The 12-gauge blasts had been a long way off. Bolan knew his return fire had probably not scored. Crabbing through the grass in near silence, he dragged on the night-vision goggles appropriated from the machine gunner. He scanned the cool night, looking for warm spots, and found one.
It was moving in his direction, and if the man possessed his own night-vision goggles he’d see his enemy soon enough, too. Bolan went flat and counted off fifty seconds, which he judged would give his adversary enough time to get very close. At forty-eight seconds he heard footsteps in the prairie grass, not five yards away.
Bolan stood, and his night-vision display came to life with the sickly image of a green ghost squatting nearby, holding a brilliantly glowing hot shotgun barrel.
The green ghost of Shotgun spun to face Bolan, finding in his own display the abrupt appearance of body heat where there had been none before. He tried to aim his weapon at the Executioner, but Bolan already had him in the sights of the Desert Eagle. The big handgun spoke once, twice.
Bolan pushed off the night-vision goggles. Shotgun was a corpse, slumped lifeless in the prairie grass.
AL-JABIR WAS a bleeding, sweating, filthy mess, with multiple abrasions and bruises and probably some broken bones and a concussion. But he was alive. Bolan hoisted him into the SUV, using more plastic handcuffs to bind his ankles around the extendible machine-gun mount.
There was nothing left now except for janitorial work. Bolan’s cleanup included unceremoniously heaving the .50-caliber machine gun and machine gunner into the grass, after binding the unconscious Jay to the weapon with high-tensile wire. This after he took the gunner’s fingerprints using packaged ink packets he carried for the purpose. The PDA and scanner in his car would make quick work of scanning the prints and getting them to Kurtzman at the Farm. He hurriedly took prints off all the other corpses, then left the scene and put distance between himself and the Fairchilde Federal Penitentiary.
It was time he got some answers.
3
Aaron Kurtzman heard the familiar voice of Mack Bolan say “It’s me.”
“How’d it go, Striker?”
“I have al-Jabir and he’s alive. More or less. But it was messy, Bear.”
“How messy?”
“You tell me how messy after you ID the third party who came on the scene. I’m sending you prints now.”
The computer and phone communications systems Aaron Kurtzman had assembled for his field teams were powerful devices that exploited the best of military and commercial technology. A phone call originating from these customized devices automatically appropriated any and all portable communications resources needed to handle data flow. When Bolan called Kurtzman, his mobile satellite phone also opened a data connection to Stony Man Farm and began sending the data Bolan had collected. Perceiving the data to be scanned fingerprints, an application had already begun the systematic search through the in-house databases, which were, in fact, downloaded copies of some of the most secure intelligence systems in the world. The Farm mainframes ripped through their stored data with immense speed. Later the computers would turn automatically to the remote systems of the world for up-to-the-second verification.
In this case, IDs were pulled out of the Stony Man Farm data dumps in minutes, while Bolan was still giving an account of his eventful evening.
Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman swore softly when he saw the IDs flash on his display.
“I guess that means they were who they said they were,” Bolan said.
“Yeah. The guy at the wheel really was the personal driver for General Edwin Juvenal, U.S. Army. The rest were special forces types culled for personal security. They had official duties for the books—like secretary—but they were bodyguards, assigned after the general survived assassination attempts in 2002 and last year.”
“Why’s Juvenal so unpopular?” Bolan asked.
“Unknown. I’ll look into it. Have you had a chance to talk to our friend from the pen?”
“Not yet. I’m distancing myself from the scene at Fairchilde. Another twenty miles and we’ll have a chance to talk.”
“You think he will talk?” Kurtzman asked.
The phone was quiet for a moment, then Bolan said, “He will.”
THEY TOOK the state highways, and Bolan found a lonely spot to make the transfer. He halted on the rocky shoulder and hoisted up al-Jabir, extracting him from the steel shaft that had once mounted the machine gun. The trussed-up fugitive was dumped into the passenger seat, an extra length of high-tensile wire used to secure the line from his neck to his wrists to the seat back. The man was helpless and distracted by the continuous effort needed to keep his head leaning back and his arms unnaturally stretched.
