His first move was to unlock the three top-secret steel files and remove the bar rods that went through the drawer handles.
He looked at the files and frowned, then touched his intercom and asked Kara to come in.
"I'm putting together a comprehensive file on the complete Skysweeper project," he told her. "I want you to help me. You start on the first file and work forward. Pick out only the most important test results, the foundation research and development, that sort of thing. Reduce each of those file . drawers by two thirds, but keep the vital information. I'll start on this one and work backward. We have only two hours so let's not sit on our hands."
"Yes, sir! I'll get a couple of boxes from the storeroom."
"Good idea. Now, let's move!"
* * *
Outside, the Executioner sat in his rented Ford.
The weapons were stashed in the trunk, including the M-16 with the 40mm grenade launcher and the spotter scope attached.
The previous evening he had enjoyed an interesting two-hour dinner with Malia, then taken her back to her room at the officers' quarters and driven past Dr. Ludlow's house in Ridgecrest.
He had an uneasy feeling and wanted to talk to the project director about it. Something was wrong, but he could not pin it down. When he knocked on Dr. Ludlow's door, his wife answered. She had been crying, It was a little after nine in the evening, and Dr. Ludlow was not there.
She told Bolan that her husband had made a phone call earlier that evening and talked for a while, then he told her he had to go to the store for a minute. He had not come back after more than two hours. Bolan had asked to look at Dr. Ludlow's desk, and that was where the Executioner saw the number scratched on a pad of paper: 375-4444. That was the number of the special KGB house. He told Mrs. Ludlow he knew the number and would check up on her husband.
Then Bolan drove to the house on Windward Street. Lights showed, but there was no one going in or out. No cars entered the chain link fence guarding the driveway.
The Executioner sat across the street and watched. By midnight he decided there would be little action until morning. Dr. Ludlow was probably a hostage. There would be a note tomorrow concerning a trade of the entire Skysweeper package for Dr. Ludlow's live body. At least Bolan knew where the hostage was held.
Bolan sat up in a comfortable position and went into patrol sleep, that combat state where the body is resting but half of the mind is alert, the eyes open and reacting but the signals downgraded to minor images to the brain. Any unusual noise, movement or touch brings the man back to full alert with no grogginess.
Twice during the night cars drove past the house and Bolan was alert at once, but they kept moving, just some late-night types getting home.
The Executioner was surprised just before eight that morning when Dr. Ludlow came through the front door alone, opened the garage, backed out his car and drove away. As soon as the garage door closed, Bolan followed the big Cadillac. He was surprised again when the car drove straight to the Naval Weapons Center and Dr. Ludlow parked in his usual spot outside the Lauritsen Laboratories where the major research was done on lasers and related optical systems.
Bolan found the nearest phone, called Ludlow's wife to inform her that her husband was well, safe and at work. Then Bolan hung up and dialed Dr. Peterson's number.
"I need that pilot and the chopper waiting on the near edge of the airfield. I've a hunch we'll need it."
"Take care of it in a minute. Then I'll stop by Roth's office and see if he'll tell me what is going on. If I can get anything out of him I'll take a walk over to your Ford. I can see where you're parked. Hold tight."
Bolan returned to his car and waited. Just past ten-thirty, the Executioner saw Dr. Ludlow come from a door on the side of the building closest to his car. He carried a cardboard box, and behind him was Kara with a smaller carton. She was struggling to carry it. They put both boxes in the back seat of the light blue Caddy, and then Ludlow got in and drove away.
Bolan was getting itchy to move. It had to be a payoff, the plans, the test results, probably in exchange for Ludlow's family. It did not matter as long as it led Bolan to the KGB agent behind this whole spy operation.
A moment later Dr. Peterson came running around the building from the other side and waved at Bolan. He rushed up to the Ford and jumped in the passenger seat.
"Something is happening. Roth took about half of his files with him. He seemed strange. Hope you've got your badges on, in case we need to get into Armitage Field."
