Mack Bolan wasn’t walking the razor’s edge now

He was cutting his feet on the blade, and only his and Grimaldi’s skill could keep his blood from spraying the U.S. government in the fallout.

It was risky, and when Bolan called Stony Man Farm for an intelligence update and to inform Brognola that he planned to go to North Korea, it wasn’t to ask permission. Such a request would have been construed as nothing less than an act of war, even if the foray was in utmost secrecy.

The Executioner wasn’t a government employee, and there was a conspiracy summoning him into the depths of an enemy stronghold.

There wasn’t an option of survival.

He either succeeded, or the world would be drawn into a war that could explode into a three-way conflict with China.

Other titles available in this series:

Stalk Line

Omega Game

Shock Tactic

Showdown

Precision Kill

Jungle Law

Dead Center

Tooth and Claw

Thermal Strike

Day of the Vulture

Flames of Wrath

High Aggression

Code of Bushido

Terror Spin

Judgment in Stone

Rage for Justice

Rebels and Hostiles

Ultimate Game

Blood Feud

Renegade Force

Retribution

Initiation

Cloud of Death

Termination Point

Hellfire Strike

Code of Conflict

Vengeance

Executive Action

Killsport

Conflagration

Storm Front

War Season

Evil Alliance

Scorched Earth

Deception

Destiny’s Hour

Power of the Lance

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Ballistic Force

Renegade

Survival Reflex

Path to War

Blood Dynasty

Ultimate Stakes

State of Evil

Force Lines

Contagion Option

Mack Bolan®

Don Pendleton

To Bobbi, as always.

This book never could have been done without you.

We must dare to think “unthinkable” thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about “unthinkable things” because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

—J. William Fulbright,

March 27, 1964

In my War Everlasting, I have been forced to see the unthinkable put into action by the unconscionable. To contain a catastrophe, sometimes the options are to lose an entire city than to lose a nation, but as long as there is still a breath in me, my option is to lose myself to save a city.

—Mack Bolan

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

The body plummeted through the sky and crashed with a dull, sickening thump into the dry grass. More bodies followed as the transport plane made a slow, lazy circle over the field.

The team had done this a hundred times before, and the men, dressed in black, took to the field.

The bodies were hollowed-out cattle, their bellies distended with packages. Some clinked with the heavy ring of metal, while others were stiff pillows of compressed powder. Two of the cows were filled with rolls of rifles, wrapped in plastic and cushioning foam.

“Looks like Christmastime for the gang,” a man dressed in black mentioned as he pulled the weapons from the body cavity of the slaughtered animal. “Must be twenty rifles here.”

“Chatter,” another replied quietly.

The first fell quiet, admonished with a single word. Sound carried, and even though their helicopter had scanned the area for miles with infrared and radar, they still worked in hushed, professional silence to ensure their private, midnight endeavor went undetected.

In the darkness, none of the men in black used regular white lights. Occasionally they would flash on a low-powered, low-signature red light, but only for a moment. In the empty field, there was too much risk of strangers noticing.

They had been doing this for years and hadn’t been caught.

One man spoke among the group. “Leave a souvenir for the conspiracy theorists.”

The others nodded and as they dragged a dozen carcasses off the field, they left one lying in the dried grass.

One man pulled a small butane-lighter-like device and burned a brand into the carcass. He worked from memory, knowing which ranch they were on.

The rest of the team took out folding rakes and went over the entirety of the field before returning to the helicopter. The branding artist backed his way to the helicopter, obscuring his tracks, leaving no trace that anyone was ever there. The long, padded skids of the transport chopper rose from a patch of hard, rocky soil and sparse grass leaving little clue of the vehicle’s presence.

The presence of the gutted cow would obfuscate the situation handily. No one would suspect their smuggling ring, in business across several decades, was in operation. Not when investigators were hampered by crackpot theorists who blamed slaughtered cattle on aliens or top-secret Army surgical teams testing surgical lasers. The truth was at once mundane and would shock the world should it ever get out.

But the men in black, as they left the gutted, cauterized corpse in the field, wouldn’t be responsible for that leak in secrecy.

The dark helicopter rose into the Utah night, its Kevlar hull minimizing its radar signature to that of a sparrow, sideways speakers reflecting the sound of the rotors at a right angle to the original racket to dampen the noise to a thrumming whisper. The stealth bird swung lazily back toward its home base.

It was business as usual.

CHAPTER ONE

The Gulf of Thailand, twenty miles out of Pattaya

It was business as usual for Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner, as Jack Grimaldi raced Dragon Slayer low over the Gulf of Thailand, so low that the sea spray pelted the windshield. The high-tech combat helicopter was loaded to the gills with electronics and weaponry to give Bolan the kind of edge he needed when fighting impossible odds. The war bird had been designed specifically for the soldier’s crusade against the forces of evil. With encrypted communications, wireless satellite computer links and sensors that could pick up anything across the spectrum, Dragon Slayer could find almost any target. Laden with rocket and grenade launchers, and the awesome .50-caliber GECAL multibarreled machine gun, the helicopter could destroy even a small column of tanks.

Grimaldi held them low over the water, about five feet between the belly of the sleek bird and the tops of the tallest waves. With speakers that reflected the sound of the bird’s own rotor slap at ninety-degree angles to the original sound, the normal thunder and roar of the helicopter was muffled to little more than a low hum. This was a stealth insertion on a freighter loaded with contraband from Thailand.

The ship was on course for North Korea. The freighter was registered to Liberia, which enabled it to travel around the world without more than a second glance. Sometimes that registry also covered illegal operations, but since major corporations profited from both tourism and “under the counter” transportation of goods, powerful sponsorship kept governments from looking too closely at the problem.

Mack Bolan wasn’t the government. He wasn’t a civil servant with a license to kill. Certainly, through the Sensitive Operations Group at Stony Man Farm, he had official backup in the form of intelligence, a gunsmith and occasionally two of the best covert strike teams on the planet. Still, the Executioner considered them just that—backup. He enjoyed his camaraderie with the warriors and support crew at Stony Man, but he was his own man, with his own resources and his own crusades. Even Dragon Slayer had been funded from the massive war chest that Bolan had accumulated, the spoils of countless wars against organized crime. While the aircraft was assigned to Stony Man Farm and was registered to the United States Justice Department by the Federal Aviation Commission, the Executioner didn’t let taxpayer dollars fund his arsenal. Instead, the sleek aircraft had been funded from money “donated” by gangsters, drug dealers and terrorists.

Where the donors had been sent, they wouldn’t ever need money again.

“Coming up on the freighter. ETA thirty seconds,” Grimaldi said over Bolan’s LASH radio.

“Smooth ride as usual,” he told the pilot.

Grimaldi smiled. “Well, the last time the lady was flying in Thailand, she took a pounding. She’s proving to Daddy that she can handle this.”

Bolan grinned, then opened the side door. He’d have to get out quickly. Even with a radar signature the size of a hummingbird, and making not much more sound, the rotor wash would be noticeable to anyone on the freighter’s deck. In addition, the helicopter itself wasn’t invisible, despite its dark-colored hull. The ship’s running lights would betray Dragon Slayer’s presence in a heartbeat.

He gripped the sides of the door opening as Grimaldi popped the helicopter up and over the rail. With a surge of muscles, Bolan leaped to the deck, landing in a crouch, then rolling into a somersault as Grimaldi dipped the helicopter back and out of sight. The drop was fifteen feet, but Bolan was strong and agile, and he allowed momentum and supple movement to absorb most of the shock.

As soon as he hit, Bolan drew his Beretta 93-R, folding grip snapped down, sound suppressor in place.

On a data screen in the passenger cabin of Dragon Slayer, he’d kept an eye on infrared blobs, humans walking the decks, memorizing where his enemies were on this ship. According to the scanners, there were twenty-five people on board in various compartments.

That didn’t count the containers in the hold. Infrared scans had trouble going through both the hull and the tractor-trailer containers in the hold, but there was a definite heat signature that caught Bolan’s attention. He was here on the advice of an old ally in Thailand who had said that the ship was smuggling people to North Korea. Bolan had pulled a few strings to get Dragon Slayer delivered, because he knew the sleek high-tech aircraft could possibly be needed to get wounded or dying bystanders back to shore.

Bolan had engaged the slave trade in Thailand once before, and had dropped a brutal ax on its neck. The trade still existed and thrived, because the Executioner had been able to take out only one mastermind of the insidious child slavery ring and his organization—the San United Army.

Still, he had his ear to the ground, and when he had the opportunity, he’d stop by and give the flesh peddlers a taste of long-delayed justice. With a crusade against the forces of terrorism and crime that went on around the world, Bolan couldn’t be everywhere at once. But when he arrived, he made up for lost time.

“Anyone catch sight of me?” Bolan asked over his radio.

“Nobody moving your way, no one taking up arms against you,” Grimaldi answered. “You don’t exist.”

Bolan pressed his lips tightly together. “Good, I intend to keep it that way for a while.”

Sliding through the shadows, clad in his skintight blacksuit, Bolan slipped between cargo hold lids and containers on the deck.

With every trailer, he paused and pressed a small cup against the container. The cup contained sensitive electronics that amplified sound and fed it through his LASH radio. The hands-free unit would tell him if there was anyone inside breathing or moving. Whispers would be as clear as straight to his ear. With a quick look over his shoulder, he’d listen for a few minutes, then move on.

He heard the rattle of machinery in most of the containers, metal jostling against metal. He wasn’t certain if it was farm machinery or crates of rifles, but whatever it was, it wasn’t in need of immediate attention.

“We’ve got movement on the bridge,” Grimaldi warned, and the Executioner slipped deeper into shadow, Beretta 93-R at the ready. Dragon Slayer hovered silently, back a full klick, but the Stony Man pilot could keep a close eye with telephoto lenses and other advanced surveillance gear.

Bolan, nearly invisible, looked toward the bridge. A pair of gunmen exited the bridge, being ordered around by the captain, a swarthy man who looked to be from the Mediterranean. The guards were Asian, and they didn’t look happy to be ordered around. The Executioner knew that their mission would be urgent, simply because of their weapons and how quickly they were dismissed by the irate man in command. Bolan closed across the deck, cautious not to let the enemy know he was there.

The guards reached a stairwell that led to the hold, and paused. One lit a cigarette and started to speak in Vietnamese, a language Bolan understood all too well.

“That Italian idiot thinks he can push us around like he owns us…” one man said.

“He’s Greek, not Italian.”

“Greek, Italian, they’re all hook-nosed bastards who think because they have round eyes they can see everything better than we can,” the first man muttered. “I left Dhom Phoc for this?”

“Hey, would you rather live on a commune?” the other man asked. “Pham, we’re making money here.”

