“Peter.” Artemio spoke up. “This way.”
Kowalski turned to see the Filipino heading for a doorway. “Meeting Rooms 1-3” read a sign above the glass door. He followed, shuffling through the door that Artemio held open for him.
“This is where I’m going to be on guard duty?” Kowalski asked.
Artemio nodded. “It doesn’t look like much, but this mall’s got some impressive basement space. We’ve modified it.”
The young man lead his comrade through a stairwell door and they took the steps down a level, exiting into a well-lit area. The walls were cinder block and fluorescent light fixtures hung from the ceiling. It smelled clean, and there was a row of cubicles just off the doorway. He spotted a frosted-glass-enclosed section down the hall.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“The nerve center,” Artemio answered.
Kowalski raised an eyebrow.
“We’ll get you set up. Your office and guard station is down here, so we don’t attract attention,” Artemio told him.
Kowalski entered the office, and the young Filipino spent the next hour telling him about the setup. By the time Artemio finished, the U.S. Marshall looked at his watch. It was 9:00 a.m. The stocky ex-Marine gave a yawn.
“Come on. We’ll get some coffee into you. Since you’re now a mall employee,” Artemio said, handing him a badge, “you get a discount at the buffet.”
“Woo-woo!”
They had gone back up the stairs and were headed toward the restaurant when Kowalski’s skin turned to brittle ice, cold water flushing through every blood vessel in his body. He looked at a titan stepping through the entrance to the mall. One of the giant’s massive fists was raised to cover a gaping yawn, his other fist raised to nearly eight feet off the ground. The body of the pillar of muscle stretched out, another young Filipino directing him along, holding the door for the rippling man-god.
Kowalski’s feet couldn’t move, his eyes widened with horror as the massive blonde finished his loosening up and turned his cold, blue gaze toward him.
“Why, hello, little man. I was wondering when I’d see you again,” Adonis boomed in the confines of the almost-empty mall.
“THERE’S NO SIGN of Sable,” Bolan pronounced as he finished going over the mill with a fine-tooth comb. Jack Grimaldi was still a little dazed by the explosive shock wave that hit them earlier, but except for a knot on the side of his head and cramped arms and legs, the pilot was in relatively good health.
“In fact,” Bolan continued, looking around, “there’s absolutely no sign of anything resembling missile or laser manufacturing here on the grounds.”
“So what was with the hardforce on this site? And Adonis and Dark?” Grimaldi asked.
Bolan frowned. “Terintec had this business above-ground, but they tested their weapons in the quarry for improved secrecy.”
Grimaldi raised an eyebrow. “They moved the stuff to the quarry?”
“Nobody would have thought twice about looking at the bottom of a pit. And they had plenty of explosives and digging equipment,” Bolan explained. “Enough to make a cave.”
He thought about it for a moment and told Grimaldi his plans. “Take a car back to the airport. I’ll check out the quarry. If there’s trouble, I’ll just pull back and stay quiet. I want the Learjet ready to go, though.”
“I don’t like the idea of letting you go there alone, Sarge,” Grimaldi told him. “You do it all the time, but—”
“Yeah. I know. But if Barbara calls us back to Chicago, I want to be there as fast as possible. That means the Learjet better be prepped to go,” Bolan replied.
Grimaldi nodded.
“And try for a head shot the next time you go up against Adonis,” Bolan told him.
“You didn’t,” the Stony Man pilot quipped.
“I didn’t even put a bullet in his chest,” Bolan answered. “Get moving, and be careful.”
Grimaldi nodded and found a car with the keys in it. Bolan decided not to bother hiking back to his borrowed wheels and did like his friend.
The cars swung out and the two men gave each other a wave before parting ways. It didn’t take the Executioner long to reach the quarry, and he pulled in, past corpses of men he’d killed hours earlier. The battle scene had an eerie silence and carrion birds pecked at the dead. Bolan looked away from the scene, realizing it was just nature taking its course. Those who fell would feed the earth and her creatures, returning to the ecosystem what nutrients they contained.
