Patriot Acts

2

JoAnn Wolfe looked up from the microscope as she examined a sample from the stack of bills. The Los Angeles Crime Lab night shift was no less busy than any other time of the day, but Wolfe had been given a pass on new cases and assigned to examine the evidence sample brought in by Matt Cooper on behalf of the Justice Department.

Wolfe’s dark, red tinted hair was tied back and her smooth brow furrowed with a tiny cleft of a wrinkle between her eyes.

“What?” the Executioner asked.

“I’ve got fingerprints from two sources. Both are in our database. Einhard and Admussen. They’re arms dealers. Heard of them?” Wolfe asked.

Bolan nodded. “No fingerprints from anyone else?”

“Not even on the wrapper for the stack. Normally you get impressions, and while I have fingertip shapes, there are no whorls,” Wolfe said. “Unless this guy regularly trims his fingerprints, he should have left something, but I’ve got nothing.”

Bolan frowned. “Regular use of solvents would smooth out the ridges.”

Wolfe let him look through the microscope. There were round, featureless pads left by skin-based oils on the bill that hadn’t developed fingerprint patterns.

“What about the results on the serial numbers?” Bolan asked.

“That’s something else,” Wolfe replied. “They’re discontinued currency, bills originally scheduled for incineration because they were old and tattered.”

Bolan looked at the pristine, nearly perfect bill. “Old and tattered?”

“That’s according to treasury records,” Wolfe stated. “Of course, the look of this money doesn’t match the records. Granted, the date range on the bills are correct, but they’re so clean they could have been printed yesterday.”

“Maybe they were,” Bolan said.

“If they were counterfeit, they’d have to have access to the right paper and ink stocks, and the plate patterns are perfect,” Wolfe stated.

Bolan nodded. “The right paper style for the date range on these bills?”

“Perfect. But they’ve never been used,” Wolfe said.

“And they were scheduled for destruction?” Bolan asked.

“You think the originals might have been destroyed?” Wolfe asked.

“It’s not impossible. The retired printing machinery might have been acquired by someone else to make these bills,” Bolan stated. “And they could have printed up this cash using the discard list.”

“That’s an awful lot of work for ten thousand dollars,” Wolfe mused.

“Ten thousand in this stack, for this deal,” Bolan noted. “How out of date are those bills?”

“Twenty years old,” Wolfe told him. She chewed her lower lip. “So you’re saying the machinery that printed these notes has been used for at least twenty years?”

“What cheaper way to finance a black-bag operation than to print your own cash?” Bolan asked. “Especially if you’re using the money overseas. Ten thousand a mission, give it about eighteen missions a year,” he said.

“Three point six million, minimum,” Wolfe said. “Not counting local bribes, tickets, accommodations…”

“Paying for backup,” Bolan added. “Let’s call it five million in funny money. Officially printed on retired U.S. Treasury machinery. For a black-bag operation, it’d be obscenely cost-effective.”

“That’s just one operative,” Wolfe noted. “How many organizations have only one top spook?”

Bolan nodded. “They’d be given similar budgets.”

His cell phone warbled and he plucked it from his pocket. “Cooper.”

“Striker,” Hal Brognola’s voice greeted him on the other side. “We have a possible incident in Phoenix involving our quarry.”

“So he did get on a flight at LAX,” Bolan noted.

“It’s likely. We have an unknown body at the airport food court,” Brognola said. “I’ve got local FBI agents running his fingerprints, but they couldn’t get any.”

“Just like our shooter,” Bolan told the man from Justice. “The guy removed his fingerprints. We got tip impressions, but no identifiable markings on the bills or the wrapper.”

“So we’re talking about a serious covert operation,” Brognola said.

“That’s what Wolfe’s thinking. They’re using authentic printing machinery and supplies to cook up their own cash for their operations,” Bolan said.

“Damn,” Brognola grumbled. Bolan could hear his friend gnawing at the end of his cigar on the other end of the line.

“Can you get me to Phoenix?” Bolan asked.

“Chances are that our killer’s flown the coop,” Brognola stated.

