Dead Reckoning

by Don Pendleton

  The internet had given him a rundown on the summit coming up. Aside from the US President, Britain’s prime minister and Germany’s chancellor, Geneva was hosting the president of France, Italy’s prime minister, and the odd man out, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs. Bloggers speculated on the meeting’s agenda, bound to include tense discussions of Gaza, but the details were irrelevant to Bolan.

  He had one job to do: punish God’s Hammer for taking out the Americans at the US consulate in Jordan. If saving half a dozen of the “free world’s” leaders from another terrorist assault was part of that, he’d call it icing on the cake.

  Provided he could pull it off.

  A fumble, with the present table stakes, would be disastrous. Bolan wouldn’t get a pink slip in the mail from Hal Brognola, but he would carry an oppressive sense of failure to his final days on Earth—assuming that he wasn’t living one of them right now.

  Defeatism was like a parasite, gnawing away inside a warrior’s brain, propelling him toward the completion of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bolan would have no part of that, but neither would he minimize the risks involved for all concerned, and tens of millions he would never meet.

  And he would worry, sure. Even when they were in the clouds.

  Zermatt, Switzerland

  KABEER HAD GIVEN up on trying to contact Tareq Talhouni via sat phone. He was ready to assume, now, that disaster had befallen his three men in Yemen, as it had the others in Sudan and Paraguay. Frustration seethed within him, but he still had six good soldiers under his command, prepared to sacrifice themselves if necessary for the cause. They would proceed as planned, with certain slight adjustments, and their glory would be all the greater for succeeding in the face of overwhelming odds.

  “No luck?” Mohammed Sanea asked him, as he he heard Kabeer set down the phone.

  “We’ve lost them,” Kabeer replied.

  “Who told you?”

  “No one told me. I can feel it.”

  “Ah.”

  “You doubt me?”

  “No, no.” Sanea raised his hands in mock surrender. “If you say they’re gone, I take your word for it. What now?”

  “Now we go on without them.”

  “Can we?”

  “Would you have us miss this opportunity?”

  His second in command managed a shrug. “There may be other opportunities. Rebuild our forces first, and field a larger team next time.”

  “Or wait like cornered rats until they hunt us down,” Kabeer replied.

  “I didn’t say—”

  “This is the time to strike! We have the top Crusaders—several of them—collected in one place, four hours on the road from where we’re sitting now. Who knows if we will ever have that chance again?”

  “You always say we make our own luck,” Sanea answered back, “with God’s help.”

  “God has given us this gift. If we refuse it, we are spitting in his face.”

  “Whoever restrains his anger, God will conceal his faults.”

  “You’re quoting the Koran to me?” Kabeer demanded.

  “Words of wisdom from the Prophet,” Sanea said.

  “If I were angry, you would be correct. I am determined. There’s a difference.”

  “Of course, Saleh.”

  “Are you afraid, old friend?”

  The question went home like a barb, bringing fresh color to Sanea’s cheeks. “You think I am a coward, after all we’ve done together?”

  “No. I think that losing our comrades has you considering your own mortality.”

  “None of us is immortal.”

  “Not on Earth. But when we get to Paradise...”

  “I still enjoy the struggle,” Sanea said. “As do you, I think.”

  Kabeer nodded at that. “But when the time comes to lay down my life, I will not hesitate.”

  “Nor I. There is a difference, however, between necessary sacrifice and pointless suicide.”

  “Pointless? To strike down many of the top Crusaders?”

  “Men they automatically replace within a day, while pouring more destruction on our people.”

  “Your concern for others does you credit,” Kabeer said, making no serious attempt to mask his mockery. “Our people have endured this long, and will continue to endure.”

  “No doubt,” Sanea replied, seemingly resigned. “How will you change the plan, then, to account for losing three more men?”

  “I lead, as we originally planned, with Habis Elyan and Faisal Mousa. We adjust the others’ infiltration routes to the hotel and have them well in place ahead of time.”

  “And me, Saleh?”

  “You drive the van,” Kabeer replied, “taking Talhouni’s place.”

  The van loaded with Semtex, that would be, bearing the logo of a well-respected Geneva catering company that had been hired to supplement the kitchen of the Grand Hotel Kempinski. Sanea kept his face deadpan, but Kabeer saw him swallow with some difficulty, as he got the news.

  “It shall be as you say, Saleh.”

  “I never doubted you, old friend,” Kabeer replied.

  Aden International Airport

  GOING THROUGH HIS preflight rituals, Grimaldi kept expecting sirens and police cars on the tarmac, or a rush of military personnel around the Hawker 400. Aden International doubled as a base for the Yemeni air force’s 128th Squadron Detachment, consisting of attack and transport helicopters, with enough security on site to manage an arrest, no problem, if they got the call from headquarters.

  And how would that play out?

  Grimaldi understood Bolan’s feeling on cops—well, understood might be too strong a word, given some of the cops he’d personally known while working for the Mob—but he’d seen Bolan fight and kill soldiers in other countries where they’d worked together over time. It wasn’t just the presence of a uniform that kept Bolan from wasting crooked law enforcement officers, but something in the oath they took when they were starting out, the ideals most of them brought to the job before it all went south. An army, on the other hand, was organized to do whatever politicians ordered, for whatever reason. Yemen’s military had a record of atrocities against civilians, switching sides when civil wars went badly and deserting under fire.