Still, it was unnerving to see a raven tugging a string of flesh out of the throat of a corpse, even for a hardened warrior like Bolan. He considered beeping the horn to shoo off the carrion eaters, but in case there was anyone still alive in the quarry, he didn’t want to announce his presence so soon. Bolan went EVA, keeping the OA-93 machine pistol strapped to his chest, just in case he ran into heavy opposition.
On his earlier run-through of the buildings in the quarry, while he’d been setting them up to blow, Bolan hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary.
That only left heading down the staircase and into the depths of the mined-out quarry. He checked to see if there were any booby traps or security devices, and even though none was apparent, he gripped the OA-93 tightly with both hands and descended slowly. The muzzle pointed ahead of Bolan as he moved down the metal stairs, his boots making achingly loud clanks as he took each step as stealthily as he could. Continuing along the zigzagging stairs, the soldier finally reached a platform where a gaping cavern was formed along the slope of the cliff. Bundles of cables and PVC pipe snaked into the upper-right corner of the cave’s mouth like a writhing mass of red, green and black tentacles.
One crimson tendril descended to a light switch and Bolan reached carefully for it, keeping himself tight against the mouth of the cave. He was already backlit, and if anyone was inside, they could have burned him down a thousand times over. His finger hit the button and slowly, one by one, amber lights popped on, trailing off into the tunnel. The floor was covered by grating and the golden light revealed no telltale signs of a tripwire or pressure plate attached to cakes of plastic explosives.
Bolan stepped into the mouth of the cave, OA-93 out front. He proceeded deeper, and nothing greeted his probing feet. He continued down the tunnel another 150 feet before it opened into a cleared-out area. Lights hung from the ceiling twenty feet above, and the Executioner could see that whoever had been down this tunnel had found a natural fissure in the mountainside where they were excavating stone. The formation he was in was old, but many of the fresh wires and pipes seemed only a year or two at most.
Moisture filled the air and Bolan looked up, seeing cracks in the ceiling where sunlight came through. Water had to have collected in the soil and dripped down. Walkways kept people from stepping in the accumulation. He could see drainage tunnels leading off into the darkness.
The catwalks formed a web, connecting several prefabricated buildings set on stone blocks. Bolan checked inside one and spotted a worktable full of electronics gear. He wasn’t sure if it was for the laser or the missile guidance system, but the sheer level of technology convinced him that it wasn’t someone’s disassembled microwave oven. He checked a circuit board, looking at a sophisticated grid of transistors and microchips. Again, it could have been anything from the central processor of a missile guidance system or the control mechanism of a laser beam.
Either way, there were more components in plastic storage tubs behind him. Enough to build dozens of whatever he was looking at. It was enough evidence for the Executioner to realize that the RING and its minions were hard at work down here. And they were mass-producing weaponry.
One laboratory. He recognized the ionizing filters at the doorway, capturing errant air particles to keep the circuit boards and microchips from becoming contaminated. A single speck of dust could be the difference between proper function and a spectacular flame-out. Bolan had seen tests where a laser lens with the grease from a fingerprint cau
sed the projector to overheat and turn into a flaming fireplace log, burning out of control.
The Executioner clicked off the ionizer. The low-powered magnet would no longer keep the RING’s precious high technology safe.
Sometimes the flicking of a switch was more satisfying than putting a bullet through the enemy’s systems.
Bolan stepped out of the prefab and onto the walkway.
In one corner of the dome, from this vantage point, he could see a concrete pallet, loaded with fifty-five-gallon drums. On the side was the international symbol for a biohazard. They were behind orange plastic netting and sheltered by a heavy tarp over a corrugated aluminum roof, to keep the dripping moisture from touching the drums. Bolan took a tentative step toward them, then closed to inspection range. The canisters were empty.
