He thumbed the red button and blew the door off its hinges. They were shouting up a storm in a flash, bullets already eating up the jamb, tattooing the wall across the hallway when the soldier hunched low and sent the steel egg whiplashing around the corner. Pulling back, hearing someone holler “Grenade” in Arabic, he hugged the wall, eyes shut and hands clamped over his ears. The wall rocked, felt as if it would come tumbling down, but it was merely an illusion of the moment as the flash-stun rocked their world beyond and cleaved their senses.

  The Executioner hauled out the AK-47, slipping an arm through the straps of the tool bag. A spare clip was already wrapped with duct tape around the banana magazine in place, allowing him to pour it back on in one eye blink if he was forced to burn up the first set of thirty rounds.

  The Executioner bulled in, firing. They were reeling about in the smoke, as expected, grabbing at blinded eyes, crimson trickles worming out of ears punctured all to hell by the deafening blast.

  Four were chopped down before they even took up arms for an attempt at blind spray and pray. Bolan surged on into the roiling smoke, caught a staggering form just as it appeared in the doorway of an adjacent bedroom with a zipping march of 7.62 mm slugs across the chest, caving in sternum, punching the heart to mush. Two rounds from the French FAMAS assault rifle smacked the wall in the area Bolan had just vacated, but any near miss only urged him to nail it down.

  A groaner was rising up from behind the splintered matchstick rubble of a coffee table when Bolan ended his misery with a 3-round stitching to the throat.

  That made six.

  And the Iqwhan recruitment looked out of business. Fax machines, some sort of phone bank were nothing but shattered debris, crushed to sparking shells by the concussive force of the blast.

  Bolan made the ragged hole marking the spot of the former window. There, he looked through the shredded strands of curtain, found the alley below clear. One last look over his shoulder, and he was ready to put behind another massacre, only this time a little confusion would be thrown into the fire. The Iqwhan terrorists were rivals of the NIF, after all, but Bolan didn’t plan on sticking around Sudan long enough to see who eventually came out the winner in some gangland-style street war.

  All finished here, and the Executioner hit the fire escape, stowing the AK-47.

  Sudan was smoking, he thought, no doubt about it, but he was merely getting warmed up for the real holocaust.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “The Man just gave Able the green light.”

  Brognola made the announcement, marching into the Computer Room. It had to have come out, without much enthusiasm, since there was a moment of what he sensed was skeptical silence.

  “I’m thinking there’s the proverbial catch-22 coming up next,” Kurtzman said from his workstation.

  Brognola fished out his antacid tablets, helped himself to some of Kurtzman’s heavy-duty brew, washed them down and answered, “There is. Able has to first make a positive eyeball ID that Lake is on the compound in Idaho.”

  “That’s not the only glitch Able’s looking at,” Tokaido chimed in.

  “Plan A was just scrapped by Mother Nature,” Kurtzman told Brognola as he marched toward their work cubicles.

  “A front has moved in, settled dead center over most of the state,” Price added. “Gusting winds, swirling up to forty miles an hour. They seem to shift according to our weather readout, every other hour or so.”

  “Meaning,” Brognola said, already aware of where this was headed, “Gadgets has to eighty-six his hang-glider entry.”

  “Too risky,” Wethers said. “There’s the chance he catches a sudden gust and overshoots the entire compound.”

  “Or he could ride the wind for the mother of all crash landings into the side of a mountain,” Kurtzman finished. “Or slam into the fence, or maybe find himself crucified in the razor wire.”

  “Okay, I’ve got the picture. So they do it the hard way.”

  “Blood and guts,” Tokaido said, sporting a grim smile. “Storm the palace. I’m sure Ironman will approve.”

  “He’ll figure something out,” Kurtzman said. “At least our sat reads are showing the fence isn’t electrified. Figure some wire cutters, get in…”

  “But only, I repeat, only if they’re one hundred percent certain Lake is there.”

  “Not only that, but we can’t scope out the installation from space,” Kurtzman said. “This front is apparently going to hold for two, three days, according to the National Weather Service.”

  “Lay it on them,” Brognola said. “It’s a go.”

