his bullpup rifle pressed between Grevoy’s shoulder blades.

  “Stay calm,” he said. “No one needs to get hurt here.” He raised his hands as if to drop the pistol, but he held on to it. Instead, the soldier slowly moved backward, hoping to get a better angle for a clear shot at the Chinese man.

  “I said drop your weapon!” Liang shouted, pushing Grevoy ahead with the barrel of his rifle. The extension agent stumbled and lurched forward onto the top step of the staircase. Grevoy was a large man, and when he trod on the top step it gave way. He crashed through the staircase and plunged toward the floor, landing on several cartons of what appeared to be foam cups, judging from the flurry of shattered foam that cascaded through the air upon Grevoy’s impact.

  With the hostage out of the way Bolan had a clear shot at Liang and he took it, pumping four single rounds into the man’s chest, right below the base of his throat. Each round that struck him knocked the man back several inches, but still Liang remained upright, even though blood sprayed like a geyser from his wounds.

  Bolan kept shooting, walking his shots upward. He shot Liang in the throat, in the chin and in the mouth. Each shot made the man take another step back, but still he did not go down. Liang’s lower mandible had been shattered by a bullet, and the round through his mouth had shattered Liang’s teeth before passing through his brain pan. The man had to be technically dead, but still he remained standing. Finally Liang’s body stood motionless for a moment and then slowly toppled forward.

  The Executioner stared at the gruesome sight, as did Pam Bowman, who had yet to say a word. Bolan’s meditation on the situation was broken by Grevoy struggling to extricate himself from the pile of cardboard and foam in which he was embedded. The soldier went over and helped him stand up.

  “Are you all right?” Bolan asked.

  “Yeah, I think so. Who are you?”

  “Justice Department.” Bolan helped the big man free himself from the foam mess he’d fallen into. When Grevoy was free, he and Bolan helped Bowman down from the haymow. Judging from her injuries, the woman had been tortured, just as Bolan had suspected. It looked like most of her injuries wouldn’t leave permanent scars, but he knew from hard experience that some wounds would never heal, and those she’d have to carry with her for the rest of her life. Bowman remained silent while they helped her down.

  “Do either of you know where the research facility is?” Bolan asked.

  “There appeared to be a laboratory complex on the floor above where we were being held,” Grevoy said.

  “Do you have any idea what they were doing there?” Bolan asked.

  “I have my suspicions,” Grevoy said. “I think it had something to do with prions. I saw what appeared to be an air lock and several NBC suits hanging beside it.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we think, too. Your samples came back positive. How do we get down there?”

  “We’ll have to take the lift that we were just on.”

  “‘We’ won’t be taking anything,” Bolan told Grevoy. “I want you to take Ms. Bowman and get as far away from here as possible.”

  “Where will we go?” Grevoy asked. “Ag Con has men everywhere around here.”

  Bolan suspected that might no longer be the case, given the sheer number of men he had disposed of since he arrived in western North Dakota, but Grevoy had a point. There was no sense taking chances.

  “Go to the Rough Rider Motel in Medora,” he told Grevoy. “Kristen Kemp and Harry Kadrmas are there. Hook up with them and make certain that Ms. Bowman is all right.”

  ZOENG AND HIS TECHNICIANS waited to die in the laboratory. For Zoeng it no longer mattered that they would eventually run out of air in the sealed room, since he would soon die anyway, but the remaining men held on to the hope of somehow escaping from what would otherwise become their tomb.

  When they saw a man enter the outer room, they experienced a glimmer of hope that they might yet survive the ordeal.

  Bolan looked around the room and realized that the men behind the window were trapped inside what appeared to be a sealed room, judging from the elaborate anteroom that served as an air lock. All the men wore yellow NBC suits, but one man had removed his mask and helmet. The rest of them appeared to not want to stand too close to the man without the helmet. Bolan looked at the console in a panel mounted below the thick glass window looking into the lab. Though the controls were all marked with Chinese characters, one button by a speaker and recessed microphone appeared to be the controls of an intercom.

  The man without the helmet came up to the window and pressed a similar button on the panel on his side of the glass.

  “Please,” the man said over the intercom in carefully studied English, “you must let us out of here.”

  �
��Is the lab infected?” Bolan asked.

  “It was,” the man replied, “but it has been sprayed clean. Any remaining traces of the prion material will be removed when we are sprayed clean in the air lock.”

  “Are you infected?”

  “I am. My associates are not. Do not worry. You will not become infected unless you are a cannibal—at this point you would have to ingest portions of my central nervous system to become infected. Please, let us out.”

  “How would I do that?” Bolan asked. Zoeng gave Bolan the code to punch in to unlock the air lock doors. Once the first door opened, the men in the lab moved into the air lock where they were sprayed down once again. When the disinfectant solution spray ended, the men removed their NBC suits and exited from the air lock.

  When the men came out, they found themselves face-to-face with the business end of Bolan’s Beretta.

  “Listen closely,” he said. “I didn’t let you out because I’m a great humanitarian. I let you out because I need some information.”

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “What were you doing with the prions?”

  Zoeng told the soldier everything he knew about the plan, up to loading the stainless-steel casks with infected material and placing them aboard the helicopter.

  “Where was the helicopter taking the infected material?” Bolan asked.

  “To the Agricultural Conglomerate feed-grinding facility in Ames, Iowa.”

  Bolan knew that the Bell 210 would have to refuel at least twice along the way. “Do you know where the refueling stops are?” he asked.

  “Mandan, North Dakota and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”

  “Is Chen aboard the helicopter?”

  “No,” Zoeng said.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s procuring a private plane at the airport north of Killdeer. He’s probably just arriving there as we speak.”