HIJACKED

Armed with missiles and other military weapons, pirates take control of the high seas, ravaging ships and killing off their crews in the process. They’re on the brink of becoming unstoppable—unless Mack Bolan can put an end to their pillaging.

Using a cargo freighter as bait, Bolan attempts to lure the pirates into an attack. But when his plan backfires, he learns the leader of the group is more than a worthy opponent. He’s not only tactical in his planning, but a skilled fighter in multiple disciplines. And his influence reaches deep into one of Europe’s most notorious crime families. Bolan will need more than just his sea legs to seek and destroy the pirate fleet and its brutal, calculating commander. The open ocean is a war zone, and the Executioner isn’t taking prisoners.

Bolan threw open the helicopter hatch and jumped

He hit the ground running and took off. For a long moment, there was only empty pavement stretching ahead, as endless as a frozen black sea. Bolan thought of nothing but putting as much distance between himself and the Blackhawks as possible. Time was not on his side. Only speed and surprise.

Then he was approaching low buildings, rows of parked helicopters, planes, transports—and finally, the distant shimmer of a hurricane fence.

He heard the Blackhawk touch down behind him, the propellers cutting out.

“Help! Escaping prisoner!” Major Cortez yelled.

Bolan stole a backward glance and saw her running in the opposite direction. Seconds later, the rest of the Ghost Jaguars poured onto the tarmac, and he heard shots from the stolen weapons, shouts. An alarm went off.

The guards in a kiosk ahead of him stepped into view and started firing warning shots. The angle of their weapons was wrong for a kill, the rounds going high. But Bolan knew that would change fast.

Pirate Offensive

Don Pendleton

“Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up with the swift.”

—Homer, The Odyssey

“True justice is achieved when those who commit

monstrous acts are brought down before they can strike again. Fast or slow, I will chase wrongdoers to the ends of the Earth.”

—Mack Bolan

In memory of Nick Pollotta.

In memory of Nick Pollotta.

The

MACK BOLAN

Legend

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a com-mand center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Outside Panama City, Panama

It was a brutally hot night, the air deathly, and Mack Bolan could feel the steady flow of sweat down his neck and arms.

A headband kept his face dry, and military rosin did the trick on his darkened hands. But every breath was a minor effort, as if the atmosphere itself was trying to steal away his strength and resolve.

Jungle warfare is a bitch, Bolan thought, fighting the urge to take a sip from the canteen at his side. Instead, he licked at the perspiration on his arms. Sweating drained off vital salt, and that would weaken a man surprisingly fast. Licking his own sweat stopped the leeching effect and would keep Bolan alert. He had salt tablets in his pockets, just in case. But those were for emergencies only. He really had no idea how long this vigil was going to last. Hours, days. There were just too many unknown factors. But that was true of most combat situations, especially in the jungle.

Bolan shifted slightly amid the splintery crossbeams of the old abandoned water tower. The ancient timbers were strong—he had checked them thoroughly a few days ago, disguised as a vagrant dressed in dirty rags. It had taken several days for him to gather the munitions and supplies needed for this mission. Then two more days to confirm range acquisition and mark all the vital targets in the proposed kill zone. He knew every inch of the landscape around the creaking water tower and could recognize the sea gull droppings on the struts by their coloration. Many of the birds hid under the tower during the heat of the day but went hunting at night for insects and food scraps in the nearby garbage dump of the bustling city only a few klicks away. Panama City was a mixture of slums and skyscrapers, the old and new, rich and poor, operating on the most basic and sometimes most violent levels. It was a sniper’s paradise. That is, for the right kind of soldier.

Staying in the shadows of the crisscrossing timbers, Bolan adjusted the telescopic sight of the bulky Heckler & Koch rifle with Saber chassis. The angular rifle fired standard 5.56 mm ammunition but also supported a 20 mm grenade launcher with a sound suppressor of Bolan’s own design. That drastically reduced the range of the shells but lowered the already soft thump of the grenade launcher to something barely discernible a few yards away. That would be very important for the first part of the assault.

Stealth was the goal for tonight. Death from above. Not open combat. If this mission was to succeed, Bolan needed to do it fast and quiet. A ghost in the night.

For tonight’s mission, the Soldier was wearing a black Ghillie suit—for warmth and to help him merge with the darkness. It was hard for armed guards to shoot what they could not see. All of his equipment was masked with black cloth to prevent any possible reflection; even the lens of the Zeiss sniper scope was cut with microprisms to neutralize any light flash from revealing his location. Soon enough, Bolan would have to move fast. But speed without a clearly defined goal could mean death in his line of work. Sometimes, survival depended on sitting absolutely still while the rest of the world around you violently exploded. He knew of an old proverb, “Softly, softly, catchee monkey.” Translation: go slow, and get it right the first time.

Just then a cool breeze blew in from the nearby Pacific Ocean, carrying the rich smell of salt along with a trace of diesel fumes.

Studying the flutter of a rag hanging on a bent nail overhead, Bolan concluded the wind was likely a steady north-by-northwest, blowing five to six miles per hour. He mentally added that to the equation of trajectory, caliber, speed and distance, and minutely adjusted the scope again. Bolan had specific goals tonight, and killing civilians was not among them. Very long ago he had sworn never to take an innocent life. He did not kill randomly or without purpose. Every bullet had a goal—the preservation of life.

Gunning down a mad dog in the street before it could attack innocent bystanders was not sport for him, or fun, or even very interesting, except in the purely intellectual aspect of tactics and deployment. It was a job that needed to be done. Nothing more. A job that he was uniquely suited for.

I am not their judge. I am their judgment. The criminals and mad-dog killers of the world had forged their own destiny when they turned against the rest of humanity. Bolan was merely the instrument of the payment.

Bolan adjusted his sights again. The low roar of a jet sounded overhead. Out in the canal, a cruise liner the size of a small city maneuvered through the array of elevated locks connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. A full moon shone in the starry sky over Panama City, the silvery light reflecting off the ocean’s low swells. In the far distance, the horizon glowed from the electric lights of the busy port town. Ships from every nation were waiting in a long queue to trundle through the canal.

Once a poverty-stricken nation, nowadays Panama was thriving from the steady influx of fees and import duties that accompanied the massive flow of cargo.. Almost a million tons of produce and manufactured goods moved through the canal every week, making it one of the most important arteries in world commerce.

Turning away from the bustling city, Bolan focused the telescopic sights on a warehouse in an isolated inlet to the south. Down here in the darkness of the Cordan Quay, roughly a million dollars of goods were moved on an almost daily basis. Only none of it was legal, sanctioned or even registered. Cordan was a known focal point for smuggling narcotics, slaves, gold and—of course—weapons.

Built to merge seamlessly into the rolling sand dunes and rocky hills, the disguised warehouse had an irregular rooftop covered with bushes and trees to help mask it from aerial observation. In front, a splintery wooden pier looked just about ready to collapse. But Bolan knew it was actually made of welded steel recovered from a stolen Brazilian battleship. The rust was painted on, and the thick corrosion was merely plastic flakes. To a casual observer, the warehouse and dock appeared long-abandoned, as lifeless as the dark side of the moon.

In reality, the warehouse was a hardsite, the reinforced walls thicker than those of many military forts. Hidden in the sand and mounds of garbage were enough surface-to-air missile, or SAM, bunkers to hold off any conventional attack. Bolan estimated the area could be destroyed by heavy bombing, but even then, unless a nuclear charge was used, the people inside the building would be long gone before any significant damage was done—the warehouse was built very deep into the ground. Besides, there were more important things inside that warehouse than merely the men who sold death to the highest bidder.

Hidden in plain sight. It was a bold move for Pierre Cordan, the so-called king of South American smuggling, but so far it had paid off big.

