Dr. Peterson was everywhere. He checked the blip on the screen, saw it was at no more than two thousand feet altitude and making a preliminary approach to LAX.
He touched his intercom mike. "Captain, will you identify the aircraft at two thousand feet below us in the prohibited area."
"Roger."
Dr. Peterson frowned. He had been told of the Chief Executive's arrival at Edwards but had been assured that the Skysweeper test would not be interfered with, that they would be a hundred miles apart. But now with the President's plane coming into LAX, it could be somewhere near. The ship in the position shown on the radar screen was entirely safe. True, it was on the very edge of the danger zone, but absolutely safe. He could put a hold on the countdown until the craft below cleared the restricted zone.
A moment later the captain called back to Dr. Peterson over the earphones.
"That's a roger on the plane. It is the President. His flight had to be diverted from Edwards due to a runway crash there. He will clear the restricted area in three minutes."
"Thanks, Captain Cranston, he's out of any danger zone. We shall continue the test." Dr. Peterson looked at his crew. "All right, continue the test procedures."
The target-radar operator called out sharply. "I have Sidewinder-firing F-14 acquisition. Locking on to fighter. Ready for target Sidewinder to be fired."
Dr. Peterson nodded. "Check all monitors. Everyone should be at the fifteen-second hold on firing countdown. Radio, order the Sidewinder to be fired."
"Sidewinder fired, sir!"
"Have lock on to Sidewinder as target acquisition, ready to fire laser!" another man called.
Dr. Peterson checked his own screen, saw that the missile had been fired some two hundred miles west of them and ordered the firing countdown to continue.
Bolan stared at the business end of the laser weapon and thought it was aiming too low. It would never get two hundred miles to sea. Then he saw the target scope and checked the in-plane radar's scope. The laser was ready to fire, but at the wrong target!
"Stop the countdown!" Bolan shouted. He jumped at the gunner on the laser weapon, who had his eye to the special radar-activated scope in his sighting device, and slammed him off the chair of the laser gun.
"What the hell!" the gunner screamed, clawing to get back into position. Bolan covered the firing button with his hand and prevented anyone from touching it.
Dr. Peterson was there in five seconds.
"Mack, have you gone mad?"
"Check the target acquisition the radar man called out," Bolan said. "He's on the wrong target. He has the President's plane on his scope, not the telemetered signal from the chase plane over the target Sidewinder."
Peterson caught the operator's hands before he could cancel out the display. The target was the fast-moving blip that was below them, not the one two hundred miles at sea. Peterson was sure of it by its location on the screen.
He backhanded the radar-target operator, then brought in the backup man and told him to acquire the target over the Pacific and do it fast.
Peterson motioned to Bolan. "Mack, hold this traitor until we get off the shot, then I may throw him overboard without a parachute!"
A few seconds later the new target-acquisition operator found the mark on the correct radar input.
"Target acquisition from the chase plane. Sidewinder, locking on. Check it please, Dr. Peterson."
Bolan bound the former radar-acquisition man's hands together behind him with electrical tape, then fastened his ankles together. Bolan stood up in time to see Dr. Peterson nod at the radar operator.
"Continue the firing countdown from five seconds. My count, four, three, two, one, fire!"
Bolan watched the gunner thumb the switch. He heard an electrical relay click. That was all. No bang, no zap, nothing.
The gunner kept his eye pressed to the soft rubber sight for two seconds. The radar man let out a whoop as the target blip vanished from his screen.
Dr. Peterson watched the video screen. Bolan looked that way. At first the Sidewinder missile was a chunk of iron pipe in the sky, then it disintegrated as the laser beam slammed through it, superheating the molecular structure of the explosive, detonating it, spraying the Pacific Ocean with metal, smoke and fire.
A cheer went up from the crew.
The chase plane over the Pacific circled the site of the hit, and the cameras followed one chunk of flaming wreckage until it splashed into the sea and sank.