Bolan wasn’t a man given to panic, but neither was he a man without a healthy sense of fearful respect for the horrors that man unleashed through chemical and biological experimentation. He saw that the drums were designed for hydrochloric acid, for etching circuit boards, or for storage of rocket fuel. What truly set the soldier’s nerves on edge, though, was a square container, as tall as he was, nine feet wide and fifteen feet long.
Bolan recognized it as a transport trailer for bio-warfare weaponry. The door was cracked ajar and he pried it open farther, heart hammering, instinct telling him to drop everything and tell Hal Brognola to call in a napalm strike on this hellhole. The professional in him had to know what was inside. He was already exposed as the broken seal on the container allowed air in and out. He was breathing death or he was in the clear.
Silvered globes were suspended in parallel rows along the sides of the container, hanging free. About half of the spheres had glass capsules built into the sides, golden-brown fluid inside. Others had been stripped of their liquid prizes. Bolan wasn’t a biochemist, but he knew the contents weren’t Pilsner beer.
Grim realization swept the Executioner.
The O’Hare attack was intended to spread a biological agent across the globe.
Mack Bolan wasted no time, racing back to Sparta Municipal Airport.
KOWALSKI FOUGHT to stay loose as Adonis approached him. The giant was smiling and jovial. He even slid an arm around the man’s shoulders.
“I was hoping we’d meet again,” Adonis said. “What name are you going by today?”
“Peter Steel.”
“You mean, this guy has another identity?” Artemio asked. His hand drifted toward a gun on his hip.
“Mr. Steel is a dweller in shadows, a mystery wrapped in an enigma. He’s joined your numbers, though. He’s no threat to you,” Adonis said. “He is a man of courage and conviction. I can vouch for him.”
“But…” Adonis’s companion began.
“But nothing. Come. Let’s grab some breakfast. I’m starving after my flight,” Adonis stated.
Not one to pass up a last meal before his own execution, Kowalski joined the men. He ate well, answering when spoken to, smiling and shoveling hash browns and forkfuls of cheese omelets doused in ketchup into his mouth. A side order of sausage links soaking in maple syrup added to his idea of a perfect last breakfast, cold milk washing down the mixture. Adonis locked eyes with his.
“Enjoying yourself?” the giant asked.
Kowalski nodded. “How about you?”
“I’ve been better,” Adonis answered. “But the food and company are good. I just got back from Wisconsin. I met our mutual friend yesterday.”
“Colonel Stone?”
Artemio chuckled. “Lieutenant Steel. Colonel Stone? What next, General Diamond?”
“Quiet,” Adonis admonished. His glare cut through the Filipino militiaman’s confidence like lasers through tissue paper. “Just the man I was talking about.”
“Did you get to talk much?”
“Not really. I had to leave to help work on the West Coast end of the project,” he explained.
“Artemio, did you explain to him what’s going on at the mission?”
“He’s in security,” the youth responded. “I didn’t think—”
“The man is charged with protecting you. It would be good to provide him with everything he needs to know,” Adonis once more scolded. “See, the mission itself is our cyberhub. The center of all our communications through Internet, broadcast and snail mail.”
Kowalski nodded, impressed. “I haven’t been in the nerve center yet.”
“There’s always time for that,” Adonis said. “I’m going to go there after my nap. My charter flight took off well after midnight, and I didn’t get much time to sleep. If you’re still on duty when I wake up, maybe I’ll give you the cook’s tour.”
Kowalski nodded numbly. “Sounds like fun.”
Adonis smiled. “You look like you could use some sleep, too.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Kowalski answered. He kept waiting for whatever bombshell Adonis had on hand to go off. The blond giant simply rose from his table.
“I love prepaying for a buffet!” Adonis exclaimed. “Walk with me a bit, Peter.”
Kowalski got up and joined him, Artemio close behind.
“Is your name Peter, Artemio?” Adonis asked.
The Filipino halted, not wanting to press his luck. He stepped away and allowed the two to walk off into the nearly abandoned mall.
“I bet you nearly shit yourself when you saw me come in,” Adonis said, plopping a tree-trunk of an arm around Kowalski’s shoulders.
“Nearly?”
