“Relaying this back to Buck and the Farm, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered, frustration making his voice as tight as a piano wire garrote across yielding flesh. “We might have to take the train out to save lives.”
“If that happens, I’ll still be on the train,” Bolan answered. He reached up, found another handrail and climbed up and over the trio of chains forming one side of a corridor between cars. His foot rested on the top one for a moment as he crouched, seeing the city ahead of him. They were still going to have to go through the underground deep under the heart of the Loop, and Bolan might have a chance at stopping the killers that way.
He wasn’t going to bank too much on it, though. The odds were long, and there were too many innocent lives at stake. He dropped back down and entered the train, people screaming as they spotted him. He put his fingers to his lips, pulling out his Justice Department badge. It seemed to keep most of the screaming down, but they clearly were unsettled at the sight of a six-foot-three man, bristling with all manner of high-tech weaponry.
“Everyone, get to the rear of the train, now!” Bolan ordered. He stalked down the center aisle. “Move it, people!”
He gave the OA-93 a shake and that motivated the startled Chicagoans. They moved en masse to the back. Bolan paused, watching them scramble to get through the tiny doorway. He glanced to the next car down, tension scraping at his nerves like the edge of a knife on raw skin. Dark’s flunkies were in the next compartment, and frightened people were huddled on the floor. Their weapons were aimed at the prone and helpless hostages, and one AHC murderer even walked right up to the door, arms spread, taunting the Executioner to take a shot. He blew a kiss to Bolan, laughed and flipped him off.
The Executioner held his cool. His ego was strong enough to take the insults, but it wouldn’t be enough to help him get over the trauma of watching this group of jackals open fire on helpless hostages.
Bolan backed off, looking at the empty passenger car he was in. He remembered where he’d jumped on. It was three cars from the end. He’d got the civilians into the last two cars, and he had a buffer zone between them and Dark’s forces. There were still three carloads up ahead. He didn’t take a head count, but considering twenty or twenty-five per car, it just wasn’t a sacrifice he wanted to make.
“Jack, I’ve got the last two cars isolated. Anyone puts me down, you light this car up to keep those people safe. Got it?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Grimaldi answered.
“I’m not kidding, Jack. I don’t care if you have to put a missile right through me. You do it if it’ll save the hostages.”
“Dammit, Sarge—” Grimaldi answered.
“Striker, I just got off the horn with Buck. He says that the C.P.D. is getting the CTA to route trains off the tracks, so that you can continue on without stopping. Nobody else is going to get on that train,” Mott interrupted.
“Good. I noticed we sailed through that last stop,” Bolan said.
The train rolled through Chicago, tilting down as it aimed for the dark safety under the city. Already Bolan heard the hiss of static cutting his radio contact with Grimaldi and Mott.
DARK PACED UP and down the length of the compartment, soothing his nerves with a cigarette.
“That guy’s in the fourth car,” one of his men told him. “He’s got some kind of throat mike and radio setup, so that must be how we’re getting a free pass.”
Dark glanced over to the trembling engineer, his bald head glistening with a sheen of cold terror sweat. He offered him a cigarette, seemingly ignoring his subordinate. When the engineer refused, Dark shrugged and took another drag, turning to the AHC militiaman.
“Want a smoke?” Dark asked him.
“That Stone guy. He’s on—”
“I know he’s on the train. As long as we have men pointing these things at the people huddling in terror on the ground, he won’t act. You know, the guns. The hostages. That crazy concept.”
The AHC man trembled at the slight. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”
Dark tucked the cigarette in the corner of his lips. “Most people do. It’s how they eat and talk.”
“You’re a flip bastard—”
Dark cut him off with a grab to the throat, and he leaned in close, blowing smoke into the militiaman’s eyes. “That’s the nice thing about you sorry rotten bastards. I can abuse you as much as I like, but because you’re a racist piece of shit, nobody will think the less of me.”
