Dead Reckoning

by Don Pendleton

  There was power on this plane. If something happened to it in midair...

  Unlikely, the big Fed decided. Aside from standard safety features, Air Force One harbored an array of classified defenses designed to withstand air attacks and projectiles fired from the ground, including electronic countermeasures to jam enemy radar and flares to confuse and divert heat-seeking missiles. If the aircraft was forced down on hostile turf, the Boeing’s Secret Service team and military personnel could hold the fort with hardware from a well-stocked flying arsenal.

  Of course, if they went down at sea...

  Forget about it.

  Air Force One had never crashed or otherwise been threatened, except in a couple of Hollywood features. To Brognola, that meant the plane was reasonably safe—or overdue for a disaster that would set the so-called Free World on its ear. There was a reason why the Man and his vice president rarely, if ever, took the same flight. “Decapitating strikes” were always barely possible, regardless of precautions taken in advance.

  But not this day, Brognola thought. The danger that awaited them was at their destination, not drifting above the North Atlantic waiting for an opportunity to strike. A group of men, fanatics, meant to strike a blow for God and a cause that had scourged the Near East for more than six decades.

  Wherever a person stood on the Middle Eastern issue, one fact was incontrovertible: Israel’s creation and placement, regardless of intent, had lit a fuse of violence that seemed to have no end. How many lives had been snuffed out in the struggle over the patch of land once called Palestine? Brognola didn’t know and hardly cared, beyond the fact that it kept generating war everlasting, to the death.

  Something he’d heard before, though on a smaller scale.

  The one-man army who had waged that smaller war was waiting for him at his destination, though they might not see each other unless things went very wrong indeed.

  Brognola stopped a passing flight attendant and asked, “Any idea where I can get a beer?”

  Over Malta, 35,000 Feet

  THE FLYSPECK ISLAND far below them was a bit of history surrounded by blue sea. Active as a naval base and fortress over centuries, besieged for the last time in World War II and granted independence from the British crown in the Sixties, Malta had hosted a summit meeting of its own before Bolan’s birth, when Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met without their Russian ally, Josef Stalin, to prevent the Red Army from seizing most of Eastern Europe after V-E Day. They’d failed, and the rest was history, with repercussions echoing into the present day.

  Wrong time, wrong war, Bolan thought, turning from the window as Grimaldi put the Hawker through its wide turn, looping toward the European mainland. They would be over Sicily in no time, birthplace of the Mafia and one of Bolan’s former battlegrounds. Beyond that lay the Tyrrhenian Sea, then dry land, reaching Italy proper midway between the “foot” and “knee” of its boot-shaped outline.

  Bolan had learned geography in school, but only really studied it when he became a warrior. He remembered names and places now, not from a textbook, but by who had fought and died there, either in the distant past or modern times. Some of the ghosts were fresh, his friends and enemies from recent battles, gone but not forgotten.

  Bolan had followed through on his plan to call Stony Man for a ping on the sat phone they’d traced to Zermatt. It was still in the same place, unmoved, briefly active that morning, then silenced. That call, as far as Aaron Kurtzman could determine, had not been completed.

  The caller had reached out to Lahij, now behind them.

  So, Kabeer would have some inkling of another strike against his scattered soldiers, if he wasn’t certain of it yet. Would that propel him into action prematurely, before Grimaldi and Bolan had a chance to reach Zermatt? God’s Hammer couldn’t attack the summit meeting too far in advance, before its principals arrived, but they could leave Zermatt, find someplace else to lie low while they counted down to Zero Hour.

  What form would the attack take, when it came? Assuming that Kabeer had planned for sixteen soldiers on the raid, his force reduced by half and then some, he would have to modify his tactics. Seven men would find it harder to corral the Grand Hotel Kempinski than the gang he’d started out with, facing down security battalions from the government and those accompanying their targets, but they didn’t need a clean sweep to achieve some kind of Pyrrhic victory.

  A massacre, as long as it included certain higher-ranking victims, would serve God’s Hammer as a bloody legacy—an inspiration to the self-styled freedom fighters who would doubtless follow them. And if Kabeer succeeded in eliminating any Western heads of state, his name would certainly be lionized among the refugees and children who would fill the ranks of future Arab armies.

  Heading off that slaughter wouldn’t solve the larger crisis in the Holy Land, by any means. Bolan didn’t delude himself on that score, even for a moment. But it would allow six governments to forge ahead without the stumbling block of rushed special elections in a crisis, fresh invasions of the Middle East, perhaps retaliation on a scale not witnessed since the early days of August 1945.

  That was enough to keep the Executioner in motion and to make him risk his life—again.

  He only hoped it wouldn’t be in vain.

  Zermatt, Switzerland

  “OUR FINAL COMRADES have been lost to us,” Saleh Kabeer announced. “We shall remember and avenge them.”

  Seated on their chairs and on the floor around the small apartment’s living room, his six surviving soldiers muttered, scowling at the news he had delivered.

  “Who has done this thing?” Majid Hayek inquired. His dark eyes, underneath a mob of curly hair, were dangerous.