Dr. Peterson stared at Bolan.
"How the hell did you know that son of a bitch was aiming the laser at the President's plane?"
"The angle. No one noticed the nozzle of this thing was pointing down at a forty-five-degree angle. I could figure out that your beam would never get two hundred miles at sea on that trajectory. Then I saw the sun glint off the plane down there and I yelled first and figured we could straighten it all out later. We needed that ten seconds."
Peterson nodded, then turned and stepped over to the man tied up on the floor and kicked him in the side.
"You bastard! You almost killed the President. We're going to have a long talk once we get on the ground. You'll tell me who you're working for, and how you knew the President would be landing at LAX instead of Edwards. You better have some good answers."
The man snorted, then laughed. Dr. Peterson kicked him in the stomach, then bent down and slapped the man's face.
The scientist got on the mike. "Everyone on board knows about the traitorous attempt. Every man is restricted to the plane when we land. We'll go directly to hangar twenty-seven. There I want an hour with my prisoner before I hand him over to the military police and Navy Intelligence, and by then the Secret Service and the FBI.
"At five this afternoon there will be a celebration in my office for the test of our longest shot. We're over the hump now. It shouldn't take us much longer to wrap up the testing. Thanks for your cooperation."
Dr. Peterson turned to Bolan. "I'm hoping you can help me when I question the prisoner."
"Glad you asked. I was going to volunteer for that detail."
11
After the KC-135 was safely towed into hangar 27 and the big doors closed, Mack Bolan untaped the traitor's feet and he and Dr. Peterson walked him off the plane. Captain Cranston was left at the plane's door to make sure everyone stayed on board. Dr. Peterson told Cranston to call base security and Naval Intelligence and advise them of the serious top-secret security violation. He also told the pilot to request an interrogation team at the hangar immediately.
Dr. Peterson led Bolan and their prisoner to a twenty-foot-square room in a far corner of the hangar. It had once been used as part of an engine-testing program and was insulated with foot-thick fiberglass batting. Inside it was as quiet as a tomb.
Dr. Peterson snapped on overhead lights and slammed the door, bolting it from the inside.
The scientist turned to Bolan. "This traitor's name is Glade Hebron. He's been here since I started, and I don't know how long before that." Without a word to Hebron, Dr. Peterson hit him with a swinging backfist that staggered the slender man. Then the aging physicist summoned all his strength and followed the blow with a devastating right cross to Hebron's belly that drove him to the concrete floor.
Dr. Peterson stood over the fallen man, who still had his hands tied behind his back.
The top of Peterson's shoe caught Hebron along the side of the head with a short chopping kick that rolled the downed man from his back to his stomach. He groaned, blood tracking down his temple.
"No one will hear you, you bloody son of a bitch! You came within five seconds of shooting down the President of the United States! And it would have been my fault! I would have been on trial right along with you!"
Bolan stepped between the two.
"Hebron, how much did Smith promise to pay you to do this?"
"Didn't say for sure. At least a million, he..." Only then did Hebron realize what he was telling.
"Sammy Smith said
he'd pay you a million to change targets today, but how did he know the President's plane would come in at Los Angeles instead of Edwards?"
"Smith staged the crash at Edwards today. He and his friends knew the President was coming. Don't ask me how, I don't know. They set up two crashes to close the two main runways at Edwards. It was all part of another mission. They wanted the President to land at Los Angeles International. Then when this test was moved up, I got the word to go ahead. It was all chance. Everything had to work just right. If the wind was blowing the other way the President's plane would have come in on the other runway and I would have had no shot at him. Chance, it was mostly chance."
Bolan lifted his brows. He had underestimated Smith and whoever was taking his place, probably his shadow agent.
"Did you think you could have gotten away with a shot at the wrong plane? Everyone on board would have known."
"Hell, nobody was supposed to be watching. Everyone was too busy doing his job. I would have claimed a miss on the first try, got back on the real target, asked for another shot and hit it. The President's plane would be down and we wouldn't know anything about it until we got back."
