War Everlasting (Superbolan)

by Don Pendleton

  As the lead investigator had told her, a guy named Rafferty, she’d been arrested under suspicion of collusion with the enemy and disobeying a no-fly zone order by the US military. Those were considered acts of terrorism, and as such, her current detainment was in the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, and she was in violation of the Patriot Act.

  “The only thing you’ve got going for you right now,” Rafferty had said upon her arrival at the facility, “is that you landed your plane immediately and followed instructions. That and the fact you didn’t resist arrest.”

  Shaffernik couldn’t help but wonder what the hell had happened to Meltrieger. Why wasn’t he raising hell with the military or the Pentagon or even the governor of Alaska? It had been her people and her intelligence that had allowed the military to uncover the location of the Llewellyn. Surely they understood that. And if they didn’t, they had to have been in contact with Wexler and Philbin by now, who could have easily corroborated her story. No, there had to be a hell of a lot more to it than this. There was more than enough evidence to suggest no wrongdoing on her part. This was related to something else, entirely.

  As Rafferty entered with a few other men and one woman in tow, Shaffernik got the feeling she was about to find out what that something else was. She hadn’t been up against this kind of crowd since the panel interview she’d undergone when Meltrieger hired her. She’d been a lot more nervous then, however, probably because it was for a job she really wanted.

  When they were seated, Rafferty opened the discussion. “Deputy Chief Shaffernik, I’m going to forego formal introductions for the sake of time. Suffice it to say there are a number of federal organizations represented by the people here. We have some questions, and we’d like some honest answers.”

  “I believe I asked for a lawyer.”

  “You’ll get a lawyer in due time.”

  “I know my rights, Agent Rafferty,” Shaffernik countered. “I don’t have to say a word to you. Any of you. Not without counsel present.”

  “You’re not actually under arrest,” Rafferty replied.

  “That wasn’t my understanding,” she said. “I’ve been a police officer for a long time. I’m pretty sure the law has no distinction between being detained but not actually being under arrest. That’s a law enforcement tactic to skirt Miranda and a really old one. You ought to be ashamed for even trying that one on me.”

  “Look!” Rafferty said, slapping his hand on the table and causing several of the agents to jump in spite of themselves. “That kind of smart-ass attitude is exactly what’s going to land you in a federal prison for the next thirty years if you don’t cooperate.”

  “On what charge?”

  “How does high treason sound?”

  “You won’t make that stick and you know it, Rafferty,” Shaffernik said. She met the gazes of the other agents. “Don’t you people see what’s going on here? You’ve been fighting an unknown entity that is no longer unknown. These are Russian terrorists, part of a group called the Russian Business Network. They’ve been operating in this area for many months and completely undetected.”

  “Yes, that’s the point. They’ve been operating on your island for months,” one of the other agents with a crooked nose and a shock of red hair said. “Undetected by you or your personnel!”

  Shaffernik shook her head. “Not true. They’ve only been on Unalaska for a couple of days. They were hiding the Llewellyn inside an abandoned docking facility off Dutch Harbor. Prior to that, they were operating out of Port Adak and possibly some other island in the western chain.”

  “Ridiculous!” Rafferty said with a snort.

  “Wait a minute,” the slight, soft-spoken female agent said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet. I’d like to hear more of what Deputy Chief Shaffernik has to say.”

  The woman looked at Shaffernik and said, “Please. Go on.”

  Shaffernik turned to see all faces focused on her with anticipation—only Rafferty looked skeptical. The rest really were here to get information and do their jobs. By bringing them in, Rafferty had actually bought Shaffernik a reprieve whether he’d intended to or not. She planned to capitalize on that. If she could get community opinion on her side, then maybe it would buy them enough good will they’d pressure Rafferty into releasing her.

  “As I’ve already mentioned, this all started when a group of gunmen armed with automatic weapons ambushed a federal agent named Mike Blansky. I arrested Blansky but subsequently had to release him when I discovered he was part of a government task force investigating the disappearance of flight 195B and the Llewellyn.”

  “Which agency did this Blansky purport to be with?” another agent asked.

  “He didn’t say,” she said. “Or at least he intimated that he couldn’t say.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Is this when he told you the Russians were involved?” the female agent asked.

  She shook her head. “No, that information didn’t come until later. He managed to infiltrate the local workforce here, which I can tell you is something not easily accomplished for an outsider. Somehow, though, he managed it, and he traced the problem to Adak Island. That’s when it apparently all started to unravel. Something he learned there led him to this entire plot being perpetrated by the RBN. That’s also when he learned the Llewellyn had been brought to Unalaska somewhere.”

  “And how did he explain the Russians’ ability to make an entire Coast Guard cutter disappear?” Rafferty inquired, seemingly quite interested now in what Shaffernik had to say.

  “Apparently, they developed some sort of technology that can jam military communications. It can block radar, VTOL, even satellite and infrared. I’m no Luddite, but even I don’t understand it fully. It creates essentially a blackout of sorts.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “So they can steal military technology, near as we can tell. Blansky told us the men we encountered at Dutch Harbor had probably stripped some of the tech off the cutter. And it’s probable they have members of the crew held hostage. But I imagine that’s something you were able to figure out when you sent that navy SEAL team to attempt to capture those from the group who managed to escape.”

