Renegade Agent (4 page)

"How civilized," Drummond murmured.

Bolan pushed the barrel of the Detonics into Drummond's high forehead, forcing his head back.

"At 11:35, an American-made Beechcraft C-12A Super King Air turboprop will land," the Englishman began tonelessly. "It has been converted for light cargo and bears Transworld Import/export markings, although it is not one of MI5's. The pilot is Captain L. Rouballin of the KGB, and he will file a return flight plan for Leningrad."

"The prototype is here?"

Drummond nodded.

"Give me the envelope."

Drummond hesitated a moment, then pulled it out of his inside coat pocket. Reaching for it cost Bolan a serious spasm of pain in his left shoulder. He felt fresh stickiness on the wad of turtleneck that he was holding against the wound.

The envelope contained a single piece of 4-by-6-inch microfiche film. Bolan slipped it in the back pocket of his slacks, grimacing slightly as he did so.

Excellent. So far, so good. All that remained was to deal with the guidance-system prototype that the Russians were so hot for. As a piece of hardware it was not especially valuable; it was one of several which had been bread-boarded. It was the revealed technology that the Soviets wanted. The prototype sang openly of the secret history that had gone into its making. He would prevent this hemorrhage of data by keeping the thing out of their hands.

He would do this by giving it to them.

Of course, Bolan planned to make it a little bit too hot for them to handle.

Drummond was making it clear to the Russian that he did not appreciate being pressed into service as a stevedore. He had helped the KGBer load the prototype into the C-12A, but he was expressing his displeasure in no uncertain terms.

In the hangar office, Mack Bolan looked on grimly. The guy was good, all right, but then he had to be. He was playing for his life. Bolan had showed him the face of his potential Executioner.

Agent Lemon still lay against the wall, unconscious but breathing regularly.

From the receiver on the desk in front of Bolan, Rouballin said, "Where is specifications manual?" The Russian pilot's voice was guttural and thick with a Slavic accent. There was a pause, and then Rouballin demanded, "What is meaning of this?" From the anger in his tone, Bolan knew Drummond had handed over the attache case — the case that Bolan had been carrying.

"The manual is inside," Drummond's voice said suavely. "I will be most pleased to give you the combination to that lock as soon as I am able to verify that the agreed upon funds have been transferred to the account, in restitution for the advance I was compelled to make to the American, Mr. Charon."

"You not get away with..."

"Of course, if you like you are free to break the case open," Drummond interrupted smoothly.

"However, you should do so with a great deal of care. Do I make myself clear, old chap?" The radio-another product of Gadgets Schwarz's fertile imagination and electronic wizardry went silent for a moment; it was tuned to the frequency of a transmitting body-mike installed on Drummond.

"If I were you, Captain Rouballin," the Brit went on, "I would consider my mission here accomplished. I suggest you get back in your craft and fly away home."

The KGB pilot muttered something in Russian that quickly faded to silent as he moved out of the microphone's range. Time passed, and then Bolan heard the sound of a PT6 engine turning over.

The bullet wound in his shoulder was a pulsing dull ache now. When Bolan peered under the improvised bandage, he found the redness looking angrier. But at least the bleeding was almost stopped. As he was recovering it, Drummond came into the office.

There was a thin sheen of sweat across the double agent's forehead, but he had lost none of his composure. In a way, it was easier to deal with a professional like Drummond, who had enough years of tradecraft behind him to realize that his fate was dictated by his obedience now. From outside they heard the Beechcraft taxi by the hangar, the sound drifting into the distance, then coming back again, passing more quickly this time as the plane accelerated into takeoff.

Drummond listened to Bolan's instructions wordlessly.

Five minutes later Bolan had shed his bloody coat and the remnants of his turtleneck for the shirt and jacket of Lemon. It was a tight fit, but it would pass. The MI5 agent had regained consciousness, but some electrical wire and a rag from the hangar's maintenance shop insured his immobility and silence for now.

What was less sure, at least to the man who was engineering the play, was if he would last until the finale. The wound was a pounding presence now, and Bolan knew that without treatment he would descend into shock within minutes.

But there was still one more loose end to clean up before the mission would be history.

Shock would have to wait until then.

The control tower chief was a brisk efficient man in starched uniform shirtsleeves and forest-green slacks. He wore a mustache and full beard, both neatly trimmed, and a nameplate that identified him as "V. Vaughn." The tower rose from the midpoint of the three terminals, and through the panoramic windows Bolan could see 270 degrees worth of aprons and runways. The tower chief glared at the camera case slung over Bolan's good shoulder and said, "No pictures," rather sharply. Then he frowned at the identification card in his hand for longer than necessary before handing it back to Sir Philip Drummond.