  Grimaldi wouldn’t trust a one of them as far as he could throw their borrowed jet.

  But no one came: no guns, no lights, no sirens. As the moments ticked away, he started to believe the cop they’d rescued might have kept his word and given them a pass.

  The pilot had refueled the Hawker on arrival, looking forward to a possible requirement for a hasty getaway, but there was still a list of other things to work through before takeoff. Departure paperwork took close to twenty minutes, then Grimaldi made his walk-around, inspecting flaps and landing gear, securing external access to the lavatory, giving visual attention to the Pratt & Whitney engines, checking oil levels in each nacelle, eyeballing the ventral fuel tank through a handy access hatch in the aft equipment bay. From there, with Bolan snug on board, Grimaldi double-checked the instruments and radioed the tower that he was awaiting clearance to take off.

  And this was when he really started getting itchy, pondering what he could do if clearance was denied.

  Take off without it? Possible, but realistically the Hawker needed time to get airborne. It couldn’t just leap skyward like a CG flying saucer in some cheesy sci-fi movie. While he taxied, getting lined up on the airport’s only runway, maybe dodging other traffic on the ground, alarms would sound and troops would scramble, racing toward the Hawker, maybe lifting off in one or more of their Mi-28 Russian gunships. Those couldn’t match the Hawker’s airborne speed, but wouldn’t have to if they blasted it to flaming wreckage on the ground, using their 30 mm Shipunov autocannons or 122 mm S-13 rockets.

  So,
a red light from the tower meant their trip was done, and bailing out on foot would only turn the bust into a comic opera. There were no guns aboard, nothing to fight with but their hands and feet, which wouldn’t get them far. Grimaldi didn’t feel like standing in front of a firing squad, much less dying in some forgotten cell while jailers used him for a punching bag.

  He kept his fingers crossed.

  The clearance wasn’t quick, but it finally came through. Grimaldi passed the news to Bolan via intercom, fired up their engines, and prepared to take his place in line for lift-off.

  The last lap coming up, and it was bound to be the worst.

  Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building,Washington, DC

  “SAY AGAIN, SIR?”

  “Hal, you heard me right. I need you with me in Geneva,” the President said.

  “But, sir—”

  “I understand. You’ve got a desk job now, and well deserved, but this is critical.”

  “It’s not the desk, sir,” the big Fed replied. “We have ongoing operations, and I need to be accessible.”

  “Sat phone. The whole world is accessible.”

  “But, sir, this is a diplomatic job, and I’m an old street agent from the Bureau.” Emphasis on old, he almost said, but kept it to himself.

  “And you’re in charge of cleaning up this mess with God’s Hammer, Hal. You’re doing a great job of it so far, and you will have seen that nothing’s leaked about it. I received your warning on Geneva, which is why I want you flying out with me on Air Force One in...just over two hours’ time.”

  “Sir, it’s been many years since I was fit to guard a body of your caliber.”

  “I’ve got the Secret Service, Hal. I know you’re not a bullet-catcher. What I need—what I require—is you on hand to keep your operatives in the field on track, if anything goes wrong.”

  Require. That said it all. Brognola watched his options for refusal shrivel up and blow away.

  “Of course, sir. Did you say two hours?”

  “That’s takeoff. Any chance you have a go-bag standing by?”

  “Old habits, sir.”

  “Good man. I’ll have a driver pick you up in forty minutes for the ride to Dulles.”

  “Yes, sir. As to weapons...”

  “You’re all clear. I am the President.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see you soon.”

  Brognola cradled the hotline’s receiver, cursed his empty office up one side and down the other, then started preparing for his unexpected jaunt to Switzerland. He had meetings to cancel for the next few days and left that to his secretary, then called home and broke the news to Helen that their weekend had been hijacked. She was used to it, accepting it more readily than he was willing to, but they were both creatures of duty, in it for the long haul.

  Finally, he made the call to Barbara Price at Stony Man Farm. She listened, didn’t ask him any questions, trusting the big Fed to tell her anything he could. When he was finished she said, “Well, that’s interesting.”

  “It’s a royal pain,” Brognola said. “That’s what it is.”

  “If you’re right about Geneva—”

  “Striker has confirmed it from a source in Yemen. I was just about to call you when the Man caught me.”

  “So you could wind up in the middle of it.”

  “Could,” Brognola stressed. “It might not go that way.”

  “Meaning it might.”

  “Tomato, tomahto.”

  “Are you taking anybody with you?”

  “Secret Service. POTUS says he won’t leave home without them.”

  “Ha-ha. I meant—”

  “I know what you meant. And, no.”

  “When do you leave?”

  Brognola checked his watch. “One hour fifty.”

  “Okay. I can probably get someone to you. Maybe Pol.” Price referred to Rosario “Politician” Blancanales, a member of Able Team.

  “I don’t have a plus-one on this deal,” Brognola informed her. “It’s a solo gig.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Imagine how my wife feels. She was making pot roast.”