Bolan followed the Caddy down North Knox to Blandy. The lead car made a right turn and continued to Sandquist Road and turned right again. It was the quickest route to the airfield. Just past E Street they came to the security gate, flashed their badges and moved on through only two car lengths behind the Cadillac.
Bolan had briefed Dr. Peterson on what had happened the previous night with Dr. Ludlow.
"As far as I can tell the place is a safehouse for the KGB operation here, but I can't be sure. Guard dogs, electrified chain link fence give a pretty good clue."
"When I talked with Roth he was unusually closemouthed, hardly said a word," Dr. Peterson reported. "But I saw that he was gutting his files, taking the absolutely essential parts of the research and the hardware construction for the laser . gun. He's moving it somewhere and this isn't at all like him. Somehow he seemed different."
They came to the field and the Caddy drove to the side away from the big hangars and toward the north end of the main runway. A blue and white helicopter sat there, its engine warmed up and the rotor spinning slowly.
A Marine guard held up his hand as a jet fighter with part of the cowl removed was towed across the street to another hangar by a powerful little electric mule. Bolan stopped until the craft was past.
"No chance to get there in time to stop the takeoff," Bolan said. "Not even if I wanted to. Where is that bird we used yesterday?"
It was a quarter of a mile ahead. They got to it just as they saw the blue and white chopper lift off the pad.
The Executioner drove on to where the helicopter sat and left the car with Dr. Peterson. He grabbed the dark green barracks bag and ran for the chopper.
The Executioner threw the bag into the bird and jumped in.
"Let's move!" Bolan shouted and snapped his seat belt in place. He noticed that they hadn't yet replaced the passenger-side door. A moment later they were lifting off, the pilot talking quickly to the tower, not asking for clearance, just notifying them that he was in pursuit of the chopper that had just left the field.
The bird slanted to the left just over the buildings and they spotted the other chopper well to the west, charging across restricted areas in a mad dash for distance. Bolan's pilot, Lieutenant Dan Johnson, followed.
The chase soon developed into a standoff. Johnson had his bird at full throttle, but he could not catch the other, slightly more powerful craft. But the blue and white bird was not fast enough to lose them. They soon crossed the fence that marked the western boundary of the center.
"Can't figure out where he's going," Johnson said. "Nothing out here but sagebrush, cactus and about a thousand rattlesnakes per square mile."
As Bolan looked west he saw something else: the Sierra Nevada mountains rising up sharply from the valley. It would take a lot of skill to get over them in the choppers. The other bird slowed and began circling.
"What now?" Johnson asked.
"Dr. Ludlow's on board, so we can't shoot them down. Let's move up and see what kind of a reception we get."
They could see the pilot's door on the other craft had been removed, and before they were in range they saw pinpoint flashes winking from the cabin. Gunshots.
Johnson brought his craft down and behind the other bird to avoid being hit.
"What the hell do we do now?" Johnson asked.
"Wait. They have to be meeting someone here. If nothing else happens we force them down."
"How?"
"A couple of goo
d slugs into that engine area should do it. Just disable the chopper and force it down without shooting them out of the sky in flames."
"Tricky. Our altitude is fifteen hundred."
"We wait five minutes."
They cruised around, keeping the blue and white helicopter in sight but staying out of range. Then Bolan asked Johnson to come in from behind. At two hundred yards he asked the pilot to swing around on the right-hand side of the other chopper. He decided on four single shots from the M-16.
Johnson pulled his bird around, came down from above and behind and then swung to the right for Bolan to get a side shot. The Executioner fired from slightly to the rear of the chopper and saw all four of his rounds slam into the engine area.
At once black smoke started trailing the stricken bird, and it wavered, lost some of its power and began falling to the ground, its big rotors still turning but with less speed now. The engine maintained just enough energy to keep the helicopter from free-falling, until it was ten feet from the ground. Then the rotors stopped and it dropped to a crash landing.
Bolan's pilot had followed it down and when it hit, Bolan indicated he should set down.