He’d even heard rumors that Cordan was attempting to expand into Asia. However, his every effort had been met with deadly resistance from the Sun Nee On, the largest Chinese triad in the world. Bolan had tangled with those lunatics before—and carried the scars to prove it.

The smell of diesel fumes grew stronger, and a diesel engine rumbled into life with a sputter. An old Russian fishing trawler, covered in camouflage netting, was moored at the dock. Wavecutter was the name on the stern. But under the magnification of the sniper scope, Bolan saw that was just a magnetic banner placed over the real name. If it had one. According to his intel, as soon as the ship was in deep water the banner would be tossed aside, and a new name would be slapped onto the hull. Fast, easy and much cheaper than repainting. The ship got a new name at every port.

Burly men stood guard on deck, openly holding Atchisson auto-shotguns, pistols holstered behind their backs. The crew was busy lashing down a pair of unmarked crates to the aft deck. They were a mixed group—most looked European, but there were more than a few East Asians. The ship was old, but through the dirty windows of the wheelhouse Bolan could see that it was equipped with state-of-the-art navigation equipment, GPS, radar, sonar and what looked suspiciously like a radio jammer. A Russian ship with Chinese electronics? Yeah, the Wavecutter smelled like a smuggling vessel. Which meant that Bolan had no interest in it—the captain or the crew—right now. Tonight, he was only interested in the warehouse.

A man cursed on the foredeck as a static line snapped loudly. The heavy rope slashed across the deck like a bullwhip, smashing a wooden barrel into splinters then lashing right through where the sailor had just been standing. Now, the sailor was flat on the deck, alongside his huge captain.

Bolan was impressed. In spite of his size, the captain of the trawler was fast, quite possibly the fastest man Bolan had ever seen. As the two men got back up, Bolan briefly studied the captain. He moved with catlike grace, always on the balls of his feet, not the heels. That was a martial arts stance. Perhaps he was a sumo wrestler, although the captain did not look Japanese. They were huge men who could move with lightning speed. It was a deadly combination of size and speed. While the crew checked the other lines, the captain waved at the dockworkers, then tossed over a small packet of money. Grinning widely, a skinny man with a beard made the catch and nodded in thanks. Bolan recognized him as Pierre Cordan. The man climbed onto a forklift and drove back toward the warehouse, the rest of the workers following on foot.

As the crew of the Wavecutter tossed off the mooring lines, the workers disappeared inside the warehouse, a huge steel door closing behind them with a muffled boom. Instantly, Bolan stroked the trigger of his rifle. A soft cough from the weapon went unheard, the noise completely lost in the sputtering roar of the fishing trawler’s big diesel engines.

Arching high into the night, the 20 mm grenade landed on the roof of the warehouse with a clatter and rolled across the patched surface, coming to rest directly alongside a spinning intake vent. The canister began issuing a steady stream of light gray smoke.

Changing targets, Bolan fired five more times. Soon, the entire roof was covered with thick, dark gas, the vents sucking it all down into the building.

* * *

BOLAN WAITED TEN MINUTES for the sleeping gas grenades on the roof to stop working, and then another five for everybody inside the warehouse to be overcome. Then he pulled on a gas mask and climbed down from the water tower. Retrieving a heavy backpack from the bushes, Bolan drew his silenced Beretta and boldly walked across the open ground of the garbage dump toward the warehouse.

He encountered trip wires, easily avoided, and proximity sensors, rendered useless by an EM broadcast unit tucked into Bolan’s equipment belt. The two guards hidden in the garbage dump were slightly more trouble to neutralize, but Bolan had marked their locations well. The first died under an expert knife thrust to the back of the head, the “doorway of death” located just behind the right ear. The man went stiff and stopped breathing, dead before his mind could even register the attack. But the second guard must have heard something, and she spun around, frantically clawing for the Steyr machine pistol on her hip. Although Bolan disliked shooting any woman, he put a single hollow-point 9 mm into the bridge of her nose, blowing out the back of her head, and kept going. Swim in blood, you pay in death, he thought. End of the discussion.

Pausing just outside the main door, Bolan listened carefully for any suspicious sounds. But there was only a soft snoring mixed with the low hum of the refrigerators cycling on and off. The door was locked, but a keywire gun tricked it open in only a few seconds. The smoky interior was vast, stacked to the ceiling with boxes, barrels, crates and trunks of every possible description, all of them carrying military markings. Numbers only, but Bolan knew the codes. United States, France, Russia, United Kingdom, Iran, Argentina, the ordnance of the world was packed to the ceiling of the warehouse. Death incarnate.

Limp bodies were sprawled on the concrete floor, and, turning them over, Bolan recognized every man as part of the Cordan organization. The hard weeks of surveillance had been a success. His intel had been good. Every one of these people was a known murderer, most of them escaped convicts with rewards on their heads.

Bolan did a fast recon of the entire building and found nineteen men and four women, all of them wearing work clothes and carrying guns. No civilians present. It never hurt to double-check.

Suddenly, an engine revved and a forklift charged out of the shadows. Diving to the side, Bolan rolled to his knees with the Beretta leveled and ready for combat. Son of a bitch, it was Pierre Cordan himself. And the bastard was wearing a gas mask.

As Bolan took aim, Cordan fired a Skorpion vz 61 submachine gun with his free hand, the other tight on the controls. The wild hail of 7.65 mm rounds hit everything around Bolan, and a ricochet slammed aside the Beretta, making his own stream of copper-jacketed rounds stitch across the rear of the forklift, missing Cordan completely.

Screaming muffled obscenities, Cordan fired again, now angling the forklift directly at Bolan. As the twin steel blades filled his line of sight, Bolan dove into a shoulder roll and came up with the Beretta now braced in both hands.

Bolan hammered the side and rear of the forklift, the rounds throwing sparks as they were deflected by the safety cage. He hit Cordan twice, ripping holes in the skinny man’s shirt, but the bullets flattened harmlessly on the tight body armor underneath.

Wheeling around sharply, Cordan tossed aside the empty Skorpion and pulled out a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol. Knowing better than to fall for that old trick, Bolan quickly got behind a concrete support pillar just as the Glock seemed to explode, the disguised Model 18 machine pistol issuing 33 rounds in under two seconds. Several bullets caught the Beretta, sending it flying out of Bolan’s hands, so he reached behind his back to produce his reserve piece, a Desert Eagle .357 Magnum.

Laughing, as if this was some sort of a game, Cordan flung the spent Glock to the ground and jerked his left hand forward. A snug .44 derringer came out of his sleeve to slap into a waiting palm.

It felt like minutes, but each man paused for only a few seconds for better aim, then they fired in unison. Both barrels of the derringer blasted flame as the Desert Eagle sounded a single, solemn boom.

Bolan grunted as a graze ripped open his shoulder, exposing his own body armor underneath, and Cordan was thrown back against the safety cage as the massive soft-lead .357 Magnum round slammed him directly in the middle of the chest.

Expertly spinning aside, Bolan fired twice more as Cordan sped by, a round from the Desert Eagle neatly removing his gas mask. Gasping in surprise, Cordan inadvertently inhaled and started to reel. Fighting to regain control, the man angled the forklift again for Bolan, just as the Executioner took aim at the man’s vulnerable throat. Before he could fire, Cordan slumped at the controls, his head lolling about helplessly. The bastard had succumbed to the sleep gas at last.

Tracking the unconscious man with the barrel of his Desert Eagle, Bolan watched the forklift rattle past.

The machine careened off a steel support beam, then crashed through a closed wooden door and shuddered out into the night. Craning his neck, Bolan saw the forklift veering about on the dock, clanging off the steel pylons before rolling straight into the water. As Cordan and the machine disappeared beneath the waves, Bolan holstered his weapon and went to find another forklift.

It was far too clean a death for Cordan, but the man had always been lucky. Cordan was one of the biggest black market weapons dealers in Central America and had been responsible for taking thousands of innocent lives. His death alone paid for a host of bloody crimes. This was already a successful mission.

