Fireburst

CHAPTER FOUR

Washington, D.C.

Tugging his necktie loose, Hal Brognola used the heels of his palms to rub his eyes, and then poured himself yet another cup of strong black coffee from an insulated carafe. Only a few drops came out, so he rose from behind the desk and crossed the office to start making a fresh pot.

The office was orderly and neat, the walls decorated with pictures of his wife and children and law-enforcement certificates. His suit jacket was hung across the back of a chair, and an old police-issue .38 revolver was holstered at the small of his back. The grip was worn from decades of use in the field, and long hours at the shooting range every weekend. It had been a while since Brognola had drawn a weapon, but he knew that when the need arose there would be no advance warning.

The big Fed returned to his desk with a fresh cup of coffee. Tapping some keys on a keyboard, Brognola reviewed the fact sheet he had been assembling for Mack Bolan and the President on lightning. The voltage and wattage widely varied, but generally they were around a hundred-million volts, which was more than enough to kill a bull elephant, much less a human being. The earth was hit by roughly 50,000 lightning bolts a year, and an average 3,000 people died every year from being struck.

Single-strike, multistrike, forked, chain, sheet, sprite, elves, trolls, Brognola hadn’t heard of half of the forms of lightning bolts he’d researched, and he had been startled to discover the old joke about a bolt from the blue was horrifyingly true. Blue lightning could arc in from five miles away. The sky would be perfectly clear, the wind calm, and a split second later you were a pile of ash in the grass.

“Good night, Chief!” his secretary, Kelly, called out from the other side of the office door. “See you tomorrow!”

“Drive safely!” Brognola answered back, casting a nervous glance out the window at the cloudy sky. It wasn’t raining in D.C. yet, but it would soon, at which point all bets were off.

On top of everything else, the list of possible targets hit by these snake charmers, as they used to call people who claimed to be able to make it rain, was getting longer all the time, and the death toll was rising faster than Brognola could keep track of. At first, it was mostly meteorologists and weather scientists. Now, it was financial experts, bank computers and underworld informers. Obviously, the snake charmers were systematically clearing the way for when they came out of the shadows.

“That’s when the blood will really hit the fan,” Brognola said softly, starting to drink from his mug, only to find it empty once more.

Suddenly, an alarm began beeping. A new icon was spinning on the monitor. He double-clicked, and it expanded into a view of the President of the United States sitting at his desk in the Oval Office.

“Good evening, Hal,” the President said, pulling his hand back from a keyboard. Then he frowned. “Although, to be honest, I don’t think that it’s going to be very good for either of us now.”

“What has happened, sir?” Brognola asked.

“First, allow me to apologize,” the President said, running both hands through his black hair. “I didn’t believe in your theory of terrorists using lightning, but now…”

“What was hit?”

Tapping some keys, the President sighed. “See for yourself, my friend.”

The view of the Oval Office reduced to a small rectangle in the corner, the rest of the screen shifting to an outside view of military base in the desert. Dark, jagged mountains filled the horizon.

“Five-Star, this is Fireball Forward!” a colonel shouted into a handmike while trying to hold his cap on top of his head against a stiff wind.

In the background were rows of Buffaloes and Hummers, a score of 4x6 trucks, a dozen Abrams tanks and two Black Hawk gunships. The Hummers were equipped with light machine guns, while the much bulkier Buffaloes were actually armed with .50-caliber machine guns. A burst from those would flip over a Hummer, but not even shake the road dust off an armored Buffalo.

“This is Five-Star,” a voice stated. “Go ahead Fireball, we read you loud and clear!”

Brognola grunted at that. Five-Star was the code this month for the Pentagon.

“Five-Star, we’ve found the enemy camp,” the colonel shouted, the wind kicking up dust clouds. Soldiers were running for cover as the buffeted trucks rocked slightly. “But we had to take cover—there is a major sandstorm coming this way!”