"What do you want?" Vaughn said, his tone barely civil.

"About twelve minutes ago," Drummond told the chief, "a Beechcraft manifested as belonging to Transworld I/E took off, bound for Leningrad. The aircraft ID number is SKBLEDHGD. I would like to know that aircraft's present position."

Vaughn's frown deepened. "By regulation, Sir Philip, such a request must come through channels, as you know."

"Mr. Vaughn." Drummond raised his voice enough to turn the heads of a few of the air-traffic controllers working nearby. "This is an urgent matter, directly affecting national defense." He lowered his voice again.

The guy had a flair for the dramatic, Bolan had to admit. But then, a man would have to become an accomplished actor if he expected to survive the double life.

"As tower chief," Drummond went on, "I believe you are aware of the functions of Transworld I/E?" It was plain that Vaughn detested having rank pulled on him. But he spun on his heel and went to one of the vacant control terminals. He flicked a selector knob and a series of green-tinted images flashed onto the screen, each showing a different radar array. He studied one, then straightened.

"Approximate latitude 55 degrees, 50 minutes north," he announced. "Longitude 18 degrees, 32 minutes east. Heading roughly east-northeast."

Bolan was at the chart on the wall near the entry staircase. The KGB plane and its cargo of top-secret U.S. Navy defense equipment was over the Baltic Sea, and would be for about ten more minutes.

"If there is nothing else you require..." Vaughn began, in a tone that made it clear it hoped that were the case.

"A phone," Bolan said.

Vaughn looked at him for the first time. "Now, who might you..."

"Your office, Mr. Vaughn, if you please," Drummond broke in. "I assure you we will not be long."

The tower chief's office was a cubicle above the main control room, reached by a spiral staircase. To one side was a control terminal with a radio set to the control frequencies-for monitoring employee performance, Bolan guessed. Vaughn gave both men a suspicious glance, as if he were afraid they were going to steal something as soon as they were alone. When he had gone, Bolan motioned Drummond into the chair. He unslung the camera case, lay it on Vaughn's desk, and let himself gingerly down beside it.

Keeping his eye on his prisoner, Bolan allowed himself a moment of rest. The pain in his shoulder was becoming a presence, an increasing reminder that the beat had to be on double time now.

A panel on the camera case slid open to reveal a false bottom. Inside was an electric cord on a spring-loaded reel.

Bolan pulled it out and plugged it in. Unclasping and lifting the lid revealed a simple control panel consisting of two toggle switches, a zero-center meter, a red indicator light, and a recessed button with a plastic safety cap. This was another Gadgets Schwarz special, a radio transmitter designed to emit a low-power but extremely narrow beam of UHF impulse. It was adaptable to point-to-point communication, or as a remote control. It was now in the latter configuration.

Bolan flicked up the first toggle and a whip antenna extended from the case's top. He pointed it roughly east-northeast. When he worked the second toggle the meter's needle activated, veering to the left. Bolan corrected, and the needle trued toward center. The indicator light began to blink.

A few beats later it was a steady bright red, and the needle rode the zero-center mark.

In the attache case aboard the KGB plane, which the pilot Rouballin believed contained the guidance systems spec manual, there was a homing device.

The homing device was ganged to a remote detonator, which was in turn wired to about ten pounds of C4 explosive. Now the homing device was sending a message back to its master.

Mack Bolan flipped the safety cap off the activator and sent a message back: Greetings from the Man from Hellfire.

Bolan slumped where he sat, drained. His chest felt like someone was holding a red-hot branding iron against it, and he was aware his breathing had become ragged. The numbers were toppling downright on him. But the mission awaited confirmation.

Hi forced his fingers to accomplish the operation of repacking the remote detonator, then moved to Vaughn's radio monitor and turned it on.

He clicked the channel selector, heard only routine communication until he hit the last frequency.

"Go ahead, TWA 1456," a controller in the room below said. "Ah, Heathrow, we've got a possible situation here." The American pilot's voice had a faint Texas accent, cut by an obvious tension. He gave his coordinates, nearly the same ones Vaughn had announced for the Russian plane.

"Possible mid-air explosion," the pilot went on about ten miles off the port wing, five thousand fee; lower. "My copilot says he spotted a twin-engine just before it blew." There was an audible intake of breath, but when the pilot went on his voice was still studiously calm. "Ah, she just blew again, Heathrow, like the tanks just went. Please advise, Heathrow."