Climbing into another forklift, Bolan started ferrying stacks of munitions to the loading dock. When he had enough, Bolan pulled up a truck and packed it solid with neat rows of military shipping containers. Mostly American, but a few from the UK, Germany and Russia.

Bolan then returned to the warehouse and walked into an office, where a snoring man slumped over a desk covered with stacks of cash. Bolan grabbed a duffel bag from the corner of the room and stuffed it full, then drew his Beretta. With calm deliberation, he shot the electronic controls for the fire alarm.

In response, a hundred nozzles in the ceiling and walls began hissing out thick streams of halon gas. Water-logged weapons had to be carefully cleaned, and a spray of H20 could thwart thousands of valuable explosions. But halon stopped any conventional fire and would not harm any of the lethal inventory. More important, it dissipated quickly. Even when the sea breeze was so uncooperative.

Bolan headed back toward the truck, slipping on his gas mask before walking through the swirling clouds, then drove away into the night. Leaving the inlet behind, he pulled out a cell phone, tapping in a memorized number.

“Phoenix has the egg,” Bolan said.

“Confirm,” Hal Brognola replied. “Luck.”

Bolan switched the phone off and tossed it out the window. It was still airborne when the thermite charge ignited. The phone landed in an explosion of flames.

After a few minutes, Bolan reached a dirt road and parked the truck. He pulled out his night vision goggles and watched patiently as the halon gas swirled past the warehouse windows. On the ten-minute mark, it stopped abruptly. Everybody in the warehouse was now dead from asphyxiation. Flipping open a second phone, Bolan punched in a local number. “Panama City Fire Department?” he said in halting Spanish, trying to sound unfamiliar with the language. “There is a warehouse on fire over at Cordan Quay.”

“Madre mia!” the man on the other end gasped. “Are you sure? Who is this?”

“Just a concerned citizen,” Bolan said, turning off the phone and also consigning it to the wind.

Shifting into gear, Bolan drove onto the highway and pulled a small remote control from his pocket. He pressed the switch twice and a light on top turned red, then he pressed it once more. In the far distance, he heard a muffled bang as his abandoned backpack inside the warehouse exploded.

Trundling carefully along the dirt road, Bolan counted the seconds. It was almost a minute before the first explosion occurred. The blast ripped off the disguised roof of the warehouse, wild tongues of flames extending for a dozen yards from every door and window. That was closely followed by another, bigger explosion and several small, irregular blasts. Then the entire warehouse lifted off the ground as the multiple mega-tons of stolen ordnance detonated in ragged unison. The blast illuminated the sky for miles.

Angling fast behind a sand dune, Bolan hit the brakes and braced himself. A few seconds later, the shockwave buffeted the truck, and Bolan heard the patter of shrapnel smack into the dune. Long minutes passed. The sirens of fire trucks were getting uncomfortably close before the rain of debris finally eased.

Bolan pulled back onto the road and started toward Panama City. So far, so good. Cordan was dead, his organization was destroyed and Bolan now possessed a hundred million dollars in illegal weapons, mostly surface-to-air missiles.

The easy part was over. Time to raid police headquarters.

Chapter 2

Cancun, Mexico

Sluggishly, the woman roused herself from the depth of unconsciousness.

Renee Collins glanced around the brightly illuminated room. She was naked, hanging from the ceiling in steel chains. A padded leather corset kept the steel links from strangling her, but her arms were painfully drawn behind her and angled upward. The pain in her shoulders first made her scream, then pass out.

When she came to again, she saw him. Oh my god, she thought. Narmada! I’ve been captured by Narmada!

Collins began to cry as each horrid detail of her kidnapping came rushing back. The tear gas attack in the alley, the constant beatings with cushioned clubs that hurt but left no marks afterward.

No marks that could be seen, she mentally added, flinching at the humiliating memory of being forced to remove her clothing.

Drawing in a deep breath, Collins screamed again, an animalistic combination of rage, fear and desperate frustration.

“Well, at least you seem to have some strength back,” rumbled Captain Ravid Narmada, swinging around in his chair. “This is good. I still have so very many questions about the next shipment of microchip warheads.”

“Pig!” she snarled, then spit at him. “I will tell you nothing. Nothing!”

“That is, sadly, quite incorrect,” he said, rising from the chair and walking over to a small workbench in the far corner.

Narmada was almost twice the size of any normal man, and Collins had at first thought him merely of colossal girth. But Collins now knew the terrible truth. Oh, there was fat to be sure, but underneath were muscles of incredible strength, and even though Collins had seen his speed, she still had trouble believing it. Nothing that big could move that fast. Elephants were slow; whales were slow. But he moved with the speed and grace of a mongoose, a cheetah. Almost in a blur, when he wanted. It felt like a contradiction of natural laws.

“I’ll tell you nothing,” Collins repeated with less conviction.

“We shall see, eh?” Whistling through his teeth, Narmada began opening drawers in the bench, extracting tools and equipment.

“Perhaps...we can make a deal,” Collins whispered hoarsely. “I am still very beautiful...”

“Not interested, sorry.”

“I have money!”

“All I want are the microchips.” Donning insulated gloves, Narmada put a screwdriver into the hissing rush of flame and calmly waited until the tip was glowing red.

“Please...don’t do this,” she groaned in a small voice. “I’m...just a working girl...”

Smiling widely, Narmada lifted the screwdriver to inspect the tip. “This is true. But a whore who specializes in corporate espionage,” he said with a low chuckle. “Now, if you were much better at your job, I might have offered you a position in my organization. Information is often more valuable than gold, eh? Trite, but true.”

“I accept!”

He walked closer. “I said might, young lady. You are also a stupid whore and now must pay the price for failure.”

“Please!”

“No,” said Narmada, and Collins screamed, again and again, for a very long time....

When the interrogation was finished, Captain Narmada checked the sagging thing dangling in the chains for a pulse and found none. He then snapped her neck with a bare hand just for the practice.

“Pity we didn’t get to ride her for a while,” Lee Chung muttered from the doorway.

Standing almost six feet tall, Chung had the physique of a fanatical bodybuilder—a barrel chest and narrow waist. His hands were covered with old scars. An ornate silver buckle bearing the Confederate flag held a place of honor on the front of his garrison belt, and his alligator cowboy boots shone with fresh polish. The man wore his long black hair cut in a mullet, a style favored by many Southern Americans.

“This is a business, not a brothel,” Narmada snapped, crossing the room and tossing the screwdriver onto the workbench.

As Narmada glanced over a shoulder, Chung forced himself not to flinch or turn away. The captain always appeared calm after extracting information from uncooperative personnel. That was a major warning sign. The slower Narmada spoke, the angrier he was, and nobody sane ever wanted to tangle with the captain. Once, in a bar fight in Madrid Chung had watched Narmada kill twenty men while crossing the room at a regular pace, his hands bloody pistons that crushed faces and snapped necks with every strike.

“Yes, sir! My apologies, sir.”

Narmada waved the matter aside. “Please dispose of the body overboard.”

“At once! So, do we have a destination?”

“Of course,” Narmada replied, leaving the room.

Left alone with the corpse, Chung scowled in annoyance, then hit a control on the wall to summon a cleaning crew.

On the main deck, Captain Narmada stood with both hands on the gunwale, breathing in the cool salty air. Inside the nearby wheelhouse, three men were watching a Chinese anime movie on a portable DVD player, eating sandwiches and drinking German beer. Just for a moment, Narmada longed for the company of other men. His colossal size had always kept him alone and separate. Doorways were too narrow, every chair was a potential danger, and very few women were attracted to giants.

Shaking his head to dispel the dark thought, Narmada focused on the next part of the journey. Key West. He had never been there before.