Just then, lightning flashed across the sky, painfully bright even on the laptop monitor, and the picture scrambled for a few seconds from the accompanying electromagnetic burst.

Leaning forward, Brognola held his breath. Please guys, start running, he silently urged.

“Say again, Fireball?” the Pentagon demanded.

“Sandstorm!” the colonel bellowed as, in the background, the horizon rose like a wave at sea.

Billowing and churning, the stormfront swept toward the army battalion. In only a matter of seconds it engulfed the makeshift base and visibility was reduced to only a few feet.

A deafening howl dominated the picture as dozens of soldiers were slammed to the ground, and every loose item was sent hurtling about into the turbulent brown air. Then lightning flashed, and a truck exploded, the concussion slamming other trucks aside and sending a dozen men flying away into the building storm.

“Say again, Fireball, where is your location?” the Pentagon operator demanded, the volume bar sliding all the way to maximum. “Do you need assistance?”

The colonel said something about northern mountains when the lightning appeared again, going straight into the open hatch of an Abrams tank. The armored machine seemed to bulge outward for a moment before erupting, the hellish corona of shrapnel, corpses and broken machinery spraying outward to decimate a group of soldiers and flip over both of the Black Hawks.

“Get in those caves,” Brognola whispered, both hands clenched into fists.

Again and again, the lightning lanced out, destroying one tank after another, then the bolts began walking along the ground, leaving behind rivers of steaming lava. Screaming soldiers burst into flames, their weapons discharging, grenades mercifully ending their ghastly torment.

Feeling physically ill, Brognola wanted to look away, but forced himself to watch, filing away every detail of the savage attack. It lasted less than five minutes, then the lightning abruptly stopped, and there was only the howling wind. The dry sand quickly covering the tattered remains of what had once been a full battalion of men and women.

“Fireball, respond!” the Pentagon demanded. “Is there anybody still alive? Hello, is anybody there?” But the only response was the howling wind and the crackle of countless small fires.

The view froze and shrank, as the President returned.

“When did this happen?” Brognola asked, flexing his hands.

“Twenty minutes ago,” the President stated grimly, sitting back in his chair. “Search and Rescue teams are already on the way, but there’s little hope of finding anybody alive.”

“After that? I would hardly think so,” Brognola replied, fighting a rising wave of helplessness. An entire battalion destroyed in five minutes. Five minutes!

“Have you made any progress on finding these people? Or at least what they want?” the President asked. “These attacks are coming more and more often, and at bigger targets. Soon they’ll start on cities, and then…” His voice trailed off, his face a mask of repressed fury. “We have got to do something!”

“Our best man is in the field, sir,” Brognola said. “But Striker hasn’t reported anything so far.”

“Nothing at all?”

“There’s not much to go on yet, sir. It’s all happening so damn fast! These snake charmers…I mean…”

The President held up a palm. “I understand the reference, Hal. It helps to give the enemy a name, that makes them less intimidating.”

Brognola scowled. “Anyway, sir, these snake charmers have obviously planned out every detail far in advance, including all of our possible responses.”

“Are there any preventive actions we can take?”

“Not at the moment. This isn’t some fanatic with a truckload of dynamite,” Brognola continued. “These are cool, calculating professionals. Right now, we’re still just trying to catch up!”

“Accepted,” the President said. “Granting the assumption that we fail to ascertain their ultimate goals, what happens then?”

Unexpectedly, thunder rumbled overhead.

“They win,” Brognola stated in brutal honesty, as a soft rain began to patter against the window panes.

Miami, Florida

THE SUN WAS WARM ON THEIR faces as Bolan and Kirkland strolled along the boardwalk, the air full of the smell of saltwater mixing with delicious aromas wafting from nearby Cuban and French restaurants.

A steady stream of cars zoomed along the shorefront highway while crystal-blue waves crested on a smooth white shore. Colorful beach umbrellas dotted the sand like psychedelic mushrooms, the small circles of shadow mostly empty, aside from the very young or the very old. The dichotomy of beachlife encapsulated.