“It’d get me closer to him,” Bolan said. “I might be able to figure something out.”

“Jack’s just landed at LAX. With the Gulfstream, you could fly to Moscow if you wanted,” Brognola said. “Granted, I hope you don’t have to.”

Bolan glanced through the window of Wolfe’s lab, seeing four men in dark suits and sunglasses get off an elevator. They had visitor badges, and U.S. Treasury IDs hanging from their suit lapels.

“Jo, did the Treasury Department say anything about sending someone over to pick up the cash you ran through their listing?” Bolan asked.

Wolfe looked up from the money. “No. In fact they only wanted me to keep a couple bills for them. The rest I was told to break down for chemical composition testing. As long as I gave them the results—”

“Get down!” Bolan snapped.

The four men spotted the Executioner and his crime lab compatriot, and pulled submachine guns out from under their jackets. The only T-men Bolan knew who carried compact subguns were the Secret Service agents assigned to presidential protection details. Four counterfeiting investigators wouldn’t require that kind of firepower, especially when paying a visit to the LAPD.

Bolan lunged across the table and knocked Wolfe to the floor an instant before the safety glass of the lab blew into translucent chunks. Wolfe grimaced, Bolan’s weight crushing down on her for only an instant before he rolled off. The Desert Eagle filled his hand and he snapped off the safety with practiced skill.

Wolfe pulled her sidearm from her own holster, a .45-caliber Glock 30.

“Stay down,” Bolan snarled. Whoever the gunmen were, they were disciplined. The streams of autofire were relentless, meaning that they were staggering their bursts, allowing their partners to reload.

Bolan guessed the position of the elevator through the low aluminum wall. At least one hose of 9 mm autofire came from that direction and the Executioner triggered his Desert Eagle, burning off the massive handgun’s .44 Magnum payload. A scream of agony and a stutter in the constant cacophony of automatic weapon fire rewarded Bolan as the 240-grain slugs punched through the slim metal skin of the lab.

“Bastards toasted my microscope,” Wolfe snarled. “I want a piece of them.”

“I get first crack. If they somehow get past me, they’re all yours,” Bolan replied. He dumped the partially spent magazine and fed it a fresh stick.

“Hand over the cash and no one gets hurt!” came a bellow. Bolan grabbed a stool and swung it up through the shattered window. Uzi fire rattled, perforating the vinyl-clad seat. The angle betrayed the shooter’s position and Bolan popped up. The front sight of the Desert Eagle locked on the Uzi-packing fake Fed. A single .44-caliber round slammed the gunman in the chest, hurling him to the floor. Bolan swiveled and saw a third gunman line up on him.

More thunderbolts ripped from the Desert Eagle, but the raider dived back into the elevator.

Wolfe lunged and shouldered Bolan to the floor as another rattling snarl of gunfire swept through the window. She grunted, spinning and clutching her shattered shoulder.

“He’s still kicking,” the scientist rasped as she tried to control the bleeding.

“Body armor,” Bolan mused.

“Head shot,” she suggested.

Bolan didn’t waste the breath to let her know how obvious the advice was. He sighted on the perforated low wall and saw the flicker of movement through the bullet holes torn by the fake T-man. The Desert Eagle hammered out a rumbling thunderstorm of heavy slugs. Four rounds smashed through the sievelike wall panel, blowing it over. On the other side, the Uzi-packing man slumped lifeless, half of his face ripped off by a wide-mouthed hollowpoint round. The gun lay silenced between splayed legs.

A cabinet shuddered as more submachine gun fire rattled from the direction of the elevator.

“My paperwork,” Wolfe groaned. Her face was screwed up in pain. “Dammit, stop shooting my files!”

Bolan rose to his feet and aimed at the gunman he’d nailed in the legs. The man swung his Uzi and pulled the trigger, but the weapon was empty. The Executioner vaulted over the cabinet and the low wall, spearing through the window. The third and fourth shooters were nowhere to be seen. He saw the wounded gunman struggling to reload his Uzi, but Bolan kicked the weapon from his hands and smashed his heel against the man’s jaw on the swing back. Lab staff members came running.