Across the deck, Chung appeared from a gangway with several men carrying a canvas bundle. Shuffling to the gunwale, they heaved it overboard, and Chung turned away before the body splashed into the water.

“Helm!” Narmada shouted over a shoulder.

The door to the wheelhouse opened, throwing a bright rhombus of light across the deck of the Russian trawler. “Yes, sir?” a burly man replied around the cigar in his mouth.

“Head south! We refuel at Buenos Aires,” Narmada said, rubbing his rough palms along the painted iron railing.

“But sir, the canal...”

“Too dangerous! Best we keep to the open sea.”

“Aye, aye, skipper!”

“And along the way?” Chung asked hopefully, coming closer.

“Along the way there will be many fine ships for us to choose from,” Narmada said with a half smile. “Bullion from Chile, emeralds from Argentina...and that silly French billionaire we’re supposed to sink just off the Galapagos Islands.”

“Another angry wife?”

“Gambling debt.”

“Mafia?”

“The Fifteen Families.”

“Idiot!”

“Agreed,” laughed Narmada. “But keep most of the hold empty. We have a lot of American microchips to steal in Key West...”

Caracas, Uruguay

TWO DAYS LATER, Bolan was driving a battered jeep, rattling through an entirely different kind of jungle.

The midnight raid on the Caracas Police Headquarters had gone off without a hitch. Dozens of armed officers saw Bolan enter, but his forged papers passed muster, and an EM scanner jammed the expensive electronic lock on the master file room. Five minutes later, he was driving across town with a series of clandestine photographs tucked into his pocket. So far, so good. Now it was time to kill a traitor.

Always trying to keep tabs on freedom fighters around the globe, Bolan knew several details about the Ghost Jaguars—a medium-sized group of rebels fighting Uruguay’s incredibly corrupt government. To the best of his knowledge, they had never crossed the line into unwarranted violence. Never kidnapped an innocent family member to force a crooked cop into confessing or conducted any blanket executions—although the government had certainly given them enough excuses to do so.

The Jaguars stayed the line, kept hard and simply did not take any crap from anybody. Bolan liked that. All too often, fighting an evil turned even the best intentions dark, and soon, one became the very thing one detested. It was a constant fear of his own, and one that Bolan kept a very close eye on. The moment he started to enjoy killing people was the day he would toss his weapons into the sea and go retire somewhere. Bali, maybe, or Kalamazoo.

Just not today, Bolan added privately, steering his rented jeep deeper into the wild jungle.

The jeep was old, circa World War II, but still in excellent shape, and the studded tires were getting excellent traction from the weight in the rear. Lashed securely into place were nine heavy wooden boxes, all of them marked “soil samples.”

Leaving the paved highway behind, Bolan started down a gravel road, switched to four-wheel drive and trundled up a dirt path that snaked deep into the misty mountains.

The Ghost Jaguars constantly asked for help from America, but Bolan knew that would never happen. Uruguay was an oil-producing nation, and it sold thousands of barrels a year to the good ol’ USA. In these troubled times, that was a powerful incentive for America to leave the internal politics of Uruguay alone. Happily, Bolan had no such restrictions.

Time passed, as did the long miles. Double-checking his GPS, Bolan parked the jeep in a cluster of giant ferns, letting the engine cool while he rechecked his maps and notations. If his original intel was good, combined with the crude notes stolen from the police files, then the main camp for the Ghosts would be somewhere inside the mountain range just ahead. The crosswinds between the jagged peaks were brutal, making an aerial reconnaissance damn near impossible. Countless waterfalls could help mask any minor heat signatures, such as truck engines or campfires, and the area was a favored hunting ground for jaguar.

The situation reminded Bolan of an old trick—hide in plain sight, with the warning, “Here be Monsters.” It kept out most of the innocent bystanders, and if there was an invasion, disposing of the body afterward could be left entirely to the animals. Alexander the Great had used something similar in his military outposts around the world, as had the Romans.

Sliding on a backpack, Bolan checked over his weapons, then started climbing up the steep hillside. The footing was tricky because of the deep carpeting of loose leaves and the many snakes hidden beneath them. After a few miles, Bolan’s EM scanner had yet to find a single live microphone hidden in the trees, a land mine or even a proximity sensor. Could he be wrong? Had the rebels moved to another location? It was possible. Perhaps the real reason the secret police had never found the Ghost Jaguars was because they had disbanded or...

Bolan froze as the needle of the EM scanner jerked wildly. Straight ahead of him was a land mine. No, a field of land mines, spread out in every direction. Dozens...hundreds. His intel had been right—this was the place. Now, it was just a matter of cutting a deal with people who disliked outsiders, had no reason whatsoever to trust him and hated most Americans.

Warily, Bolan moved through the maze of high-explosive death traps, keeping a constant watch on the flickering indicator. If the needle ever swung into the red, it would be too late. Red would mean the mines were about to explode. But there was no other way to reach the rebel camp.

Edging steadily closer, Bolan caught a glimpse of a massive wall of upright logs hammered into the dark soil. The jungle grew right up to the wall, helping to mask its presence. The logs were at least a foot thick, patched with concrete, draped in camouflage netting and topped with concertina wire.

The razor blades shone with fresh oil—much-needed protection from the constant mist and dampness. Nothing was visible over the top of the wall, but Bolan saw crude birds’ nests here and there. That’s where the video cameras would be hidden. Most likely. He needed to get over that damn fence in spite of them.

Holding his breath, Bolan listened intently to the soft sounds of the jungle—the wind through the trees, the rustle of snakes, the chirps of various insects. Oddly, no noise seemed to be coming from his left, so he carefully headed in that direction. He soon discovered the source of the unnatural silence. A pair of jaguars was chained to the base of a large tree, their dappled fur helping them blend into the shadows.

As the animals turned to face him, Bolan pulled out a pneumatic air gun and fired several times. The tiny darts disappeared completely into the thick, spotted hides of the huge animals, and they paused, wobbled slightly, then lay down clumsily.

Just to be sure, Bolan gave them a couple of extra minutes to pass out. Jaguars were smart and often only pretended to be dead, or asleep, to lure their prey in closer. Which was probably why the rebels had chosen them as their symbol—smart and deadly. A good combination.

Once he was satisfied the jungle killers were well and truly unconscious, Bolan approached the tree. He pulled a pair of slim knives out of his belt, then kicked the sides of his boots, releasing their climbing spurs.

The ascent into the tree was easy, but every leaf seemed to hold a gallon of water, and by the time he reached the top, Bolan was soaked to the skin. Ignoring the minor inconvenience, he extracted a pair of compact binoculars and looked over the base.

It was impressive. He saw a dozen log cabins and several large tents, everything draped with camouflage netting. He counted ten armed trucks, a dozen mountain bikes and two large canvas lumps. From the angle and positions, his best guess was that the lumps were missiles, probably surface-to-air. He also spotted what sure as hell resembled an old howitzer situated directly before the front gate.

Designed for lobbing colossal shells a great distance, the blast of the 155 mm caliber cannon would be devastating to anything at such a short range. The gunnery crew could probably only get off one shot, maybe two, if they were really good. But the first government tank rumbling into the base would have a hot reception.

The rebels themselves were men and women of all ages, some seeming too old to march, whereas others didn’t look old enough to shave. Everyone carried a gun and a machete. Nobody had any insignia of rank. Bolan assumed this was a small, tight group—if you were not personally known, you’d be killed on the spot. Brutal, but good tactics.

An old switchback road snaked down the side of the mountain, and the base was located at the edge of a crumbling cliff that overlooked the ocean. The height was extreme—ten, maybe fifteen miles. But a brave man with a parachute might make it down to the coastline alive. An escape maneuver that most invading troops would not be able to duplicate.

Easing his way back to the ground, Bolan moved to a small clearing where he could see the front gate. Bolan pulled out a small transceiver, thumbed aside the protective cover, waited for the green light, then pressed the arming button twice.

