Death Gamble

by Don Pendleton

  Security cameras were positioned in every corner of the room. Dade turned to the guard and spoke slowly. “Did you deactivate those cameras?”

  The big man gave him a hard stare. “Yes. And do not treat me like a moron. Or I will kill you.”

  For emphasis, the guard pointed the pistol’s muzzle at Dade.

  “Right,” Dade said.

  The guard turned his back to the workers and screwed a sound suppressor into the pistol’s barrel. Dade felt sweat break out on his forehead.

  “Hey, what the hell are you two doing in here?” a voice called from above. “Ivan, you know this is an eyes-only facility. Get that guy out of here now.”

  Ivan turned and brought the small black gun up in his massive paw. The weapon coughed and a red hole appeared in the space between the speaker’s eyes. His face froze in a death mask of shock as he stiffened, folded in on himself and tumbled down the stairs.

  Before the death registered with any of the other occupants, the guard was sprinting across the room, bridging the distance between himself and the stairs in long strides. His bulky body moved at such a fast clip that it reminded Dade of those charging grizzly bears he’d seen on more than one nature documentary. The guard rocketed up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, homing in on a new target as he reached the apex of the stairs.

  The gun coughed four more times, and Dade heard thumps as bodies hit the floor. One of the computer operators fell against the rail, a bullet wound clearly visible between his eyes. The man’s glasses had been split in two and hung from the ear pieces as his sightless eyes locked with Dade’s own gaze.

  Witnessing a second murder snapped Dade from his shock. He felt his stomach convulse and tasted bile as it pushed its way to the top of his throat. Averting his gaze, he swallowed hard and began greedily inhaling and exhaling to keep from vomiting. Dade had seen corpses before, but never carnage like this. He wondered if he was about to pass out.

  “Come,” the guard growled.

  Dade turned and saw the Russian holding a heavyset man by the collar of his green polo shirt. Like Dade, the man was struggling to catch his breath. Shiny patches of blood covered his clothes and face. His skin was colorless, either from fear or blood loss. Or both.

  “I said come,” Ivan repeated. This time, he underscored his orders by giving Dade a hard shove to the back.

  Dade moved to the stairs and ascended with less vigor than his counterpart. As he neared the captive man, he realized the man hadn’t been injured but instead had been showered by the blood of his comrades.

  “He operates the computers,” Ivan said. “He can get you past the security devices.”

  Dade looked away from the crimson-splattered man and pointed at a workstation. “Put him there.”

  The man sat down and let his fingers hover above the keyboard. He looked at Dade and the Russian expectantly.

  “Find the files marked ‘Sentinel Works,’” Dade said. Grabbing a pen and paper, he scribbled an address onto a piece of scratch paper and slipped it to the man. “When you find them, ship them to this address.”

  “These files are huge,” the man protested. “You know how long this will take?”

  “I don’t care,” Dade said. “Send them to this address and purge them from this system. Otherwise, you join your friends—fast.”

  Sweat had beaded on the computer operator’s bald, freckled pate as his fingers danced across the keyboard, punching in a series of commands that even Dade had a hard time following. Windows flashed open, warning boxes presented themselves, but were quickly dismissed by the man as he dug deep into the computer’s recesses to locate the secured files and send them out.

  “Now destroy the system,” Dade said. “The whole thing. I don’t want Kursk able to send a simple goddamn e-mail when you’re done.”

  The man gave Dade a hard look. “No way, man. That’s suicide. None of us want to do that.”

  A hot wave of anger cascaded over Dade. He hated to be told no, especially by some workaday moron like this. He looked at the Russian guard, nodded at the computer operator. Ivan stuffed the sound suppressor into the man’s left ear, eliciting a sob from the guy.

  Dade moved in close to the man. “You want to tell me no twice?”

  The man’s fingers resumed their fast movement as the man began a meltdown sequence for the computer system.

  “Will this affect Kursk’s computers at other sites?” Dade asked.