Bolan flicked the channel selector again.

On another wavelength a woman controller's voice said, "Transworld I/E SKBLEDHGD, please come in." She was repeating the call when Bolan turned the set off.

"It appears you have accomplished what you set out to," Drummond said without inflection.

Simply lifting his head to look at the other man had become a painful effort for Bolan.

Drummond smiled slightly and came fluidly out of the chair, lunged at Bolan, both arms outstretched.

Before his momentum could carry him across the desk, the Detonics was in Bolan's hand.

Drummond stopped himself short.

Bolan realized he had come damned close to firing. He was rapidly dropping below one hundred percent.

The other man realized it as well. "You haven't forgotten your ah, promise, have you?" Drummond inquired carefully.

Bolan shook his head. "You're the sell-out, Drummond. Not me."

Drummond tried to reassemble the last shreds of his dignity. "Now then, there is no call."

Bolan gestured with the little .45. "Let's get out of here," he said wearily.

"It was a screw-up, Colonel Phoenix," the American agent named Voorhis said.

"All right," Bolan said. He winced involuntarily as the sting of antiseptic bit into the wound in his shoulder.

The doctor was a slightly built youthful looking man with bright red hair cut in an old-fashioned crew cut. He wore the insignia of a major in the regular British Army, Surgeon's Corps. The security clearance card clipped to his breast pocket read "M. Goldstein, M.D."

Voorhis leaned against one white wall, watching the doctor work. "We contacted Whitehall," he went on. "We told them it was sensitive, that you'd have to go it alone after we collared Charon. They didn't like it, but they agreed."

Dr. Goldstein jabbed a hypodermic needle into the hard muscle of Bolan's thigh. "A synthetic antibiotic called Keflex," he informed his patient. "A precaution against blood infection."

"The bodyguard, Lemon, he'd been kept in the dark about Drummond, like most everyone," Voorhis said. "SOP for MI5, just like us. The one you're really keeping in the dark is the mole. But just before it went down, Whitehall was supposed to tip Lemon and no one did. Damned sorry, Colonel."

"Never mind," Bolan said blankly.

The agent mistook Bolan's tone. "Listen, Colonel, there'll be a complete report. Heads will roll, depend on it."

Bolan sighed. "A complete report" was the essence of every good bureaucracy. Why take direct action when you could dissect the problem from every angle in writing first? The only problem was that dissection never got you anywhere. But action sure as hell did.

In any case, there was no use dwelling on what was already irreversible. It was hardly the first time in all the years of warfare that Mack Bolan had been shot; it would likely not be the last. He would heal, and there would be other firefights to come.

The fighting man who tells you he has no belief whatsoever in luck is a liar. Mack Bolan was only thankful that so far in his good fight, little of his luck had been bad.

As for Lemon, the dedicated MI5 agent who risked his life to protect the man he believed to be his boss, Bolan held no rancor. In fact, his first inquiry had been about the guy, and he had been genuinely relieved to learn that the extent of Lemon's injuries was a bump on the head.

Wittingly or unwittingly, Bolan had never done harm to a soldier of the same side.

"Charon?" Bolan asked.

"He's here," Voorhis said quickly. "I think he's going to cooperate."

"I'll want to talk to him."

"I'll take care of it." Voorhis seemed happy at the chance to leave the room.

The doctor was taping gauze dressings over the two wounds. Cautiously, Bolan tried flexing the shoulder. It was possible, but it hurt. "You will want to take it easy for some time, sir." The pain had not escaped Dr. Goldstein's notice. "I'm going to immobilize your left arm with a simple sling, to promote healing."

That would be okay, Bolan figured at least until a new mission forced him to go hard again.

"Any bullet wound is serious," the doctor said, looping the sling over Bolan's right shoulder. "You were lucky, sir. Although both the trapezius and pectoral muscles are torn to some extent, there is no organ damage or bone fracture. As a unit, your left arm is entire and operative, but the muscle trauma will decrease your control over the arm and your general mobility as well." The doctor rummaged in a cabinet, came out with a vial of pills. "This is oral Keflex. Take them until they are gone. I'll also prescribe some painkillers."

"No thanks." It had nothing to do with being stoic; Bolan could simply never afford to dull his senses with any drug.

"I see," the doctor said, in tone that indicated he did not.

Bolan slid off the examining table and got his shirt a spare one of his own over his shoulders. "Thanks, Doc."

Dr. Goldstein flashed him a brisk salute.