Pham tossed away his cigarette, the butt bouncing off the toe of Bolan’s boot as he stood in the shadows. “Yes. Money. I have to remember that. Besides, it’s better than being blown out of the water by the Chinese navy for being pirates.”

The second smuggler laughed. “Don’t worry. Once we get the cargo back to Korea, we’ll be transporting drugs and booze as usual.”

Pham shrugged. “If you say so. Come on.”

They started down the steps and Bolan gave them a few moments lead time before he strolled onto the deck, walking with purpose as if he belonged there. He followed the two Vietnamese smugglers down the steps, Beretta 93-R holstered under his arm. Still, he had the pommel of his forearm knife resting in his palm, ready to slice flesh and draw blood with a simple flick of the wrist.

The two Vietnamese sentries chattered and continued to complain about the Greek man in charge, unaware that they were being followed. Out at sea, with no one around for miles, sailors tended to think that they were immune to intrusion.

One of the Vietnamese looked back and spotted Bolan, and the soldier lifted his hand in a half wave before turning into the first hatchway he could find. The sentry waved back to Bolan and called out something in an unintelligible effort at Italian. The Executioner poked his head out the hatchway and responded in his own Italian.

“What did you say?” he asked, keeping his body and the suspicious-looking blacksuit and battle harness out of sight behind the doorjamb.

The Vietnamese paused and thought hard about what he needed to say. “I said, nice night.”

Bolan smiled. “Wouldn’t know. I’ve been belowdecks all evening. Where are you going?”

The other Vietnamese translated for his less articulate friend, then answered.

“The captain sent us to bring up a couple of girls for some after-dinner entertainment,” the second one said.

Bolan kept the anger out of his face and nodded. “Oh…great.”

“Yeah, I know. Getting that greasy bastard’s leftovers sucks,” the Vietnamese with the better Italian answered.

“We aren’t supposed to be sampling the merchandise,” Bolan mentioned.

“It’s not like the Koreans are going to know anything’s missing. Most of these girls are professionals, so it’s not like the clients are going to expect virgins,” the guard responded.

Bolan shrugged. “Yeah. Well, when the North Korean military brass end up with the clap, you can explain that to Kim Jong-il.”

The chatty guard stepped closer to the doorway. “What?”

Bolan sighed. “Didn’t know that the captain had the gift that keeps on giving?”

The Vietnamese guard looked to his friend and exploded rapidly in his native tongue. “Oh dammit! That greasy Greek gave us the clap!”

The second one’s face paled. “You’re kidding!”

“This guy said the captain has…” The sentry paused and looked back toward Bolan. “Wait…I haven’t seen you bef—”

Bolan reached out and slammed his left hand tightly around the guard’s throat, cutting off whatever else he had to say. The forearm knife dropped into his other hand and launched like a dart. The Executioner’s throw was true, the sharp spike of steel imbedding deeply into the second man’s chest, a gush of blood squirting in a long, lazy, crimson arch.

The wounded guard gurgled, trying to gain his breath, but several inches of steel had pierced his lung, making speech difficult as the organ flooded with blood.

Bolan’s captive enemy struggled to break his grasp, forgetting about his guns. Panic had overtaken the smuggler, and if he had his wits about him, he would have reached for any of his weapons, or even one of Bolan’s pistols, and ended his torment—and the Executioner’s intrusion—with a pull of the trigger. However, fingers like steel savagely crushed his windpipe and jugular, making the Vietnamese resort to primitively hammer against Bolan’s forearm. Given the big man’s musculature, it was akin to trying to punch through a thick oak tree branch.

The Executioner pulled the Beretta and shot his captive’s partner through the forehead, finishing the man’s suffering before his lung completely filled with blood and he drowned. Then he pushed the suppressor between his adversary’s lips and grated in the man’s native language, “You make a sound, you die, even slower than your friend.”

He eased the pressure on his captive’s throat, and the man nodded.

“How many are in the hold?” Bolan asked, pulling the gun back so his hostage could speak.

“We started out with one hundred, but four died already,” the guard said.

Bolan pushed the Vietnamese’s head hard against the unyielding bulkhead. The result was that the pirate’s almond-shaped eyes crossed. “How did they die?”

“Two were already sick…another cut her wrists…and the last one…Captain Tinopoulos beat her to death.”

Bolan’s jaw locked as he put a stopper on his fury. He needed more answers. “How healthy are the rest?”

“They’re still in good shape,” the sentry said. “But some are seasick. At least, they’re throwing up, and they have a fever. We had them belowdecks for two days before we set out.”

Bolan knew it wasn’t seasickness. If these young victims were being sent to Korea, then that meant they were discards from the Thai sex slavery trade. Many of them were probably suffering from heroin or opium withdrawal. The Thai flesh peddlers often used drugs as a very short leash to keep their slaves under control. “Take me to them.”

The guard nodded. “My name is Pham…”

Bolan squeezed his throat more tightly. “I’m not interested.”

Pham coughed and sputtered, “Sorry.” Finally, Bolan released the pressure.

“Shut up,” Bolan said. “You’re not going to get any sympathy from me by telling me your name.”

Pham’s lips pulled tight. “But—”

“You joined in on raping these girls…”

“They’re just pros—”

Bolan’s fingers tightened and Pham’s eyes widened in horror as his feet left the deck. The pressure on his throat was enormous, not only from the crush of the Executioner’s grasp, but the weight of his own squirming body. Pham’s fingers dug into Bolan’s forearm, trying to pry it away to relieve the force of his own mass on his windpipe. “They never chose this life. Not that someone like you would care.”

Bolan let go and Pham crashed to the floor. The guard reached for his weapons, but somewhere along the line, probably in one of those moments when the air was being squeezed out of him, the tall, grim avenger had disarmed him. He crawled on all fours when Bolan stepped on his ankle, pinning him between two hundred plus pounds of muscle and sinew and crushing steel grating. Pham grit his teeth to keep from crying out. Bolan’s hand laced into the Vietnamese’s hair and yanked him up to a kneeling position. “I can find the hold myself. I don’t need a tour guide.”

Pham whimpered. “All right…all right…”

Bolan let go and Pham crawled to his feet. He walked with a limp, but by now, his spirit had been broken. Pham had no will to escape.

“Give me the knife and drag your dead friend into this cabin,” Bolan ordered.

Pham obeyed without a hint of protest. He pried the blade out of the corpse and handed it, pommel first, to Bolan. The soldier put the blade back in its quick-draw forearm sheath.

The Executioner wasn’t a cruel man, but he was practical. A display of just how much pain he could inflict was often enough to prevent an enemy from pushing his luck. It also had given the big warrior the opportunity to vent his rage somewhat.

Bolan had encountered sex slavers before across his career, from Las Vegas to Bangkok, and all points in between. He’d begun his crusade when his teenage sister had been pressed into prostitution by an organized crime group, and the fallout had resulted in his family exploding from within. Those who profited from adults were already scum, but it took a special kind of evil to engage in selling and destroying the innocence of adolescents and children. Bolan still thought of Cindy as a kid, even though she was in her late teens when she’d been forced into “the life,” so this was one crime that the Executioner felt very close to. Though the world was too big for the Executioner to focus on any one brand of evil, he had been lucky enough to get a tip from an ally in Thailand about a large shipment of slaves being shipped to another nation. Bolan figured that he’d deal himself in for this hand. It wouldn’t take long out of his War Everlasting, and he didn’t have any urgent, upcoming missions right now.

It was time the underworld learned once more that trading in human lives was a fatal mistake.

Pham limped along, sufficiently cowed. Since Bolan had demonstrated facility at understanding two of the languages the young man spoke, he doubted Pham would try to warn his friends in another language. Instead, he went silent, sullenly walking what he expected to be his final mile. Bolan wouldn’t have any compunctions if the young smuggler stopped a bullet, but someone would have to live to spread the word to the underworld that an executioner still stalked those who traded in flesh. Every battle Bolan fought, even though it was a very secret war, left a footprint, spreading fear and terror among those who didn’t fear the law.

“Play your cards right, Pham,” Bolan told him in Vietnamese. “I need a messenger to tell the world what happened here. You might just limp away with only a broken ankle.”

After seeing what happened to his partner, Pham considered a broken ankle a small price to pay. As they reached the hold, Pham stopped and looked back at Bolan.

“There are already guards on shift here,” Pham said. “We were just supposed to pick up a couple of girls.”

Bolan nodded. He took Pham’s rifle, dropped its magazine and emptied the chamber. He flicked on its safety and stuck the magazine back in. “It’ll take you too long to cock and get this rifle ready to fire. Don’t even think about it.”

Pham nodded. “I told you, because I don’t want to stop a bullet.”

“Good idea.”

Pham led the way into the hold where the guards were playing cards and smoking cigarettes. The smell of Turkish tobacco assaulted Bolan’s nostrils and he saw several more men of Western European heritage as well as a couple of Asians. Apparently, the Greek and Italian crewmen were sharing some of their vices with their Oriental counterparts. One Asian puffed on a Turkish cigarette, blowing smoke rings as the others laughed.

Shielded by Pham and staying in the shadows, Bolan hadn’t been noticed yet as the Vietnamese smuggler limped along toward the group.

“Hey, the captain wants us to bring up a couple of girls,” Pham called.

“What happened to your foot, Pham?” the smoke-ring-blower asked.

Pham shrugged. “Stupid. I slipped on a step coming down.”

“And Coy?” the ringmaster asked.

“Cap sent me,” Bolan answered in Italian.

One of the Italians squinted through the shadows. “Who—”

Bolan answered with a 9 mm bullet through the Italian’s forehead, his brains exploding out the back of his skull. The others were frozen in shock at the gory death of their compatriot.

Pham swung his rifle around and smashed the smoke-ring-blower across the jaw with its butt, then tossed aside the relatively useless weapon, dropped to the deck and curled up into a ball as Bolan cut loose, flicking the Beretta to burst mode. The Vietnamese sentry had bought the Executioner another heartbeat, and Bolan charged hard into the breech, tribursts of 9 mm slugs chopping into two of the Asian crewmen before they could grab their rifles. Corpses flopped to the floor, weapons clattering atop them when two swarthy Greeks lunged at Bolan.

The Executioner got off a burst into the gut of one of the sailors before the other tackled him, hands clamped around Bolan’s forearm and the Beretta tumbled away. He snaked his foot behind the Greek’s ankles and pushed hard with his forearm, toppling the hapless smuggler to the floor. With a pivot, Bolan buried his heel into the downed smuggler’s solar plexus and pulled his forearm knife. The fallen Greek vomited blood as shattered ribs slashed through his lungs.