"Was the guy with the radio working with you?"
"Hell, no!"
Reaction too fast, Bolan noted.
"He just happened to be there, so I asked him to catch the news."
The Executioner stepped closer.
"Who is Smith's KGB agent?"
"I don't know."
Before the man could see it, a piston-fast punch landed in his solar plexus. Spittle laced with blood spewed from Hebron's mouth all over the room. His eyes bulged and saliva drooled down his chin as he gasped for air.
"One more chance. Who does Smith report to?"
Hebron shook his head and looked away.
Bolan stepped still closer and placed his hands on Hebron's shoulders.
"Look, don't try to be a hero now," Bolan said softly. "Save yourself any more punishment."
"Never!" Hebron screamed, and let fly a gob of spit square on Bolan's boot.
The Executioner's knee rocketed up, impacting in the man's groin. Before he could double over, Bolan held him up and glared into his face, which had now turned to a strange shade of gray.
"No more! Please, no more. I don't know who Smith works for. I got five thousand for telling him how it could be done. I got another five thousand for setting it all up so it might happen. It was part luck, getting the date changed. Then if it worked, I'd get a million in gold and three U.S. passports."
The scientist stepped forward and shouldered Bolan aside.
"Hebron, you bastard! And all the time I thought I had a team I could trust," Dr. Peterson said.
"I was in Nam, remember? That's the asshole of the world. I took more shit from more people there than I can even remember. I figure Uncle Sam owes me for the year I spent there, and I'm still going to try to collect."
"Who else on my team was helping you?"
"Nobody. I didn't need anyone. Willy was too damn dumb to do anything except bring the radio. I conned him. Anyway, I wasn't about to trust anybody, nor split the loot."
"You won't have to worry about room and board for at least thirty-five years, Hebron. Uncle Sam is going to take extra good care of you. Probably solitary most of the time. A man who tries to kill the President never lives long in prison. The other inmates take care of him."
Glade Hebron almost forgot his pain at the physicist's words.
"I'd really like to tear you apart, Hebron, save the government a trial and some sucking defense attorney a fee, but hell, I'm getting too old for the fun and games part. Let's move."
When they got back to the plane, they found Marine guards surrounding it. All had loaded M-16s. A lieutenant came up and saluted Dr. Peterson. He made a quick verbal report, then Dr. Peterson told those on the plane the good news.
"Men, we all have a mandatory debriefing by Naval Intelligence. Hebron's little play upstairs is the subject, and I want you all to tell it exactly the way it happened."
By the time the crew got off the plane a table and a dozen folding chairs had been set up. Two men in dark blue suits took the test crew one at a time, starting with the ones farthest from the action, the two pilots and the navigator in the cockpit. The investigators tape recorded everything.
The elder of the N.I. men told each person debriefed the same thing.
"You realize this is a matter of extreme sensitivity that affects our national security. It is now your duty to forget that it ever happened and to communicate these events to no one, not even your family. To do so would put you in violation of your security clearances and direct military orders, and would open you to prosecution under the National Security Act. Under no circumstances are any members of the press to be informed."
Bolan and Dr. Peterson were the last to be called. The test director introduced Bolan as Mack Scott.
"Gentlemen, this is a bit unusual. Mr. Scott was not a regular member of the test team. He was brought in at the last minute this morning as a replacement for a standby radio operator at my insistence, to provide us with an added element of airborne security. I took him along on my own responsibility.
"This man prevented the President from being killed today. That is the major overriding consideration. He is in the same line of work you are but is not free to reveal his branch of service nor his real name. However in this case it is results that all of us are after. We have the results we need: the President saved, the mission completed. I request to be present when you talk to Mr. Scott."
From there on it was routine. The two Naval Intelligence men were bright, quick to see the position in which Dr. Peterson had placed himself and sympathetic to his reasons. They did not question Bolan at all about his true identity, only about the sequence of events and how he prevented the firing.