"When I jump out you get the hell out of here," Bolan shouted. "Pick me up later."
"Yes, sir," Johnson said.
When Bolan stepped out of the bird, the desert heat hit him like the inside of a pizza oven turned on high. Bolan grabbed the barracks bag and the M-16 and ran forward to a small depression fifty yards from the crashed chopper. He bellied down and peered over the crest past a gnarled sagebrush plant.
At first there was no movement, then he saw through the pilot's open door a form begin to worm out of the chopper. The craft looked fairly intact except for one broken skid that let it keel over to the left.
The pilot got out, waving a pistol. The Executioner brought up the M-16 and sent three rounds into his chest. The man screamed but the sound ended in a froth of red bubbles as he sat down quickly, then threw his hands upward and fell over on his back.
Bolan was out of his protective hole now and running hard for the downed craft. He had seen nothing of Dr. Ludlow. At the chopper Bolan ducked under it and came up on the passenger side. Ludlow was still in his seat. The belt had prevented any serious injury, but he had a bruise on his head and seemed to be unconscious. Bolan shook him. His eyes flickered open.
"What the hell?"
"Dr. Ludlow, we have to get you out of here."
"What?"
Bolan unsnapped the seat belt and pulled the scientist's legs out the door, then he found enough strength to come out by himself. He shook his head.
"What the hell am I doing out here? Who are you?"
Before the Executioner could answer, they heard automatic rifle fire and a half a dozen rounds slammed into the helicopter. Bolan grabbed Ludlow and dragged him to the ground behind the craft.
More shots peppered the aircraft and Bolan stood and peered around the broken bird. He saw another chopper in stationary hover about a hundred yards away.
"Company," Bolan said. "Were you supposed to meet someone out here?"
"I don't know. I don't remember anything about this. I don't even remember coming to work this morning!"
"Were you in Nam?" Bolan asked.
"Yes, Air Force pilot, then a POW for a while. Escaped."
"Were you in the Hanoi Hilton?"
"Right, how did you know?"
"Did they say anything about 'retraining'?"
"Yes, they tried. Bunch of hogwash."
"Keep believing that."
The chopper attacked. It roared at them less than fifty feet off the ground, and this time two automatic rifles blasted at them with full clips as the bird swooped overhead, then hung on its blades and came around for another charge. Bolan emptied the M-16 into the bird but it had no effect. He unhooked the Beretta 93-R and handed it to Dr. Ludlow.
He flicked it to auto fire and began blasting away at the chopper. It moved off two hundred yards and settled to the ground, hidden, except for the rotors, in a small watercourse.
"Dr. Ludlow, you took some boxes from your office. What is in them?"
Dr. Ludlow shook his head, leaned in the door of the craft and leafed through the files.
"Hell, the entire file on Operation Skysweeper. What is it doing out here?"
"You brought it. But I'd guess you were under some kind of mind control. Now all we have to do is stop those men in that bird from getting these documents."
Bolan had given the scientist four loaded magazines for the Beretta.
Dr. Roth Ludlow shivered.
"Damn, what a mess. We've got to get out of here. We're gonna have gooks all over us in ten minutes. See that stream over there? If we work down it we can move faster than through this damn jungle. Come on, let's move! We've got to get all the way to Hue, before we find any kind of friendlies. Move it, you guys, you want to go back to that fucking prison in Hanoi?"
Before Bolan could stop him, Dr. Ludlow darted around the back of the chopper and took off into the desert.
16
A four-passenger Bell civilian helicopter had been circling at five thousand feet just beyond the crashed chopper. Joseph Vishnevetsky trained powerful binoculars on the ground and nodded.
"It is time for us to go down, Comrade General. I believe the pilot is dead and it looks as if Dr. Ludlow is injured in some way. There is another man down there and he is armed. It is difficult to tell what Dr. Ludlow might do in his mental state. We shall go down, eliminate both Americans, take the plans and rush you back to your submarine."