There were numerous families playing in the shallows, while small children built sand castles. Standing alert on a centrally located wooden tower, a burly lifeguard dabbed zinc oxide on his nose to prevent unsightly peeling.

Teams of armed police officers in T-shirts, shorts and sneakers, pedaled their speed bikes along the boardwalk, voices crackling from the compact radios clipped to their gun belts. Safely out of the way, a group of muscular young men lifted weights in the glare of the noon sun, while countless dozens of young women in bikinis lounged on oversized towels and spread suntan lotion on their bare skin in a lazy, almost sensuous manner.

All along the length of the beach and boardwalk, smiling vendors pushed along wheeled carts and sold hot dogs, ice cream, cold beer, sandwiches, sunglasses, cell phones and shark repellant.

Trying to blend into the crowd, Bolan and Kirkland were wearing civilian clothing, loose white slacks, and Hawaiian shirts of multicolored orchids. Bolan had the Beretta holstered behind his back, a water bottle in a nylon-mesh sling disguising the telltale lump. Kirkland had the same, a leather camera case masking the presence of his big bore Webley.

Leaving the boardwalk, the two men turned inland and crossed the street. Pausing for a traffic light, Bolan suddenly took out his cell phone. “Cooper here,” he said, using a favored alias.

Watching the ebb and flow of humanity, Kirkland waited patently until Bolan finished the call.

“What was hit?” Kirkland asked, waving off an approaching taxi.

“An army battalion in Afghanistan,” Bolan replied. “Everybody was killed, and even the vehicles were destroyed—trucks, tanks and gunships.”

“The sons of bitches are getting bold,” Kirkland growled, glancing at the fleecy white clouds in the blue sky.

“There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be,” Bolan replied, taking a sip from the water bottle.

“Think the strike was advertising?” Kirkland asked with a scowl. “Show the world what they could do to the mighty United States?”

“Unlikely. Afghanistan is too remote to receive proper TV coverage.”

“Now, we could go there in person,” Kirkland suggested, as a group of kids in tight formation zoomed by on roller skates. “But there are far too many terrorist groups in that part of the world for us to question. It would take years.”

“I have something else in mind,” Bolan said.

“Hey, there it is!” Kirkland said suddenly, pointing across a busy intersection.

Nestled among the rows of T-shirt emporiums, yogurt shops, hair salons and bars was a three-story building that occupied half of the block. A sign on top merely had the single word Montenegro.

“Let’s go,” Bolan said, starting across the street.

“Why did she paint the building pink?” Kirkland asked. “That doesn’t really seem her style.”

“Look around, brother. Most of the larger buildings are pink or blue,” Bolan said, waving a hand. “I think the mayor wants the city to look the way it does in movies.”

“Bloody tourists,” Kirkland growled, as if expelling a piece of rotten fruit from his mouth.

Bolan laughed. “This from a man who runs a casino hotel?”

“Hey, my dice and wheels are honest! Tourists pay a lot for nothing. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Ever been to a museum?”

“Sure…okay, point taken. But I still don’t like them and all their damn cameras!”

As they started toward the pink building, Bolan had a strong feeling that that was the real source of Kirkland’s dislike. Undercover DEA agents, covert ops, spies and mercenaries had all taken a big hit the day the cell phone camera was invented. Jamming devices helped a lot, but nothing could stop all of them. There were just too many.

The row of windows along the top floor of the building were open, and as Bolan and Kirkland got closer they could hear the assorted cries, slaps and grunts of hard physical exercise in progress.

“We need her,” Bolan said, pulling open the glass door. “So keep the safety locked on that smart-ass mouth.”

“I’ll do my best, Sarge,” Kirkland said. “But no promises.”

The lobby inside was cool and crisp, with potted ferns in every corner, and the walls covered with photographs of famous clients: professional athletes, politicians and a lot of movie stars.