Dark squeezed harder, lifting him off the ground. “Then again, a lot of people don’t like me for being part of a massacre that killed hundreds of Americans. But hey, it’s not a perfect world.”
The others looked at Dark, terror filling their faces.
“Now, anyone wants to give me lip, there’s the exit,” Dark snarled. “I won’t have the train slow down for you.”
The AHC man in his grip whimpered, standing on tiptoes, sputtering through his lips and nose, trying to get fresh air into his lungs.
Dark let go and the man collapsed at his feet. “Just remember who taught you everything you know…but not everything I know.”
He glowered at his men, and they each took a step back. He allowed a grin to cross his face and shrugged his trench coat, brushing off an imaginary fleck of dust. “What do you think? After this, should I get a nice leather one, red silk lining?”
The engineer looked him over. “You already look totally badass, sir.”
Dark smiled and rubbed his bald pate. “Now this is someone who knows how to speak to a superior being.”
He spun away, the tails of his trench coat flying like wings. He strode with purpose toward the next car and cut through to the third car, seeing his man taunting Colonel Stone at the juncture between the third and fourth compartments. He reached up, grabbing a handful of hair and yanking the man out of the way, pushing him face-first into the engineer’s compartment window, cracking glass and spraying blood down the shiny, silvery metal door.
“Behave, asshole,” Dark snarled.
He stood at the window, looking at Bolan, their eyes meeting. He was right, they could have easily been brothers, especially if Dark had trimmed his hair to a neat, semishort military cut. He smirked and ran his hand through his long mane.
“What’s so funny?” Bolan asked.
“Us. Mirror images.”
“We’ve talked philosophy before. I’m here to talk about those people you have on the floor.”
“Yeah. But you know, the villain and the hero have to talk face-to-face. They have to define their worlds, before one kills the other.”
Bolan’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I won’t put a slug right through your gut?”
Dark rolled his head back over his shoulder. He was pleased that only one of his men took the cue to dramatically rack the bolt of his submachine gun.
“Sixty hostages, Captain Whitebread.”
Bolan took a deep breath. “What are your conditions?”
“I don’t really have any, but I am going to tie up your precious airport. There’s no way you could block everything we have planned for O’Hare.”
“Well, slipping the Filipinos through as missionaries was a clever idea. Did you convince them the Botox was nerve gas and that they had atropine to protect themselves? Or are they suicidal fanatics?” Bolan asked.
“We told them that the ampules were Tabur. They have atropine injectors hidden in their toiletry kits disguised as insulin syringes or asthma medicine,” Dark replied. “Totally useless against a good virus.”
“The RING won’t be trusted again,” Bolan said.
Dark chuckled and watched the soldier’s face harden.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never sent men into action as cannon fodder, Colonel.”
“No. But there’s that difference again.”
“So your real name is Light?” Dark asked.
“My name is pain. And it’s people like you who made me. I’m every ounce of pain from every victim, dead or al
ive, everyone touched by the fear and terror your kind have inflicted on the world. My name is pain, and I’m here to give judgment.”
Dark leaned close to the glass, his brain whirling. Something about that statement, it was triggering a memory, deep and dark in the depths of time.
Bolan stood there before him, surfing the El cars as Dark did. The jostling train did its best to unbalance them, to break their staring contest. Finally, he felt the floor beneath his feet starting to shift itself, rising back up out from underneath the Loop. He glanced out one window and saw the expressway. Ribbons of road surrounded the train tracks and he knew they were in the final stretch toward O’Hare International Airport.
“If a sniper tries to take any of us out, I’m going to have my boys kill everybody,” Dark told Bolan. “Give that message to your boys.”
Bolan keyed his throat mike, talking softly, and not mentioning any names except Dark’s. The mercenary kept his eye on the Executioner, counting the stations as they passed them, a countdown to the big finale. Dark was wired on adrenaline, but instead of growing more antsy, it calmed him, making him sleeker, harder, meaner. His face twisted into a grin.