Voorhis was waiting outside the infirmary. He led Bolan down a long white corridor, around a corner, and to an unmarked door. Bolan could hear the faint whirr of the ventilation that aired this underground London complex.

"Drummond?" Bolan said, palming the doorknob.

"Safe in the hands of MI5," Voorhis said.

"At least safer than he'd be with his Russki pals." Bolan nodded and went into the interrogation room.

Charon was composed, almost relaxed. He listened to what Bolan had to say, and offered neither objection nor defense. He seemed to view his defeat as simply another scientific phenomenon, a curiosity of life. Of course he would cooperate, if it meant the possibility of leniency, he told Bolan. It would be illogical to do otherwise.

Outside in the corridor, Bolan found himself shaking with anger. The bloodless detachment with which both Charon and Drummond seemed to view their treachery was awesome, and at the same time sad. The man who cannot understand treason, Bolan thought, neither can he understand patriotism. And the man without patriotism, without allegiance to the country of which he himself is an important part, is a lonely man indeed. According to the technicality of law, neither man was guilty of a capital crime. According to Mack Bolan's worldview — a worldview forged in contemplation and tempered in terrorist blood — both men were as good as murderers. The mercenary sale of a military or intelligence secret in times of peace can have only one result: to push a precariously balanced world that much closer to war and holocaust.

It was a direct subversion of a carefully created and mutually acceptable system of checks and balances, a subversion that could turn tension into violence.

Bolan had learned again and again that too often the right weapon in the wrong hand added up to bloodshed.

It was the terrorists who pulled the triggers. But it was the Frederick Charons and the Sir Philip Drummonds of the world who put the guns in the jackals hands.

Bolan got out a cigarette and lit a match one-handed. He hoped the smoke would clear the sour taste from his mouth.

Voorhis appeared at the corner of the hallway. "Communication from Washington, Colonel. Follow me, please." The room into which Voorhis led him contained a wooden desk with a chair and nothing else. In the exact center of the desk was a telephone.

Voorhis nodded in its direction and went out, shutting the door behind him.

Bolan picked up the handset. For several seconds there was a hash of electronic squeals and bursts of static, indicating that a scrambler was interfacing with the line. Then a deep familiar voice said, "Striker."

"Go ahead, Hal."

The satellite-transmitted voice of head fed Harold Brognola was thin and tinny, but the anxiety in its tone came through five-by. "What happened?"

"You've already checked that out, Hal," Bolan said patiently.

"Sure. An accident, they said."

"That's what it was. It happens that way in real life sometimes, Hal, no matter how clean you lay it out. I'll be all right. Give it time."

"Sure, Striker," Brognola said quickly. "With Frederick Donald Charon and Sir Philip Drummond neutralized, you're on R and R as of right now." Brognola paused, and the static rose up to fill the silence. But the message in Brognola's tone was as clear as if he had gone on talking. Mack Bolan had not lived this long by betting his life on other men, unless he felt he knew them damned well. But he had bet his life on Hal Brognola more than once, because that man he knew like his own brother. Right now, that knowledge told the wounded warrior what Brognola had not: Time had just run out. R and R was bullshit.

"Something has broken, hasn't it, Hal?"

"What about Charon?" Brognola asked, evading the question.

"He's agreed to talk. The computer boys are debriefing him right now. Aaron should have everything he needs to tap into the DonCo mainframe. The station here will send via scrambled telex within the hour."

"Aaron is standing by," Brognola said. "And he ought to be able to find enough bloody fingerprints in Charon's data banks to put the guy on ice for a long time. That's one leak plugged." Brognola sighed. "And two more are probably springing open as we're talking."

"We'll plug them as we find them, Hal," Bolan replied evenly. This man who had pledged his being to the good fight had long ago accepted the basic facts of life. Sure, the terrorist campaigns comprised a war of containment, a constant battle to beat down the brush fires of armed aggression whenever and wherever they flared. But it was spontaneous combustion, and it would go on forever, or until men no longer tried to dominate other men through intimidation, repression, terror. It was war everlasting, war that might never be won.

But Bolan knew it was worth the fight.

"Something else has broken, Hal," Bolan repeated. "I want to know what it is." Static crackled again, long enough to allow Bolan to get a cigarette lit.