“Officers! Secure this man!” Bolan snapped. “Get a medic for CSI Wolfe!”

“They moved out that way,” a technician said. She held the side of her face, a shredded strip of skin livid from where she’d been pistol-whipped with an Uzi. “There’s a controlled access stairwell, but they shot the lock to shit.”

“I’m on it. Someone get on the radio and tell everyone to keep out of these guys’ way,” Bolan ordered. “They don’t care who they kill.”

“And you?” the hurt tech asked.

“I keep them from killing,” Bolan said, racing off toward the stairwell.

3

The Executioner heard the gunmen’s thundering footsteps below him in the stairwell. Bolan took the flights fast and furious, hopping when he was halfway down and rolling along the walls to eat up his forward momentum and get turned around to take the next flight. He was almost to the second floor when he heard the emergency exit slam open one floor below.

Bolan swung around and saw a dark-suited fake Treasury agent swing up his machine pistol. He lurched backward. A stream of 9 mm slugs filled the air where his head had been only moments ago, plaster chewed out of the under-sides of the stairs above his head. He aimed his Desert Eagle and spiked a quartet of .44 Magnum slugs at the shooter. There was a snarled curse of panic as the man retreated.

Bolan bounded down the final steps as he holstered the big handgun and pulled his shoulder-holstered Beretta. The two men, posing as federal agents, had infiltrated the Los Angeles Crime Lab in an effort to gain control of counterfeit cash that Bolan was investigating. The two had survived the initial conflict, and the Executioner was going to keep the pair from escaping.

At the bottom of the steps, he burst into an alley and spotted the pair piling into their car. The Executioner raised the Beretta and ripped off a 3-round burst that took out the rear window of the car. They had a driver waiting behind the wheel, and he gunned the engine, tires spewing smoke before they caught hold and pushed the car forward.

Hot pursuit time, Bolan mused as he charged the length of the alley, punching more rounds, this time ripping 9 mm bullets into the road by the tires. After two tribursts, the right rear tire of the sedan exploded violently, flopping on its rim. The right fender screeched, wailing as it was shredded on contact with the wall, pulled off course by the deflated ring of floppy rubber.

Gunshots tore through the rear window, automatic weapons in the hands of the fake Feds churning out slugs. Had the driver not been in a struggle to maintain control of the limping sedan, the gunmen could have nailed the Executioner as he charged after them. But rather than hit their target, autofire sprayed wildly. As it was, the sedan ground to a halt, the front bumper rammed into a telephone pole. The driver ground the stick shift, trying to get the car into Reverse.

Bolan fired again, sinking another burst through the rear window, and suddenly the two muzzle-flashes became one. Bolan ducked behind a large garbage bin and reloaded his Beretta, knowing that at full gallop, he couldn’t have been certain of a direct, fight-stopping hit on one of his opponents. Rather, it was likely that the silent weapon needed recharging, or had jammed.

Sure enough, a handgun took up the slack of the quieted Uzi. Bolan took a moment as bullets hammered the garbage bin, drew and tapped off his Desert Eagle with a few deft movements. He swung around the side with the Beretta and the .44 Magnum pistol in each hand. The sedan lumbered relentlessly back toward him, the enemy driver trying to turn his car into a missile.

The Executioner’s handguns blazed out thunderbolts of Magnum firepower and sputtering lightning jolts of 9 mm bursts, ripping a dozen slugs into the charging beast. Then he whirled and jammed himself in the walkway between two structures.

The sedan bulldozed past, hurtling the garbage bin onto its side with a thunderous crash.

“Luke! Don’t stop shooting!” a voice cried from the dark car. The rear passenger door was visible to Bolan in the walkway, and he could see an Uzi-toting man kneeling on the backseat. Bolan raised his Desert Eagle and fired twice. The second bullet was insurance in case the window deflected the first shot, but both Magnum slugs detonated gory holes through the gunner’s back, sprawling him across his wounded partner.

“Stop the car!” Bolan shouted.