  “If,” Price emphasized. “I’ll pass it on to Carl. We’ve turned up a very unsettling development,” she added, “less than an hour ago.”

  “I’m hearing that bad news and very bad news you folks mention,” Brognola said.

  “Our worst fear would appear to be in the works,” Price stated, and took the remote, snapping on the satellite monitor. “These we just ‘borrowed’ from the CIA. They came via an SR-71 reconnaissance flyover of the islands in the strait in question.”

  Brognola chomped on his cigar, raised an eyebrow. “An SR-71? I thought the Air Force retired all SR-71s more than a decade ago.”

  “They did,” Wethers offered. “The Japanese got one for their museum, the British another one for display. Congress ordered three of them reactivated a few years after the Gulf War.”

  “Moving on,” Price said, “these were taken with the SR-71’s famed long-focal-length ‘technical objective cameras’ from eighty thousand feet up. No cloud cover to obscure our view, as you can see. Picture perfect. So good, we have identified several major terrorist players with lengthy track records of bombings, kidnappings, murder and so on.”

  Brognola watched as Price worked the remote, and he found himself looking at soldiers in buff-colored camous doing what looked like welding on a gunboat. Then it hit him, like a punch to the gut, what they were doing.

  “Folks, don’t tell me—”

  “Very much afraid so, Hal,” Price said, tight-lipped, as grim as death. “Those are blocks of C-4 they’re bringing onto the gunboats. From what we can tell, they are welding explosives into what we’ve determined are three gunboats in the port of Qeshm.”

  “Which, if little else, takes care of the President,” Kurtzman said, “having to worry about the one pulling the trigger on an international incident.”

  “Also,” Price said, clicking on another frame, bringing into view three soldiers hauling out a long cylindrical tube. “There’s your chemical laser weapons.”

  “Doesn’t look like much,” Brognola commented, “but I guess the bomb that fell on Hiroshima didn’t, either.”

  “They have the laser weapons,” Kurtzman said. “More to the point, the fanatic of the hour, Ruballah, has them. The SR-71 got a clear shot of his mug.”

  The enormity of what could happen was sinking in. “If they make a mass run with those gunboats at an American warship or a tanker,” Brognola said, “and sink them…”

  “Then we’re talking about a possible full-scale war with Iran,” Price said. “As it stands, with what’s in the wings, Phoenix will be on board for a major preemptive surgical strike.”

  “I’ll pass this on to the Man,” Brognola said. “I’m sure he already knows…anybody hear from Striker while I was gone?”

  “Not yet,” Kurtzman answered.

  “If Port Sudan and vicinity is going up in flames, thanks to Striker,” Price said, “well, we don’t know. Not even a whisper of a rumor from our collective sources in the intelligence community.”

  “And Sudan,” Tokaido said, “isn’t exactly CNN friendly, as I’m sure everyone knows.”

  “Get Able moving, at least, closing in, surveying the compound, something,” Brognola ordered. “I’ll be in the War Room with the Man. If you hear from Striker—”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Price assured the big Fed.

  Brognola was already out the door, barely heard the mission controller’s words. In just a few short minutes he felt as if he’d aged another ten years.

  Life on the edge, he mused in deep grim thought. Peace on Earth. One was always guaranteed, and the other?

  Not in this world, not today, tomorrow.

  Sadly enough, he thought, not ever, as long as there were Ruballahs and Arakkhans preying on the world at large.

  Sudan

  “YOU CAN CALL me Taylor.”

  “Cooper.”

  The Executioner gave the dingy apartment hallway one last look. Clear. Then, trusty tool bag in hand, stuffed with the AK-47, just in case all wasn’t what it appeared, Bolan followed Nhoubaff into the agent’s living room.

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Bolan nearly lifted an eyebrow at that, but gave the Spartanly furnished apartment a look instead, noting the small kitchen, the doorway to an adjoining bedroom.

  As if reading his mind, or to let Bolan know he understood and appreciated his suspicions or paranoia under the circumstances, Taylor said, “I live alone. You’re safe here. And when I said I was expecting you, I meant you would be stopping by most likely to contact whoever it is sent you.”

