“I didn’t,” Bolan replied.
“What are you, then?” Philbin pressed. “DHS or something?”
Shaffernik exchanged amused glances with Bolan before she spoke on his behalf. “He’s the ‘or something.’”
They continued on the road in silence for the next few minutes until topping a rise. The road dropped off, but on the far side of the rise was an expansive, rolling slope that seemed downright smooth in comparison to their jaunt thus far. Shaffernik braked and reached under the seat to retrieve a pair of binoculars. She scanned the road that curved below and eventually stopped and handed the binoculars to Bolan and pointed to four vehicles moving along a gravel road.
“There they are. Everybody, hang on!”
Shaffernik stomped the accelerator, and the SUV leaped to life, bouncing and jouncing its way down the hill as it gained speed. At one point, Bolan saw a glint of metal on light, followed by a smattering of muzzle-flashes.
“Looks like they’re not going to give up without a fight,” Bolan observed. “Are your people well-armed, Shaffernik?”
“Not against automatic weapons. We keep shotguns in front-seat racks of some, and two sets of extra protective body armor in the rear of every squad. But nothing like they’re using.” She nodded toward Bolan’s weapon. “Or you.”
“Tell them to back off,” Bolan said.
“What? Those men are some of the most capable—”
“It’s not about capability,” Bolan said. “It’s about being able to fight fire with fire. I have the capacity to do what they can’t.”
“But the bystanders—”
“Are out of the way,” Bolan said. “Now, please do as I say.”
Shaffernik hesitated a moment, and Bolan thought he might have to get stronger with her, but then at the last moment she picked up her radio and gave the order for her men to back off the chase. By that time they’d closed on the vehicle, and the trio of police units that had been pursuing their quarry were no longer visible. Bolan reached to his belt and withdrew his cellular phone, one of the few things he carried that was waterproof. He’d had the phone enhanced by Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, Able Team’s electronics wizard, giving him the ability to reach assistance even against the most unforgiving elements.
Bolan dialed a number that would cut directly into Grimaldi’s communications. Fortunately, the pilot had had enough foresight to lease a helicopter from the airport at Unalaska and stash it in a terminal in case they needed it. He would have taken his pickup truck and headed directly to the terminal hangar and prepped the chopper on the off chance Bolan would call for help.
When Grimaldi answered, Bolan said, “Striker here. Were you able to get airborne?”
“Roger that,” Grimaldi replied.
“What about the plane?”
“Fortunately, none of the shooting seems to have touched it. At least not that I can tell. Apparently they were too bent on getting to you that they didn’t care much about your mode of transportation.”
“Thank lady luck for small favors, eh?”
“Really. At least I can get us back to Adak without a problem. Would have been much different if they’d shot us up. I can’t fly a plane with a bunch of holes in it.”
“I’ll stay connected. Come down on my signal and be ready. We have some vermin to hunt.”
“Do you happen to be in a police SUV?”
“That’s us.”
“Already got you in sight. Stand by for pickup.”
Bolan acknowledged with an affirmative before signing off. He had to admit operating on a land mass as small as Unalaska made things much easier when it came to flight operations. The entire island covered only a thousand square miles while the city shared the tip of Unalaska Island and all of Amaknak Island, to include Dutch Harbor. That made it very easy to get from one point to another in an extremely short period of time.
“Stop here,” Bolan said.
Shaffernik brought the SUV to a screeching halt. “Now what?”
“I’m leaving,” Bolan told her.
“On foot?” Wexler inquired from the backseat.
“I have a ride on the way.”
Bolan turned to Shaffernik and asked, “Where does this road lead?”
“Uh, I’m sure it ends up at a cluster of abandoned port buildings on the edge of the bay. It’s the only road in or out, if I don’t miss my guess.”
Bolan nodded. “That’s probably where they’ve been hiding. Here’s what I need you to do. Get your people together, as many as you can spare. Make sure they’re armed, and get there with them as quick as you can.”
“What are we looking for?”
“You should know it when you see it.”
“Now, wait just a damn minute,” Philbin said as Bolan climbed from the SUV.
The agent exited afterward and reached out to grab Bolan’s shoulder. The soldier reached up and twisted Philbin’s hand as he pivoted his body and executed a hip toss, slamming the agent to the cold, hard, dusty ground and knocking the wind from his lungs. Bolan twisted Philbin’s arm before the agent could catch his breath and put one boot against the man’s shoulder.
“First rule, don’t touch,” Bolan said. “Second, I’m here with the approval of some very influential sectors within the federal government. Sectors that operate well above your pay grade—” he nodded toward Wexler “—your partner’s pay grade and even that of your superiors. Last, not a single one of you are equipped to handle roughly a dozen or more Russian terrorists armed with military-grade ordnance and explosives. I am. So let’s have no more nonsense. Understand?”
Bolan then removed his boot and hauled the guy to his feet in one yank before shoving Philbin toward the SUV.
Wexler had been so stunned by the swiftness of the incident he’d barely had time to react, and Shaffernik had just sat there and looked on with an expression of unbridled amusement.