A third man, an Italian, reached for the Beretta holstered on his hip, but being only a stride away, the Executioner speared him under the chin with the wicked forearm knife. Sharp steel tore through soft flesh, tongue and the roof of the goon’s mouth before coming to a halt in his brain. Dead on his feet, the gunman toppled backward. Bolan scooped the unused handgun out of the corpse’s insensate fingers and turned the pistol against a third Asian who rushed at him in a blur of speed.

Before Bolan could pull the trigger, a hard kick rammed his forearm. The 9 mm slug speared into the chest of a fourth sailor who was still trying to make sense of the melee, despite the revolver that was clenched in his fist. Bolan whirled with the force of the kick and dropped to one knee. His other leg swept out like a broom and caught the Asian across the knees, hurling him to the floor. The Executioner brought up the Beretta with both hands and fired two bullets into the downed martial artist before he could recover, both slugs smashing through his belly and tearing up into his rib cage.

The wounded man with the revolver coughed up blood and cut loose at the Executioner, but wounded and confused, his gunfire flew wildly. Pham yelled out and wrapped his arms around the sailor’s legs, throwing his balance off even more. Bolan snapped off three shots into the gunman’s head. The slugs crushed bone and burrowed into gray matter.

The hold fell eerily silent.

The Executioner retrieved his machine pistol and holstered it. He lowered the hammer on the handgun in his fist and walked over to the Vietnamese captive. He tapped his toe against Pham’s thigh.

“You can let go. It’s over,” Bolan said.

Pham looked up, eyes bloodshot, forehead damp with sweat. Hair was matted against his bronzed skin, and he took a deep breath.

“Thanks for the assistance,” Bolan said, and helped Pham to his feet.

“I don’t want to die,” the smuggler explained.

Bolan looked at the pommel of his knife poking out the jaw of his third opponent, and considered the blade buried too deep to retrieve easily. He left it pinioned through the skull of the smuggler like some form of cannibalistic shish kebab. The man Pham had hit with the butt of his rifle hadn’t moved, and Bolan felt for a pulse. There was nothing, and the Asian’s neck rolled with nauseating ease on the floor at the slightest touch.

“Broke his neck,” Bolan told him.

Pham shrugged. “Eh. The bastard kept stealing my cigarettes.”

Bolan shook his head. He looked at the containers and from the infrared scans of the ship, he knew which ones were occupied. He didn’t have an accurate map, but it was a good place to begin.

Then he paused, looking into the darkness. The musky scent of livestock filled the air and he realized that half the containers that had registered heat were full of cattle.

“Livestock?” Bolan asked.

“Yeah,” Pham said, limping along. “I don’t get it, either. You’d think the Koreans would find an easier way to get hamburger meat.”

Bolan frowned and looked at one of the livestock cars. An animal looked at him from within, large brown eyes blinking lazily in response. The soldier frowned. “These aren’t Thai livestock.”

“I know,” Pham replied. “It’s weird. All kinds of cattle in Africa and the Middle East, even in Southeast Asia, and the Koreans want European or American stock.”

Bolan looked at the limping smuggler. There was a long moment when Pham looked at the loaded revolver in a dead man’s fist, before stepping away. The Vietnamese smuggler had gotten the hint. One man against several, and he’d come out with only a few bruises, despite being disarmed at one point. If Pham had any fight left in him, he was reserving it for anyone who was going to screw up his survival, not the tall wraith who killed with bullets, blades and bare hands.

“Come here, Pham,” Bolan said.

The sentry limped over as Bolan pulled a plastic cable tie from his harness.

“Turn around and hold your wrists behind you.”

Pham nodded and Bolan pulled the cable tie firmly, but not painfully, around the Vietnamese man’s wrists. “You don’t want the girls to notice me?”

“If there’s any fight in them, they’ll take it out on you,” Bolan said.

“And I’m your messenger,” Pham replied.

“Yeah.”

Pham swallowed. “And you’re going to break my ankle.”

“It’ll keep you out of the way,” Bolan replied. “Your dues for the pain you’ve caused.”

Pham nodded. “Thanks.”

Bolan leaned in close. “If we ever meet again, and you’re still on the wrong side, you won’t get a third chance.”

With a stomp, Bolan snapped Pham’s ankle.

The Vietnamese guard’s teeth ground against each other, but he reminded himself that he’d gotten off easy. He’d see the sun again. Coy and the others wouldn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

Park City, Utah

Stan Reader looked up the tree-lined snow trail, cold air biting his cheeks. He took a deep breath, flexed his feet in his ski boots, then lurched forward, taking long loping strides to get up to speed.

Reader cut a narrow path through the powdery snow, little rooster tails puffing up as he moved along. He bent back a pine branch and let it go, leaving a cloud of fine flakes in his wake. Reader then settled into his long, usual pace, ignoring the bounce of the stainless-steel Model 63 .22-caliber rifle against his back. The Taurus 63 was a relatively new rifle, and one he wouldn’t normally use in biathalon competition, but this was just a day for exploring new woods and plinking his rifle at impromptu targets, deftly keeping to the narrow trail between trees. Trunks rolled lazily at his slow, cross-country skiing pace, and Reader lost himself in the moment, his long lean legs and his ski poles swinging in a steady, repetitive motion. This was a one-man sport, and it allowed Reader to get some exercise while freeing his consciousness for other thoughts, such as complex physics formulas or mathematical equations. At various points, he would stop, unsling the rifle and take aim at a small target. On an official course, it would be a five-inch steel plate, and he’d have had to foster his endurance so that his breathing and heartbeat wouldn’t throw off his aim of the sensitive .22 target rifle.

Off to his right, another figure lurched into view, keeping pace with him. It was Kirby Graham, his best friend from college and the military. The big, brawny FBI agent skied alongside Reader for about thirty yards before they spotted an outcropping.

“Race ya, Stretch,” Graham said.

Reader smirked and increased the pace, loping along, arms digging in with the poles to spread the effort of motion to all of his limbs. Graham was bigger, so he had a longer gait that could drive him faster, but Reader, despite being tall, was lean and gangly enough that his wind resistance was lower. Reader sliced ahead of Graham, then cut around the outcropping. There was a dropoff, and the biathlete slashed through the powder for thirty feet. Since gravity was doing its thing, Reader allowed his limbs to relax as he plummeted down the slope at full speed, only switching and altering his balance to keep from crashing into pine tree trunks in his path. Landing upright on crosscountry skis was a testament to his skill.

Stan Reader was a polymath. By age twenty-four, he’d earned degrees in four different sciences, was a pilot and had managed to be an alternate on the Olympic biathalon team. Reader had put his scientific knowledge to good use in the United States Navy, serving on a nuclear aircraft carrier as an engineer. During his military career, the brilliant young man had also become an expert marksman with both handguns and rifles, competing against Marines and Navy SEALs in both sponsored competition or just shooting for cases of beer.

Graham, one of the Marines Reader had competed against, grumbled that Stan would never need to buy another alcoholic drink for the rest of his life, thanks to everyone who had lost to him. Graham had been an F-18 jockey, spending the early part of his career risking his life enforcing the Iraqi no-fly zone and splashing four MiGs before being signed on for the Navy Blue Angels. After that, Graham mustered out and joined the FBI as a special agent. But it wasn’t competition that had forged their friendship.

Reader had been a sixteen-year-old geek in college, easy prey for bullies and frat boys. Graham had been a football player in danger of losing his scholarship. They were unlikely roommates, the skinny, nerdy Reader and the big, gruff Graham. But, Reader had helped focus Graham’s studies, putting him on the honor roll. And nobody wanted to give Reader any trouble with a brick wall like Graham as a guardian angel. It was Graham who’d introduced Reader to skiing in New York state, and to rifle shooting. The biathalon was a wonderful mix of the two sports Reader fell in love with. Long, quiet hours, in quiet serenity across snows, punctuated by a display of marksmanship for five shots, and then moving along. If only someone could combine this sport with Star Trek, Japanese monster movies and professional wrestling, he’d have been in absolute heaven.

Graham had graduated with honors and repaid his college education in the United States Marine Corps. Reader, by contrast, had joined the military simply because he’d thought it would be a challenge. Both men had served on the same carrier, which cemented their friendship.

Now, Special Agent Graham was on station for the FBI in Salt Lake City, and Reader had officially come to Park City to engage in the Nordic Games. Reader had a job to offer his friend, something that could challenge the brawny pilot and get them working together.

The ski weekend was a time to play catch-up, and a chance to engage in friendly competition. Graham might not have been a multidisciplined scientist, but he was one of the few people who could push Reader, not only in discussion, but in physical competition. By all rights, Reader considered Graham his brother, and the big FBI agent felt the same way.

Graham eventually came to a halt beside his friend. His skin was wind-burned and red, but a wide smile split his face. “Fantastic.”

“Weren’t nothing.”

“You’re really starting up your own company?” Graham asked.

Reader nodded. “Just a little something to make good use of my talents.”

Graham pursed his lips. “So what do you need a dumb ex-fighter jock like me for?”

“We need a pilot and a head of security, and I need my brother by my side,” Reader explained.

“You just want someone to keep you out of trouble, Stretch.”

“My aim is to get into trouble, a lot,” Reader retorted. “And then to fix a few problems on my way back out of it.”

Graham took a deep breath. “I’d love to help, but I’ve got a case going on.”

“Maybe I can help?”

“The FBI doesn’t look kindly on agents calling in non-contracted experts,” Graham responded.

Reader grinned and reached under his parka.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Graham responded.

“Since when have you known me to have much of a sense of humor?” Reader replied.

“So you know about the case?” Graham asked.

“There’ve been sightings around Dugway Proving Grounds. There’s nothing solid, but it could be attempts by foreign governments to penetrate security,” Reader said. “By the same token, Chinese military technology is showing up in the hands of local Korean street gangs.”

Graham nodded. “Weapons and communications equipment, yeah. And the government wanted you to take part?”

“Dugway Proving Grounds is one of the nation’s major storage facilities for biological and chemical weaponry, and the sightings of unknown aircraft suggests a potential for enemy stealth capacity. The FBI and the military have both been concerned, but any full-fledged response would garner too much attention,” Reader explained.

“And how did you hear about this?” Graham asked.

“Dugway UFO watchers have their own BBS, and their sightings came to my attention,” Reader replied. “It took only a little bit of digging through the Defense Department’s mainframe to verify these sightings and put the high command on alert, but you know how the Pentagon moves.”

“Yeah. By the time they come up with a security or tactical solution, the war’s been over for twenty years,” Graham grumbled. “You embarrassed the Pentagon into putting you on this case?”

Reader nodded. “I also noticed that you were handed this investigation because you and your partner are on the Department of Justice shit list.”