  “Can I tell Striker, at least?” Price asked.

  “I’ll reach out to him if I think it’s necessary,” Brognola replied. “Just be on standby while I’m gone, and let me know if anything comes up.”

  “I always do. Stay safe.”

  “To hear is to obey.”

  Brognola cut the link and went to fetch his dusty go-bag from the closet, hoping that the suits he’d packed still fit him after—what? Eleven months and change since the last hurry call? That made him think of food, and he began to wonder what they served on Air Force One.

  Over the Red Sea, 37,000 Feet

  BOLAN CONSIDERED SLEEPING on the flight from Aden to Geneva, but it wasn’t working for him yet. He didn’t like leaving Grimaldi by his lonesome in the cockpit for a long flight, and he still had lots to think about before the title match in Switzerland.

  They would be flying over water for much of their journey, 3,248 miles by actual count from Aden to Geneva International. Call it six and a half nonstop hours in the Hawker, at their top cruising speed, first retracing their path over the Red Sea, crossing into the Mediterranean at Suez, then westward until they hung a sharp right at Malta and angled northwestward toward Geneva. Their flight plan was legitimate this time, and someone should be waiting for them on the ground when they arrived, with wheels and other items courtesy of Stony Man.

  He didn’t know who would be making the delivery and wouldn’t ask. Brognola and the Farm would have arranged that side of things, and it was their job to keep a lid on it while Bolan and Grimaldi went to work.

  They were approaching the Sinai from the south when Bolan’s sat phone shivered on the meal table in front of him. He picked it up.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Thought I should tip you off,” Hal Brognola said. “I got a summons to the summit.”

  “What?” It took a heartbeat, but he got it. “Not Geneva.”

  “Roger that. Seems like I’m indispensable.”

  “You’re going with the Man?”

  “It surprised the hell out of me,” Brognola said. “My ride will be here in a couple minutes.”

  Bolan thought it through at lightning speed. “Okay. We’re still hoping to head them off at Point A, but—”

  “No guarantees. I know.”

  “You’re staying at the same place as the others?”

  “Grand Hotel Kempinski,” the big Fed confirmed. “Sounds cushy.”

  “If they make it past us on the mountain—”

  “Just do what you have to do. You understand priorities.”

  “I do.”

  “All right, then. Not to worry. If anything goes down, they’ll likely stuff us all together in a bomb shelter, or maybe one of their bank vaults.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up, anyway,” Bolan replied.

  “I didn’t want to take you by surprise, maybe spot me and think you took a wrong turn over the Atlantic, or whatever.”

  “What kind of security’s in place?”

  “The usual, and then some. I already gave the Man an overview. He couldn’t call this off.”

  “If something happens...”

  “It’ll be like old times. You remember Vegas, with the Taliaferro brothers?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “It’s nothing that we haven’t done before,” Brognola said.

  “Okay.”

  “About security, you know I can’t alert them, and if something hits the fan, they won’t be cutting anybody any slack.”

  “I hope not.”

  “I’m just saying, so you know.”<
br />
  “Okay.”

  “But, look. If anything goes wrong...”

  “It won’t,” Bolan said.

  “Right. It won’t. I’ll see you soon, or not.”

  The line went dead, leaving Bolan to review the latest curve ball fate had thrown them. Hal Brognola was the chief of Stony Man Farm, knew all its ins and outs, but since he’d left the FBI he had been handling administrative work primarily, briefings and plans, the kind of string-pulling that made an operation viable. All vital things, but still a world away from fighting in the trenches, where Brognola had been when he was with the Bureau, chasing mafiosi and the Executioner.

  Too different? Too long ago?

  Bolan could only hope they didn’t have to find that out the hard way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Aboard Air Force One

  The aircraft was a Boeing VC-25, with two main decks and a cargo area, having the regular 747’s four thousand square feet of floor space reconfigured for presidential duties. Its forward section, dubbed “the White House,” was the President’s executive suite, including sleeping quarters and two couches that converted into beds, a lavatory and shower, vanity, double sink and a private office from which the President could address the nation via satellite TV.

  A long corridor ran along the port side, with a Secret Service checkpoint, leading aft to a conference room for staff meetings. Also aboard the flying nerve center were two galleys equipped to serve one hundred diners, a medical annex complete with operating table, plus a nurse and physician on hand, and a pharmacy stocked for any conceivable emergency. Much of the plane’s electronic equipment was classified, but the known list included eighty-seven telephones and nineteen TV sets.

  “First time aboard, sir?” asked a Secret Service agent.

  “No, son,” Brognola replied.

  “Ah. Well, if you’d like something to eat, sir...”

  “Not just now. The lounge is still back this way?”

  “That’s correct, sir. Enjoy your flight.”

  Brognola recognized some of the faces that had come on board ahead of him, from news clips on the tube. They were seen on the sidelines at press conferences, sometimes with their heads together, whispering and being grilled by members of the “loyal” opposition party at congressional hearings. Up close, most of them looked smaller and less important, a trait they shared with lesser humans worldwide, but Brognola knew they had the Man’s ear, some of them guiding global strategy in ways the public could barely imagine.