“I’m not saying a word,” al-Jabir announced.
“I’ll start the conversation,” Bolan offered as he started to drive again. “Here’s an interesting subject—the Seven Scorpions.”
“I don’t follow American pop music,” the captive said, sneering.
“You won’t see them on MTV. They’re a U.S. special forces unit.”
“The name makes them sound like a bunch of vapid teenagers.”
“Just a name,” Bolan said. “And just because you never heard the name doesn’t mean you never heard of these men. They were a specialized Army Rangers team that was dedicated to covert assignments. This particular group vanished.”
“Sorry to hear it.” Al-Jabir had been undercover in the U.S. for years, and his American accent was nearly perfect. Now he was distracted by the struggle to reduce his discomfort and his speech became heavier, even if the colloquialisms were still baseball and apple pie.
“They disappeared in Iraq, specifically,” Bolan said. “That was in 1991.”
Al-Jabir tried to hide the glimmer of interest that showed in his face. Bolan caught it out of the corner of his eye as he steered the Excursion through the predawn darkness.
“Your turn to talk,” Bolan said.
“If you remove all the bindings, I’ll consider it.”
“Not a chance.”
“Then I’m not saying a word.”
Bolan hit the brakes and the Excursion slowed quickly from 60 to 35 mph, and the effect on al-Jabir was dramatic. His entire body was pulled by inertia, and the wire tying him to his chair grew taut on the line connecting his wrist cuffs to his neck. The wire was strong and inflexible and didn’t stretch. Al-Jabir’s throat was garroted, and his arms were yanked even farther out of their sockets.
He gagged and choked as his body settled back into position. Bolan was already bringing the car back up to speed.
“Ready to talk yet?” Bolan asked.
Al-Jabir glared at him and started to talk—but the words were Arabic. Bolan had picked up enough Arabic over the years to catch the gist of what al-Jabir was saying. Something about the late Mrs. Bolan and her association with the neighborhood canines.
He allowed the invective to continue until he hit 70, then he hit the brakes and slowed to 20 mph. Al-Jabir gasped and thrashed, throat pulled shut, arms dragged back and up. His eyes began to protrude from his head, and his lips visibly swelled and smacked like a gasping fish, but the fugitive made no noise until a muffled pop came from him somewhere.
When Bolan finally accelerated, al-Jabir fell back against the seat and he gasped and shouted in pain at the same time. When he finally became coherent he said, “My arm, my arm!”
Bolan glanced at the man and saw that his shoulder was unnaturally shaped. “Dislocated shoulder,” he announced like an emotionless doctor on the sidelines at a college football game.
“It hurts!” al-Jabir growled.
“Just wait.” Bolan glanced at the speedometer. “Ready to talk yet?”
“Go to hell—”
Bolan was going 80 mph, but within twelve seconds he brought the SUV to a dead stop.
It was the longest twelve seconds in the life of the Iraqi terrorist Khalid al-Jabir. His lungs screamed for air, but it was nothing compared to
the agony of his shoulder, where the bones flopped uselessly and the muscles and tendons stretched farther than they had ever been stretched, then began tearing one after another.
He was fighting off the darkness of unconsciousness at the moment he found himself breathing again in loud, pig-grunting heaves. Al-Jabir felt foolish and weak as he brought himself under control, but every thought was dominated now by the need to avoid more pain. He despised himself for the first time in his life when he said, “What do you want to know?”
“Three months ago you tried to strike a plea deal in federal court. You claimed to have information on a special ops outfit that was captured inside Iraq in 1991 and held prisoner.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it,” Bolan commanded.
“The deal didn’t go through. Nobody believed me. My own lawyer didn’t even think my claim was credible.”
“I have news for you—somebody thought you were credible enough to launch a full-scale cover-up,” Bolan said. “Your plea deal wasn’t shrugged off. It was squashed.”
“Why?” Al-Jabir breathed heavily.