  It all remained to be seen, Bolan knew, who was who, and what was what. In a country as treacherous, volatile and violent as Sudan, no CIA safehouse could be guaranteed. So far, so good, but that could change any second, he knew. Nhoubaff had placed the call here some ninety minutes earlier from a pay phone. They had crawled along the teeming, congested streets of Port Sudan at less than a snail’s pace, it had seemed, before finally reaching the designated apartment building. The curtain, Bolan noticed, was drawn, but he heard the faithful being called to prayer for the mosque he’d seen on the way in from somewhere in the distance.

  The soldier ran a quick look over the Company man who had sent Nhoubaff to the DZ. He was short, wiry, swarthy. A nest of curly hair, as black as a raven’s wing, with matching beard and mustache, and Bolan knew the man could at least blend in with the local scenery, one of the natives, since no intelligence agency ever infiltrated one of their own unless the agent could speak the tongue fluently.

  Bolan then noticed the police scanner on the table next to the phone.

  “You’ve been a very busy man, Cooper,” Taylor said, moving toward the kitchen. “Congratulations are in order. You’ve taken a nice little bite out of the local terror trade here. The radio station was a nice little coup by itself.”

  “We’ve had some luck. And my partner here has proved himself an invaluable asset. You couldn’t have sent a better man.”

  Nhoubaff showed Taylor a big smile. “He’s modest, too. I will tell you, had I known beforehand what I was getting into, well, I wouldn’t have it missed it for all the dirty Iranian oil money to ever come through this bloody country. The man has put on quite the show.”

  “Simply taking care of business,” Bolan said.

  “Taking out the garbage, you mean,” Nhoubaff said with a mean grin.

  “You could say that.”

  “And,” Taylor said, stepping back into the living room with two mugs of coffee, holding them out for Bolan and Nhoubaff, “there is still much to be done—this is what you’re thinking.”

  “Barely scratched the surface.”

  Taylor sipped his coffee, giving Bolan a cool measuring look. “Still a long way to go before you get to the scum at the bottom of the barrel?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Bolan sipped his coffee, set down the tool bag.

  “It’s hot out there in the streets,” Taylor said. “The police and the military authorities are everywhere. They’re calling you a ‘lunatic,’ ‘madman,’ but I look at you and I know better. Yes, you’re taking care of business. Sudan is a country with many dangerous men who need to be taken out. However, may I make a suggestion?”

  Bolan nodded. “I’m listening.”

  “The deal is set to go down in a few hours. Pier 9. My sources inform the Thai Princess will be docking, with, I’m certain, one Colonel Issad Bhoutami on hand, with his contingent of Iranians who have already paid for the merchandise in question.”

  “So I’ve heard. And your suggestion?”

  “Make your call. Wait it out. I have a man watching the NIF headquarters, likewise the waterfront. It seems Bhoutami is a very nervous man, hearing constant reports about all this strange violence blowing all about Sudan, wringing his hands, I imagine, wondering when his ticket will get punched. In short, he’s so scared, he hasn’t left his office. He’s marshaled up a force of twenty-five thugs to guard him. When he leaves for the waterfront, we’ll be there, waiting for him to, uh, finish his deal. Over here.”

  Bolan followed Taylor a few feet to the divan. There, Taylor pushed it several feet away from the wall. He took a small jimmy device, wedged it into the base of the wall and slid back a section of the floor. The Executioner found himself staring down into an arsenal.

  “You’ll have to abandon your truck, too risky to go back, all the heat that is out there,” Taylor said. “There’s a chance an eyewitness saw you leave the Iqwhan headquarters, who can say? Why jeopardize finishing your mission if it’s your intention to go lop off a few more terrorist heads in the neighborhood? I have everything you need to finish the job on the waterfront. M-16s with M-203 grenade launchers. Uzis. Satchels of grenades, in frag, incendiary, flash-stun, forty mils likewise for the M-203. I have harnesses and webbing. I have combat blacksuits,” he said, judging Bolan’s size, “even one I believe that will fit you.”