“Yeah. We embarrassed the DEA into giving up one of their witnesses who was responsible for the murder of an FBI agent. So, we’re stuck looking into the crap cases, working the phones for the Secret Service for when the Man comes around,” Graham answered. “Hell, we’ve even been assigned to try to find a way to get undercover into the Amish Mafia.”

Reader raised an eyebrow. “The Amish are in Pennsylvania.”

“That last bit was a joke, Stretch.”

Reader shrugged. “I’m here to take you away from all this. I can even hire your partner, Rachel.”

“We wouldn’t want to give up our pension,” Graham replied.

Reader chuckled. “Graham, if it’s a pension or health benefits you’re worried about, don’t worry. I’ve got it all covered.”

Graham frowned. “And you think this isn’t just some UFO case?”

“There have been enough rumbles out in the whisper stream that there is something deep and dark. All it takes is to scratch the surface,” Reader replied. He held out his hand. “I want you on my team, Graham.”

The big FBI agent took his friend’s hand. “All right.”

Stan Reader and his friend headed back to the Park City lodge. As they turned, Reader caught the flash of light on glass out of the corner of his eye. A shadow disappeared behind a pine tree, clumps of snow crashing onto the unmarked powder.

He wondered who would be so interested in a scientist and an FBI agent having a ski weekend.

Gulf of Thailand.

IT TOOK BOLAN SEVERAL minutes to convince the people in the cargo containers to stay put. There were too many armed killers on the upper decks, and if they started exploring, they might discover Pham and take out some revenge on the pirate. As far as the Executioner was concerned, being terrified and battered was sufficient punishment for the Vietnamese smuggler. Besides, Pham would be his messenger to the Thai underworld.

Finally, the former slaves were convinced to stay in the hold. The pile of dead smugglers exuded a wave of dread that the young Asians wouldn’t want to pass by. Some even stood back as puddles of blood continued to seep from the bodies.

Bolan liberated a shotgun from one of the dead guards, then filled his pockets with spare shells. Their AK-47s were fairly effective weapons, but in the confined spaces of the ship, a single blast of buckshot would prove more effective. The 12-gauge was made for up-close and dirty work.

The sounds of the blazing battle had drawn attention. As soon as Bolan had snapped Pham’s ankle, he heard the ship’s phone ring, trying to reach the guards in the hold. Bolan let the phone ring, knowing that the response would attract enemy forces.

As he headed to the hallway, he spotted furtive movements at the end and tucked against a bulkhead. Shielded by a steel girder, he leveled the 12-gauge around the corner. As soon as he spotted a solid shape, Bolan triggered the shotgun and a savage storm of buckshot ripped into the enemy.

Screams of panic and horror filled the corridor, and Bolan racked the pump on his gun and looked at the attacking force. The first man was down, his chest ripped apart by the shotgun blast. Two more behind him were pinned by the corpse. One screamed, covered in blood, clutching his chest in pain. The other tried to push his dead and injured partners aside, cursing them angrily. The Executioner fired again. The thug’s skull burst apart under the brutal blast, and his corpse flopped to the floor.

The injured sailor wailed even more loudly in horror, covering his head with his arms as if to preserve his life. Bolan ignored him and pumped the shotgun again, aiming at another gunman who had sprayed the bulkhead with rifle fire. The girder Bolan had hidden behind protected him, the heavy steel bouncing bullets away. With a pull of the trigger, the soldier launched another wave of shot, and the rifle fire stopped for a moment. The muzzle poked out again and erupted, spraying wildly before he ducked back.

The wounded sailor suddenly fell silent. His scalp had flipped forward like a wind-blown toupee, brains and blood splashed across the wall. Bolan heard a cry of dismay as the remaining hardmen realized that they’d just killed one of their own. The Executioner took the time to reload, then leaped across the trio of corpses and took cover closer to the intersection where his enemy was hidden.

One of the guards leaned out with a handgun to get a better shot at Bolan, but the shotgun roared again, its payload gouging out a generous chunk of flesh and bone. The gunner slumped lifelessly to the ground, dark eyes staring glassily at nothing.

That was enough for the rifleman. Bolan heard the panicked sound of retreating feet. The soldier slung the shotgun and drew the Desert Eagle in one smooth motion as he hurled himself into the intersection. The fleeing rifleman heard the Executioner hit the corridor wall and tried to turn to bring his rifle to bear. Bolan triggered his .44 Magnum pistol first, a heavy slug smashing through the man’s shoulder, detonating the joint as if it were a grenade. It continued to plow through his neck and destroy vertebrae in its wake.

The gunner’s corpse flopped, his head bouncing limply on the deck.

The handgunner’s radio crackled on his belt and Bolan scooped it up. The captain was cursing in Italian, wondering where the hell his men were.

“They’re all dead,” Bolan replied in Italian. “You’re welcome to join them.”

He then hit the mute button on the radio and contacted Grimaldi. “Blind them. Anyone tries to get off the ship…”

“I got it, Sarge,” the Stony Man pilot responded. “Nobody but you and the cargo are getting off the ship.”

“I’ve got one messenger to send back to Thailand, too,” Bolan amended. “Give these flesh smugglers something to dream about while I’m gone.”

“Dream, or scream?” Grimaldi asked.

“Their choice,” Bolan replied. “Check their communications. It’s a mishmash of Italian and Oriental languages.”

The Executioner relayed the radio frequency to his pilot.

“Got it,” Grimaldi replied. “Oh, man. They’re burning up the airwaves. I guess when the shooting started, they put out the call for help.”

“Help? To whom? They wouldn’t call the harbor patrol or the navy, there’d be too many questions to answer,” Bolan mused as he dumped his partially spent Desert Eagle magazine, feeding it a few loose rounds to top it off. He reloaded and stuffed some shells into the shotgun.

“I don’t know. I’ve been listening on various frequencies and…radar contact, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered.

“Radar contact?”

“Yeah. Big and coming up under the water. It just showed up. It looks—”

“A submarine,” Bolan growled, and he headed to the stairwell. He paused only long enough to grab the fallen gunman’s rifle and its spare ammo. He slung the weapon over his shoulder on the run, keeping the big Desert Eagle ready to greet anyone who appeared in the stairwell, trusting the shorter length of the handgun in such close quarters.

“Yeah,” Grimaldi said. “I’m running an IFF radar check on it.”

“Probably a Soviet-era sub,” Bolan said into his headset. He paused as he neared the top. “I don’t hear any welcoming crew topside…Jack?”

“No, the entrance to the hold’s all clear,” Grimaldi informed him.

“Keep hanging back and watch out for the submarine. It might have an antiaircraft gun. Soviet 12.7 is more than enough to damage Dragon Slayer,” Bolan stated.

“I know that. Don’t worry, I have TOW missiles locked on the sub,” Grimaldi replied.

“Cripple it and knock out its defenses if you can,” Bolan replied. “I want to be able to figure out what’s going on here. And that sub has all the answers I need.”

“All right, Sarge. I’ll trust your instincts.”

Bolan made it to the deck and transitioned to the dead pirate’s rifle, a Krinkov. A stubby, foot-long-barreled version of the classic AK-47, it was more of a submachine gun than a full-powered rifle, but even without the extra muzzle length, it packed an awesome amount of firepower, throwing .30-caliber slugs at 800 rounds per minute. With three spare magazines, the Executioner was able to hold off a small army.

There was a shout up on the mast, and Bolan spotted three gunmen near the bridge. Their attention, however, was directed off the starboard rail. They had to have seen the submarine as it breached. Bolan shouldered the Krinkov, leveled his front sight and milked the stubby rifle’s trigger.

One of the guards was swatted off the rail, his limp corpse dropping to the deck where he landed in a jumble of twisted limbs. Another collapsed, holding his gut, and Bolan realized that his aim was off. The short-barreled rifle wasn’t as accurate as a full-size AK-47, and that meant that he’d need to adjust his aim for targets as distant as the bridge sentries.

The third one, uninjured, brought his weapon to bear and sprayed the deck next to the Executioner. In the shadows and darkness, he had only Bolan’s muzzle-flash to go on, and the soldier had already shifted position after his first burst. He held his aim high and ripped off another burst. He’d been intending to hit the smuggler in the stomach with the salvo, so he aimed at a spot just above the man’s head. Instead, bloody blossoms of gore flowered on the thug’s thighs and he crashed to the walkway. Bolan cursed, wishing he’d had an opportunity to get a feel for this Krinkov’s sights. He reloaded the stubby rifle, then slung it. Pulling the Desert Eagle, he charged toward the bridge.

Bolan knew exactly where the big .44 Magnum pistol would put its bullets at any range out to 200 meters. He’d reserve the Krinkov for close-quarters mayhem.

Bridge officers threw open the hatch to the command center and cut loose with their own handguns. The Executioner still had ten yards of deck before he reached the steps to the bridge, so he blasted away with a salvo of 240-grain hollowpoint rounds. The devastating slugs crashed into the chests and faces of the pair of officers, smashing the life from them with brutal force. One corpse slid down the steps toward him, but Bolan grabbed the railing, vaulted over the limp form and continued up the stairwell.

Off the starboard bow, a powerful cannon opened up and Bolan hit the deck as shells smashed into the ship’s superstructure. Huge holes, larger than the soldier’s own fists, were punched through the bulkhead, and he knew that it had to be a 20 mm antiaircraft cannon from the submarine. Heartbeats later, a thunderous explosion sounded overboard.

Jack Grimaldi and Dragon Slayer had the Executioner’s back, so Bolan continued on toward the bridge. Another blast resounded on the water as the ace Stony Man pilot slammed another TOW missile into the submarine, this one most likely directed at the screws of the sub. With Dragon Slayer’s computerized targeting systems, and a database of thousands of oceangoing craft, Grimaldi was able to target the enemy submersible where it was most vulnerable, leaving it bobbing and as helpless as a bathtub toy, rather than a deadly threat, or allowing it to escape into the Stygian depths of the ocean at night.

“Sub’s crippled. You’re right, it’s Soviet design,” Grimaldi announced.

“Black market, no doubt,” Bolan returned. He holstered the Desert Eagle, and brought up the Krinkov. He had no time to play with the remnants of the smuggler crew, so he emptied the full magazine into the bridge. A blast of 7.62 mm ComBloc slugs pierced sheet metal and blasted through the confined cabin. Screams of horror filled the air as Bolan reloaded and burned off a second magazine into the command center. He let the empty Krinkov drop to the deck and entered, his shotgun leading the way.

As soon as his shadow fell across the door, a pistol cracked and Bolan ducked. He triggered his shotgun at the muzzle-flash and heard metal clatter on metal.