  “Crusaders,” Kabeer said. “We know that much. As for their names, and those of their commanders...” With a shrug and open hands, he left it there.

  “America!” Kamal Bakri declared, while nervous fingers tugged a corner of his spotty beard.

  “Most probably,” Kabeer agreed. “They are our enemy, beyond a doubt.”

  “Jew-lovers!” Faisal Mousa said with a sneer.

  “Christians!” Habis Elyan spit, as if the word had left a foul taste in his mouth.

  Kabeer loved their enthusiasm, but he needed them to focus now. “Remember,” he instructed them. “The best way we can wound our enemies is by eliminating those who lead them. Killing random Jews in Israel or the West Bank is a game for children now. True warriors recognize the targets that have value and eliminate them at all cost.”

  Ali Dajani, always practical, chimed in to say, “We are shorthanded now.”

  “But not defeated, eh?” Kabeer replied. He pointed to a floor plan of the Grand Hotel Kempinski spread before him on a coffee table. “We adjust our plans and make allowances for their security precautions. Kamal, do you have the uniforms?”

  “Five jackets and the black pants to go with them,” Bakri said. “In the confusion, they will not be counting busboys.”

  “Excellent. And all the radios?”

  “Prepared,” Mousa said, “with fresh batteries.”

  “Mohammed, when you have the van—”

  “I know,” Sanea replied, interrupting. “I approach the loading bay in back, with access to the kitchen. If the charge is great enough—”

  “It will be,” Kabeer told him. “Three pounds of Semtex is enough to level a two-story building. Fifty pounds should be enough for any grand hotel.”

  He smiled at that, the others joining in, except for Sanea. Kabeer guessed his second in command was nervous about his assignment for the raid, although he faced no greater risk than any other member of the team, and less than some.

  “Would you prefer I drove the van?” Kabeer asked him.

  “No, Saleh. I am pleased with my assignment.”

  “Well, then, you all know the signal
?”

  They nodded, more or less in unison, but no one spoke. After a silent moment, Kabeer said, “So tell me!”

  “When I see you in the hotel lobby,” Kamal Bakri said, “you raise your mobile phone as if to make a call. I signal two blips on my radio to all the others, and we move in.”

  “Security shall try to stop you,” Kabeer said.

  “We won’t allow it,” Dajani replied.

  “Mohammed?”

  Sanea met Kabeer’s eyes, holding them with his. “I listen for the shooting, counting down five minutes. If security approaches me, I blow the van immediately. If the time elapses and I see no one come out the back way, then I leave and detonate the Semtex by remote control.”

  “And you bear witness to our sacrifice,” Kabeer reminded him.

  “Indeed.”

  “Once more from the beginning, then,” Kabeer ordered, “before we pray.”

  Over Florence, Italy, 36,000 Feet

  “WEIRD,” JACK GRIMALDI SAID. “I’m surprised the President is dragging him into the field.”

  Seated beside him in the Hawker’s cockpit, Bolan said, “He isn’t calling it field work. Something about ‘consulting’ on the case and ‘supervision.’”

  “With the President.”

  “And a command performance, yet. What’s that about?”

  “He didn’t specify. My guess would be the Man is nervous, and he wants someone to blame if anything goes sideways.”

  “That’s a politician for you. Can’t just thank the grunts. And God forbid he’d miss a photo op.”

  “They’ve got big issues on the table,” Bolan said. “So I’m told.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Grimaldi didn’t have much use for politicians, left or right. He automatically suspected anyone who craved authority over the common folk and questioned anything they said in the pursuit of an elective office, where he found that most of them spent all their time trying to keep said office, while soliciting somebody else’s hard-earned cash.

  Still, politicians were elected in America, no matter what Grimaldi thought of sheep who cast their votes for grinning hucksters, and the worst they’d ever done paled by comparison with terrorists and anarchists who tried to burn the system down. Who was it that had called democracy the worst form of government, except for all the other kinds? Some British guy, he thought, and let it go.

  “Does this change how we handle it?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Bolan replied. “Bear says our target’s still in Zermatt—or, anyway, his sat phone is. If we can tag them there, it’s done. If they get past us, we’ll just have to play the rest of it by ear.”

  “With Hal smack in the middle.”

  Bolan smiled at that. “He’d be relieved to know you rate him higher than the President.”

  Grimaldi shrugged. “I didn’t vote for this one. Or the last two, either.”

  Truth be told, Grimaldi hadn’t voted in so long he couldn’t peg the last election where he’d taken the time. He usually had other matters on the go. Sure it was his civic duty, yada-yada, but he’d never thought his solitary ballot made a difference, particularly when he saw one candidate receiving money from the same fat cats who bankrolled his opponent.

  If he had to dig a little deeper, underneath his trademark cynicism, Grimaldi believed he made a greater difference working for Stony Man year-round than spending thirty seconds in a voting booth some Tuesday afternoon. Each time he risked his life for strangers whom he rarely met in person and would never see again, Grimaldi cast a vote for civilized society over the jungle occupied by human predators. So far, he thought he’d cast those votes for the right side—at least, since Bolan had yanked him from his old life with the Mafia and turned his life around.