  “Santa Claus,” Bolan said, and saw Taylor frown, the note of skepticism not lost on the man.

  “This has taken years to assemble. I have been in the Sudan for nearly half a decade, grooming my own contacts, learning how to do things here. They think I’m a simple shopowner, Persian rugs. At any rate, if I was ever found out to be a CIA agent, and they came through my door…” A grim smile. “It would take a small army, you understand.”

  “I’ve got something of the picture.”

  Bolan watched as Taylor bent and hauled out a small aluminum case.

  “Your satlink. There is no monitor in place to home in on the signal to wherever you’re calling. I’ll have no idea to whom or to where you are speaking. But I’m sure whoever sent you has a firewall already built into their own transmitter-receiver.”

  That was true enough, Bolan knew. Stony Man Farm was the most sophisticated high-tech covert operation on the planet. If their satellite transmission was monitored, Bear would throw up enough firewalls, the eavesdropper would find himself listening to little more than dead air in outer space.

  “Make your call,” Taylor said, and handed Bolan the satlink, “then, I’ll lay out a plan of attack. I’ve also arranged evacuation for you. I only hope it’s not a fighting withdrawal.”

  Bolan read a fire of determination in Taylor’s eyes, before the CIA man added, “It’s a long swim across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia.”

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “STRIKER.”

  Brognola lurched up in his chair in the War Room, tied in on the three-way system to the other team members. His heart was pounding, either from relief or anxiety, he wasn’t sure.

  “Was there ever any doubt?” Bolan said over the satlink, with a grim chuckle.

  “Just the usual frayed nerves,” Brognola said. “Bring us some good news. We could use it.”

  “I’ve been on a roll, but I’m at a stoplight for the moment. Would you believe I’ve made quite the mess since I’ve been here?”

  “I couldn’t imagine,” Kurtzman cut in, matching Bolan’s grim mirth. “What’s the plan?”

  “There’s a definite DYSAT connection on my end,” Bolan said.

  “They’re going down,” Brognola told the Executioner. “It’s just a question of when.”

  “It’s already in the works,” Price added. “But we’d like to know where things stand on your end.”

  “A firestorm is brewing. A freighter called the Thai Princess is docking in a few hours. Everyone’s going to the show. An NIF thug, Colonel Issad Bhoutami, a contingent of his Iranian purchasers for DYSAT’s wonder toys, and I couldn’t even begin to tell you who else. The good news is I’ve got on hand what I’ll need to go to the party.”

  “Do you have an evacuation strategy?” Price asked.

  “Looks like I’m boating it out of here. I’ll call you back when I get to Jiddah.”

  Brognola rubbed his face. He knew Bolan, and he knew the warrior was trying to assure his friends it was just another day at the office, no sweat. The mission in Sudan, though, was reaching critical mass. For one thing, Brognola could well imagine the carnage the Executioner had strewed over God only knew how many hell’s half acres since he’d landed. That meant serious local heat on the angry prowl from military and police authorities. Bolan had pulled off the impossible before, but there was always a first time the best man for the job wouldn’t be enough. And in the Executioner’s world, the first time would be the last. Final, since it would prove fatal.

  “On the plus side, I’ve put something of a dent in the local trade. I’m told the heat is on, heavy, so I’m laying low until the appointed hour.”

  Brognola listened as Bolan filled in a few of the blanks. The big item was that the Iranians had been, and were once more intending to ship the high-tech goods to their island bastions in the Strait of Hormuz, political ammunition for the President, if nothing else, Brognola knew, when the shitstorm hit the Oval Office and Qeshm was bombed back into the Stone Age. When Bolan was informed of the situation in the Gulf his voice lowered some to a new grim depth.

  “Then I suppose it’s up to me to close down shop on this end.”

  Brognola could feel Bolan’s tension from the other side of the world, Striker all but ready to head out, but forced to hole up, maybe plan the coming killing ground, as far as logistics, enemy head count, and so on. Instead, he inquired about Able and Phoenix.

  “All present and accounted for,” Kurtzman told him. “One piece and rolling on.”

  “Then I’m off to wrap it up here. I’ll be in touch.”

 

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