Bolan had friends buried at Arlington. Some he had served with during active duty as a Green Beret. Others he’d known in passing had gone to their rewards after he’d left the service to begin his one-man war against the Mafia. From there, his War Everlasting had rapidly expanded to consume his life.
He visited the sites to commune, reflect, and speak with the dead. And sometimes, like today, to take a meeting with one of his oldest living friends.
Hal Brognola, a high-ranking official of the Department of Justice, chose meeting places where they could blend in, could avoid public scrutiny and be certain that their words would not be overheard, short of a drone soaring on high.
Bolan could not surmise what the big Fed might have in mind this time. Upon receiving the terse text, with nothing listed but coordinates and time of day, he’d gone online to scan the breaking news in search of incidents that might require his special skills to set things more or less back on an even keel.
He’d found the usual drug busts in Florida and Arizona, cartels fighting for their lives in Mexico, feuding between the Mafia and rival ’Ndràngheta over turf in southern Italy and Western Europe, plus a bevy of always plentiful corruption scandals.
Elsewhere, in the outcast state of North Korea, Kim Jong-un was rattling his long-range missiles, threatening destruction to a world of enemies from his Pyongyang palace. French voters had stopped short of choosing a neo-Nazi as their next prime minister; no problem there. The European Union might or might not be disintegrating, but there was nothing he could do or wanted to do about it either way.
Afghanistan, still occupied by US troops after a grueling eighteen years, continued producing some 93 percent of the world’s non-pharmaceutical-grade opium and heroin, uninterrupted since it was the livelihood of Afghan farmers—and the nation’s avaricious leaders. Next door, Pakistan and India still fought a version of the same old border war they’d waged since 1947 when their British overlords had drawn lines on maps to separate the two and hoped for peace. The Middle East, of course, would always be the Middle East, divided on religious lines, with Arabs raging at the occupation of ancestral lands condemned by the United Nations—not that Israel gave a damn.
A world of woes, but nothing had jumped out to demand Bolan’s attention here and now. He knew Brognola would explain the problem. A glance at his watch told him that explanation should begin in five, six minutes, tops.
Reluctantly he turned his back on the unknowns and scanned the acreage of green with its tidy rows of bright-white marble headstones. Each was inscribed in black with more than sixty approved religious emblems for soldiers of faith, an atomic whirl circling an “A” for atheists, and others bearing military emblems, infinity symbols, landing eagles, sandhill cranes, even pomegranates.
Far off, drawing gradually closer, was a husky figure Bolan recognized instinctively, bringing a twitch to lips that rarely smiled these days.
They’d met the first time during his campaign against Miami mafiosi, then again in Vegas, when they’d nearly joined forces. But Bolan had resisted government entanglement until the wrap-up of his “final mile” against the Mob, ending with his faked death in New York City’s Central Park, the alteration of his game face—not the first—and purging of all his records, just in case his fingerprints surfaced somewhere down the road.
Since then, he’d risked his life for Hal Brognola and the team at Stony Man Farm—a covert antiterrorist organization based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia—a thousand times, eliminated countless threats to the United States and civilized society around the world, but it would never be enough. No victory was ever claimed for good; no enemies were buried or incinerated who could not be easily replaced by other villains, equally as bad or worse.
In short, a warrior’s work was never done.
He started walking toward Brognola’s distant figure, planning on a meet halfway between their present places in the cemetery. At this hour, there were no tourists around, though that was bound to change since Arlington hosted some three million souls per year, or eighty-two hundred per day. It wouldn’t matter, even if they started clocking in by now, since visitors to Arlington were generally on their best behavior, leaving others to themselves, speaking in muted tones, seeking specific markers of the honored dead.
If worse came to worst, a silent glare from the big Fed or Bolan should ensure they were not disturbed. There would be no need to produce the weapons both men carried concealed beneath their jackets.
When they were close enough to speak without shouting, the two old friends greeted each other, closed the final gap and shook hands as they always did, like soldiers in a common cause, too long apart. Each knew the other’s story intimately, understood what set them on converging paths of no return.
Both men knew how their journey would end, beyond doubt, but had not reached that point, although they would be ready for it when it came.
As they released each other’s hands, Bolan asked, “What’s up? Your short text sounded serious.”
“It’s always serious,” Brognola replied. “But this time...hell. I’m not sure what to make of it myself.”
* * *
“I guess you’re current on the US Army Rangers,” Brognola remarked as they made their way through the ranks of polished headstones, weathering to various degrees, one dating back to May of 1864 but lovingly maintained.
“I’ve trained with Rangers on more than one occasion, and fought with them in the field, before Pittsfield. They’re based at Fort Benning. That’s about the size of it.”
Brognola didn’t have to ask what Bolan meant by “Pittsfield.” It was the Executioner’s hometown in Massachusetts where a Mafia loan shark had hooked Sam, his father, and drawn Bolan’s sister, Cindy, into bondage with an escort service after Sam had been beaten, nearly crippled, for defaulting on his debt. Something inside Sam Bolan had snapped and he’d tried to spare his loved ones further shame by wiping out the family. The sole survivor had been Bolan’s younger brother, Johnny, who had shared the tragic story with his older brother, thus launching the Executioner upon his one-man hellfire trail against the Mob.