Ten miles away, the stacked boxes of cargo in the rear of the jeep cut loose in a prolonged display of thermite, dynamite, white phosphorous and cheap fireworks.

Within seconds, the front gate of the base was throw open, and a ragged convoy of trucks and motorcycles charged out of the enclosure.

As the defenders disappeared quickly down the dirt road, the gate slamming shut behind them, Bolan sprinted to the opposite edge of the compound and used his pneumatic air gun to launch a grappling over the stockade wall. Going up was easy, down even more so, and Bolan hit the ground in a crouch, reloading the air gun with darts again.

He’d landed right across from a small wooden shack that looked to be an outhouse. As if on cue, the door pushed outward and a rebel exited, zipping up his pants. Spotting Bolan, the rebel cried out, clawing for a holstered pistol on his hip. Bolan put two tranquilizer darts in his chest and moved onward.

Six more guards fell under the gentle assault of the tranquilizer darts, and soon Bolan was standing inside a battered old canvas tent. There was nothing special about the tent, from the outside, but its position was the logical location for the commander.

A fast glance around the interior told Bolan that he was correct. He spied a weapons cabinet containing advanced armament—an Atchisson auto-shotgun, a Milkor grenade launcher, several 66 mm LAW rocket launchers, five or six Neostead shotguns and enough spare ammunition and assorted grenades to punch a hole in the moon. Whatever else they were, these rebels weren’t poor. A small bookcase next to the cabinet was filled with assorted legal volumes dealing with international law, war crimes and joining the UN. These folks thought big. Bolan liked that.

A large folding table was covered with detailed maps of the capital city, Montevideo, the president’s palace and the complex sewer system underneath. It looked as if a sortie was being planned, possibly an assassination. Then Bolan spied an old, battered medical case. A quick glance inside showed only surgical instruments, mostly dental. Apparently, the rebels also believed in torture.

Off in the far corner, a folding cot stood near a small wood-burning stove, and on a worktable were boxes of camouflage paint sticks, a hairbrush and several tampons. Bolan had no idea what the military function of the tampons might be. He’d heard tales of wounded soldiers in battle jamming a tampon into a deep bullet hole to act as a crude blood stop, but he’d always considered it an army legend. Maybe the trick really did work.

Suddenly, there came the sound of multiple engines. Bolan quickly grabbed a pair of M35 anti-personnel grenades from his pack, pulled the pins and held tightly to the arming levers. He listened to the shouting over the discovery of the unconscious guards, running, cursing in several different languages, a few wild bursts from assault rifles.... Then the tent flap was pulled aside.

Six armed people stood in the opening, their faces registering shock and then raw hatred.

“Filthy dog!” a rebel snarled, swinging up the barrel of his AK-47.

“Stop that, Jose!” snapped a woman, slapping the weapon aside. “Did you not see the grenades?”

“Live, I assure you,” Bolan said, beaming a friendly smile.

“I assumed,” she said, cocking back the hammer on the Colt Commander semi-automatic pistol in her grip. The weapon looked very old, but it was spotlessly clean and shone with fresh oil.

She was a beautiful woman, and not even the long jagged scar bisecting her face could affect that. Her figure was tight and firm, as befitting a leader of combat soldiers. Her camouflage-pattern uniform was patched, the boots old, but everything was clean.

More important, she stood with the calm assurance of a leader. Clearly, this was the person in charge of the operation. The government called her Sergeant Gato, Spanish for “cat.” But giving your enemy a silly nickname to make them sound weak was one of the oldest tricks in the book.

“What do you want here?” the woman demanded, the pitted barrel of the handgun never wavering.

“You,” Bolan replied. “You, your men and that warship you’ve been secretly building for the past ten years.”

A collective gasp from the rebels told Bolan he’d made a direct hit.

A burly man with a large black mustache frowned. “How did you find us?”

Bolan gave a small shrug. “A friend of a friend.”

“I want names, gringo! Names!” the man demanded.

“Look, amigo. If I wanted you dead, I would have sold the information to the government,” Bolan said bluntly. “And right now, this base would be getting firebombed out of existence from what the president laughingly calls an air force.”

That yielded a small chuckle from the soldiers, but none of the weapons shifted direction, and the woman did not respond.

“We can leave and shoot you through the tent walls,” she said. “Use one grenade, or two.... But you would die, and we would simply be out a tent.”

“Absolutely true,” Bolan said. “But I’m here to cut a deal. Shoot if you want, but it’s a good deal.”

“Amnesty?” sneered a rake-thin teenager, his hands nervously twisting on the wooden grip of an old Browning automatic rifle, now topped with a state-of-the-art Zeiss long-range sniper scope. A bandolier of shells crossed his chest, and an optical range finder was tucked into a shirt pocket.

A fellow sniper? Good to know. “Fuck amnesty,” Bolan said. “I’m talking about missiles.”

“Missiles?”

“Missiles. Carl Gustav, LAW, Sidewinders, Redeye, Loki, Javelin—a truckload of them. Enough to tip the fight in your favor.”

“And what is the cost of this largesse?” asked the woman coolly, her eyes narrowing.

“Your rebellion is not going very well,” Bolan said, choosing his words carefully. “For more than five years, you’ve been doing a major overhaul on an old Mexican cargo freighter, formerly a Canadian steel freighter.”

Nobody said a word, but nervous glances were exchanged.

“You’ve added firewalls and armor below decks, modified the engines, reinforced the main deck, tacked on torpedo tubes and missile launchers.” Bolan smiled. “All of which is carefully out of sight.”

“Supposing what you say is true,” Sergeant Gato said slowly.

“It is.” Bolan interrupted.

She scowled. “Supposing so, you wish to do what, exchange your imaginary stockpile of missiles if we give you this vessel?”

“Oh, hell no. I merely want to rent it for a while. Maybe a few weeks, possibly longer.”

“Rent?” A young girl laughed. “You wish to rent the...” She closed her mouth with a snap.

“I never could find out the name, much less the location,” Bolan admitted. “You security is good. Damn good.” He proffered the grenades. “That’s why I had to go to such an extreme measure.”

“Rent.” The burly man shook his head in disbelief. “You have cojones, I’ll give you that, dead man.”

“I’ll pay with a hundred missiles...and a name.”

“What did you just say?” The man gaped.

“In exchange for renting the warship, I will pay you one hundred missiles per month, until the end of my mission.”

“Per month?”

“Or twenty-five a week. Whichever you prefer.”

“Madre mia,” a bald man exhaled. “With such ordnance....” Abruptly, his face took on a terrible expression. “Bah, it’s a trick! Just more lies from the president, eh? Everybody out of the tent. I will handle this pig personally.”

“Thank you, Miguel, but not this time,” the commander said, lowering her weapon. Her actions were slow but deliberate. “There is no fear in the eyes of this man, and his words carry the ring of truth.”

“But—”

“Let him talk for a little more,” she said, dragging over a folding canvas chair. “Let us see if the strength of his words equals the strength of his hands.”

“Sure as hell hope so,” Bolan said.

Leaning forward, she rested both elbows on her knees. “A hundred missiles per month, you said?”

“Plus a name. The name of a traitor in your organization. A paid police spy.”

“Davido?”

That caught Bolan by surprise. “Yes, Davido Sanchez.”

She shrugged. “Killed him last week.” Then she smiled. “But nobody knows that yet.”

A tense minute passed in silence, then another.

“So, my intel was good,” said Bolan.

“Good, but late. Still, I like that you offered his name without a price,” Sergeant Gato said. “And a hundred missiles seems a fair price for the....”

Bolan waited.

“The Constitution,” she finished.

“Good name,” Bolan said. But remember, you get the warship back afterward.”

“Perhaps. And if we do not? If it sinks or is stolen or damaged beyond repair?”