“Now you need to start giving me the information you would have provided in court if your deal had been accepted.”
“Yeah, and what do I get for it?”
“You get my promise of an easy drive in the country.”
4
The first glint of morning sun peaked through a gap in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania. Mack Bolan reached for the visor, then stopped.
He saw a speck.
It was as small as a gnat and hung in the air like a thumbtack in the sky. Bolan watched it grow a degree larger, and that gave him an idea of how big it really was—and how fast it was moving. And it told him the speck was coming directly at him.
They were tracking the SUV, of course, probably through a transmitter tied into a GPS. He should have dumped the vehicle an hour ago.
But he no longer needed it, and he no longer had any use for its cargo. He yanked the wheel and spun the massive Ford into a controlled skid that ended with the vehicle facing the opposite direction, shocking his passenger out of his fitful sleep with more screams and curses. The stench of burned rubber assaulted them, then was left behind in a burst of speed.
“What are you doing now?” the Iraqi whined once his pain became bearable.
“More VIPs interested in you, al-Jabir,” Bolan said. “You’re a popular guy.”
The fugitive looked confused until he spotted the dot in the side mirror, where it had become more than a bug. The helicopter was closing in fast on the SUV at an airspeed that far exceeded the upper limits of the V-10 under the Excursion’s hood.
Al-Jabir had to laugh. “I don’t know who you are, American, but I know you’re about to be taken out by your own countrymen. Even if I go too, it will be satisfying to see you die.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Bolan adjusted the cruise control and tapped the brakes suddenly, pulling the SUV around a gentle curve and aiming it down a long straight stretch of state highway as its speed decreased.
He grabbed a sturdy rifle case from the back seat, and al-Jabir tried to look at him.
“What are doing?”
“Leaving,” Bolan stated.
“We had a deal!” al-Jabir pleaded. “I told you everything!”
“Which is why I didn’t kill you,” Bolan said, watching a small overhang of roadside trees come closer and holding the door latch.
“But they will!” al-Jabir cried.
“Then the world will be a better place,” Bolan said, and opened the door just a foot. As he maneuvered his powerful frame through it, he touched the resume button on the cruise control and wedged the rifle case between the seat and the steering wheel.
“Wait!” al-Jabir exclaimed.
But Bolan was already gone.
THE EXECUTIONER hit the ground running as the trees masked the SUV from the approaching helicopter for a few short seconds. He’d been going fast and barely managed to stay on his feet as he ran out the inertia, then pulled himself under the cover of the trees and examined his handiwork.
The SUV was accelerating rapidly back to its cruise control setting of 60 mph, and the impromptu steering wedge kept it on the asphalt for almost a quarter of a mile. At about the same time the helicopter thundered directly overhead, Bolan watched the big Ford roll onto the shoulder and then into a fallow field. Those on the helicopter had to have thought their prey was trying to make an escape, and the chopper put on a fresh burst of speed.
For Bolan it was time to clear out, and he jogged swiftly alongside the road. He was exposed, in the open, and he didn’t know how long the aircraft would be occupied with the fleeing SUV.
As he bolted over the empty highway onto an intersecting county road, he caught a glimpse of the fallow field where the SUV was skidding in the earth, front wheels cranked hard to the right. The prop had dislodged and the tires dug into the earth, stalling the vehicle. The helicopter put itself in a tight circular flight pattern, as if watching to see what the vehicle would do next, but it didn’t do anything. It just sat there. Something arced out of the helicopter and plopped into the grass next to the driver’s door. For a long, quiet moment the morning remained relatively peaceful in this lower corner of Pennsylvania, then the air was filled with a burst of fire and gray smoke. The air throbbed, and the sound reached Bolan a second later. The SUV’s front end lifted off the ground. A big bite was missing from its front end and the driver’s door was pushed in, but wasn’t penetrated.
Bolan assumed that the occupants of the helicopter were actually the owners of the SUV. They knew precisely how heavily armored the thing was. They were simply making sure that whoever was inside would not have the constitution for a quick flight to freedom.