“Then would it surprise you,” Brognola said, “if I said six Rangers have gone off the grid after declaring their loyalty to ISIS?”
Bolan responded with a frown and said, “Surprise would be the least of it.”
He’d followed ISIS in the media and classified reports from Stony Man. Officially it was a virulent al Qaeda splinter group whose terse initials stood for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Sometimes the leaders called it ISIL—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—or simply IS, the Islamic State. Their stated goal was to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate, to which end, strangely, they waged war primarily against their fellow Muslims, razing villages and cities, scourging libraries, museums and random monuments of great historical significance to the Islamic culture. All of which, to Bolan, indicated raving psychopaths in charge.
“Six Army Rangers going over?” he echoed, watching Brognola nod.
“And not just any Rangers,” said the man from Justice. “There’s a major, a lieutenant colonel, with a captain, first lieutenant, plus a staff sergeant and sergeant.”
“And we know this how?” Bolan inquired.
“Their so-called manifesto,” Brognola replied, “which they are demanding we publish through official channels, send-ups on the Pentagon and White House websites, plus all major TV networks and the top ten US newspapers, with a combined readership exceeding 8.3 million.”
“But you’ve held it back,” Bolan observed.
“So far. We’re on a ticking clock.”
“What happens when the clock strikes twelve?” Bolan inquired.
“A ‘major terrorist event,’ whatever that means. Mega casualties, no hope of disguising it.”
“You think they can deliver?”
“The
re’s a chance they already have,” Brognola said. “A teaser, anyway. We’ve kept a lid on it so far.”
“Particulars?”
“Some kind of noxious gas attack in Baltimore, a shopping mall. Two dead, a couple dozen treated at the hospital for symptoms that resembled sarin poisoning. We’re calling it a leak, natural gas from one of the mall’s restaurants, and squaring it with their insurance carriers. The Rangers gave thumbs-up to burying the news for now, as long as we get cracking on the broadcast of their manifesto by high noon, the day after tomorrow.”
“So much time?”
“It seemed a little leisurely to me, as well,” the big Fed said.
“I’m guessing that this outfit has a name?”
“Funny about that,” Brognola replied. “They haven’t floated one, so far. That strikes me as a clumsy oversight.”
“Unless it’s all a scam.”
“Or that.”
“I can’t help noting that this sounds like something for the MPs at Fort Benning. It’s their home turf, their people going rogue.”
“They tried already. Kicked it upstairs to the CID, a task force supervised directly by the Provost Marshal General.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Bolan observed.
“You do. They traced their runners to North Carolina, to rented tourist quarters in a tiny town on Topsail Island. Ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say I have,” Bolan replied.
“I hadn’t, either. Anyway, they went in hard last night, a six-man strike team with a captain, a lieutenant and four noncoms. Sent up the balloon at 0330 hours, but they walked into a shit storm. All CID agents were listed KIA on-site, another story that we’ll have to fabricate before we contact next of kin. Call it a training exercise gone wrong, I guess.”
“No casualties on the other side?” Bolan queried.
“Nary a one. They walked out clean, left nothing but the rental property all shot to hell—and one more copy of their manifesto, mounted on a bathroom wall in case we missed the point.”
“Which brings us here.”
“In a nutshell,” Brognola stated. He fished one hand underneath his jacket and produced a DVD, passed it to Bolan, and the warrior tucked it neatly out of sight.
“You’ll find full dossiers and service records on the six alleged defectors,” Brognola went on. “They haven’t got much in the way of family. One has a brother in New Jersey and one guy’s father is a retired Marine. That’s about the size of it. Another one was talking marriage to his girl when he went AWOL, but she swears she hasn’t heard from him since then. We’ve got her covered—taps and bugs, the works—but no contact so far.”
“You’re calling them ‘alleged defectors,’” Bolan noted. “Should I ask if any of them have converted recently and started singing Allah’s praises?”
“Just one Muslim in the bunch, as far as we can tell, and nothing recent. His grandparents were Iraqi refugees, granted asylum by the State Department under Reagan. He was born into the faith and joined the Army out of high school, pulled a tour in Afghanistan without a hiccup and came back wearing a Silver Star, together with a Purple Heart.”
“So, honorable service, then.”
“Nothing says otherwise, until this shit show he’s involved in with the rest of them.”
“You’re doubting the religious motive?” Bolan asked.
“Can’t disregard it, but it doesn’t sit well with me,” the big Fed replied. “You know these types are big on names, if they’re legit. First thing they do is sit around a table and decide what to call themselves.”
“Right.”
“Step two, they normally adopt Arabic names, but none of them has done that, either. Just the one, still going with his birth name.”
“Right.”
“On top of which, we have eyes inside ISIS, overseas and in the States, a couple sleeper cells that think they’re still secure. So far, nobody claims to know these guys, and they’d be trumpeting the news if half a dozen Army Rangers joined their cause en masse.”
“You’d think so, anyway. But if they’re faking the ISIS connection, what’s their end game?”