  The operator shook his head. “No way. When we destroy the system in one place, redundant systems at Kursk’s other locations go on alert and seal themselves against all outside contact. They become self-contained until Kursk punches in a series of codes that reverse the process. That way, if someone hits one of Kursk’s sites, the overall security of the organization’s system won’t be compromised.”

  Dade grudgingly admitted to himself that the Russian mobster was smarter than he had figured. But Dade knew he was the smarter of the two. And he’d stick it to the thug before all was said and done.

  A security door leading into the mezzanine hissed open. A pair of guards bent themselves around the doorframe. Ivan turned and aimed his pistol at the men. Before he fired off a shot, their assault rifles blazed out twin lines of death that slammed into his chest. The onslaught shoved the guard against a rail and jerked his body around as lead burrowed into his chest and exploded from his back. The shooting continued, tearing the computer into shards of glass and plastic and showering the workstation with sparks. The stingers continued, ripping into the chest and head of the computer operator.

  The fusillade stopped just inches short of Dade.

  It was only after the room went silent that Dade noticed a hot wet sensation in the crotch of his pants and realized he’d pissed himself. Adrenaline and fear caused his body to tremble and made it hard to breathe.

  Weapons held at the ready, the gunners walked through the haze of gunsmoke and closed in on Dade. He raised his hands without being told.

  One of the men said, “Turn and face the rail. Clasp your fingers behind your head where we can see them.”

  Dade complied.

  “Trevor Dade.” The scientist’s heart sank as he recognized Nikolai Kursk’s voice. “You have made two very tragic mistakes, here my friend. You have betrayed me and underestimated me.”

  “Fuck you, Kursk,” Dade said. His words had sounded strong in his head, but his voice sounded small and brittle as he delivered them.

  “If you wanted to steal the damn plane, you should have told me up front. Truth was, you wanted both the plans and the plane. And didn’t plan to split the fucking money with me. You were going to kill me.”

  “Turn to face me, Trevor Dade,” Kursk said.

  The scientist complied but kept his hands locked behind his head. Kursk apparently noticed that Dade had soiled himself and a grim smile creased his face.

  “You’re pitiful, Dade,” Kursk said. “You wanted revenge on your employers so bad that you were willing to believe anything. This all goes so far beyond the plane and beyond your stupid little designs. It’s much, much larger than you and your petty problems.”

  “What the hell do you mean?” Dade asked.

  “It’s about crippling a nation. Striking a blow so devastating that it will demoralize and frighten America and its allies. One of several blows, I am sure. It’s about emboldening other countries to attack the United States, its allies and their interests by showing just how vulnerable they really are.”

  A smile ghosted Kursk’s lips. “It’s about chaos, really.”

  Dade tried to wrap his mind around the Russian’s words.

  “Are you talking about restoring Russia to superpower status?” he asked.

  Kursk shook his head. “No, no. I have no allegiance to Russia. I have no illusions of world conquest or new world orders. I’m a businessman. Unrest, chaos and lawlessness breed war. I sell the instruments of war. The more chaos I create, the greater the demand for my wares. So I will wreak havoc
on American soil. Scare the hell out of the United States and rock the world economy, all of which trickles down to fear, unrest and wars, both big and small. At the same time, I get the ultimate weapon to sell to the highest bidder. It’s really that simple.”

  Fire lanced into Dade’s stomach even before the gunshots echoed in his ears. He stumbled backward and collided against the ragged workstation, before pitching forward and landing on all fours. As his mind raced to assimilate what had happened, he touched his belly, brought up his hand to look at it, saw his own blood glistening on his palm.

  The pain finally registered and he fell facedown against the ground, screaming and writhing, waiting for death to claim him.

  MACK BOLAN’S COMBAT senses cried out, alerting him to danger before he heard or saw a thing. Killing his flashlight, he hovered in the darkness for a moment and stared at a bend in the tunnel twenty feet ahead of him. Seconds later, he saw white beams of light playing over the surface and heard the roar of air bubbles expelling from regulators out of time with his own breathing.

  His opponents had to know he lay in wait for them. If he could hear them, it stood to reason that reverse was true.