The driver leaned back to the rear of the car, leveled a pistol and opened fire. Bolan hit the sidewalk as slugs ripped into the brick around him, knocking loose explosions of stone splinters that rained down on him.

The sedan lurched forward, mangled metal chewing at the front tire, but the driver managed to wrestle some speed out of the damaged car.

Bolan burst into the alley and continued the chase as the enemy driver urged his wheels along. Wrecked as it was by impacts and tire-shredding bullets, the automotive dinosaur finally slowed enough to make foot pursuit possible.

But the driver suddenly jammed the car crosswise at the end of the alley, forming a barrier. The two survivors got out. One was hobbled by a bullet wound that had torn a chunk of muscle out of his thigh. The driver hooked his arm under the wounded man’s and lurched into the street, aiming his handgun at the windshield of a passing SUV.

Bolan reached the alley’s end and vaulted over the car, just as the driver deposited his wounded partner into the SUV. On the ground a woman, her chest bloody, gasped as she clutched the spreading dark smear. The Executioner stopped long enough to see if there was anyone else in the vehicle who could be a hostage. Bolan’s pause to ensure the safety of innocents provided time for the fleeing driver to swing his pistol around and open fire. The driver blazed away at the Executioner and forced him to race in a serpentine charge for the nearest available cover. Bullets smashed the concrete at Bolan’s heels.

The Executioner fired at the grille of the stolen SUV, hoping his Desert Eagle would have enough punch to render the massive V-8 engine useless to the escaping murderers. If he could force the pair into retreat, he could check on the woman and apply emergency first aid.

The driver was a wily, quick snake, however, diving into the seat well and jamming on the gas with his hand. The SUV lurched and rocketed down the street.

Bolan raced to the wounded woman.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

She winced, and blood trickled from her nose. The right side of her chest showed a ragged laceration, indicative of a glancing wound through her upper chest. The bullet went in, but had deflected off a rib bone and exited the side of her chest, slashing across her biceps. It was a grisly injury, but survivable. A closer examination showed that her nose was swollen from a brutal impact. Bolan was relieved to see that the nasal trickle wasn’t bright red as if from an injured lung.

Bolan looked at the SUV as it disappeared into the distance.

A trio of LAPD squad cars screeched to a halt. The Executioner had his Justice Department badge around his neck, but he still held his hands up as the cops got out.

“Agent Cooper, FBI!” he announced. “Get this woman an ambulance.”

HENRY COSTELL PICKED UP Cameron Richards in a nondescript, rusted old van. Richards didn’t have to ask if his pilot and wheelman made certain that the vehicle was clean of any tracers or identifying features.

“Los Angeles was a screw job, Hank,” Richards explained. “I think I was set up for a fall.”

“It means they’ll want to retire me and the others, too,” Costell said. His close-cropped blond hair was a fuzz on top of his round, big-eared head.

“I can’t believe that after all we’ve given them…” Richards said. He took a deep breath, putting the frustration away for later. “I’ve saved this country from countless threats.”

“You’ve saved the whole world,” Costell explained. “It doesn’t matter. The weaklings in government aren’t strong enough to do what has to be done against the hordes hemorrhaging through our southern border, or the maniacs in the Middle East.”

“Don’t even get me started on some of the shit we’ve seen in China,” Richards whispered. “Hell, we’ve seen so many things that could destroy the world that we wouldn’t have to look far.” He paused for a moment.

“Why not?” Richards asked.

“Why not what?” Costell asked. “Destroy everything we’ve worked for?”

“We know enough to destroy the puppet masters,” Richards said. “The ones who’ve been pulling our strings, the ones who’ve been pulling the strings of our enemies. We could take out the whole set of them, maybe give this world another chance.”

Costell pulled into a parking lot and turned off the engine. “They’ll kill us, no matter what we do,” he admitted.

“This way, we not only give ourselves a measure of vengeance, but we create a new world. A world where people can live like they were meant to, by their own wits and courage,” Richards said.

“There’d be battles across the country, not to mention international conflicts. And all we have is Weist and his men on our side,” Costell countered.