The other passenger in the helicopter grunted. He was a large man with broad shoulders, a trim body despite his fifty-odd years and a forehead that kept enlarging year after year as his hairline receded. His iron-gray hair was cut short. His pale blue eyes were wide set in a face that was smoothly shaved and lean. He prided himself on his athletic appearance.
The man was Major General Greb Strakhov, and he had been following this Operation Skysweeper from its inception. One of his major interests was antimissile defense, and he knew the Americans had stumbled onto something. Now he had to steal the whole package.
He looked at Vishnevetsky and lifted his brows. The man certainly didn't look like one of the best KGB field agents that Mother Russia had. He seemed more like a bookstore owner. But Strakhov knew the man's record and his credentials, as well as his family, his education and his political connections. He was the right person for this job. And if he succeeded he would be brought back and honored.
Now what Strakhov wanted were those plans from the downed helicopter below. It should be a simple matter. He had been two weeks in the submarine moving into position and then waiting offshore, dodging American antisubmarine patrols.
If all went well here today, he would be on his way home within hours. Yes, he had been away too long. He missed his dacha on the Black Sea coast. This was the best time of the year up there.
"Do we go down, comrade? We are armed."
Vishnevetsky bobbed his head and told the pilot to go down and hold at a hundred feet so they could use the rifles.
They came down in wide circles. When they were one hundred yards away at one hundred feet altitude, they came in straight at the man on the ground, who huddled behind the downed chopper for protection. Both Vishnevetsky and Strakhov fired AK-47s as they swung in toward the figure. They dived behind the wreckage and then moved to the far side as the Bell roared above the target at fifty feet. The bird swung around for another run.
"No!" Strakhov said. "No more firing from here. We might ignite the wreckage and ruin the records and plans. Land, we shall dig them out on foot."
Vishnevetsky paled. "I was never much of a foot soldier, Comrade General."
"Then you shall have to learn fast. Set it down quickly, pilot. Over there in that low spot. You stay with the aircraft, and do not let the American circle around us and capture you. Kill him if he comes this way."
"Yes, Comrade General."
"Good man."
The craft touched its long landing runners on the ground and Strakhov leaped out and pointed to a small depression in the desert.
"Vishnevetsky, get over there and when you hear me firing, you come in from that side toward the helicopter. Use your cover. When you see me move forward, you fire into the craft over there. When I am in place, I will give you covering fire as you move up. Run!"
Vishnevetsky had never felt so miserable in his life. He could fire the weapon but did not like to. He knew infantry tactics but had not played at soldiering for fifteen years. But he ran.
* * *
Mack Bolan surveyed the enemy. The other chopper the two men had come in was well within range of his rifle grenades. But he would need to move to a better location for a good shot into the gully. He could hose down the helicopter with the M-16 and disable it. But he had a more immediate problem. The men had separated and dropped behind small sand dunes so he could not see them. They evidently were trained soldiers.
The man who ran from the chopper first was getting into easy grenade range. Bolan dug into his barracks bag, took out three of the 40mm rifle grenades and loaded one. He watched the spot where the man had vanished, and waited. The enemy who was to become Bolan's first target ran forward again, sliding behind a smaller dune. But this time Bolan could see one leg. He lifted the M-16, braced it in the sand, elevated the barrel for the distance and squeezed the forward trigger.
The round soared into the air and exploded on impact twenty yards beyond the target. Bolan had loaded a second round as he watched the first one fly. Now he lowered the angle of the barrel slightly and fired again. This round blasted the small mound of sand, and Bolan heard a cry and then a scream in the silent desert heat.
The man stood up and began limping back toward the civilian helicopter. Twice he turned around and fired at the chopper Bolan was using as cover. Bolan put the M-16 on full automatic and sent five blistering rounds at the figure. Bolan could see the sand geysering as the rounds fell short and he lifted his sights and blasted five more rounds. At least two of them hit the man, who now shouted at Bolan and tried to fire again.
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