Brognola gave him a wry smile. “We won’t know that until you run them down.”
“Speaking of which, mobility should be our top priority on this.”
“Agreed.”
“What’s Jack up to, these days?”
“I’ve got him on standby.”
Jack Grimaldi was an ex-Mafia flyboy who could handle anything with wings or rotors. He had first crossed Bolan’s path while working for the Mafia, then converted to the big guy’s cause when he’d decided that his Mob-related life was going nowhere fast. Since then, he had delivered Bolan to hot spots around the world, providing air support as needed on the firing line. And, when necessary, he heard the call to arms and fought beside the Executioner on the line.
“Okay,” Bolan said. “Then I should be good, at least for now.”
“It would be nice if we could talk to someone from the team,” Brognola said, “but I don’t know how practical that is.”
“Rangers are trained the same as Green Berets and Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance—presumably the Company, as well—when it comes to resisting an interrogation. They all undergo hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation, prolonged nakedness, sexual humiliation, plus deprivation of warmth, water and food.”
“Of course,” the big Fed said, “that’s all illegal under various conventions, as we know.”
“And when has that stopped anyone on either side from using them?”
“I see your point. Some say we haven’t been the ‘good guys’ for a long time now, at least since 9/11.”
Bolan didn’t bother telling him to take it farther back, to Vietnam or even to the Philippines during the four-year Tagalog Insurgency kicked off in 1899. There was no point in hashing over ancient history, particularly when the here and now might bite them on the ass within hours or days.
“But if they can’t be caught alive...”
“Where are you parked?” Bolan asked his old friend, cutting their conversation short.
“In the metered garage on Memorial Avenue. You?”
“I found curb space outside, on Schuyler Avenue. I like the walk.”
“And you’ve got local digs?”
“The River Inn on Twenty-fifth Street Northwest, in DC.”
Brognola nodded. “Don’t get too comfortable.”
“When do I ever?”
They shook hands again and went their separate ways, each man freighted with secrets, craving answers he knew would be hard-won, if they could be unearthed at all.
Who was it that had once described the Russian mindset as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”? Bolan had the answer to that up front—it had been Winston Churchill, decades before anyone conceived the thought of ISIS or its killer spawn. This time, however, Bolan didn’t have a span of four decades to end a new Cold War.
He had to crack this riddle soon, before the whole thing went to hell.
Chapter Two
Bolan didn’t drive back to the River Inn at once. Instead he sat inside his rented Audi Compact Executive sedan, opened his laptop and popped in Brognola’s DVD.
The normal warnings stamped on every disk from Stony Man displayed themselves upon launch, as usual. Pointless, he thought, since anyone who’d stolen it would go ahead and watch it anyway, regardless of the threat of three years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
There was no introduction. Just a half dozen icons labeled with the rank and surname of the subjects, waiting to reveal themselves upon command.
He started at the top, with Major Randall Darby, thirty-nine years old, a Ranger for the past fifteen. After fulfilling the Army’s requirements, he’d gone to Ranger school, beginning with th
e basic “crawl phase,” moving on to “mountain phase” at the remote Camp Merrill near Dahlonega, Georgia, passing on with honors to the “Florida phase” at Eglin Air Force Base, then on again to “desert phase” at Fort Bliss, Texas. Along the way, a journey of sixty-eight days, Darby’s leadership skills were judged by both his trainers and the other members of his squad, producing top marks on both sides.
After training, new Rangers typically found themselves in “the worst shape of their lives,” with common maladies including weight loss, dehydration, trench foot, heatstroke, frostbite, chilblains, fractures, tissue tears; swollen hands, feet and knees; nerve damage and loss of limb sensitivity, cellulitis, contact dermatitis, cuts and wildlife bites. Darby had survived it all, emerging with lieutenant’s bars.
He saw his first deployment overseas in Afghanistan, eight months after the US invasion, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. He spent two years “in the sand,” rotated home for additional training, then flew off again to Iraq, saw action in the Horn of Africa against Somali pirates, fought the militant Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in North Africa’s Greater Maghreb, helped reopen the Transit Center at Manas, in Kyrgyzstan, then rotated back to Fort Benning as a Ranger school supervisory officer.
The file contained full details of Darby’s classified missions, and Bolan reviewed them briefly, spending time enough to satisfy himself that there were no black marks against the major’s name, no indication whatsoever of dissatisfaction with the service or the slightest bent toward any kind of radical philosophy or creed.
And yet...
The next file up belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Knowlton, age thirty-five, a second-generation Ranger whose father, now deceased, had returned from Vietnam minus his right leg and left eye, after the Battle of Khe Sanh in Quang Trị Province, near its wind-down in July 1968. In the process, he had killed an estimated sixty-seven of General Vo Nguyen Giap’s North Vietnamese regulars and secured a Silver Star, three Purple Hearts, together with South Vietnam’s Meritorious Service Medal and a lifetime disability pension. His son had joined the Army right after graduating Alabama A & M, passed through Ranger school without a hitch, and served the years of duty every Ranger now expected in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in Africa’s Trans Sahara region, interdicting terrorists and drug shipments earmarked for Central Africa.
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