Captain Tinopoulos glared at the Executioner, his chest and shoulder torn by the shotgun blast. Blood had splashed messily up into his beard, and his handgun lay where it had fallen.

Bolan looked around at the rest of the bridge crew. There had only been two left in the cabin beside Tinopoulos, and they slumped across their consoles, slaughtered by the Executioner’s autofire. Blood dripped to the deck in a drumlike patter.

“You planned on meeting the North Koreans?” Bolan asked in Italian, hoping the wounded captain could recall that language.

“Bastard…” Tinopoulos snarled, blood frothing on his lips.

“You don’t have much time left,” Bolan told him. “But if you want, I can make those last moments hell.”

Tinopoulos spit a glob of blood at the Executioner. It stained his blacksuit. “We can talk in hell, when my allies bring you down.”

Bolan shook his head. “The submarine’s crippled. Listen…”

Tinopoulos lifted his head, and in the quiet cabin, the rip-roar of Dragon Slayer’s automated Gatling guns rolled through the open hatch. Tinopoulos nodded and looked at the Executioner. “The Koreans are dying…”

“You don’t owe them anything,” Bolan told him. “Who were they?”

“They had money to spare. We’ve been sending them bodies, human and cattle, for the past five years,” the Greek captain rasped. “We’d officially rendezvous east of the Son Islands, but they told me that they’d shadow us in the Gulf of Thailand.”

“Why there?” Bolan asked.

“To inspect the cargo. Take what was priority,” the captain answered. His speech was slurring. “Then we went the rest of the way…to the Yellow Sea…”

“And was there anything priority on this trip?” Bolan asked.

Tinopoulos sneered. “No…just women and cattle…”

Bolan racked the shotgun’s slide, but the Greek smuggler had already spoken his last words. One last gush of blood drooled from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes stared blankly into oblivion.

“Jack?” Bolan asked.

“They tried to unload amphibious troops,” Grimaldi answered. “But the lady and I took care of things.”

“I heard,” Bolan stated. “Give me a quick sweep of the ship. See if there are any hostiles still moving.”

“Just the cargo in the hold,” Grimaldi stated. “Want me to call in the carrier?”

“Not until I’ve had a good look at the sub. But land on deck. Save your fuel,” Bolan suggested.

“Gotcha, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered. “You’ll need more than what you’ve got for a submarine penetration.”

CHAPTER THREE

Salt Lake City, Utah

Special Agent Rachel Marrick pulled her car to a halt and took out her cell phone again. She brushed aside her silken brown hair and put the phone to her ear. Her soft, hazel eyes scanned the street under a furrowed brow as she tried to reach her partner. “Kirby, you bastard. Where are—”

“Is that any way to talk to your partner?” Kirby Graham said over the other end of the phone.

“So, you finally decided to pick up?” Marrick asked.

“I was halfway down the side of the mountain when I got your first call. What’s up?”

“A Korean street gang just hit a bank and took hostages,” Marrick told him. “Where are you now?”

“On the road from Park City. SLC SWAT in place?” Graham asked.

“Yeah,” Marrick answered. “But it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to move for a while yet.”

“I can be there in a half hour,” Graham responded.

“I keep forgetting your trunk is loaded with SWAT gear,” Marrick responded. “Be careful.”

“You want me to be careful, or do you want me to get there in time for the festivities?” Graham asked.

Marrick rolled her eyes. “Just don’t kill any other drivers.”

Graham chuckled. “On my way.”

Marrick sighed and checked the .40-caliber Glock in her hip holster, and was about to double check the backup .38 she wore underneath her armpit when the windshield starred violently. The woman crouched deeper into the driver’s seat and stared at a fist-size hole in the glass. The driver’s door opened, and she nearly drew and fired when she saw a policeman in full uniform.

“They’re shooting at everyone who drives up,” the big, brawny black cop said. “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to warn you.”

Marrick looked up the side of the building.

“We tried to spot the sniper, but there’s either more than one, or he moves quickly,” the cop explained. Marrick noted that his name was Cage. “They’re playing with us until the hostage negotiator gets here.”

Marrick grimaced. “Sounds like a fun party. We got all the entrances sealed?”

“Alleys and the rooftops are covered. No way they can escape,” Cage said.

Marrick crawled out of her seat and slammed the door, joining the cop behind cover. “Anyone hurt?”

“Security guard’s corpse was dumped outside. They left his .38 in its holster. They didn’t need it,” the police officer replied. “Tore the shit out of my car and my partner’s got two bullets in his legs.”

Marrick took a deep breath as she saw the carnage wrought on the Salt Lake City squad car. It was perforated hundreds of times, and both front tires were flat. The hubcaps had been torn off by the brutal salvo that had crippled the vehicle. Smoke poured from dozens of holes. “What the hell weapons do they have?”

“I didn’t have much time to see what they were cutting loose with,” Cage answered. “But it didn’t sound like anything American.”

Marrick tilted her head.

“I was a SAW gunner in the Gulf war,” Cage replied. “I know what an M-249 sounds like, and an M-60, too. This wasn’t either of those, and it sure wasn’t an M-16.”

“Russian?” Marrick asked.

Cage shrugged. “We’ve got the two bullets from my partner’s leg. Maybe you could make it out better.”

Cage guided Marrick across the street to an ambulance that had parked out of view of the five-story bank. The windshield of the vehicle had been pockmarked with several slugs, but the paramedics had pulled it out of the line of fire.

“No respect for medics,” Cage mentioned. “These are just punk kids.”

“Punk kids with enough firepower to make the front end of a Crown Victoria into a screen door,” Marrick corrected.

“Luke?” Cage asked, looking in the back.

A blond police officer lay on a cot. His leg was swathed in bloody bandages, and a saline bag was draining into his arm.

“Hey, Danny,” the wounded cop muttered. Marrick read his badge name. Rand. He looked her over and smiled through his discomfort. “Who’s the cutie?”

“Special Agent Rachel Marrick, FBI,” she introduced herself. Her ears burned under her shoulder-length cape of hair, as she hated being called a “cutie.” She’d have thought that her position as an FBI agent, complete with the business-suit look would have commanded respect. She didn’t mind being hit on as a petite, sweet young thing in her off hours, but this was work. “Danny told me that you got a couple souvenirs from your first contact.”

Rand nodded. “Roy’s got them.”

A dark-haired paramedic handed her a plastic bag. “He told me to save them.”

Marrick nodded and took the bag. “This is evidence.”

“Yeah. Still, maybe I’d like to get ’em back someday,” Rand explained.

Marrick looked at Cage.

“It’s a cop thing,” the black cop replied. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh. Don’t worry, I’ll see what paperwork I can pull,” she stated. She looked at the bullets.

“They look like .22s,” Cage mentioned. “But hell, the gun didn’t sound like any 5.56 mm that I’d ever run into.”

“And it didn’t sound like an AK?” Marrick asked.

“Nope. I heard my share of those,” Cage replied. “More than I’d like.”

Marrick frowned. “The Russians use a 5.45 mm round. Very similar to our 5.56.”

“Yeah,” Cage replied. “When we went head-to-head with Saddam the first time, he was still using good old ComBloc ammo. I heard they still were, our second trip through Baghdad.”

“Doesn’t mean much,” Marrick replied. “The Russian black market is flooded with the newer AK-74s, and ammunition. The Commonwealth of Independent States is hemorrhaging top-of-the-line military equipment as fast as they can build it.”

Cage nodded. “Which is why none of it sounded familiar. So, we’ve got what? Russian Mafia supplying Korean street gangs in Salt Lake?”

“Part of why I’m here,” Marrick replied. “You’re sure they’re Koreans?”

“They sounded Asian,” Rand said. “And called me a few names in some kind of language. It wasn’t Chinese, though.”

“You speak Chinese?” Marrick asked.

“I lived with my dad in Hong Kong,” Rand replied. “My guess, they’d have to be Korean.”

Marrick frowned, then got out her cell phone.

“What’s going on?” Cage asked.

“I’ve got another agent coming in. I want to let him know about the welcoming presents these punks are giving out,” Marrick returned.

“Yeah. I’ll tell you, firsthand, they suck,” Rand replied.

Marrick took the call.

“Graham, here.”

“How soon you gettin’ here?” Marrick asked.

“I’ll be there.”

“Park two blocks back. There are snipers in the upper levels,” Marrick warned.

“Snipers?”

“They’re marking their territory. Any vehicle pulling in gets a bullet through the windshield.”

“How many are there?” Graham asked.

“Can’t tell, but enough to hold the Saturday crowd in a bank lobby and spare enough people to man the upstairs windows. We’re thinking maybe two, three snipers. I nearly caught a slug, but S.L.P.D. is saying that these punks are just playing,” Marrick explained.

“Hope I’m there before playtime’s over and they decide to get serious,” Graham replied.

“I hope so, too,” Marrick answered. “I just can’t see how we’re going to get anywhere with this bunch. The building’s tied up tight, and with the firepower they’ve got, we’re pretty much looking at a long standoff.”

“So, maybe I can get back to the slopes and report in Monday morning?” Graham quipped.

“If my weekend’s going to suck, so is yours. I don’t care who’s in town,” Marrick retorted.

“Yes, ma’am!” Graham responded.

Marrick looked back at the bank as her partner hung up. More vehicles were arriving, including other agents from the local office. She debated whether to give them a warning as they passed the perimeter, but held her tongue.

Since the other agents in town wanted to treat her like a leper, let them squirm as a Korean sniper put a bullet in their windshield. She turned her attention to the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sniper.

The Gulf of Thailand

THE EXECUTIONER descended on the cargo crane from the deck of the smuggler’s ship to the superstructure of the submarine in the water. He held on to the cable, resting his feet against the base of a large iron hook that had gear from Dragon Slayer attached to it. Grimaldi lowered him down to the conning tower.

The gear settled on the deck, and Bolan hopped off to release it from the hook. Grimaldi pulled it back up.

Bolan opened the first of the two duffels and pulled out a strap of grenades, hanging it around his neck and one shoulder. He adjusted the bandolier, making sure the blasters he wanted to use were easily drawn, then took out a Fabrique Nationale P-90 submachine gun. The stubby little chopper was ideal for close quarters work, and held a 50-round magazine. He slung the weapon, then filled his harness with a half-dozen .50-round magazines.

The second duffel had several canvas packaged blocks. Bolan slung the spares over his shoulder, then unwound one of the packages. It looked like a spiderweb, made out of thick putty, with an electronic device in the center. Bolan stuck the putty to the conning tower hatch and activated the center device. He stepped out of range, then pulled out a radio detonator.