Something else came out of the helicopter, tumbled lazily through the air for thirty feet and came to a rest on the hood of the SUV. By then the helicopter was already in a quick ascent.
The timer was a generous ten seconds. Bolan wondered idly if al-Jabir still had enough of a hold on consciousness to be aware of it. Because he would know what the package contained.
Al-Jabir was a murderer, a man who targeted the innocent and the helpless. He specialized in civilian terror. He ruined the lives of people who mattered only as numbers in the eyes of global governments.
If there was anyone who deserved a little suffering it was Khalid al-Jabir.
But the moment was soon over, along with al-Jabir’s life, when the device activated. Probably a low explosive charge to spread the phosphorous, Bolan decided, as the vehicle was engulfed in white-hot fire that ate through the metal, smashed the glass and digested the seven-thousand-pound vehicle like a coffin in a crematory furnace.
Bolan was pretty sure nobody was ever going to find any serial numbers inside whatever would be left of the SUV.
The helicopter dipped slightly, as if nodding to itself in satisfaction, then climbed steeply and disappeared into the east.
Mack Bolan, the Executioner, had his own reasons for feeling satisfied. What the men in the helicopter did not know was that he had already learned all he could from al-Jabir. He had also found and stripped a steel ID tag off the SUV, and it was now in his pocket.
He had even memorized the ID painted on the helicopter, and now he stopped long enough to extract his war book and record the alphanumeric string. If he was killed in action before he could get the data back to Stony Man Farm, and if his belongings somehow made it back there, then Aaron Kurtzman would have the wherewithal to track down those numbers.
Bolan started along the highway on foot, staying hidden from the road when emergency vehicles began speeding past fifteen minutes later in response to the burning vehicle.
Powerful strides eating up the miles, he chewed on every detail of the scanty intelligence he had so far. His satisfaction turned to aggravation as the pieces steadfastly refused to fit themselves together. In fact, the pieces looked like they came from different puzzles entirel
y.
IT WAS MIDMORNING when he hiked tiredly into a small Pennsylvania town. He had phoned the Farm as he walked and Kurtzman sent a driver. The pickup was in twenty minutes.
He smelled greasy food, and his stomach noisily reminded him that he had not eaten a meal in thirty-six hours. That was nothing new. Food was just fuel. It surprised him to realize that the decrepit wreck of a building adjoining the town gas station was not abandoned, as it appeared. It was a restaurant—an Eat Here, Get Gas–type diner that was open for business.
He strolled wearily inside and was stared down by an octogenarian waitress with a suspicious-of-strangers attitude. When he ordered not one but two dinners off the circa-1997 cardboard menu she let the corners of her mouth droop below her chin, silently but seriously disapproving of his gluttony. Bolan hoped she wasn’t going to get hostile.
The way he felt, she just might be able to take him.
5
Kurtzman told him not to come to the Farm.
“The politics of the thing,” Kurtzman explained apologetically. “Taking this thing on puts us on thin ice, no matter how low-profile the Farm is. If you happen to run into Hal, or he happens to find out you were here and asks me what you’re up to—I just don’t want to be forced to lie.”
“You wouldn’t lie,” Bolan observed reasonably.
“Yeah. I’d tell all. Which makes Hal an accessory. This whole thing could get very ugly among the politicos, and if there’s even a hint of his association it might have consequences on his career plans,” Kurtzman stated grimly.
Bolan considered that silently as he lounged in the rear of the armored limousine. He felt the lethargy slip away, replaced by the expectancy that came with learning fresh intelligence.
After giving instructions to the Stony Man driver, Bolan raised the divider.
“Bear, time for a full report,” Bolan replied into the speakerphone mounted in the briefcase Kurtzman sent along with the driver. Inside, along with the telephone, was a laptop. Both the phone and computer communicated to the Farm, allowing them to be networked as needed. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, in case I missed anything in last night’s rush to the scene.”
Mercy Mission Page 3