“Then I help steal you another. But I want the Constitution.”

“Why, if you can so easily steal another warship? Probably something even better than what we have.”

“Because your ship will not look dangerous,” Bolan stated bluntly. “But it actually will be. I’ll need that to get close to my target.”

“A covert attack?”

“Exactly.”

“I see,” the commander said, leaning back in the chair. “So, we each have something the other wants. But can we trust each other?”

“No.”

“Good answer. Let me think on this,” she said, pulling out a cigarette pack. She tapped it on the bottom and one jumped up. She caught it between her lips then offered the pack to Bolan.

“Thanks, but I quit years ago,” he said. She shrugged, lit a match on the sole of her boot and inhaled. The rest of the rebels just stood there, watching him intently, waiting for the next order from their commander.

The muscles in his arms were starting to become warm, but Bolan was no longer likely to let go of the grenades. There was still plenty of time to negotiate. The rebels were poor but proud. They never would have accepted charity, or even a gift, naturally assuming there would be strings attached. But a deal, a trade, this they could accept. Besides, he would need a crew, and who better than the people who knew every nut and bolt in the vessel?

“What is your name, Yankee?” she asked out of the blue.

“Colonel Brandon Stone. And I am addressing...?”

“Major Esmeralda Cortez.”

Bolan nodded. “Major.”

“Colonel,” she replied in kind. “So, do you have a crew for our ship?”

“Nope.”

She paused. “Us? You also want us?”

“Who better than the people who built it?”

Major Cortez took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “That would require additional funding.”

“I expected as much. More missiles?”

“No, assault rifles. AK-47s with grenade launchers. And ammunition.”

“Not a problem. But the new model AK-101 is much better. Longer range, less ride-up, easier to clean.”

“Easier to clean.” She laughed. “Yes, you are a soldier. Politicians talk about firepower. Soldiers talking about keeping their weapons clean.”

“Damn straight.”

Major Cortez took another long, slow drag, then dropped the smoldering cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it under a boot heel. “You will be watched, and closely.” She rose from the chair. “At the first hint of treachery, you will be killed.”

“Accepted.”

“Then we have a deal.”

“Good.”

“Who is it you wish to kill? This enemy that you must get close to using...guile?”

“Captain Ravid Narmada, the leader of a pirate fleet that usually operates somewhere in the Atlantic.”

“Somewhere?” the balding rebel laughed scornfully. “Usually?”

Bolan shrugged.

“So you will draw him to you using the Constitution as bait,” Major Cortez said.

“Exactly.”

“This is intolerable,” one of the soldiers began with a worried expression.

“Jose, with the profit from selling half of the missiles delivered to us—”

“If they exist!”

The major gave a curt nod. “Yes, if they exist. But if they do, we could soon buy a second warship. The Russians are selling off their old diesel submarines very cheaply these days.”

“A submarine!” the burly rebel exclaimed.

Major Cortez gave a feral smile. “Imagine the surprise, Lieutenant Esteele, when a submarine rises from the middle of the Bay of Montevideo and uses its torpedoes to pave the way for the big gun of the Constitution, eh?”

From the expressions on the faces of the rebels, Bolan could see they liked the idea a lot.

“Two warships,” Major Cortez replied, using her fingers to brush back a loose strand of ebony hair. “A lion and a lamb. For the sake of the nation, I am willing to accept this risk.”

“Done,” Bolan said.

“Lieutenant Esteele,” the major said, “your new duties include watching Colonel Stone day and night. Guard him from harm, but one wrong move on his part, and you have my full permission to blow off his head—anywhere, anytime.”

“Yes, Major.”

“First order of business is to help me get these arming pins back in place,” Bolan said.

Pushing back his cloth cap, Lieutenant Esteele frowned, then bent over to retrieve the pins from the dirt and slid them back into the grenades.

Passing one of the deactivated grenades to the lieutenant, Bolan got a roll of tape from his pocket and lashed down the arming lever on the one he still held. But when he reached for the other, he saw that the lieutenant had already secured his grenade with a heavy rubber band and was slipping it into a pocket of his fatigues.

“Just in case, eh?” Esteele grinned without any warmth.

Nodding in acceptance, Bolan flexed his hands to restore proper blood circulation. “All right, Major. How long will it take to reach the Constitution?”

“A few days. It’s moored in the Cayman Islands. For a price, they are willing to hide anything for anybody.”

“Excellent. We can also pick up your first payment there.”

“And those are where?” a rebel asked.

“In the Cayman Islands. For a price, they’re willing to hide anything for anybody.”

“So I’ve heard.” Major Cortez laughed, slapping Bolan on the arm. “I like you, Yankee! Please do not make the lieutenant kill you.”

Chapter 3

Key West, Florida

It was a quiet night along the Keys, and the little chain of scattered islands looked peaceful. The elevated highway that connected them back to mainland America had almost no traffic, and the ocean was quiescent, the swells low and gentle, the breeze balmy and warm. A picture-postcard night for a tropical paradise.

There was no moon in the sky, which was keeping most of the honeymooners and tourists off the white sand beaches. Hot and jazzy Latin music emanated from a dozen bars and restaurants , and the police rode bicycles along the clean streets, mostly just watching out for drunks and the occasional lost child.

Sitting alongside each other on a stone breakwater, the two men waggled their bare feet in the air, each of them floating in a private cosmos.

““Hey,” one of them said suddenly, shaken from his reverie.

“What?”

“Fireworks, man. Look at the fireworks!”

Squinting into the distance, the first man laughed at what appeared to be an old fishing trawler sending out flares. This close to land? The crew could walk to the beach and never get their shirts wet. Strange.

“Got your camera, dude?”

“Always!”

“Shoot the ship, man. Something fishy here.”

“Ha! Fishy. Ship. No, wait...”

Suddenly, a red dot appeared on the wall between them. The first man tried to swat it away like an annoying bug. A split second later, something large zoomed across the water and slammed into the wall.

The blast threw both of them high, wide and in a hundred tattered pieces, the wall erupting into a fireball. The detonation rumbled across the sleepy town like an angry peal of thunder, rattling windows and setting off dozens of car alarms.

Onboard the trawler, Lieutenant Gloria Fields scowled at the laughing man standing nearby. “Was that really necessary?”

“A diversion to confuse the police,” Chung replied, tossing the spent rocket launcher into the ocean. “Now, let’s get those chips!”

Almost straight ahead of the trawler, onshore, sat a low, white stone building, three stories tall and surrounded by lush palm trees and exotic flowering bushes. The sign across the front read, “Maxwell Armatures.” No lights were on inside the structure.

“The microchips are in the safe on the third floor,” Captain Narmada said. “I want them all.”

“So be it,” Lieutenant Fields said, swinging a LAW rocket launcher onto her shoulder.

Pressing the release button, she extended the collapsible tube to its full length. As the sights popped up, the firing button was revealed. Spreading her legs slightly for a better stance, she aimed for the third floor corner and pressed the button.

A double volcano of flame and smoke erupted from both ends of the lightweight tube, the back blast extending for a dozen yards across the trawler and out to sea. A sharp stiletto of flame lanced from the front port, and the 66 mm rocket streaked away.

The rocket punched straight through the bulletproof windows then exploded inside, engulfing the entire third floor in a roiling chemical hell storm.

“Yee-haw!” shouted Chung as Fields shot a second LAW rocket into the building.

“Again,” said Narmada. “We need the lab leveled.”

“Whatever you say, sir.” Chung lifted a Carl Gustav from the open case of launchers on the deck.

Sliding in a napalm rocket, he hit the ground floor once more, the blast spreading outward from every broken window. The building started to sag, then tilt, wide cracks opening in the stucco siding.

Lieutenant Fields added two more LAWs into the crumbling foundation. The double blast did the trick, and the entire laboratory complex collapsed inward, throwing up a wild display of bright embers and swirling smoke.