The breaching charge, while explosive, wouldn’t disperse its detonation like a regular bomb. Instead, the putty would focus its force against the hull. No shrapnel would fly back toward Bolan, but the concussion could harm him. The detonation cord would explode more slowly than regular plastic explosive, acting more like a cutting torch, and would peel apart steel easily. Bolan thumbed the detonator to life. There was a soft woomp, and metal clattered on the hatch. Bolan plucked a concussion grenade from his harness and swung around to the opened hatch. He dropped the flash-bang through the hole and turned away. There were screams of panic as the men inside the control room recognized what had happened, but they were cut off by a fierce crack.

The Executioner dropped through the hatch, the P-90 in his fist.

Koreans clutched their burned eyes or their shattered eardrums, stunned by the force of the explosion. Bolan clubbed one of the submariners across the jaw with the stock of his weapon and dropped him to the deck. It took only a few moments for Bolan to knock out the remaining conscious crewmen. That would hold them until he could use the plastic cable ties in his harness to restrain them.

A hatch shifted and Bolan braced behind the doorjamb.

It opened partially, a gun muzzle poking through. Bolan was to the side, out of sight, but his P-90 was primed and ready to greet the newcomers.

A Korean sailor stepped through the hatch, talking to his partners. Bolan didn’t understand what he was saying, but he recognized the lilt of confusion in his voice. The Executioner speared him with a powerful kick and hurled him to the deck.

Panicked cries filled the air as Bolan lurched into view. The P-90 blazed to life, and its payload of 5.7 mm flesh-shredders made the hatchway into a no-man’s land of supersonic death. Bodies tumbled in a mad rush to escape the big soldier’s salvo, but the .50-round magazine had enough ammunition to give everyone who had been poised to retake the bridge a deadly kiss.

The opening burst lasted only three seconds, but the quartet of Koreans in the hatchway leaked from forty fatal wounds. Bolan changed the depleted magazine for a new one, and checked on the stunned sailor on the deck.

Bolan’s kick had caught him in the kidney, and as he’d bounced off a control panel, his forehead and nose had been split by unyielding metal and plastic. The Korean’s face was a bloody mask, and he was curled on the deck, insensate to his surroundings. The soldiers spared a moment to bind his wrists and ankles with cable ties, waiting for the next wave of defenders to show up.

“How’s it going, Jack?” Bolan asked over his headset.

“The carrier’s choppers are still fifteen minutes out. That’s all you’ve got to mop up the sub.”

“It’ll have to do,” Bolan told him.

The Executioner pulled another stun grenade, armed the bomb, and hurled it into the depths of the corridor beyond the bridge. It bounced, and he was rewarded with more cries of panic. Bolan turned away and let the stunner do its job, releasing a deafening and blinding thunderclap. In the confined quarters of the submarine, it was like being struck in the head with a sledgehammer. He rushed into the corridor and found three men lying on the deck. One clutched bloody ears, while the others clawed at their burning faces. Another tough sailor still stood. One of his ears leaked a slick of blood, but his eyes were clear, and the gun in his hand swung at Bolan.

The P-90 ripped him from crotch to throat, and the gunman collapsed. Bolan kicked the down sailors’ guns away from them. He’d taken the time to memorize the layout of the Koreans’ black market submarine, and knew what lay beyond the next hatch. It was where the submarine’s two levels were connected by a stairwell. Bolan reached into his bandolier and withdrew a fragmentation grenade. He thumbed out the cotter pin and held the detonator spoon in place.

With a push, the next hatchway opened. The juncture was empty as far as Bolan could see, but he guessed that defenders waited at the bottom of the steps. Bolan threw the fragger through the hatch and it bounced down the stairs, detonating violently before anyone could react. He surged through as the next hatch opened. Gunmen had been lying in wait, but the Executioner was ready for them, 5.7 mm slugs sizzling out his P-90’s muzzle at 800 rounds per minute. Two defenders collapsed through the joinway in bloody heaps as he reached the top of the stairs. Down on the next level, Bolan spotted a tangle of gory body parts at the bottom. A choking cough wafted up the steps, informing him that there wouldn’t be any immediate arrivals from that flank.

Bolan pulled another flash-bang and hurled it through the hatch.

One Korean leaped out to avoid being caught in its blast, and instead, he stopped a flesh-eating cloud of high-powered bullets. The dead sailor tumbled headfirst to the deck with boneless grace.

The stun grenade detonated and gave the Executioner a window of opportunity to hit the upper hatchway. He spotted one sailor, struggling to stay in the fight, but Bolan retired him with a point-blank burst. From what he’d read of the submarine’s stats, the vessel needed at least twenty men to run easily. Adding in shipboard security, Bolan had thirty enemies to take out. So far, he’d gone through almost half that number. With Grimaldi’s report about blasting a boarding crew with Dragon Slayer’s miniguns, he figured only about ten were left to oppose him. Bolan set up a grenade with a tripwire in the open hatchway, then turned back and went to the lower deck, heading for the engine room. He had another charge designated for the main boiler to scuttle the sub, allowing him to avoid being in the middle of an international incident. The North Koreans would turn the capture of their submarine into a global spectacle and demand the return of their sailors. At the very least, it would ramp up tensions between North Korea and the United States, and with the state of its nuclear program, such a loggerhead would turn into a lethal conflict for South Korea and perhaps even Japan.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, Bolan heard a resounding crash above. Charred flesh rained down the stairwell, informing him that his quick booby trap had done its job. Whoever was lying in wait for Bolan’s retreat had stumbled into the grenade’s tripwire. The soldier paused for a moment, waiting for further motion.

He was rewarded by a head poking out of a side hatch.

The Executioner swung up his P-90 in a lightning movement, high-powered 5.7 mm slugs smashing through the Asian’s face, destroying it in a cloud of blood and splintered bone. A muzzle poked around the hatch and Bolan backed up the steps. Sparks flashed on the metal below his feet, and Bolan crouched deeper, hammering out another burst that caught the enemy’s gun and plucked it from his hands.

Footsteps sounded as a man covered in bloody wounds lunged through the booby-trapped hatchway. The Korean spoke in an odd tone, unintelligible to Bolan, but the intent was clear. Armed with a handgun as a club, he lurched toward the big American, intent on killing the man who’d mutilated him. Bolan readjusted his aim, but the handgun butt knocked his barrel side.

The Executioner let go of the P-90 and grabbed the blood-slicked arm of the injured sailor. With a twist, he hauled the wounded man down and onto the steps with a sickening crack. Neck broken, the bloody Korean stopped thrashing and slid lifelessly to the lower deck. Bolan vaulted over the corpse, drawing his Desert Eagle.

He checked the room where the two gunmen had first encountered him, and except for several bunks and personal items, there was only one sailor inside, clutching the severed hand that had been chewed off by the P-90’s burst. The injured sailor wildly eyed Bolan, too terrified to move. The Executioner knew there wasn’t any fight left in him, so he continued on to the engine room.

Gunfire greeted Bolan immediately, and he ducked to one side. He holstered the big Desert Eagle, plucked a pair of stun grenades from his bandolier and launched them simultaneously. As soon as he threw them, he took the instant before their detonation to feed the depleted P-90 another magazine. The moment the double thunderclap shook the engine room, he ducked through the hatch, submachine gun leading the way.

Blind and stunned, the defenders of the engine room provided little hindrance to the Executioner. He set the breeching charge on the side of the boiler.

“Jack?”

“You’ve got eleven minutes, Sarge,” Grimaldi informed him.

Bolan set the timer on his detonator and stuck it in place.

A hand gripped his ankle and Bolan tripped over the shocked defender’s grasp. The Executioner twisted his boot free from the stunned Korean and regained his balance. Once his freed foot was firmly planted, he used the heel of his other boot to smash down violently on the sailor’s jaw. Bone shattered with the force of the kick, and the sailor slumped to the floor, dead.

A second Korean fought to get to his knees, and Bolan kicked him in the stomach and used the butt of the P-90 like a hammer to finish the man. He didn’t have much time, and he needed to hit the captain’s quarters. With doomsday numbers ticking down, Bolan exited the engine room and spotted two sets of legs stomping down the stairs.

Before they could come down the steps far enough to see the Executioner, he cut loose with the FN submachine gun, catching them at groin level. Bullets plowed through soft tissue, severing arteries in their violent passage, while others hammered into heavy pelvic bone. The two defenders screamed and toppled down the steps, their bodies landing in a tangle. Bolan milked off two more shots, one into each head, then raced forward, vaulting the corpses.

He was halfway up the stairs when someone slammed into his back and drove him against the hard metal steps. The Executioner struggled to shake the Korean off his back as tightly knotted fists pummeled his neck and sides. Only Bolan’s battle-hardened musculature and his combat harness blunted the bone-breaking force of his attacker’s punches. That gave him a moment to jerk himself upright and flip the unsecured sailor off his back.

The Korean toppled to the deck and clawed for the handgun in his holster. Bolan, still stunned by the sudden and savage attack, lurched up the steps and flipped over the top stair. As his body disappeared behind the upper deck, a bullet sliced the air, barely missing him. The sailor cursed at him in his native language, but the Executioner used the duration of his tirade to recover his wits and get his second wind. The P-90 had been torn away by the Korean’s sudden attack, so he reached for his .44 Magnum pistol.

Bolan saw a gun frame pop up out of the stairwell, and he kicked his way through a hatch to the next compartment before he was sliced apart by his own weapon. High-powered bullets clanged on metal, one slicing across his shoulder. It was a shallow scratch, but it reminded the soldier that his enemy was to be taken seriously. He flicked off the Desert Eagle’s safety and braced himself. The Korean sailor appeared at the top of the steps, P-90 in one fist, the handgun in the other.

Bolan tripped the mighty Magnum pistol’s trigger and a .44-caliber slug cored through the defender’s chest. The Korean collapsed to his knees, vomiting blood. Glassy eyes looked in disbelief at the Executioner, and sticky red lips tried to form words. Bolan punched another slug through the round, pale face, and then stepped forward to retrieve his submachine gun. He cut back through the bridge and located the captain’s cabin.

It was a mess, and he found torn maps in the trash receptacle. A box of matches sat on the desk, several matchsticks lying broken where the captain failed to light them. Presumably the captain was one of the last of the defenders that Bolan had encountered. He looked at the personal computer on the captain’s desk, and saw that it was in the process of deleting its files. Bolan shut off the computer, then pulled out his combat knife to open its main casing.

The hard drive sat like a silver brick in the center of the motherboard, and Bolan cut its IDE cables and wrenched it off the silicone-and-plastic board. The drive itself was as solid and strong as steel, so he stuffed it in an empty magazine pouch on his harness. Though the captain had been deleting all of its files, Stony Man Farm had data recovery software that could bring back any information that had been erased. It wouldn’t be difficult, and it would give Bolan a better understanding of why the Koreans were smuggling human beings and cattle into their country.