“The woman is good,” Kirkland said grudgingly.

“Few better,” Bolan stated, going to the front desk.

“Hello, can I help you gentlemen?” the receptionist asked, switching her gaze back and forth between the two men.

A mature woman with mocha-colored skin and ebony hair, she was wearing a flower-print skirt, but above the waist a skin-tight leotard displayed her firm figure to its full advantage.

Any tighter and Bolan would have been able to see her religion. “We’re here to meet Heather,” he said. “We’re old friends from out of town.”

“How nice, Mr… .” She waited.

“Dupree, Roger Dupree,” Bolan said.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dupree.”

“Roger, please.”

She smiled, revealing unexpected dimples. “Hitesri Chandra… Sherry to my friends.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Sherry.”

She glanced at Kirkland.

He grinned. “Lamont Cranston.”

She arched an eyebrow at that. “Is Ms. Montenegro expecting you?” Sherry asked hesitantly.

“No, this is a surprise visit,” Bolan said.

“However, we did leave a message at her AA meeting,” Kirkland suddenly added with a straight face.

Frowning at that, Sherry turned to look only at Bolan. “Well, I’m sorry, but Ms. Montenegro is conducting a private class at the moment. But if you’d care to wait…” She smiled invitingly and didn’t finish the sentence.

“Mind if we just go straight up?” Kirkland asked, pulling open the stairwell door.

“Sir, that’s not allowed!” Sherry shouted, reaching out a hand.

But Kirkland was already gone, taking the steps two at a time.

“Please excuse my friend,” Bolan apologized, heading for the open doorway. “He was raised in a cave by bears.”

“Pity they didn’t eat him,” Sherry muttered, sitting back down.

At the top of the stairs, a small landing led to a changing room lined with lockers. There were private showers, a steam room, and from down a short hallway came the familiar sounds of a fight in progress.

Heading that way, Bolan and Kirkland caught the smells of sweat, blood and some sort of stringent herbal compound.

“Ah, Tiger Balm, just the smell makes me ache,” Kirkland said wistfully. “You know, I still carry some of the stuff in my bag?”

“Who doesn’t?” Bolan replied, as they proceeded along the hallway.

“I just wish it didn’t reek like the southern end of a northbound rhinosaurus.”

As they’d expected, the room wasn’t a gymnasium, but a dojo, a martial arts studio. Although it was large and well-lit by ceiling fixtures, there was no furniture of any kind, just thick mats covering the floor and punching bags hanging in every corner. On the walls were racks of blunt bamboo poles, cushioned wooden sticks, then uncushioned sticks, knives and swords, followed by a wide variety of more exotic weaponry. The only decorations were framed pictographs in Japanese, Chinese and Korean extolling the virtues of honor and courage.

There were a dozen people of various ages sitting on the mats. Everybody was barefoot and wearing a loose cotton judo uniform, the twill jackets held shut with twisted cloth belts. Most of the students wore the red belts of advanced pupils, but there were also a few beginners in white belts and one high-ranking brown belt.

Standing at the front of the class was a tall woman with flaming red hair tied off her face with a strip of rawhide. She was completely without cosmetics and strikingly beautiful, with a full mouth and slightly slanting eyes of emerald-green that spoke of a mixed ancestry. Her white uniform was edged with black piping, and she wore the black belt of a teacher tied around a trim waist.

“So that’s the deal. The first person to physically touch me gets a full refund on all of their fees,” Heather Montenegro said, tightening her belt.

“That’s all?” a burly black man asked suspiciously. “Just touch you? Not put you down or draw blood?”

Tolerantly, Montenegro smiled. “If you manage either of those, Mr. Cortland, you can have the building. Now, everybody stand!”

In unison, the students rose smoothly to their feet, many of them going immediately into an attack stance.

“Any volunteers for today’s demonstration?” Montenegro asked, adjusting the rawhide around her forehead.