“Not just him. We’ve got tabs on dozens of groups who would jump at the chance to play with the toys we’re going to pull out of the chest,” Richards stated. “We could build an army.”

Costell stared, unfocused, out of the windshield. He didn’t see the storefronts before him, but instead he saw a world that could be forged in the fires of a single act of apocalyptic revenge. He glanced back to Richards. “What would we use?”

“We’ve got everything from the Rage Pulse to Blue Fire,” Richards answered.

“That stuff is under lock and key. The Initiative wouldn’t let us touch it when we still were their trusted soldiers,” Costell said.

“So what?” Richards asked. “We know where we can get it. They might have had contingencies for us, but we’ve got our own ideas.”

“You’re not really paranoid if they are out to get you,” Costell agreed. “So we bust in, and pop off some doomsday weaponry.”

“And if we’re lucky, we can survive,” Richards said. “But if not, we at least hit the real bastards.”

“We’ll need transportation,” Costell noted.

“First we call up Weist and his boys,” Richards said. “I’ve got some ideas for a ride that will get us exactly where we want to be.”

4

Arnold Dozier didn’t speak as Bolan entered the interrogation room. The Executioner simply stood there staring at the man he’d captured in the crime lab raid.

“So, what’s your plan?” Dozier asked. “How’re you going to break me?”

Bolan leaned over the table and opened the handcuffs connecting Dozier to the mooring pipe on the table. Dozier looked at the loosened fetters, then rubbed his wrist. He’d received some bruising from the LAPD cops who’d walked him in there, but nothing that couldn’t be put down to Dozier’s own clumsiness.

“I’ve got nothing on you,” Bolan said. “You’re a free man.”

“Really?” Dozier asked.

“Apparently you don’t exist,” Bolan replied. He tossed the fingerprint chart on the table. “Arnold Dozier died ten years ago. And frankly, I don’t have any known jurisdiction over the reanimated dead.”

Dozier sneered. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope,” Bolan said. “Blow.”

Dozier looked at the fingerprint chart in front of him.

His prints had been run and had come back as those of a dead man. He suddenly realized that Bolan and the LAPD had a list of paperwork on him. Photos, prints, and even if it all led to a dead end, the Rose Initiative wasn’t going to take a breach of operational security lightly.

The big man turned and opened the door. Dozier looked past him and saw a row of grim-faced lawmen, some tightening grips on batons, others flexing their fingers through gleaming brass knuckles.

“So what’s that?” Dozier asked.

“You’re dead. You shouldn’t worry about that,” Bolan said. “Now blow.”

Dozier knew the cops were waiting for their chance to give him some payback for the attack on their crime lab. “Why didn’t you ask anything?” he said.

“Frankly, I don’t have the time,” Bolan answered. “You’re obviously inured to interrogation techniques. Torture, drugs, sensory deprivation.”

“But everyone breaks eventually,” Dozier said.

“And while I’m doing that, the rest of your organization continues its operation, killing innocent American citizens,” Bolan countered. “I’d spend the time to break you at the cost of what, thirty? A hundred? A thousand lives? Nah. I’ll just let you go as a goat. When your friends pop up to eliminate you, I pounce on them. I work up the food chain. A worm to catch a small fish. A small fish to catch a big fish. A big fish to catch the shark.”

Dozier shook his head. “They’ll know I didn’t talk.”

“Like you just said—everyone breaks. Especially after the beating you’ll take from my friends,” the Executioner said.

Dozier frowned. He reached for the handcuffs. “I’ve got rights.”

Dozier’s head bounced from the force of Bolan’s fist, and he sprawled across the floor.

“I told you, you have no rights. You’re a dead man,” Bolan stated. “Now get out of here.”

Dozier looked at the gauntlet he’d have to run. He knew the big man was right. There was someone out there who would eliminate him. He struggled to sit in the chair, holding on to the restraint bar. “I’m staying,” he said quietly.

Bolan’s next punch rocked Dozier’s head.

“Ask something!” Dozier snapped, thick, blood-filled spittle spraying all over Bolan’s pants.