“Sarge?” Grimaldi asked over the radio.

“Still here,” Bolan answered.

“It got quiet,” the pilot explained.

Bolan looked at his watch. “I’ve got eight minutes before the carrier arrives. Lower the crane and I’ll be topside.”

“Gotcha.”

“We’ll head back to our airfield and process what’s on this hard drive,” Bolan told him. “Looks like I uncovered a lot more than people smuggling.”

“A black market submarine and cattle? I don’t doubt it,” the pilot quipped. “’Round and ’round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.”

Bolan left the captain’s quarters, wary for remaining defenders. But even as he did, he knew that Grimaldi was right. What started as a simple smuggling intervention had just turned into the potential for a nightmare.

Business as usual for the Executioner.

CHAPTER FOUR

Salt Lake City, Utah

Kirby Graham handed Rachel Marrick a cup of coffee as they waited at the perimeter of the bank standoff. Rachel took a sip and looked at Stan Reader, who was riffling through his luggage.

“So, who’s he?” Marrick asked.

“A friend from college,” Graham replied. “Actually, best buddies. We even went into the service at the same time. We worked together a few times there.”

Marrick smiled. “So why did he want to come to a bank robbery on his vacation?”

Graham handed her Reader’s temporary badge. “He’s a contracted asset to the FBI.”

“Contracted asset? Like a consultant?” Marrick asked.

“Yeah,” Graham stated. “Technical adviser on cases involving high technology. He used to be an engineer on a nuclear submarine. When he got out, he had a position as a professor of nuclear physics, but that got way too boring for him. He applied for a private investigator’s license and signed on as a civilian contractor for several federal agencies.”

“Private eye?” Marrick mused. “Still sounds kind of nerdy.”

“Well, he uses a lot of big words when little ones will do, but only around people who understand that kind of stuff,” Graham explained.

“I noticed that he’s packing, too,” Marrick mentioned, seeing the butt of a revolver poking out from under Reader’s jacket. “I hope he knows how to shoot.”

“Part of the U.S. Navy Marksmanship team for a year,” Graham replied. “And he’s taken courses at Gunsite, Thunder Ranch and the Lethal Force Institute.”

Marrick raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. So, why is he hanging out with us?”

“He’s scouting for people to work in his new company,” Graham answered. “He needs field assistants.”

Marrick nodded. “Assistants.”

“As in, he’s looking to hire you, too.”

Marrick shrugged. “You told him about the federal pension plan, right?”

Graham smiled. “You’d be surprised what Stretch has put aside for his retirement.”

Marrick looked at the lean scientist. “If he can make it worth giving up a federal pension, then why the hell aren’t we on the plane out of here with him?”

“He’s checking out the Dugway incidents,” Graham responded. “Because he knows I’m not going to let that case lay down and die.”

“He’s gonna put up with your stubborn ass until this is finished?” Marrick asked.

“He’s used to it,” Graham replied.

Reader returned with a small object that looked like a digital camcorder. “All right, this might help.”

Marrick looked at the device as Reader handed it to her. “What is it?”

“Take a look at the bank,” the scientist told her.

Marrick held up the device and blinked a couple of times as she saw the world cast in green. Walls and the ground appeared as misty, indistinct shapes, while people resembled yellow and red columns of flame. “Infrared?”

“I’ve miniaturized the components of the device. Take a look through that squad car,” Reader directed her.

Marrick turned to look at the trio of cops on the other side of the vehicle before putting the infrared imager to her eyes. The car disappeared into the same translucent, smoky outline on the green screen, and she was looking at the cops. She could see their guns as distinct outlines, breaking up their red and yellow images. She lowered the transmitter and looked back at Reader.

“I modulated it so that you could see concealed weaponry on their persons,” Reader answered. “The resolution’s not good enough to make out what brand, but you can make a general outline guess.”

Marrick nodded in approval. “You put this together?”

Reader shrugged. “I looked into others’ research and modified it for better portability. Relatively.”

Marrick handed Reader back the infrared scope. “Yeah. It feels like it weighs ten pounds.”

“Nine point six, without the power supply cables and belt battery,” Reader informed her. “Could be useful in a squad car trunk once I get it to the point where it can be cheaply mass produced.”

“How much did you put into it, Stretch?” Graham asked.

“Three million or so,” Reader replied, blushing sheepishly.

“For an advanced mathematician, you suck as an accountant,” Graham muttered.

Reader chuckled and adjusted his infrared scope. He turned it toward the bank and zoomed in on the upper floors. “Two snipers up there.”

“We figured three,” Marrick responded. “We should report this to Special Agent Lieber.”

Reader lowered the camera and swept the lobby. “Four men with assault rifles in the main lobby, and looks like about twenty hostages. Kirby, you know rifles better than I do.”

The Fed took the camera from his friend and looked at the lobby. “Kalashnikov design, basically. You’re right, though. The resolution sucks on these.”

“Magazines look off,” Reader stated.

Graham focused the lens, frowning. “Yeah. AK-47s have deeply curved magazines, but these are straighter, like AK-74s, or a similar 5.45 mm design.”

“You said that the Korean street gangs are utilizing top-of-the-line Soviet equipment?” Reader asked, accepting the scope from Graham.

“That’s what I figured. Here…I have samples of some of the bullets they took out of a wounded cop,” Marrick replied.

Reader handed off his scope and pulled out a pair of glasses with multiple lenses hinged against them. “Is the officer all right?”

“Yeah. He’ll be in surgery to repair the damage to his leg, but he won’t lose the limb,” Marrick responded.

“Presumably because the bullet’s velocity was lessened by intervening surfaces,” Reader replied. “Looking at the scratches on this bullet’s jacket, it had gone through something heavy and ferrous, not the sheet metal of a car door.”

Graham took the glasses from Reader and looked at the bullets in the plastic bag. “Show off.”

“High-velocity 5.45 mm armor-piercing ammunition,” Reader mentioned.

“Yeah, I see the tungsten cores. Since when do street gangs need that kind of firepower?” Graham asked.

“Tungsten cores?” Marrick asked. “I thought you needed Teflon to make an armor-piercing bullet.”

“Teflon on a tungsten-core bullet keeps it from chewing up the guns shooting it. Other than that, the really dangerous material is the heavy tungsten core, which is harder than any other metal,” Graham stated.

Marrick nodded. “So they were Teflon-coated?”

“At least on the tip before they were scoured clean by interaction with the engine block,” Reader responded. “Interestingly, though, the Commonwealth of Independent States don’t use that type of ammunition.”

“Why not?” Marrick asked. “Isn’t it the best?”

Reader took a deep breath. “The former Soviet Union doesn’t have the money to make large amounts of ammunition out of tungsten, both for the base resource metals, which are highly expensive, and the machine tooling necessary to form the bullets. It’s cheaper to use standard steel cores, even though they have a smaller penetration coefficient.”

Marrick nodded. “Who does make a lot of tungsten-core ammo?”

“This is customized ammunition,” Reader responded. “There are several smaller firms that deal with individual, specialized military units. I could narrow it down with about a half-hour’s search to see who makes 5.45 mm ammunition, but off the top of my head, I’d have to say we’re talking Eastern European production.”

“So, black market, which is Russian mafiya, but not Russian military,” Marrick concluded.

Reader scanned the building again with his scope. He looked at the upper floors and stepped past the perimeter.

“Stretch!” Graham growled, pulling his friend back.

“The snipers aren’t up there,” Reader replied. “Something’s going on.”

He lowered the lens to look at the lobby, his jaw clenching. “Kirby.”

Graham looked at the cops on the perimeter who had been paying attention to them. “What’s in the lobby?”

“The gunmen are backing out,” Reader answered. “But, you said the whole building’s cordoned off.”

“Right. The alley has a tactical team at either end. They got in there under ballistic shield cover,” Graham replied. He reached under his jacket, pulled out a Colt .45 and snicked off the safety. “Stretch, we don’t have permission to move in.”

“Damn, it can’t see through the street,” Reader said. “The Koreans are disappearing downstairs, into the basement.”

The scientist unplugged his scanner and set it on the ground. He quickly shrugged out of his battery pack and let it clunk to the asphalt, then ran toward the bank doors. Police ran out to intercept Reader, but Graham’s FBI blazer and his outstretched hand held them up.

Reader reached under his sweatshirt and drew a revolver, taking one side of the bank entrance.

Special Agent in Charge Lieber rushed forward, bellowing for Graham to hold his ground as Salt Lake police officers stacked behind him and Reader.

“Graham! Stop!” Lieber shouted.

Graham looked at Reader. “If we get into a firefight in the lobby…”

“We won’t,” Reader answered.

“So why do you have your gun out?” Graham asked.

“We might get into it in the sewers,” Reader replied. “Or wherever they came out.”

“Sewers?” Graham asked.

Reader kicked the lobby door, and with the violent opening, screams from hostages filled the air. “Everyone stay on the floor!”

“Police!” Graham echoed, following on his friend’s heels. Police officers swarmed into the lobby, spreading out and looking for hostile enemies.

“Graham!” Lieber’s voice followed.

Reader didn’t stop as he crossed over the prone figures of frightened hostages. Graham followed closely after and they reached a door marked Employees Only.

“Let me take the point, Stretch,” Graham replied. “I’ve got my armor, you—”

Reader lifted his own sweatshirt, displaying a shiny blue ballistic nylon shell covering his stomach. “It’s a new design I’ve been working on. Will yours stop 5.56 mm?”

Graham grinned. “Yeah, it will.”

He kicked the door open and charged through. Off to one side, a stairwell stood open and he took two long strides toward it before stopping short, teetering. Reader grabbed the back of his armor and tugged him back before he fell forward.

“Trip wire,” Graham warned.

Reader hopped over it and knelt by the device. “Crude. A grenade in a tin can.”

He snicked out his knife and snipped the fine string. “You got a paper clip?”

Graham handed it to him and Reader fed the metal wire into the hinge. The scientist took it out and pocketed the minibomb. “Okay, it’s safe, Kirby. Call the others in.”

Graham turned and bellowed through the door, “They went this way!”

Reader chuckled. “Who needs bullhorns with you around?”

Graham grinned and followed his friend down the stairs. The two men were cautious for any more trip wires, but the gang had to have anticipated one booby trap would slow down any pursuit.

They hit the basement running, their boots slapping concrete. The Salt Lake SWAT team was still clomping down the steps as Reader and Graham continued. When they turned a corner in the basement hallway, they saw a gaping hole in the foundation wall.