  “And how did you know about that?”

  “Because we were the ones chasing them. Well... I mean I was chasing them in the plane while the rest of my people were mopping up after Blansky hit them.”

  “You mean what went down at Dutch Harbor wasn’t your people?” Rafferty asked.

  “No. We got there after the fact.”

  “So this Blansky did the job on them all by himself?”

  “I suppose so,” Shaffernik replied, even though she knew damn well it had been him.

  “And how,” interjected the red-haired agent, “did you manage to learn of the RBN’s presence on the island?”

  “They ambushed Blansky as soon as he came back from Port Adak,” Shaffernik said. “He’d known they were operating there somewhere, but he didn’t know they knew of his involvement.”

  “So you’re saying that Blansky was not only going after them, but they knew about his involvement, too,” Rafferty concluded.

  “Right.”

  “And so why did your people go to Dutch Harbor?”

  “Because he asked for my help,” Shaffernik said. “We’ve already covered this ground, so I don’t know why you’re asking me the same questions again. We—”

  The door blasted open, and in stepped Chief Dustin Meltrieger and the Unalaska Director of Public Safety, Commissioner McKeene. An aide had just rushed up behind them and was protesting the intrusion very vociferously when Meltrieger turned around and got right in the smaller man’s face. His voice was low but loud enough that everyone in the room could hear.

  “I don’t care, you got that? Now step off me.”


  Something in the man’s voice was enough for the uniformed aide to understand the implicit threat in Meltrieger’s form. Now he turned his attention toward Rafferty. “Agent Rafferty, do you mind explaining to me just exactly what the hell you think you’re doing?”

  “Excuse me—?”

  “There’s no excuse for you, at the moment. When I told you I’d give you the full cooperation of my office, that was a promise. And I’m able to keep that promise because of the weight of the office of this man standing next to me. If you’re not familiar, I’d like to introduce all of you to Commissioner Howard McKeene, the man in charge of all of public safety efforts here on Unalaska. Sir?”

  McKeene bore a stern expression. “I just got off the phone with the governor, who just got off the phone with the President of the United States. Would you like to explain to us under exactly what authority you’ve acted in the detainment of a decorated deputy police chief? Not to mention your activities against an armed force on Unalaska territory that involved the use of military special operators to kill criminals who were being pursued by sworn law enforcement personnel?”

  “Personnel who were, by the way, acting in coordination with military investigators?” Meltrieger added. “Deputy Chief Shaffernik, let’s go. You’re done here.”

  “Now wait just a minute—” Rafferty began.

  “No more waiting,” Meltrieger cut in. “You’ve seized and detained my deputy chief without cause, and you’ve denied her due process. If it hadn’t been for her quick thinking and actions, you’d still be searching for the Llewellyn. Not to mention she was acting under my orders. So unless you’ve got the juice you think you have to detain the police chief and commissioner of Unalaska, you’d be best to let this alone and go chase down Mike Blansky’s trail. And if you even think about trying to keep me from leaving, I’ll slap the cuffs on you myself. You reading me?”

  Nobody moved a muscle or attempted to stop Shaffernik as she rose without delay and preceded Meltrieger out of the room. Once they were away from there, she told her boss, “Thanks, Chief.”

  “You’ve got some explaining to do, Brenda. A hell of a lot of explaining to do. So I wouldn’t be thanking me just yet.”

  “Everything I said in there is the truth. But there’s some additional information I wasn’t able to give them that you should know.”

  “Not here,” Meltrieger said with a shake of his head. “These walls have ears. Let’s get the hell out of here, and then we can talk.”

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  BARBARA PRICE ENTERED the War Room where Hal Brognola sat in contemplation. The Stony Man director had just returned from a briefing with the President. Price could tell from Brognola’s expression that it hadn’t gone well. She doubted very seriously that it had anything to do with Stony Man’s efforts. The Man had some peculiarities, just like every one of his predecessors, but he’d always been consciously cooperative with the process Stony Man followed in its missions. Because they got results.

  Price couldn’t think of a better team. Kurtzman and his folks were top shelf when it came to the technology front. Able Team and Phoenix Force were two of the finest commando units in operation, crack combatants and good souls down to the last man. Each of them had paid a terrible price in the name of duty, and Price had come to not only love and admire them but she also just plain respected the hell out of them.

  She couldn’t have asked for a better leader than Hal Brognola, either. They had long shared a deep friendship and professional bond from practically the first day she’d come onboard. Brognola had handpicked her, and he’d had the cream of the crop from which to choose. Fortunately, she’d been savvy and wise enough to say yes when he came to call on her.

  “Good morning, Hal.”

  “What time is it?”

  Price looked at her watch. “Early. And I can tell you’ve been up all night.”

  “I caught a few winks on the way back from DC,” Brognola replied.

  “I didn’t even know you were back.”

  The big Fed waved. “Sorry. Any coffee on?”

  “Not yet,” Price replied. “Feel free to make a pot, or you can wait until Mrs. Newton is up and about.”

