Crucial Intercept

The North Koreans were holding Baldero within the building—if the cryptographer was still alive

From his vantage point in a line of cars parked on the street, the Executioner considered the problem. Any attempt to raid the building would cause the North Koreans to either flee or, worse, kill Baldero and cut their losses before they escaped. That could not be permitted. A surgical strike was called for—and the time for action had arrived.

Bolan made sure his weapons were secure in their holsters and that he carried a full complement of spare magazines, drawing from the last of the stores in his war bag. Then he screwed the custom-built suppressor to the threaded barrel of his Beretta 93-R, held the pistol low against his leg and walked up to the front of the curio shop.

Knowing that at any moment, a shotgun blast could chop him in half at the waist, Bolan took a step back and planted a combat-booted foot on the wooden door. It splintered and slammed inward, reverberating off the wall inside.

Bolan dived into the room.

Rescue was coming—and with it, hell.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900

Terrorism will not be tolerated in the suburban backyards and city streets of America—not on my watch. I will attack from all sides, from every angle, until the enemies inevitably turn their guns on each other.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

1

Mack Bolan pulled the Crown Victoria sedan into the only free slot among the convenience store’s gas pumps, jockeying for position among the other drivers already fueling up. The man still known to some as the Executioner was just outside Williamsburg, Virginia, having spent the past several hours burning up state highways. The Crown Victoria, an FOUO—for official use only—vehicle on loan from a CIA motor pool, was a “plainclothes” interceptor model. Its big up-rated 250 horsepower V8 engine drove seventeen-inch stamped steel wheels wearing 235/55/17 high-performance rubber, all of it held together by a heavy-duty suspension and frame. The powerful car had served Bolan well, bearing him swiftly from Langley to Charlottesville, then to Lynchburg, and finally to Richmond, where he’d received the call from the Farm that sent him tearing up the road to Williamsburg.

Bolan snapped open his secure satellite phone and dialed the number that would, through a circuitous and redundantly encrypted route, connect him with Stony Man Farm in Virginia. The nerve center for the Sensitive Operations Group, a covert arm of the United States Justice Department, had been the scene of furious activity overnight.

Bolan had gotten no more sleep than had the cyber team at the Farm, for while they traced his location, coordinated with local law enforcement, and fed new destinations to the Executioner, he had pushed the Crown Victoria to reach each and every one of the target zones. Each time, they had been one step behind their quarry. The soldier understood from long experience that sometimes you had to hurry up and wait. There was little he could do but chase down the leads passed on to him by the Farm. Eventually, his path would intercept those of the person or persons he sought, likely with violent results.

He would see to that.

The first urgent contact from the Farm had come just before midnight. Bolan had been staying in a motel near Langley, taking some long-overdue down time to rest after his latest debriefing trip to Wonderland and a meet with Hal Brognola. While he maintained an arm’s length relationship with the United States government’s covert counterterrorism network, Brognola transcended any bureaucratic boundaries or barriers. He liked to keep the big Fed informed of what he learned, each and every time he stepped onto the latest battlefield in his endless war against terror and injustice. The cyber team at the Farm could use the intel to update—or close—files on various threats.

The call alone, when it woke him, would have been enough to leave him instantly alert—but the words of Barbara Price, Stony Man’s mission controller, had left no doubt.

“Striker,” Price had said, using the Farm’s code name for the Executioner, “somebody’s shooting up Virginia.”

Bolan had switched on the large color television, after finding the oversized motel remote on top of the set. Predictably, every one of the cable news channels and at least two local Virginia television stations were all over the story. A series of high-profile shootings, committed by groups of men wielding automatic weapons, had torn up several public locations in Charlottesville. The first, in the early evening, had ripped apart an Internet café just off the campus of the University of Virginia, which had sparked fears of another Virginia Tech–style massacre. Nobody had been killed, but significant damage to the facility had been done.

Less than an hour after the computer lab shooting, another one-sided gun battle had shot up a public Laundromat in downtown Charlottesville. Then, an hour and a half after that, a convenience store on the outskirts of the city had taken a broadside from what one witness described as “four Chinese men with Uzis.” This was the worst of the incidents, to that point; a clerk working behind the front counter had been tagged by a bullet. The young man had died on the way to the hospital.