Fire engines could now be heard, closely followed by the wail of police sirens and ambulances.

“Send in the tank,” Narmada said, lifting a LAW from the case. “I’ll handle these fools.”

The front of the modified trawler slammed onto the pristine white beach, and a LAV-25 armored personnel carrier, or APC, rumbled out of the hold and onto dry land. Charging forward, the driver smashed aside the white stone tide wall and everything else in its way.

When the LAV-25 reached the ruins of the Maxwell laboratory, the driver started moving around the rubble in concentric circles until the armored prow clanged into something very hard. Burning timbers fell away to reveal a squat, armored vault.

Like a soccer player maneuvering a ball toward the goal, the tank driver pushed into the heavy cube, knocking it out of the growing inferno and bringing it to rest safely on a relatively undamaged patch of parking lot.

Sirens screaming, three police cars, followed by fire trucks and ambulances, squealed into the parking lot.

From his position on the trawler, Narmada sent two LAW rockets directly into the cluster of emergency vehicles. Suddenly, the rear of the tank slammed open and out came a group of men wearing fire-resistant suits and driving a small forklift. They had a little trouble getting the safe onto the prongs, but it was finally accomplished, and the steel box was loaded with extreme care into the rear of the APC. The fit was tight, but the intel had been good, and the rear doors closed firmly.

Chung, Fields and Narmada watched the tank drive back toward the trawler.

“Keep an eye out for jet fighters from Gitmo,” warned Narmada, swinging up a Sidewinder missile launcher and activating the radar.

“Gitmo?”

“Or Miami. They’re both close enough to do a recon.”

However, the empty sky remained clear as the APC trundled back into the ship, and the landing hatch was cycled back into place. Leaving the harbor, the trawler headed directly out to sea.

* * *

SUDDENLY, CHUNG GAVE a cry and staggered backward on deck, his shoulder gushing blood.

“Impossible!” Fields gasped, squinting into the darkness toward the coastline.

A second later, wild gunfire erupted onshore, the bright flashes of a small-caliber pistol strobing on the beach. The shots seemed wild, erratic. But another incoming round hit the door to the wheelhouse, and a third zinged off a brass stanchion.

“Bastard got me,” Chung grunted, slapping a hand on top of the wound. “Filthy stinking islanders...”

“Did you really expect them not to shoot back?” asked Narmada, sounding almost amused.

“I thought we’d taken them all out!” Lieutenant Fields shouted.

Chung, stumbled to a weapons chest, pushing aside a Redeye and a LAW to triumphantly extract a very old four-shot rocket launcher.

“Clear the deck!” he screamed, then started shooting, not caring if there was anybody behind him to be obliterated by the back blast.

Soon, a wall of flames spread across the beach, and Chung tossed the rocket launcher overboard with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Get below and see the doc,” Narmada said, still watching the sky.

“I’m fine.” Chung winced as his arm moved.

“No, you’re not, and that was an order, not a request.”

Scowling darkly, Chung paused, then nodded and started toward the nearest hatchway.

“Sir...” Lieutenant Fields began.

“Long story, Lieutenant,” replied Narmada. “Suffice it to say that unless he draws a weapon and points it at me, my personal debt to Chung will never be canceled. Good enough?”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

The nameless trawler was just reaching the horizon, the fires on the beach disappearing below the waves, when the night was cut by the loud siren of a Coast Guard cutter streaming in from another Key. Without pause, Narmada and Fields both opened fire, and the cutter vanished.

Chapter 4

The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantic Ocean

It was raining again.

Not a real storm, or a squall, or even a proper downpour, just a steady, miserable mist that seemed to seep down every collar, dampening clothing and skin. The rebels stayed inside as much as possible, closely watching the radar screen, while Bolan felt compelled to stand on the bow to watch for other vessels.

Naturally, his crates weren’t the only cargo in the hold—that would look too suspicious, even to amateurs, but he hoped the bait would be irresistible. Despite the fact that the Triangle was a known hot spot for pirates, many rich fools sailed their million-dollar yachts in these dangerous waters to have bragging rights at cocktail parties back home in Manhattan, London or Milan. But not all of them came back alive. Pirates grew rich over the foolishness of people who thought great wealth gave them some sort of protection against the wild animals in the world.

Sometimes wisdom comes very hard, Bolan noted dourly, wiping the mist from his face. The peaceful governments of the world did what they could to patrol the high seas. But the oceans were vast and the pirates very fast.

The Constitution was a Canadian ore freighter, massive and heavy, with all of the maneuverability of a sand bar. But the superstructure was strong, and the hull had been reinforced with concrete.

The rows of big diesel engines purred, and the ship carried more assorted firepower than anything Bolan had ever ridden. Half of the lifeboats were actually quad-formation .50 machine guns. A 20 mm M61 Vulcan that nobody had gotten to work properly yet was mounted at the bow, and the ship carried depth charge racks and torpedo tubes from what Bolan thought must have been a PT boat. A wooden cabin on the foredeck contained a short-barrel Howitzer. Bolan did not want to be anywhere near that antique when it was used, highly suspecting that it would do more damage to the Constitution than any enemy.

This was their fourth trip across the Atlantic, and Bolan had stopped at every small island he could to cheaply sell weapons, mostly rifles and handguns, to each group of freedom fighters that he considered worthy of support. A few of them even got LAW rockets. Eventually, he figured, Narmada would learn that about the sales and come hunting. But so far, nothing.

Major Cortez and her people, however, were delighted to learn about magnetic signs, and there were now a dozen names for the old war craft. At the moment, they were flying the Australian flag and bearing the name Dingo Bob.

Unfortunately, it had been three long weeks at sea, and Bolan was running low on missiles, money and patience. He was starting to think this plan was a failure. The thought did not bother him very much. All battle plans were vulnerable to circumstance. He had known this ploy was a long shot, but had believed that Narmada could not resist the temptation of acquiring SOTA missiles to go along with his stolen microchips. Put together, the modified missiles would be unstoppable at short range.

“Are you sure that last group wasn’t them?” asked Private Jenna Carrera, her hands moving steadily along the old wooden frame of her Browning automatic rifle. The wood gleamed from her constant administrations.

Privately, Bolan appreciated her attention to details. He’d seen her shoot during the last pirate raid, and her accuracy approached his. Most impressive.

“Sadly, no,” Bolan replied, turning up the collar of his jacket. “They were just a bunch of Somalis out for a fast raid. Slaves and guns. They’d have taken the ship too, if they could have.”

“Not the Dingo!” Carrera laughed, working the arming lever and firing the weapon. Somewhere in the mist, a seagull cried out as it was hit and died.

“You are very good,” Bolan said, giving his highest compliment. Just then, Carrera’s head jerked to the side, and a red geyser exploded out of her temple.

Even before the corpse hit the deck, Bolan snatched away the BAR and started firing into the fog.

“Incoming!” Bolan yelled at the top of his lungs.

That was when he heard the unmistakable sound of a lawn mower. What the hell?

Then the real source of the noise became clear, and he dove to the side, swinging up the BAR. Martins!

Three irregular shapes descended through the mist, their angular wings kicking out powerful columns of hot air. As the men landed on the wet deck, they drew silenced weapons and spread out, shooting everybody in sight.

Bolan waited until they were past him, then delivered a single thundering round from the BAR directly into the vulnerable fuel tanks. As gasoline gushed out of the holes, the men turned around fast, weapons blazing.

They burst into flames instantly and started screaming.

Firing again, Bolan put hot lead through their helmets, and their burning bodies tumbled into the water below.

Blood mixed with fuel under the gentle wash of the rain. Removing the spent magazine, Bolan reloaded the BAR. Martin jetpacks! That explained how Narmada got his people onto the other ships so damn fast. Wait for rain, snipe any guards on deck, send in your flybys and start the slaughter.