The Executioner turned and ran toward a patch of open ground, cutting through the high grass as fast as his waterlogged boots would carry him. He reached the LZ just a moment before Grimaldi touched down and then proceeded to the chopper, where the pilot left his seat and quickly helped the soldier aboard.
“You okay?” he shouted over the rotor wash.
“Tired and cold!” Bolan said as he took the hand Grimaldi offered and hauled his bulky frame into the cramped fuselage. “But alive!”
Grimaldi nodded and then pointed toward a roll that Bolan immediately recognized as a clean black suit. He began to strip out of his soaked civilian clothing as Grimaldi made his way back to the cockpit. He toweled dry as quickly as possible, and by the time the pilot got the chopper off the ground, Bolan had mostly donned the heavy-duty, skintight black suit. He had no idea how many men he’d be going up against, but he wouldn’t be effective if he collapsed due to hypothermia. Once he’d stuck his feet into a new pair of combat boots, he pushed forward to the cockpit. Bolan tapped Grimaldi and pointed toward the cluster of abandoned buildings along the bay, just as Shaffernik had described.
The pilot tossed a quick nod and salute, then Bolan went about getting rigged up for war. He first slid into a shoulder harness where a new Beretta 93-R was nestled in the holster. He then buckled on the military web belt that supported a holstered .44 Magnum Desert Eagle and spare magazines. Lastly, he reloaded the M4A1 carbine and pocketed a few Diehl DM51 grenades. A pair of smoker grenades also hung from the harness. He didn’t know if the forces he encountered in his assault would number only those who had escaped at the wharf or if they’d have reinforcements awaiting him. The M4A1 would be perfect for this kind of job, although Bolan wouldn’t have dismissed using the FNC out of hand. Unlike most modern arms, the M4A1 utilized the more familiar safe/semi-auto/full-auto configuration. Moreover, it had become a favorite of Special Forces and counterterrori
sm units because it packed the wallop of an M16 but had a compact profile with its Mark 18 CQBR—close quarters battle receiver—which made it perfect for doing the building-by-building sweep Bolan had in mind. The soldier respected it on those grounds alone.
One thing didn’t make sense, and Bolan thought furiously, trying to find some justification. The RBN had operated out of this point with relative obscurity. Stony Man was convinced their operations had been months in the planning. Why now would they risk revealing themselves? Did they consider him that much of a threat, or was it something more ominous than that? Bolan had to wonder if the RBN was about to unleash some sort of master plan and they weren’t taking any chances. Well, the Executioner had a remedy for that, and he was about to administer it.
“Get ready!” Grimaldi shouted after circling a couple of times to give Bolan a view at all angles.
They hadn’t spotted any of the vehicles they’d been chasing, but that meant next to nothing. Shaffernik had been clear that the road they’d used to escape led solely to this point, so the RBN terrorists had to be hiding there. It was the only thing that made sense and explained how they’d managed to work so long without being detected.
Grimaldi brought the chopper to hover just above a flat patch on the outskirts of the building cluster. Bolan waited until it steadied, then dropped the five or so feet to the ground, shoulder rolled and got to his feet. He made a flat run to the corner of the nearest building as the chopper pitched up and away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Semisopochnoi Island
Louis Ducati had always considered himself an intelligent man, but at that moment he couldn’t understand the motives of his captors.
Without asking any questions at all, they had proceeded to strip him to his briefs, tied him to a chair and submitted him to regular beatings. One of his teeth had cracked, and two more were loose. He couldn’t feel the swelling in his lips, but whenever he tried to speak it sounded muffled to him. He could no longer see out of his left eye, swollen shut as it was, and whenever he breathed deeply, his ribs hurt from where they’d worked on his chest and sides.
Since they hadn’t interrogated him in any way, Ducati chalked it up to punishment, a way of demonstrating to the disheartened crew that these people were in charge and it wouldn’t do any good to resist them or ask for special favors. That’s what worried Ducati most, the safety of his crew. He was still feeling inadequate for allowing them to take his ship. He should have resisted them, but when he’d seen how quickly they had neutralized the commando unit and security officers, he’d figured any attempts at armed resistance would have gotten them killed. Most of his people hadn’t fired a weapon outside their basic training and subsequent requalification exercises, all of which took place on a controlled range.
And why was it so blasted hot? The cavern had felt like a furnace ever since they’d been brought here. Ducati could only assume they were near pockets of active lava. The Aleutians were filled, in fact, with regular volcanic activity—activity that had practically built the island chain. For their captors to have chosen such a hazardous environment didn’t make a lot of sense.
The door slammed open, and Ducati barely had the strength to lift his head. He prepared himself mentally for another beating and squinted his one good eye to look into the eyes of the leader. Ducati thought for a fleeting moment that he saw what looked like compassion in the man’s expression, but in the end he surmised it was a mixture of amused sympathy. After all, he’d probably been the one to order this treatment, so Ducati hardly had a reason to think the man would now have empathy for him.