It was the report of “four Chinese men” with automatic weapons that worried the men and women at the Farm, and it was this concern—as well as the shootings occurring in close succession in a major metropolitan area—that had tripped warning flags. There were no current reports of new terrorist threats from Asian fringe groups, Asian gangs, or even from within elements of nominally hostile governments such as China. Bolan’s jaw had tightened, at that. It had not been so long ago that he had found himself dealing with heavily armed and very hostile Chinese sleeper cells on American soil in Hawaii. The Chinese government had dismissed the attacks as the work of rogue elements in their military. A lot of people had died before it was over, and Bolan had no desire to see a repeat performance from yet another highly organized and disciplined gathering of “rogue” operatives trained and equipped in Communist China.

When he had said as much, Price had dismissed it as unlikely. Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, Stony Man’s computer expert and the leader of the Farm’s cyber team, had found no indication of a coordinated terror effort. There was no communications traffic or Internet traffic to indicate it, and very little in the way of official government maneuvering. At least, there was nothing to which the Farm’s team could trace the violence. That was enough to satisfy Bolan on that score, at least for now, but it did leave the question of what was happening in Virginia—and he had said as much.

“That,” Price had replied over the secure line, “we think we do know, at least in part. Bear and his people have been burning up the ether trying to get what surveillance data there was to be had. We’ve managed to extract security camera images from two locations. The first is from the Internet café, and the second is from the convenience store. Using image enhancement technology on the convenience store video footage, we’ve compared it to a fairly clear picture from the Web cameras in the computer lab. There’s a link, which I’m sending to your phone now.”

Bolan had taken his phone from his ear to see the data transfer icon blinking. It did not take long for the image to load on his own small color screen. The picture itself was black-and-white, bearing the unmistakable pixel dithering of an image that has been put through the digital wringer to make it more clear. It was the face of a man with long, dark hair.

“Who’s this?” Bolan asked, putting the phone back to his ear.

“That,” Price said, “is Daniel Baldero. Thirty-years-old. Five-foot-ten, 270 pounds. Paid for college by joining the Air Force. Honorable discharge. Earned a couple of degrees in computer programming before he was finished going to school, in Newport News. Last address of record, according to the Virginia DMV, is Charlottesville, Virginia. Mr. Baldero can be, thanks to the footage we’ve used to identify him, positively placed at the scene of two out of three of those shootings.”

“Doing what?”

“Running for his life, from what we can see,” Price said.

“So he’s not one of the shooters.”

“No,” Price said. “And of course we can’t place him at the laundry shooting because there were no functioning cameras there. But as coincidences go—”

“It’s a pretty big one,” Bolan agreed. “This Baldero is either the unluckiest man in Virginia, or something’s fishy and he’s involved.”

“It gets more interesting,” Price said. “Mr. Baldero is a computer programmer and cryptographer by trade, formerly employed by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“Formerly,” Bolan repeated.

“As of two weeks ago,” Price reported. “He resigned without explanation.”

“Is he on the run?”

“We checked, and they deny it,” Price had said. “Logically, there’s no reason he should be on the run, at least not from the CIA. They have no reason to chase him down. He’s just a former employee, as far as they’re concerned, and not one with any sort of contract to which they could hold him.”

“But again, as coincidences go,” Bolan said.

“It’s a pretty big one,” Price echoed. “The Man wants us on this, Striker, and Hal’s given us the green light.”

“I’ll leave immediately,” Bolan said. “But I’m going to need transportation. The rental I’m driving hasn’t got the guts for a field operation.”

“We’ve got a car on its way to you by courier,” Price said. “Hal’s made an arrangement with the CIA. You’ll get one from their motor pool.”

“There’s that word again.” Bolan frowned at the phone. “I’m going to need weapons and equipment for an extended field operation.”

“Already in the car and on the way to your door,” Price said. “Cowboy keeps a few specially prepared care packages ready and waiting for little emergencies like these.” John “Cowboy” Kissinger was the Farm’s armorer. He had personally tuned the Beretta 93-R machine pistol in the leather shoulder holster Bolan was strapping on, and he had custom-built the suppressor fitted to the weapon. He had also done an accuracy job on the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle that was Bolan’s other nearly constant companion, which he carried in a Kydex holster in his waistband on his right hip.

“Then I’m not going to waste any more time talking,” Bolan said, watching headlights pan across the curtains of the motel room’s window. “Unless it’s another coincidence, the car is just arriving. Your timing is impeccable.”

“We try,” Price said. “Oh, and be sure to check inside the trunk.” When she spoke again, her tone was warmer, but also more anxious. “Be careful, Striker.”

“Always, Barb.”

“Good hunting.”

“Thanks. Striker out.” He closed the phone.

The courier was at the door just as Bolan opened it—the man said not a word. He was dressed in slacks and a blazer and had about him what Bolan thought of as the “junior G-man” look. He nodded and tossed the keys to Bolan, which were for the Crown Victoria now idling in front of Bolan’s open motel-room door. Then he disappeared around the corner of the building.