  Fisting his knife, he waited until the men rounded the corner, one right after the other. Each was armed with a speargun and wore a light affixed to his forehead. Bolan surged forward, slicing in a downward arc and skimming along the tunnel’s bottom. As he descended, a pair of spears fired overhead, cutting through the space he formerly occupied before disappearing from view.

  Bolan didn’t give the men time to reload.

  He rocketed toward the nearer man. The diver dropped his speargun and grabbed for a knife sheathed in an upside down position on the harness of his scuba gear. The man’s fingers encircled the hilt, but before he could clear the scabbard Bolan came upon him. Pressing the man’s knife hand firm against the scabbard, Bolan plunged his knife into the man’s lower abdomen, ripped upward until the blade struck against bone. An inky cloud of blood filled the water between the men and temporarily obscured Bolan’s vision. The man thrashed about, and the Executioner gave him a hard shove to free the blade. Bolan’s knife hand stabbed out again and he scored a lucky hit to the rib cage that caused the man to go limp. Bolan tried to free the blade, but it had become stuck in the man’s rib cage.

  White light grew more imposing from behind Bolan, signaling the second attacker. Setting his feet on the tunnel floor, the soldier grabbed the dead man by the straps of his air tank, whirled him around and brought him up as a shield. The dead man’s bulk moved slowly against the water, but the Executioner succeeded in bringing him around far enough to catch a spear slicing through the water in Bolan’s direction.

  A metallic thud sounded as Bolan’s opponent dropped his spear gun and began scrambling for a knife.

  The hardman lunged forward, steel jetting straight for Bolan’s solar plexus.

  The Executioner moved to the side, letting the blade pass just inches from his torso. Bolan’s hands exploded forward, fingers digging into the man’s neck and gripping his forehead. Arm, chest and shoulder muscles coiling, Bolan dragged the man in close and twisted until he felt the man’s neck snap. The man’s body went limp and Bolan let him go.

  He negotiated the bend in the tunnel and saw a shaft of light beaming down into the water from above. He assumed it marked the exit; he had entered the final stretch. Another twenty yards and he’d be able to exit this tunnel. If they didn’t seal the damn thing off and leave him in there to drown.

  Bolan still had the Desert Eagle and the Beretta 93-R strapped to him in watertight cases. He also carried another piece of ordnance that might help him survive.

  Might.

  JACK COLE GROUND the edge of his cigar between his teeth as he stared at the video monitors and watched the intruder kill two more of his men.

  Looking over his shoulder he saw two of his fighters standing next to the small tower that led into the tunnel. Turning back to his video monitor, he watched the diver nearing the tunnel’s exit. The man paused for a second and looked directly into the camera lens. His image grew as he neared the glass eye and knelt by it. He pulled a spare air canister from his gear, raised it up and then brought its curved bottom down like a sledgehammer. For a moment, the blunt object filled the screen, causing Cole to blink.

  The screen went black.

  Matt Cooper was quickly making the odds even in what had started as a very lopsided game. Cole knew the next several minutes would determine who would walk away from the island and who would be carried off or dumped in the water as fish food.

  “We lost visual,” Cole called over his shoulder.

  The men standing next to the tower shouldered their rifles and aimed into the hatch leading to the tunnel. Laser sights shot small red beams into the cylinder as the men swept their weapons around, trying to acquire a target.

  A clanging sound emanated from within the tunnel, soft at first but growing in volume as it neared them. Cole swiveled in his chair and locked eyes with one of his men.

  “Sir? Should we close the tower? Just leave the guy in there to drown?” the merc asked.

  “Stand fast,” Cole said.

  Uncoiling from his seat, he crossed the room. He fisted a Beretta 92-F as he closed in on the cylindrical opening. The clanging continued.

  Cole stepped to the tower and looked down. He heard water dripping somewhere in the system. Peering into the tunnel, he saw the surface smooth and unbroken, like black ice.