Dark admitted it reluctantly. He was a man who loved his job.
Bolan turned back from talking on his throat mike. “You’ve got your free pass. Nobody’s going to take a shot at you.”
Dark nodded. The AHC man he’d slammed into the window was just recovering his senses, mopping a torrent of blood from his broken nose and lips, staring at the RING leader.
“What the hell did you do that to me for?” he asked thickly.
“You were playing games with him, and not paying attention to your job,” Dark said, not looking at him. “That could have been a sniper bullet and you could be dead. At least now you look prettier than before I rammed that ugly gob of yours through reinforced safety glass.”
He turned and glanced at the AHC militiaman over his shoulder. “Thank me for saving your life.”
The man shifted through a phase of anger, then fear, then confusion. “What’s that?”
Dark tilted his head, eyes darting both ways before he turned around, looking for what the terrorist was talking about when he saw Bolan holding his throat mike to a small, handheld unit. Squinting, he tried to make out what it was.
“MP3 recorder,” Bolan said, “with external microphone pickup and minispeaker playback. Perfect for gathering intelligence.”
Dark’s mouth went dry, hot blood flushing his face.
“I’m sorry, but it looks like your mouth finally wrote a check your ass couldn’t cash,” Bolan continued. The MP3 recorder stopped, and the Executioner slipped the tiny piece of electronics back into the pocket of his harness.
Dark spun away. “We have layers upon layers of backup plans.”
“Oh, yeah. Like the improvised gunship loaded with MARS missiles?” Bolan asked.
Dark halted, looking back over his shoulder. He watched the Executioner’s thumb jerking towards Dragon Slayer, skimming over oncoming traffic, visible to both men. “Harpy could take that bird any day of the week.”
“You willing to risk another partner?”
Dark smirked. “She’s an associate. Associates are expendable, and there’s no way you can blackmail that information to her. She knows how I feel about her.”
“We have your gunmen in our sights. We’ll convince your Filipinos that they’re on a suicide mission, and your gunship will be blasted out of the sky by ours,” Bolan told him. “Your mission is over. You don’t stand a chance.”
Dark shrugged and tugged down his lapels, the tails of his trench coat rustling behind him like a living thing. “You ever let the odds force you to surrender?”
Bolan’s lips pursed.
“I didn’t think so, Stone. We’re at a stalemate, be-
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Executioner stepped back, giving the terrorists some space. His earphone was already feeding him a mixture of news.
“We can’t spare Able for O’Hare. There’s a stack of militiamen and Fist of God terrorists in Northern California, and Rosario decided to try to clean them out before we lost track of them,” Price told him. “That’s the bad news.”
“I don’t know,” Bolan answered. “Pest control is always good news. Give the guys my best wishes.”
“Then you might feel even better about this news. We’ve got the visuals on a pair of motorcoaches with missionary banners coming to the entrance to O’Hare. Our sniper spotted them and gave us a radio call,” Price replied.
“All right. Has Buck got a plan for separating them?” Bolan asked.
“It’s in effect.”
Bolan took a deep breath. “Buck and the blacksuits have the recording, right?”
“Definitely,” Price answered. “He’s sending Rutherford and a couple others to meet the motorcoaches since we have the MOPP gear and antisera for them.”
“And who’s meeting us at the station?”
“Buck, Carmichael, DeForest, Jager and Priest,” Price answered. “We’ve cleared the station and Chicago P.D. is hanging back, providing crowd control.”
“Right. I have Jack and Charlie disengaging from the train to keep an eye out for Harpy and her helicopter,” Bolan said.
“We’ve got Dragon Slayer on our screens, but Harpy must have been a no-show.”
Bolan squinted, looking as the train passed the Rosemont convention center, still keeping up its charge toward destiny. “No. Harpy didn’t skip out. We just can’t see her.”