  Not a moment too soon.

  “We’re half an hour out from touchdown in Geneva,” he told Bolan. “I’ll be talking to the tower pretty soon.”

  “You want me in the back?” Bolan asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the pilot replied. “The whole plane lands at once. You’d better buckle up, though, if you’re staying. Just in case.”

  While Bolan handled that, Grimaldi thought about Brognola’s news. If things went sour in Zermatt, it put the big Fed at the center of a free-fire zone. That made him wonder if Brognola ever practiced at the range these days, or if he would be packing heat at all on what was meant to be a strictly diplomatic jaunt.

  Consult and supervise my ass, he thought.

  There would be other shooters in Geneva, though, no doubt about it: Secret Service, maybe SAS for England’s guy and similar contingents for the rest. Add God’s Hammer to the mix, and it could be a bloody free-for-all, with everyone firing at Bolan.

  And at me, he thought.

  Another quote came back to him from something he’d read once, supposedly a grizzled old marine sergeant in World War I, taunting his greenhorn privates when they balked at Belleau Wood.

  Come on! You want to live forever?

  Grimaldi, personally, thought that immortality would be a drag.

  That didn’t mean that he was psyched to die this day.

  Zermatt, Switzerland

  AFTER THEIR LAST verbal rehearsal of the Grand Hotel Kempinski raid, Mohammed Sanea left the rented flat and found a small bench in the building’s courtyard. He was smoking his third cigarette when Saleh Kabeer found him.

  “You still have doubts about the mission,” Kabeer said, not asking. “Or at least, your part in it.”

  “No doubts,” Sanea said.

  “But you’re unhappy with it.”

  “I was supposed to lead it with you,” he replied. “Not park a van and skulk away while all the glory goes to others.”

  “All the glory goes to God,” Kabeer said. “Have you forgotten that?”

  Instead of answering by rote, Sanea said, “You know exactly what I mean, Saleh.”

  “Of course. You seek a martyr’s end. And you may have it yet.”

  “Not if I run away before I detonate the van.”

  “In that case, you survive to tell our story and rebuild God’s Hammer. That is the honor I’ve reserved for you, my friend. There is your glory, in addition to the countless infidels you send to Jahannam.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Sanea said, agreeing out of habit.

  “Think about the others,” Kabeer stated. “Who else among them would I choose as my heir and successor? They’re all earnest and devout, of course, but none have your intelligence, your vision for the movement and the future. No. It must be you. I truly hope you will survive.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Sanea said, sounding less petulant this time.

  “I have no doubt. May I have one of those?”

  Tobacco was forbidden under orders issued by Islamic clerics, while in other jurisdictions it was merely something to avoid. The difference was critical to worshipers who deemed themselves devout, but Sanea took it one day at a time. This was the first lapse he had witnessed on Kabeer’s part, but he passed the pack and held his lighter.

  “I never understood the ban on tobacco,” Kabeer said. “So many contradictions, and so many more important things to think about.”

  “Perhaps the cancer?”

  “Probably the cancer. But why not eradicate other diseases that we can control?” Kabeer smiled at his own jest as he added, “Zionism, for example.”

  “Bitter death to all of them,” Sanea answered, as expected.

  “And to all martyrs, the open gates of Paradise.”

  Kabeer finished his cigarette in three long drags and ground it out beneath his heel, leaving a black smudge that would surely irritate the landlord.

  The day was coming, and Sanea meant to prove himself. Whether he lived or died, his saga would be written out in
blood.

  Approaching Geneva

  GENEVA SEEMED SMALL from the air, at thirty thousand feet. And it was small, beside the lake at whose southwestern end it sat, a tiny blip of human habitation next to 224 square miles of blue, frigid water. From on high, the city did not resemble Earth’s ninth most important financial center, European headquarters of the United Nations and the International Federation of the Red Cross, or a year-round tourist draw.

  Looks were deceiving, Bolan knew, at this or any other altitude.

  He hoped Geneva would be no more than a transit point, as planned from early on, but he was ready if they had to chase the battle there, after Zermatt. He had already memorized approaches to the Grand Hotel Kempinksi, off Quai du Mont-Blanc, with its view of Geneva’s lakefront. Ferries ran all day and well into the night, but access to the hostelry was strictly via dry land.

  Bolan had experience piercing the minds of savages, fanatics, lunatics and worse, but he could not predict what Saleh Kabeer might do if he escaped Zermatt after a visit from the Executioner. A wise man might bail out and try to put some distance in between himself and his opponents, but religion and political extremism could change the game, as they inevitably changed a person. Terrorists weren’t born, they were created—by their families or other circumstances that propelled them to a life of violence.

  That wasn’t an excuse. It was an explanation, but it didn’t help him second-guess Kabeer’s Plan B. Much would depend on whether the founder of God’s Hammer had enough men for the job, but if his hatred for the world ran strong and deep enough, he just might try a solo operation.

  Commonly called a suicide mission.

  And if Kabeer’s men escaped Zermatt before Bolan even arrived there, then what?