"I would assume you will not be available to testify in court when Hebron is brought up on charges?"
"Right," Bolan said, indicating to all three that he had at one time been in the service.
"We can live with that. We have plenty to convict."
"One question, Dr. Peterson. We understand there was a minor interrogation before we arrived. How did the prisoner receive that nasty wound on the side of his head?"
"I thought you knew. He fell down the steps getting out of the aircraft."
Both Naval Intelligence men smiled and closed the inquiry.
Bolan went back to Dr. Peterson's office with him. They had just started to look at the next series of tests when the phone rang. Dr. Peterson answered it and handed it to Bolan.
"Yes?"
"This is Kara Ralston. We have had three calls now by someone named Malia, who says you should call her right away. Is that a familiar name?"
Bolan felt his throat tighten but his voice was almost normal. "Yes, did she leave a number?"
"Each time. She sounded upset, worried, maybe frightened." The woman gave Bolan the number.
"Thanks."
"Our date still on for four o'clock this afternoon?"
Bolan frowned. "It depends. I'll try to make it, but this could be trouble. We'd better cancel. If I can get there I'll call you."
"Hey, sounds good. Fix that problem and call me."
They said goodbye and hung up.
It all spelled trouble. Malia must have left the motel and been spotted. Kara knew where to find him and she knew they had captured Malia.
"Problems?" Dr. Peterson asked.
"Yes, I'm afraid a big one, but I hope not a deadly one. May I use your phone?"
12
Bolan heard the phone on the other end ring ten times before it was picked up. He knew it was part of their plan: waiting, threats, intimidation and then an eventual hostage trade. A man's voice came on the line.
"Uh-huh?"
"I'd like to speak to Malia. She told me to call her at this number."
"Sure, blood. I mean we got this foxy lady says she knows you. She's got short brown hair
, big brown eyes and a kind of a round face. Hawaiian type. Name's Malia. You know her?"
"Yeah, so what? I know lots of women."
"True, my man, true. We think she'll work good in one of our pleasure palaces of exotic love. She's not that outstanding, know what I mean? I just made a practice run and nothing special. Dig?"
"You bought it, you feed it."
"Hey, we figured you might be interested in buying her back. Figured you was heavy with this fox."
"You figured wrong, I only met her twice. I'm new in town."
"You're new, but you're known. We got a straight deal for you: ten thousand and you get the lady in prime condition. Otherwise she eventually winds up turkey meat."
Bolan gripped the receiver tighter. It was getting harder and harder for him to put up the front. Even in this air-conditioned office, the Executioner felt sweat popping out on his forehead.
"Tough, I'm a steak man, myself. See you around."
"Hold it!" There was a touch of desperation. "Okay, maybe that's too high. Bring five big ones and we'll deal."
"Hell, I don't want her. Tell you what. I'll invest my poker winnings from last night, three hundred. That's all the cash I got. She may even pay me back someday. You wanna deal?"
"You musta learned to haggle to Tijuana, brother. Deal. I'll tell you how to get here."
Bolan repeated each part of the instructions, memorizing them.
"Got it. I'll be there by five this afternoon."
"Okay, and bring cash. I don't take no checks."
"You got it."
The Executioner's features resembled a mask etched in granite, and his chilling blue gaze betrayed the grim repugnance that he felt.
Bolan hung up and Dr. Peterson, who had listened to half the conversation, glanced at him.
"Who have they got?"
"Malia. She's a government agent who had been living with Sammy Smith. Now they are threatening to turn her into turkey meat. She's Defense Intelligence Agency. I need some equipment. Can you get me a grenade launcher, for an M-16?"
"Live ammo, the works?"
"Right."
"Okay, I'll use my clout to get it. About a dozen loaded magazines for the M-16 and a dozen 40mm HE rifle grenades. Anything else?"
Skysweeper Page 8