  Brognola popped a couple of antacid tablets. “I’ll make a pot shortly. What’s the news?”

  “The situation has reached critical mass,” Price said. “I think it won’t be long before Striker pours on the fireworks.”

  “That really doesn’t come as a surprise to me. The word came in as my meeting was breaking up that they located the Llewellyn.”

  “Correct, but still no crew. And it just came to our attention that the local police force at Unalaska providing support to Striker got the hammer brought down on them by military intelligence, specifically NIS and a DHS task force.”

  “Damn bureaucratic red tape.” Brognola shook his head. “I’m all for interagency cooperation, but sometimes you really can have too many irons in the fire. So, what do you recommend as our next move?”

  “I’m not sure there’s much more we can do. Striker neutralized the small expeditionary force on Unalaska that had been assigned to strip the Llewellyn of technology. Apparently, a few of them attempted to escape, and he was in pursuit with Unalaska authorities when they were ordered to put down at the airport for violating the no fly-zone. Coupled with a navy SEAL team operation against the surviving terrorists from the group hiding near Dutch Harbor, all of whom were killed in the battle, Striker lost his only potential lead to discovering where the RBN was operating.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Price nodded. “Our boys somehow managed to dodge the bullet thanks to one—” she looked at the folder she’d been holding “—Deputy Chief Brenda Shaffernik. Apparently, she covered for Striker and Jack until they could get out of there. According to Kurtzman’s tracking software, they proceeded by one of our jets straight to Adak Island. That’s about the time we got a call from Striker confirming all of the information.”

  “So I’m betting he’s gone back there to confront Haglemann.”

  “Correct. And we have good reason to be concerned because apparently the cat’s out of the bag there about Haglemann and his little alliance with the Russians.”

  “And if the locals get to him before Striker...”

  “It won’t end well,” Price finished. “Right.”

  “And Justina Marquez?”

  “She’s fine, and we just got word she’s secure with no problems. Your idea of sending Ironman to keep an eye on her was a stroke of genius.”

  “I can’t take all the credit,” Brognola said. “It was Aaron who gave me the idea.”

  “Leave it to Bear.”

  “Yeah. At least not to make coffee.”

  Price laughed. “It’ll put hair on your chest.”

  “It’ll put hair on your feet,” Brognola replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Adak Island

  Mack Bolan watched with interest through a pair of field binoculars as the headlights of a Hummer swung into the drive at Davis Haglemann’s estate.

  He’d been evaluating the layout for nearly an hour, lying in the tall grass of a field that sat at an angle across the road that ran past the estate. Far in the distance behind the house and across Expedition Harbor were the high peaks of Mount Moffett covered with snow. While it was midsummer here, there was no denying the chill in the air. Bolan had been fortunate enough the field provided ample cover. There were a couple of guards he’d noticed roaming along a parapet of some kind that seemed to surround the helipad and parts of the house, but the majority of it was unpatrolled. Under the cover of nightfall, those guards were not able to see Bolan’s specter-like form.

  The soldier lowered the binoculars and checked his watch. He’d noted that it was almost time to begin his assault, and h
e didn’t want to risk anything to chance. He’d be cutting it close at it was. The only thing that interested him now, however, was the arrival of new guests. Bolan couldn’t imagine who might be coming to see Haglemann at this time. The word was out about the guy, and Chakowa had sworn to keep any and all as far from Haglemann as possible. That meant that whoever had arrived just now was either part of Haglemann’s staff or additional security.

  He had to wonder if these visitors were members of the RBN. Could it have really been that easy? Lustrum had sworn on his mother’s grave that Rov and the man known as Zakoff had been the only two Russians foisted on him by Haglemann. Had there been others hiding somewhere else on the island? Bolan couldn’t buy that and dismissed the notion immediately. There was still an unknown number from the RBN contingent active. Not to mention the fact he was convinced beyond all doubt that the crew of the Llewellyn, if alive, was being held prisoner wherever that contingent might be operating. It wouldn’t be easy to hide eighty to ninety uniformed USCGC personnel without drawing significant attention.

  Despite it all, Bolan wondered. Could it be Russian VIPs? If yes, then Fate had smiled on him, and he hoped the good fortune would continue. Until it was verified, though, Bolan would go with his plan and adjust it on the fly.

  Time to move.

  The Executioner set the binoculars aside and reached to the wool blanket near him. He lifted it to reveal the shadowy outline of another trusted ally: an MSG90A1 sniper rifle. Bolan had used the weapon for many years. It included a composite shoulder stock that was adjustable at length and height, and sported a Weaver rail system for sight mounting. Its greatest reputation remained its accuracy, a fact to which Bolan could attest. Capable of delivering a 7.62 mm NATO round at up to two-thirds of a mile in under a second, the MSG90A1 included a box magazine of ten rounds.

  Bolan eased the weapon forward, closed his left eye and put his right one up to the telescopic sight. He peered past the illuminated reticle of the scope and tracked along the horizon until he found the first guard. The two were roving, so he’d have to take one and then wait until the other came into view. He could only hope he got them both before either could raise an alarm. If he didn’t succeed in neutralizing the guards, the entire battle would be lost before it even got off the ground.