  They’d turned off the pumps to reduce the risk to his men. Grilles covered the pipes drawing dirty water into the filtration system, so the men couldn’t have been pulled into the cleaners. But the suction made it hard for a diver to control himself. It could even pin someone to the wall, leave them there to watch helplessly as they burned up the last of their air.

  A lopsided grin creased his face as an idea hatched in his mind. What the hell had he been thinking?

  “Seal the tunnel,” Cole said. “I got an idea.”

  Slinging their weapons, the men bent and grabbed the lid by its carrying handles.

  As they did, Cole decided to chance one last look in the tunnel. Afterward, he’d return to the control board and fire up the pumps. He peered into the dark hole and saw bubbles popping as they reached the top of the water line. Son of a bitch! He pointed the Beretta’s barrel into the tube and fired off a quick shot.

  Even as the echo of the 9 mm round died down, he yelled, “Move it.”

  An arm shattered the water’s surface. A cylindrical object flew up the tube.

  All hell broke loose.

  MACK BOLAN KNEW he only had one chance to make it happen.

  The warrior knelt several feet from the exit tower, watching as an occasional shadow fell across the shimmering column of light that shone down into the tunnel. He’d smashed the surveillance camera, so the soldiers up above had to know he was coming. A ladder, its surface slick with plankton and sludge, offered the only means of escape.

  Bolan knew he’d need to make a hell of a racket to draw attention away from the tunnel so he could clear it without taking a bullet. He also knew just how to do it.

  He removed his fins and weight belt, then drew in a final breath from his scuba tank before abandoning it, too.

  Reaching behind him, the warrior grabbed a small, watertight case from his belt, brought it around front and ripped it open. From within the bag, he withdrew a small device—a fragmentation grenade designed by Stony Man armorer John “Cowboy” Kissinger. The weapon was small enough to hide in a pocket, but powerful enough to clear a room full of killers in the space of a couple of heartbeats.

  Bolan stayed in the shadows, but positioned himself as close as possible to the exit tower. He felt his air burning down to nothing and knew he needed to pick up the pace if he was to make his plan work at all. Grabbing a second sealed bag from his belt, he ripped it open and withdrew his Desert Eagle.

  Orange and yellow flashed down into the tunnel, and even
through the layers of concrete and steel the explosion was impressive.

  Ripping off his mask, Bolan shot up out of the water and gasped for air. Gripping the Desert Eagle tightly, he raced up the ladder, but stopped inches from the access tube’s steel rim. He listened for a moment, trying to determine just how much damage the explosion had wrought.

  Smoke stung his eyes and he could hear the moans of at least one gunner. The Desert Eagle leading the way, Bolan popped up from the tunnel, looking for targets and surveying the damage. He saw two men, one lying on either side of the tower. The blast had ripped open one of the hardmen from thigh to forehead, his body savaged by countless shards of stinging steel. A second man lay to Bolan’s left, curled into a bloodied ball.

  The growl of an engine starting caught Bolan’s attention. He crossed the room in seconds and headed toward the door. He exited the building in time to see a Land Rover disappearing down the trail in a cloud of dust.

  The soldier pegged the departure as a strategic withdrawal rather than surrender. Within a matter of minutes, he knew reinforcements would arrive, hoping to bring his time on the island to a quick, bloody end.

  Checking the two bodies, Bolan recovered a Colt Commando undamaged by the explosion and several extra clips from both men. He also stripped one of the men of his pistol belt, which carried a Beretta 92-F and extra magazines.

  Bolan exited the control house and tried to get his bearings. From his vantage point, he could see the main house’s roof which towered above the trees a half mile to the northwest.

  In between Bolan and the stronghold lay an untold number of troops fully aware of his presence and ready to gun him down. Unconsciously, he tightened his hold on the Colt Commando as he disappeared in the surrounding foliage. Sticking close to the towering palm trees and inserting himself into the shadows they cast, he padded deeper into the jungle. The reinforced soles of his scuba boots protected his feet from sharp-edged stones and other obstructions as he traveled.

  His mind flashed to Rytova’s welfare and, for a moment, he reconsidered his decision to include her in the mission. Someone had done a masterful job of separating them.