Bolan looked at the car, then back to where the courier had been. He shook his head slightly.

There was work to do.

THAT PHONE CALL had been one long, tiring drive ago on only half a night’s sleep, fueled by truck-stop coffee and a fast-food breakfast consumed at highway speed. Since then, the Executioner had tracked the increasingly violent outbreaks of gunfire from site to site in Virginia. The Farm relayed to him the location each time it happened, but Bolan knew as well as Price did that they would not get ahead of the shooters by playing a reactive game. They needed to get in front of the gunners, whoever they were.

He had checked each site, the latest a motel in Williamsburg that had been blown half to hell. Yet again, there was no evidence of the shooters themselves. He had phoned in and reported as much. Price had promised that the follow-up field team, a covert Justice analysis unit protected by blacksuit gunners from Stony Man, would check for evidence he might have missed in his cursory inspection, as they had been doing behind him all night. They would also see if there were any local surveillance sources to be pulled for analysis. That didn’t concern Bolan, at least not immediately. He would be surprised if the tapes showed anything of use except to confirm Baldero’s presence. Intelligence on the shooters would be helpful, but even that wasn’t crucial at the moment. The only thing that mattered was getting out in front of the shooters, and that depended on the pattern analysis Stony Man had been working on.

“Price here.”

“Striker,” Bolan said. “Same story here.”

“You’re still outside Williamsburg?”

“Yes,” he said. “Your crew can move in on the motel. I saw a lot of shell casings but not much else. No sign of our boy, and nothing of use. Barb, you’ve got to get me in front of this. Has Bear run his pattern analysis?”

“Got you right here, Striker.” Aaron Kurtzman’s voice came over the line. “I’m here with Barb. Our instincts have been right all along. We’re plotting the shootings and they make a line, more or less. That puts the next possible cluster of targets in a more or less straight line through Hampton, Newport News and Norfolk, if the pattern holds.”

“Then I’m headed to—” Bolan began. He stopped.

“Striker?” Price asked in Bolan’s ear. The soldier’s head snapped left, then right. His eyes narrowed.

“I hear gunshots,” Bolan said. He snapped the phone shut and half-vaulted the hood of the Crown Victoria, throwing himself behind the wheel and slamming the door shut. The big tires squealed and the engine roared as he floored the vehicle, tearing out of the convenience store parking lot. Horns honked as he cut off several vehicles. The car whipped onto the highway and he hit the automatic windows, rolling them all the way down on both sides, fore and aft.

He heard it again, then—the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire in the distance, moving away from him. He pushed the interceptor onward, yanking the wheel hard left, cutting across a side street and taking another.

When he heard the next burst of shots, it was louder. He was getting closer. He scanned the traffic far ahead of him.

Logistically, this was very bad. It was broad daylight. A running gun battle in an American city, especially an American tourist city, was going to pour gasoline on the already raging media fire over the cluster of shootings throughout the night. The Executioner had been listening to news-talk radio throughout his nighttime chase. Every station was bubbling over with sensational reporting on the “terrorist attacks,” with hysterical talking heads manning their desks and filling the airwaves with commentary from “experts.” The incessant speculation and mindless chatter had eventually become so much background noise to Bolan, who understood only too well the reality that the reporters were playing at analyzing.

From a pocket of his blacksuit—the formfitting black combat clothing that could pass for casual street clothes to the untrained eye, especially when worn under a light windbreaker as he was doing—Bolan removed a tiny earbud headset and donned it. He flipped open his secure sat phone and replaced the device in his pocket after hitting the first speed dial. Price’s voice came to him almost instantly, filtered through the earpiece.

“Striker?”

“I’m in pursuit, target or targets unknown.” He consulted the GPS unit on his dashboard and read off the coordinates and heading. As he did so, he heard more gunfire and thought he could make out muzzle flashes in the distance. It was hard to tell in the daylight. “Tracking gunfire specifically. To guess, I’d say our shooters weren’t quite done with Williamsburg.”

“You’re across town from the motel they hit,” Price said, though Bolan was perfectly aware of his position. “If you stay on this heading, you’ll end up hitting Norfolk, more or less.”

“Kudos to Bear, then,” Bolan said. “Barb, I have a theory.”

“Striker?”