Three men and two women stepped forward, everybody else stayed in place.

“All right, begin,” Montenegro said calmly, both hands at her side.

Instantly, the group of five charged forward, three of the students assuming the cat stance, the last two dropping into the horse position. Separating fast, they all converged on Montenegro from different directions.

“Pitiful,” Kirkland muttered. “Five will get you six she drops them all in under a minute.”

“No bet,” Bolan said, shaking his head.

As the first student got close, she collapsed into a dragon crouch and did a leg sweep. Swaying out of the way, Montenegro caught the foot by the ankle, and twisted, sending the woman tumbling away.

Extending both arms, a man dove forward, obviously intent on trying merely to touch the teacher. Montenegro ducked under the arms, then spun around the man and slammed him in the back, adding her force to his own rush. Out of control, he slammed into the cushioned wall and rebounded, bleeding profusely from a broken nose.

The third student flipped over backward like an acrobat to land in the drunken monkey position, both arms raised for a double strike. A split second later, Montenegro buried her heel into the stomach of the man. Turning bright red, he doubled over, gasping and choking.

The last two students immediately retreated slightly, circling the motionless Montenegro. Then they both moved with blinding speed, the man chopping for her neck, while the woman kicked for a knee. A classic hi-lo formation.

Swatting aside the punch, Montenegro lashed out a foot to block the kick, then threw the man over her shoulder to crash into the woman. They went down in a tangle of limbs.

“Enough!” Montenegro called, straightening her stance. “Now, class, what was wrong with—” Spinning, she blocked a punch from the man with the bloody nose, then effortlessly flipped him sideways.

“While I applaud your tenacity, Steven,” Montenegro said, walking closer to stand over the panting man. “The next time you attack after I called a stop, I’ll break both of your arms.”

“Yes, sensei,” he muttered, his face pressed into the mat.

“Only try something fancy when you’re desperate,” Montenegro continued, kneeling to massage his spine with her knuckles. Almost instantly, the bleeding stopped and he began to breath more easily.

“Better?” Montenegro asked, ceasing the administrations.

“Better,” he muttered, stiffly getting to his feet. “You’re fast, sensei.”

“True. So never underestimate an opponent,” Montenegro said sternly, then turned about. “All right, class, as I was saying…” Her voice faded away at the sight of Bolan and Kirkland across the room.

“What the hell are you two doing…aw, crap,” Montenegro said, yanking off the rawhide strip.

Politely, Bolan gave a short bow of respect, while Kirkland waved in greeting. “Hiya, toots! How’s tricks?”

Scowling in annoyance, Montenegro deeply inhaled, then sighed. “Barbara!”

“Yes, ma’am?” replied the short blonde wearing the brown belt.

“Please take over for me. Work on disarming an opponent armed with a knife without breaking their bones. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Days,” Bolan corrected.

“After that, who knows?” Kirkland added with a grin.

Frowning for a moment, Montenegro then shrugged in acceptance. “Barbara, the class is yours until further notice.”

Barbara seemed flustered. “But, ma’am—”

“Hey now, wait just a damn minute!” said a burly man wearing a white belt. “I came here for Montenegro, not some teenager barely out of diapers!”

Without comment, Barbara stepped sideways to grab him by the wrist, then twisted hard, sending him to the mat. Then she buried a thumbnail into his throat. Twitching with unbelievable pain, the man broke into a sweat, his mouth opening and closing, but nothing coming out.

“What were you saying again?” Barbara asked, easing her grip.

“Yes, sensei,” he wheezed softly.

“Senpai,” Barbara corrected. “I’m only a teacher, not a master.”

Seeing that everything was in order, Montenegro bowed to the class, then crossed the mats to kiss Bolan warmly on the cheek. “Nice to see you again, Blackie.”

“Same here, Heather.” Bolan smiled. “You look great.”

“You, too!” Montenegro chuckled.

“I see you’ve updated the curriculum,” Kirkland said diplomatically.