CHARLES ROCHENOIRE was nestled behind the length of the SIG R-93 LRS2 sniper rifle, it’s Leupold scope allowing him to follow the path of the two motorcoaches as they crawled up the driveway toward the terminals. The fully adjustable matte-black synthetic stock was tight to his cheek, which was nearly as dark as the polymer weapon he was pressed against. In his left ear, his Motorolla-encrypted radio relayed messages through an ear-clipped headphone, small and unobtrusive, on a wire with enough slack not to restrict his head movement, but not too loose as to snag on anything. Though, at six-foot-four, Rochenoire was kind of tall to snag himself on any low-lying shrubbery.
The rifle was chambered for the awesome .338 Lapua Magnum round, and he knew it was more than a match for any bus, fancy name or not. As a former SEAL, top marksman in his class, Rochenoire had used similar rifles in operations from Bosnia through Africa.
“Go!” came the hurried order.
Rochenoire touched off the first Lapua Magnum round. Even being two hundred and sixty pounds of muscle, and with the use of a cushioning stock, the rifle still spiked painfully into his shoulder. He didn’t mind, though. It was feel-good pain. Every time he felt the sting, innocent people and fellow soldiers were being protected by his marksman’s skills.
The grille of the first bus blew out dramatically, and Rochenoire mentally figured on the effect of the pile-driving bullet, tearing through relatively soft aluminum and plastic to punch deeply into the steel of the engine block, smashing the radiator on its journey through. The motorcoach’s windshield was suddenly bathed in smoke and steam, brakes pouring out wedges of mist and obviously squealing despite their sound being dampened by distance. The driver skillfully brought the vehicle to a stop, keeping it from flipping over.
The Cherokee whirled and spun out, blocking the path of the other bus on the road. Rochenoire made sure that the second motorcoach couldn’t pull any tricks such as backing up and ramming the Jeep. Chambering the second round, he punched a second .338 sizzler across the distance. The Finnish-designed bullet was meant to be the bridge between conventional caliber sniper rifles and the big, booming .50-caliber weapons designed to knock out armored personnel carriers. Against a standard eight-cylinder Detroit engine protected by the front end of an ordinary bus, it was like a head-butting contest between a Chihuahua and a moose. The hood of the vehicle burst open, engine cracked down the center and knocked off the drivetrain.
“Buses down. All yours,” Rochenoire c
alled to Rutherford, Ryker and Martinez.
RUTHERFORD SKIDDED the Jeep to a halt and watched the impressive detonation of the engine compartment of the second motorcoach. Because he was driving, Martinez and Ryker went EVA, Heckler & Koch G-36 assault rifles up and tracking. The rifles were sleek, space-age-looking weapons with efficient combat optics built into their carrying handles, and side-swinging folding stocks that the two blacksuits popped open as soon as they left the vehicle.
“Federal officers!” Martinez thundered in his best DEA raid voice. The lungs of the gigantic Hispanic were like bellows, amplifying his voice into a leonine roar.
Ryker poked the muzzle of his G-36 into the face of the driver of the first bus, locking eyes with him. “Keep your hands on the wheel!”
Rutherford was the last one out of the Jeep. Since he was going into the motorcoaches by himself, he wasn’t carrying even the compact HK assault rifles; instead he carried the old tried-and-true MP-5K subgun. He swung around and up onto the stairs, bracketing the driver and keeping his weapon locked on the man, an American, while he looked into the coach. Twenty faces looked back at him, all grim and tight-lipped, dark, almond-shaped eyes staring hard, glaring daggers.
“The ampules,” he ordered. “Surrender them now.”
“Fuck you, Fed,” the driver growled. He was reaching for a handgun when outside, a rifle blasted. The brains of the AHC hardman rocketed out a grapefruit-size exit wound in his skull, splashing spectacularly over the roof and the interior windshield. The Filipino men, who were starting to move with the driver’s act of defiance, paused, half-risen.
Rutherford leveled his MP-5K at waist level, his features now as intense as theirs had been.
Season of Slaughter Page 25