Adonis chuckled. “I’m not going to blow your cover. It really doesn’t matter what you learn now. The countdown is ticking, the doomsday numbers are falling, and you can’t fight your way out of this place as long as I’m here.”
“So I just roll over and die, not even make an effort to keep you from slaughtering thousands?” Kowalski asked. “I’ll fight.”
“And you’ll die,” Adonis answered. “So just keep quiet. Get swallowed up by the organization. This place is due to be blown out any time soon. Survive that long, and you can scamper away while this joint is thrown to the wolves.”
Kowalski tested the grip of the arm across his shoulders. It was like a yoke of iron. He couldn’t pull free.
“Please, Peter, don’t make a scene,” Adonis warned.
“‘Do not go gentle into that dark night.’”
Adonis sighed. “Is that your final answer?”
Kowalski looked up. He thought of the soldiers of Stony Man Farm who’d adopted him as one of their own, if only for a few days.
“Can I phone a friend, Regis?”
Adonis laughed.
That’s when Able Team’s van burst thunderously through the mall entrance, glass shattering and metal twisting in its path.
“THE U.S. ARMY IS SENDING a biological warfare team out to recover the container,” Barbara Price explained over the phone link as Bolan and Grimaldi’s Bombardier Aerojet Learjet 60 tore through the skies across the Wisconsin-Illinois border. “We’re still trying to figure out the point of origin of the stuff, or even what it is.”
Clouds whipped past the windows of the cockpit, Bolan was keyed in to Stony Man Farm via a secure SATCOM uplink, the headset snug around his skull, its boom mike hovering before his lips as he spoke. “Barbara, the exact what isn’t as important as the fact that the RING is going to use the next airport accident as cover to spread an airborne virus at O’Hare. The disease could spread around the planet in the space of a day if they manage to pull this off.”
“We’re not even sure what kind of CB weapon it is,” Price said. “If we shut down O’Hare, that’ll spook our boys to try somewhere else. We don’t even know what countermeasures to get ready in case something happens.”
Bolan grimaced. “I know. I’m just thinking, at any time, there are thousands of people at that airport. A good delivery system could infect easily a third of them.
“The worst-case scenario would be that passengers would be exposed and sent off before we could sh
ut down the runways,” Price said. “If we could contain the infected passengers and flights, if it’s a fast-acting bio-weapon like Botox, we’re talking three to six thousand dead and passenger jets being turned into mass coffins.”
Bolan clenched his eyes shut, a tingle of anxiety rippling along him like a surge of electrical current. His teeth grit against each other. “Jack and I should reach O’Hare in about twenty minutes. What do we have on hand?”
“Buck and ten blacksuits,” Price responded. “Automatic weapons, atropine injectors against nerve gas, but nobody’s been inoculated against anthrax, Botox or smallpox.”
“That’s because the inoculation is sometimes as bad as the disease,” Bolan responded. “Anyone I’m familiar with?”
“Toro Martinez. Anyone else who’s worked with you is either on alert in their ordinary jobs or reinforcing us here at the Farm,” Price told him.
“Able Team?”
“San Francisco. They’ve been trailing Kowalski all around.”
The Executioner frowned, looking out the window. “I counted forty ampules missing from their containment spheres.”
“Each one is supposed to hold enough to wipe out a city,” Price said.
“We’re looking at a big hardforce coming in,” Bolan surmised. “Dark and Adonis aren’t going in alone on O’Hare this time.”
“You think that the RING has convinced our group of militiamen that those ampules are full of something other than bio-weapons?”
Bolan nodded. “I should have stuck around to look, but I’m betting that they’re handing off atropine injectors to their cannon fodder. They throw what they think is nerve gas, pump atropine into themselves to fight off a neurotoxin that doesn’t exist, and then they shoot their way out of the airport. If they don’t escape, no biggie. If they do escape, they’re infected with a killer bug and parading it throughout Chicago.”
“God, you think they’d throw their allies away like that?” Price asked.
Season of Slaughter Page 20