Ducati jumped in spite of himself when the man barked some kind of orders in Russian he could not understand. Two more men appeared who had been obscured behind the big form of their leader. He prepared himself for more blows, but they never came. Instead, the men untied the leather straps and hauled him to his feet. They got under his arms and assisted him into a nearby chamber where they lifted his body and dumped him into a metal tub filled with very warm water.
One of them handed him a bar of soap and ordered him to clean up while another disappeared down what passed for a corridor. The network of underground caverns here was extensive—Ducati had to admit the choice of his enemies to use such natural terrain was no less than ingenious. From what Ducati had observed since they’d brought him to his makeshift cell, they were well equipped with plenty of supplies. He had also observed some computers and other electronic equipment, a setup very similar to the kind he’d once seen in a mobile radar station in the Yukon, one that was used by search-and-rescue teams.
Ducati figured there was little point in fighting the small reprieve he’d gotten, so he cleaned his wounds as gently as possible, the rehydrated blood leaving the water muddy brown. After he’d finished washing, they took him out of the tub and threw a towel at him. He dried off as best he could, his every muscle screaming in protest as he bent to try to dispel most of the water from his legs. The guard threw his uniform at him and gestured that he should get dressed. It took him more than five agonizing minutes just to get on his pants and shirt. Putting on the shoes and socks would be next to impossible without assistance, but he didn’t figure he’d get that kind of attention.
The other man returned with a green plastic bag that Ducati recognized as military rations. He took the bag when offered, leaned against the edge of the metal tub and reached in. He half expected to be bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion but instead found only a few different foodstuffs wrapped in vacuum-sealed packages. At least he didn’t have to worry about them trying to poison him. He was beginning to feel better, realizing that because they’d allowed him to clean up and get into his uniform that for the moment they weren’t going to execute him.
They allowed him to eat, a painful experience at best, before they took him back to the room where they’d tortured him. He was reluctant to sit in the chair that he could now make out had a bit of dried blood on it, convinced they were only fortifying him so they could inflict more punishment. Instead, they sat him roughly in the chair, but he noticed immediately they did not restrain him. He let out a sigh of relief that whistled through his broken nose. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to breathe through it with his mouth closed.
The leader stepped in and folded his arms. “Before we return you to your cell, I wish to explain to you the seriousness of your actions. You’re alive only because I wish you to be alive. No other reason. My men and I are not barbarians, and we do not commit cold-blooded murder. But I thought you might like to know the man you asked mercy for is actually the one responsible for your undoing.”
Ducati could hardly believe his ears. Was this guy actually talking about Gross?
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me or not,” the Russian leader responded. “It makes no difference. We have extracted him from your group, so he will pose no more of a nuisance. As for you, we will return you to your crew now as an example of our resolve. No further pleas of mercy or complaints from you or your officers will be tolerated. If there are any further transgressions, I will cut off the head of your most junior crew member, and their blood will be on your hands. Do you understand?”
Painful as it was, Ducati nodded and resisted the urge to protest. He also decided not to inquire about Gross. To even think he would be responsible for the death of another crew member made him want to be sick. He couldn’t be sure what this Russian pig had meant by Gross being responsible for their undoing. He was thoroughly convinced the terrorist would make good on his threat if Ducati pressed, so he erred on the side of keeping quiet.
After their exchange, the leader nodded at his two men, who got Ducati on his feet and assisted him back to his cell. Ducati could see the worried faces of his crew even as they shoved him roughly into the cage, but he immediately put up a hand and just nodded that he would live, and they shoul
d not speak at all about it. First thing he needed to do was rest, so he found a point at the very back of the cage and sat slowly on the ground, assisted by a few of his crew. The corpsman in the group did a quick assessment and whispered encouragement before turning him over to Rastogi.
“How are things, XO?” Ducati muttered, head leaned back and eyes closed. He was fighting nausea and didn’t want to bring up the meal. He’d eaten too damn fast.
“Not good, sir. A lot of our people are starting to feel sick. I don’t know if it’s the lack of food or just heat exhaustion.”
Ducati fought back another wave before rubbing his suddenly dry tongue against his lower lip, a painful act that sent a shudder through him. “What about Gross?”
“Oh, I don’t know his status. A little while after they took you out of here, they came and got him.”
“How long was I gone?”
“Six, maybe seven hours. Sir, what do they want with us? Do you know?”
Ducati shook his head slowly. “No, I just need to rest right now, XO. Can we talk about it later?”
“Yes, sir, of course. Rest...”
But Ducati had already succumbed to the sweet embrace of slumber.
* * *
“YORGI IS DEAD?” Vladimir Moscovich said.
Tokov nodded. “The word just came in.”
“How?”
“Some sort of attack on the American’s club.”
“Haglemann?”
Tokov shrugged. “I guess. Whoever is running the island.”
Moscovich cursed and slammed the side of his fist against a nearby cavern wall. “He probably entrusted it to the local one, Lustrum. He isn’t worth a shit! Haglemann told me he had everything under control!”
“Well, it would not appear the bastard does. And we’ve now lost another good man.”
“What about Alexei? Is he aware of this?”
“I have been unable to raise him.”
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