Graham’s sharp eyes noticed the demolition charges ringing the entrance and he grabbed Reader like a rag doll. The big ex-football player hurled them both back behind the cover of the intersection as the shock wave cracked down the hallway, hurling stones at bullet-like velocities.

“Thanks, Kirby,” Reader said, his head ringing.

Marrick was among the SWAT cops who finally showed up. “What the hell happened?”

“They cut us off,” Graham snapped.

“Must have used low-velocity explosives to cut that entrance hole. That’s how they got the whole gang in here,” Reader added. “Then when it was time to—”

“We have to get out of here, sir,” a SWAT officer interjected. “The building’s foundation has been compromised.”

Reader shut up and joined the exodus from the bank. As they reached the lobby, they saw that the hostages were already being moved out, but broken glass rained outside the windows. The large panes looking out onto the street were cracked, and Reader and Graham could both see a huge crack through the ceiling. Plaster filtered down through the newly made fissure.

“Hurry up!” Reader shouted.

The SWAT cops were already past, and Marrick and Graham were bringing up the rear.

“Anyone on the upper levels?” Reader asked.

The last of the SWAT cops, a lieutenant who believed in “first one in, last one out” leadership, paused. “I was going to send a team up the stairs, but when the explosion sounded, I told them to pull back. Did you see anything on that crazy camera of yours?”

“Just the snipers, and they were already gone,” Reader replied.

The SWAT commander nodded. “Get going. I want this place cleared—”

That’s when the roof came down in a choking cloud of dust. All Reader could hear was the cry of his best friend, Graham.

“Stretch!”

Pattaya, Thailand

AS SOON AS THE AIRCRAFT carrier’s helicopters loomed into radar range, Bolan and Grimaldi had taken off. They hovered in place long enough to watch the enemy submarine break apart. Bolan had made sure that it was only a diesel engine, and not a refurbished sub with nuclear power. His simple breaching charges were enough to turn the diesel engines into a bomb powerful enough to split the vehicle in two. Battered Korean survivors had been dumped into inflatable rafts and set adrift to explain what the hell they were doing in the area. Meanwhile, one less black market submarine patrolled the globe’s waters, snapped into two pieces and its ruined innards dumped to the bottom of the Gulf of Thailand.

At the airfield and Bolan’s temporary forward base in-country, he hooked up the severed IDE cables to a Stony Man laptop slot and had Aaron Kurtzman and the cybernetic team go over the hard drive via satellite uplink.

“Get some sleep,” Kurtzman told him. “It’ll take awhile to get what we need off the drive.”

“Will do,” Bolan answered. He made certain that their hangar was secured first, cleaned his pistols, slid the Desert Eagle under his pillow and went to sleep. Grimaldi had already sacked out after making sure that Dragon Slayer was in working order.

SEVEN HOURS LATER Grimaldi was up, having dry cereal and coffee as his morning meal, when Bolan joined him. “Mornin’, Sarge.”

“Any word from Aaron yet?” Bolan asked.

“Nope,” Grimaldi answered. “Want some grub?”

“I’ll make it myself once I change,” Bolan answered. The hangar hadn’t been equipped with a locker room that had a shower, so Bolan grabbed some clean clothes and a couple of towels and washed in the sink, scrubbing himself.

Bolan poured himself a bowl of dry cereal and helped himself to some coffee. Without a decent refrigerator, milk was out of the question. He supplemented his sparse grub with an apple.

It was boring, waiting, but the Executioner spent the time focusing on what he needed to do. He looked over maps to keep himself sharp on the area, and after refreshing his navigational knowledge, listened to radio reports to keep abreast of international news.

Three stories into the report, he listened to information about a Korean street gang who had robbed a federal bank in Salt Lake City. They’d escaped through the sewer system, and had set off an explosion that collapsed part of the building. Authorities were still trying to figure out the actual identities of the robbers, but promised swift arrests and resolutions.

The mention of the Korean street gang stuck in the Executioner’s mind. The prostituted young women were being shipped to North Korea in some form of trade. They were traveling concurrently with American and European style cattle, not common to Southeast Asia.

He’d heard plenty of rumors and stories over the years about UFOs and cattle mutilations around northern Utah, at a place called Dugway Proving Grounds. He remembered the actual facts about Dugway simply because several years ago there had been a leak of anthrax that had killed hundreds of heads of livestock in the area, and could have wiped out thousands of civilians if the winds had shifted during the containment breach.

Dugway was one of those places that remained on Bolan’s radar. He’d encountered dozens of efforts by foreign governments and terrorists to invade American bioweapons institutes across his long and bloody career. The Executioner had also encountered Chinese crime gangs abroad who did the dirty work of Communist Chinese intelligence services on more than enough occasions to never rule out the possibility that a group of common street punks could be working for a “higher” purpose.

North Korea was involved in smuggling humans and livestock, and there was talk of a mystery package from the captain of the freighter. And now, there’d been an incident involving a high-profile bank robbery and Korean street gangs in the backyard of one of the largest bioweapon containment breaches in recorded history.

It added up to a strange combination that orbited Bolan’s mind. When he got on the line with Kurtzman, he’d have to bring it up.

The laptop beeped. The monitor switched to a communication panel and Aaron Kurtzman’s voice came over the line. “Striker…”

“I’m on,” Bolan replied, activating the laptop’s built-in microphone. “What’s up?”

“You hear about the possible Korean street gang involvement in a Salt Lake City bank robbery?” Kurtzman asked.

“Yeah. That got your attention, too?” Bolan commented.

“It hit some of my buttons. I noticed something strange, too, in the livestock on its way to Korea,” Kurtzman answered.

“Rancher brands from near Salt Lake City?” Bolan asked.

Kurtzman didn’t sound surprised by Bolan’s wild guess. “You looked at them and recognized the brands?”

“Nope. Just a stab in the dark,” Bolan replied. “Any thoughts on if they could have been faked?” Bolan asked, getting back on topic.

“Brands aren’t national secrets, Striker,” Kurtzman responded. “Anyone with a good search engine would be able to pick up samples of all these brands. You’re thinking what?”

Bolan’s jaw tensed. “Dugway, livestock and anthrax all had one point in time where they were linked.”

“Yeah, that caught my attention, too,” Kurtzman answered. “We’re sitting on the information about the cattle brands and conducting covert inquiries about any cattle rustling.”

“Anything?” Bolan asked.

“Just that a rancher found another mutilated cow as of last week,” the Stony Man computer genius replied.

Bolan’s brow furrowed. “Any photographs?”

“I’ll transmit them to your laptop.”

“How good is the resolution?” Bolan asked.

Grimaldi winced and gave a yelp as he looked at a cow head, its lips seared away to expose bare teeth. “Good grief!”

“Good enough,” Kurtzman answered.

“Sorry,” Grimaldi replied.

Bolan looked at the carcass a little more closely. “Interesting.”

“What?” Kurtzman replied.

“The soft tissue was all excised—lips, organs, eyes…”

“Yeah. Same as always.”

“And bloodless. No mess on the ground,” Bolan added.

“Standard operating procedure with all these mutilations,” Kurtzman responded. “No clues left behind as to how these things were slaughtered on scene, and yet no blood was found.”

“And if you were a homicide detective, what would you conclude?” Bolan prodded.

“That the animal was slaughtered somewhere else and brought to the ‘crime scene,’” Kurtzman stated. “But these are animals that should have been missing in the morning.”

“Allegedly,” Bolan responded. “After all, cows are cows.”

“There are some distinguishing marks, and the brands…”

“Aaron, what was the age range among the livestock found on the freighter?” Bolan asked.

“Various ages, and various stages of marking. Striker, what are you getting at?”

“This makes a good smoke screen,” Bolan stated. “If people are wondering why one animal was brutally mutilated in a manner that leaves no forensic evidence, they might not be looking at something else.”

“Like contraband inserted in the carcass’s body cavity?” Kurtzman replied.

“More than one carcass, likely,” Bolan stated. “It’s an open field, right?”

“So, the one missing animal…”

“Would be matched up to a body that, after all the mutilation, would be as identical as possible,” Bolan stated.

“Some corpses have been described as outsize for the missing animals, as if they’d been mutated…”

“Or it was just an animal with similar fur patterns as the smaller missing cow. Hollowed out with its soft tissue missing, it would look like something could have deformed the animal,” Bolan explained.

“You take all the fun out of conspiracy theories,” Kurtzman mumbled.

“I’ve yet to run into a conspiracy that was fun,” Bolan retorted.

“Usually because they’re out to kill you,” Kurtzman added.

“There’s that,” Bolan replied. “Smuggling from Korea to Utah…but not the other way around?”

“Perhaps the exports from the area are of a more subtle means,” Kurtzman mused. “Though, that explains why the bank robbers were armed with 5.45 mm ComBloc ammunition.”

“Five point forty-five?” Bolan asked. “Usually street gangs use either stolen National Guard M-16s, in 5.56 mm, or AK-47s smuggled up from Central and South America, in 7.62 mm. That’s still cutting-edge equipment. How’d you find that out?”

“FBI agents at the scene figured it out after they tore apart a police car,” Kurtzman explained. “I’m sending what reports we have. Unfortunately, any other forensic analysis is going to be put on hold since half the bank collapsed.”

“The hostages?”

“Alive and well,” Kurtzman informed him. “The FBI and police rushed the bank as soon as the robbers disappeared into the basement. They evacuated everyone before the building came down.”

“Anyone hurt?” Bolan asked.

“A SWAT commander suffered a broken collarbone and three broken ribs, and an FBI contract agent took a whack on the head, but they’re okay.”

Bolan nodded. “Who was the contract agent, one of our blacksuits?”

“No, but he’s a friend of one of our irregulars, Kirby Graham,” Kurtzman stated. “I don’t know if you met…”

“Close Quarters Combat training in hazardous material environments, three years ago,” Bolan stated. “It was a refresher course for me as much as it was for them.”

“Good memory,” Kurtzman complimented.

“It helps in this business,” the Executioner replied. “And the contract agent?”

“Old college buddy of his, Professor Stan Reader.”

“I’ve heard of him, too,” Bolan stated. “Buck Greene and I have wanted to vet him for the blacksuit program, but he’s just a shade too high profile to fit in with the Sensitive Operations Group. Nuclear physicist and a professional biathlete, among other things.”

“Get in touch with Graham,” Bolan stated. “If Reader’s up to it, I’d like them keeping the Farm informed of everything on Utah’s end of things.”

“You’re not coming back here?” Kurtzman asked.

“I’ll be taking the scenic route, Aaron,” Bolan told him. “I hear that North Korea is quite pleasant at times like this.”

“And what time is that?” Kurtzman asked.

The Executioner took a deep breath. “Blitz time.”

He signed off and prepared for his infiltration of North Korea.

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