Having flown the bizarre machine many times before, Bolan knew the Martin was not actually a jetpack. That was just what it was called, merely advertising. Some crazy engineer down in New Zealand had discovered a way to modify the ducted fans of a standard military jetfighter to propel humans into the air. It flew at up to sixty miles per hour, with a thirty-minute flight time.

But three men dropping in with silenced weapons did not make a boarding party, Bolan realized. They were a holding force.

Muttering a curse, Bolan sprinted across the slippery deck and scrambled into the wheelhouse. As expected, the pilot and navigator were dead in their chairs, blood dripping from the holes in their heads, broken glass from the small windows scattered across the floor.

Keeping low, Bolan locked the joystick into place, then hit the Master Collision button. A series of klaxons started to clang across the modified freighter, and he grabbed the hand mike.

“Get hard, people. The pirates are here!” Bolan shouted, hoping his words were discernible over the deafening alarm. “All hands, battle stations!”

A split second later, the loudspeakers started to howl with an eerie, modulating wail.

Jammed! Casting aside the useless microphone, Bolan shoved the speed control to maximum, smashed the joystick with the butt of his rifle and dashed back into the rain.

The mist obscured any possible view of additional Martins in the sky, but Bolan felt confident that Narmada would have sent in everything he had in the first wave. Hold the main deck, and the crew were prisoners.

Unfortunately, there was also no way to see any incoming vessels. But Bolan knew they were coming. If they were all old Russian fishing trawlers, he could be traveling with a dozen ships. Bolan felt confident that the rebels could sink maybe half that number with their weaponry, but then the Constitution would be taken.

Turning around fast, Bolan fired the BAR across the deck. The lines holding a lifeboat in place snapped, and the craft flipped over and dropped into the sea. An escape route. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

Reloading, Bolan started for the main hatchway. Kicking open the wooden door, Bolan frowned at the sight of several rebels sprawled on the metal stairs, a thick gray smoke issuing steadily from the air vents. Exhaling as hard as he could, Bolan stepped back into the rain and shouldered the BAR. He drew a knife and slashed off a wet sleeve, tying it around his face as a crude gas mask.

Bolan descended the steps, his boots clanging on the corrugated metal. He headed straight to his cabin. He had U.S. Army surplus gas masks in a box stuffed under his bunk. Not enough for the whole crew, but sufficient for a handful of the Ghost Jaguars to fight.

The gas continued to bellow out of every air vent, and Bolan was starting to feel dizzy by the time he reached his cabin. He had the key, somewhere, but he could not find it. Knowing unconsciousness was close, Bolan simply shot open the lock to his own room and staggered inside.

He ripped off the blankets, yanked open a drawer and pulled on a gas mask. It took every ounce of his iron resolve to wait a few moments to check the seals before allowing himself a breath. The chemically scented air tasted bitter, almost foul, but Bolan gratefully filled his aching lungs.

As the dizziness eased, Bolan stuffed a pillowcase with masks and lumbered back into the smoky corridor. He had no idea if this was a poison gas or sleep gas, but his gut reading on the pirates was that they would want the crew alive to open safes and move cargo. Corpses only fed the fishes. Live men could be made to work.

Plus, there was always a market for sex slaves, both male and female, Bolan noted dourly.

After checking over his weapons he headed down the accessway. Bolan passed a man struggling to pull himself along the hall. He had a coffee soaked T-shirt wrapped around his mouth. Smart. But as Bolan quickly approached, the man dropped, totally unconscious.

Knowing a mask would not help the fellow now, Bolan moved on. There was only one location where a gas bomb or generator could feed outward to the entire ship. The main intake vent at the front.

Bolan moved quickly through the cloudy passageways, trying not to trip over the Ghost Jaguars’ unconscious bodies. His hopes of defending the ship were rapidly dwindling. It was starting to appear as if the gas attack had caught most, if not all, of the rebels.

Reaching the room, Bolan yanked open the door and a thick cloud of smoke rolled out. Temporarily blinded, he backed away until he reached the wall. The external vent was closed tight. But a small machine was bolted to the deck table, the gasoline engine sputtering away and a thick column of fumes pouring out of the vent and heading straight into the primary airway.

Bolan turned off the machine then put a steel-jacketed round from the BAR through the engine to make sure it couldn’t be reactivated. As the booming report echoed down the steel corridors, a pair of figures appeared in the doorway. They were both wearing insulated parkas and rebreathers. Each held a silenced automatic pistol.

The sight of them cut deep into Bolan. Son of a bitch! Narmada must have smuggled people on board during the recent delivery of frozen meat. Attacked from within and without. Damn, the man was good.

As the two pirates swung their weapons toward him, Bolan stroked the trigger of his Beretta and sent a man flying backward, blood spraying across the steel walls. The woman shot back several times, the small-caliber rounds ripping holes in Bolan’s thick Navy coat and flattening on the NATO body armor underneath. Bolan returned the favor, and the shooter joined her partner in the abyss.

Doing a fast sweep of the kitchen, Bolan checked for any more sleeper agents. He found several huge wooden boxes of meat in the main freezer and decided to play it safe, riddling all of them with 9 mm Parabellum rounds from the Beretta. Splinters and hamburger sprayed everywhere, but there came no cries of shock or pain. Good enough. Time to leave.

Charging down the central passageway, Bolan opened door after door until he found Major Cortez. She was slumped over a table, her face smeared with soup. Slinging the woman over a shoulder, Bolan had a brief internal debate, then tossed aside the heavy BAR and drew the Beretta. Speed was more important than firepower at the moment.

Back in the stairwell, Bolan was startled to discover several more rebels staggering along. They moved clumsily, but they were armed and wearing French-style gas masks from another era.

“Pirates?” asked Lieutenant Esteele.

“They’re here,” Bolan replied curtly. “And more coming. We have to abandon ship.”

“Never!”

“Then die,” Bolan said.

The lieutenant paused for a moment, then gave a curt nod and started up the metal stairs.

Reaching the main deck, Bolan was not surprised to now see several vessels in the water around the Constitution. Powerful arc lights were sweeping the deck, and he could hear the sporadic crackle of small-arms fire.

Hit twice, Bolan pretended to stagger, then emptied the Beretta directly into a search light. He was rewarded with a loud shattering of glass, closely followed by a wide swathe of darkness.

Distant voices shouted garbled commands, but Bolan charged into the blackness and jumped over the gunwale. He hit the water hard, losing direction and sinking fast under Major Cortez’s dead weight.

Reorienting himself according to the air bubbles around him, Bolan kicked furiously. A moment later, his head broke the surface, and he yanked off the gas mask to draw in some much-needed air.

A quick check showed the major was still alive, and now Bolan swam further from the Constitution and its new owners, hoping to find the lifeboat he had set free before. Almost immediately there came the sound of a prolonged firefight from the vessel, and Bolan saw Lieutenant Esteele and his people wildly spraying their new AK-101 assault rifles at the pirates. The 5.56 mm rounds did not harm the protective glass covers of the big search lights, but the 30 mm grenades smashed the lights into shards, and soon the only illumination came from the muzzle flashes of the deadly weapons.

“Surrender and live!” a voice boomed over a loud speaker. “All we want is your cargo!”

Swimming with one arm, Bolan hoped the rebels would soon recognize the hopelessness of their position and jump overboard. If they stuck with him, they stood a small chance of coming out of this fiasco alive. But separately...

One of the fake lifeboats flipped over, and now the stuttering flash of the quad-style Remington .50 machine gun roared into operation. The stream of heavy bullets chewed a noisy path of destruction across a trawler. A man screamed, a window shattered. Then there came a telltale double flash, and Bolan saw a firebird of some kind streak across the main deck. The rocket hit the machine gun and the blast overwhelmed the night, throwing bodies and wreckage far and wide.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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