This hesitation was characteristic of the Justice Department Fed. Hal Brognola was no by-the-book bureaucrat by any means, but a lifetime in government service molds a man, for sure, and he had never been entirely comfortable with Mack Bolan's free-lance status. As early as the Miami blitz against the Cosa Nostra, Brognola had extended a clandestine olive branch, what amounted to an official hunting license with the condition that the Executioner answer to, and take orders from, Justice. Bolan had refused. He wanted no sanction; in fact, he plainly acknowledged that by every rule of society he was an outlaw. The cop in Hal Brognola knew this as well.

But the patriot in him knew that Bolan was getting results. The Mafia was falling over like so many ducks in a carnival shooting gallery, and the nation Brognola was sworn to protect was growing stronger daily for the Executioner's efforts.

In the end, Brognola and Bolan struck a compromise. The new war against terrorism was too broad, too awesome, and too great a threat to the future of this globe. No one man could take it on alone, but if one man existed who could spearhead the campaign, that man was Mack Bolan. When the complete backing of the Sensitive Operations Group of the Department of Justice were offered, Bolan accepted.

With conditions.

The Stony Man Farm command complex, nestled in the shadow of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, was Bolan's domain. The Stony Man team — April Rose, Aaron Kurtzman, Able Team, Phoenix Force, and all the rest of them — were his people, personally hand-picked, answerable to no one but him. Bolan would operate as he always had.

With responsibility. And with direct and effective action. Yeah, effective it had been.

From the jungles of Panama and the high-mountain country of eastern Turkey, to the Algerian desert and beyond, the terrorist cadres had gotten a taste of something the Mafia had grown to know and hate.

It was called the Bolan Effect. And it worked.

Hal Brognola thanked God that it was working for their side. If all Bolan required in exchange was a free hand, he'd damn well have it.

"What do you remember about Frank Edwards?" Brognola said. Edwards had been a back-burner project of the Stony Team for some time, and Bolan was familiar with the broad outlines of the man's dossier.

"Ex-CIA," Bolan said. "Suspected of freelancing for various Arab radical factions in the Middle East. He's also been fingered as having worked in an advisory capacity for Amin in Uganda and Khaddafi in Libya, training and tradecraft, if I remember correctly."

"You do, Striker," Brognola confirmed. "Add to that gun-running, we believe he's been acting as the middleman in the illegal shipment of American armament ultimately destined for terrorist hands. But he's beyond our official reach, and even if he weren't, we couldn't put him on trial, because we'd have to make top-secret intelligence public in order to present the evidence against him."

"But we would like to see him take a fall."

"He's got to take a fall, Striker," Brognola said. "New intelligence has just come in on the guy, and if I read it right, he's got his finger in a far bigger pie than we ever suspected. Not only that, but it ties in with Charon. Edwards has to be interdicted, and now..."

Bolan ground out his cigarette butt on the concrete floor of the barren underground room. "Take it from the top, Hal."

"Right. We're telexing you Edwards's updated dossier and a data package, but here's the bare bones of it. Edwards's personal staff, the half dozen or so he employs for security, communications, liaison with his terrorist clients, and other "housekeeping" duties, are all Americans. They're either ex-Special Forces, or ex-Agency, like him."

Like him, for sure. Another nest of treasonous vipers, men in whose lexicon words like "loyalty" and "patriotism" had been replaced by "power-lust" and "self-interest." Yeah, Edwards needed to take a fall, and Bolan would be more than happy to give him the push.

"More than six months ago, we infiltrated one of our people into Edwards's organization. Because Edwards is a highly trained operative himself and still maintains a vast network of clandestine contacts within the international intelligence community, we had to make it look absolutely authentic. Only three people knew the truth: the agent, myself, and the commander in chief. That'll give you an idea how badly we want Edwards. Following orders, the agent sold some factual but outdated information to a KGB counter-intel operator, was caught, and was cashiered of course. As far as the agency knows — and her files support this — she was drummed out after a long and valued career because she turned rotten. Even her closest colleagues believe it. It had to be that way, because we believe it's possible that Edwards may even have a pipeline into the agency. It worked. Within a week the approach to Edwards was made, and within a month she was in."

Bolan had not missed the feminine pronoun. An idea started to take shape in his mind and he did not like the look of it.

"This was projected as a long-term operation, to be conducted with absolute minimum risk of error. For that reason, our agent has contacted us exactly twice in those six months. In the first instance, she informed us that Edwards was just as professional as we believed. He was treating her as what she was: a highly trained and proficient operative. No grab-ass bullshit or anything like that. She had been given a few assignments, nothing very sensitive-courier duty, surveillance, intelligence analysis, and so forth. Edwards was testing her out, and she was passing with flying colors. He was convinced that she was what she professed to be: a fellow professional and a fellow traitor."