“Our boy Baldero. He’s rabbiting. Think about it. If you were suddenly a fugitive, if someone or some group of some-ones was trying to shoot you, where would you go? A computer lab, to try and contact help. Baldero’s a tech geek, right? That’s familiar. That’s where he’d head. Motels, convenience stores, Laundromats…places to go to ground, and places to get food or supplies that are open all night long while you’re on the run.”

“We’ve been considering that in trying to work up a profile on him,” Price said. “There’s not much. Baldero has no criminal record. No known associates in the drug trade or with fringe political groups. No legal records of any kind, apart from a custody battle working its way through the courts. He’s got an estranged wife and a three-year-old daughter, living in Texas.”

“So,” Bolan said, slamming the big car’s accelerator to the floor and rocketing around a slow-moving panel truck as he gained on the gunfire ahead of him, “we’ve got a former CIA cryptographer who’s got himself into something so bad that it’s worth putting holes in half the state to kill him. The question is, what?”

“That’s what has the Man worried, Striker,” Price said. “More than the need to put a stop to these attacks, and the unrest they’re generating, we need to know what’s behind it. It could be much worse. It’s almost certainly much worse.”

“Got it, Barb. I’m closing now. We’ve caught a break, it seems. Have Bear and his team stand by to analyze any intelligence I might—”

The cargo van that cut across Bolan’s path was traveling nearly eighty miles an hour.

Bolan could see the van’s grille bearing down on him as it barreled straight for the driver’s door of his sedan.

The headlights shone very bright.

2

Bolan had a fraction of a second in which to react. He did the only thing he could do—he whipped the steering wheel hard to the left.

The dirty white cargo van blew past him on his passenger side, sheering off the car’s side mirror in a small maelstrom of plastic shards and silvery slivers. The rear end of the big car broke free, losing traction through the violent maneuver. The back of the vehicle came around, and Bolan found himself skidding through a complete 180-degree turn. The smell of burning rubber filled the car as he fought the steering wheel and the brakes, riding out the skid and narrowly missing a passenger car as he crossed the double line and barreled through oncoming traffic. The Crown Victoria finally jerked to a stop on the shoulder of the opposite side of the road, facing back the way Bolan had come.

He wasted no time. Snatching up the canvas war bag that contained his gear from Kissinger, he threw it over his shoulder and was out of the car in a heartbeat. As he moved, he drew the Beretta 93-R pistol from its custom leather shoulder holster. Flipping the selector switch to 3-round-burst mode, he rounded on the van, which had come to a screeching halt half on the sidewalk a dozen yards from his own vehicle.

The side door of the van slammed open. A man shouted furiously at him, his features twisted in rage. In his hands was the futuristic-looking assault rifle. The muzzle of the weapon spit flame.

Bolan hit the pavement painfully, his right hand at full extension before him. The 3-round burst of 9 mm bullets caught the shooter under his chin and folded him back on himself, where he disappeared in the dimly lighted interior of the cargo van. Bolan had time to roll sideways before several streams of what his ear identified as rifle fire converged on the pavement where he’d just been, spraying him with sharp pieces of asphalt.

The soldier recognized his attackers’ language readily enough. He had spent more than a little time operating covertly in cities like Tehran. It was Farsi, also known as Persian, the most commonly spoken of several languages in Iran and Afghanistan.

Very curious, he had time to think, with the incongruous detachment that often occurred in his mind when his body was engaged in the well-remembered and deeply ingrained mechanics of battle. The Executioner was nothing if not a thinking soldier, and his mind was always active, always analyzing the fluid and unpredictable rhythm of lethal combat.

Rising to a half-crouch, Bolan took a two-hand grip on the 93-R and glided heel-to-toe around the rear corner of the van, using the vehicle as cover. Predictably, shots began punching through the windows of the rear doors, but the angle was awkward and the gunners inside couldn’t get a clear shot.

He heard footsteps and saw feet wearing desert-sand-colored combat boots hit the pavement on the side of the van, as the men within piled out. They were shouting instructions to one another in Farsi. Bolan’s command of the language wasn’t up to interpreting it, certainly not in the rapid, clipped tones they were using, but it didn’t matter; the intent was clear. They were trying to coordinate their efforts to kill him.

Whoever these shooters were, there was no way they weren’t related to whatever had been happening across Virginia—though how a witness could have confused men of Persian descent with Asians, he could not say and would not bother to speculate. The Executioner was painfully aware that whatever vehicle or vehicles these men had been chasing and shooting at, as well as however many more vehicles full of gunners there might be on the road between Bolan and the presumably fleeing Baldero, were now well beyond the range at which he could reacquire and pursue them. There was nothing he could do; he had to deal with the immediate threat, or he wouldn’t be alive to continue with the mission.