Buch lesen: «Hellfire Code»

CHAPTER ONE

Mack Bolan breathed deeply, appreciating the fresh, mountain breeze that whistled through a stand of trees. He enjoyed the solitude but was ever watchful for some change in the current climate. He knew blacksuits were patrolling the grounds, perhaps even a couple observing him at that moment. But Bolan rarely let his guard down, no matter how safe the environment. Even here at Stony Man Farm.

Bolan’s week-long vacation to Stony Man Farm drew nearer the end, and it had proven his only safe haven. Just about anywhere else in the world he could think of would have been too dangerous. Bolan could hardly expect to enjoy some down time if he had to spend it looking over his shoulder, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia proved as good a rest spot as any. Sometimes Bolan took only the bare basics in a day pack and headed into the mountains for a couple of days. Those were times where he could reflect on the past, charge his mental batteries before rejoining his War Everlasting.

For the moment, though, Bolan would enjoy his R and R in Virginia. He knew it wouldn’t last much longer.

Recent intelligence revealed a group calling itself the New Corsican Front had established an underground for getting French-Islamic terrorists into the country. He didn’t have much to go on, but Bolan knew enough to believe the operation existed beyond speculation. Actually, he’d been waiting for additional intelligence, but his contact had missed their rendezvous in Atlanta. The Executioner wouldn’t typically have worried about something like that; it might not have meant anything. But the fact ex-NSA analyst Roger Neely hadn’t followed standard procedure bothered Bolan. It had never happened before, and he couldn’t think of any reason for it to change now.

A pager clipped to his belt signaled it was time for his meeting.

Bolan emerged from the trees and headed for the farmhouse. The Farm had gone through some renovations in the recent past, adding a new dimension to its layout. The addition—simply referred to as the Annex—boasted some of the most advanced electronic surveillance and counterintelligence equipment in the world. The modern subterranean facilities were camouflaged on the surface by a wood chipping mill. Call it pure nostalgia, but Bolan preferred the warm, charming surroundings of the old operations center secreted beneath the farmhouse to those of the modern, sanitary Annex. Meetings in the old War Room seemed cozier and somewhat less impersonal. Able Team and Phoenix Force espoused similar sentiments, so to keep the peace Brognola deferred to majority rule.

The Executioner entered the farmhouse and descended the stairs two at a time. He reached the basement and entered the War Room, expecting to find Brognola, Barbara Price and Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman waiting. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Striker,” Brognola said. He got to his feet and shook Bolan’s hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise, Hal,” Bolan said. As they took their seats he added, “I assume you have something for me.”

“Indeed.” Brognola looked at Price.

Price nodded and then turned to Bolan. “At your request, we started a full inquiry into Roger Neely. You aren’t going to like what we found.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, he’s hiding. Or at least he thinks he is. He’s taken up residence in a small apartment in Manila with a native woman.”

Bolan’s eyebrows rose. “The Philippines? Well, if I didn’t have reason to be concerned before, I do now. That doesn’t sound at all like the man I know.”

“You would think a man with Neely’s training and experience could do better than that,” Brognola said. “Maybe he wants to be found.”

“Or he knows I can find him there and no one else can,” Bolan replied.

“We think we might know why he’s there,” Price continued. “It seems to have everything to do with the New Corsican Front. You said before he was working on getting some more intelligence for you?”

“Yeah,” Bolan replied. “Neely got word their underground was smuggling French-Islamists into the country. He was supposed to get back to me with something more solid but he blew the meet. That’s why I called you.”

“Well, that was the angle we worked from. There’s been a buzz in certain circles within the CIA and NSA. In fact, the American intelligence community suspects the NCF is actually a cover for this smuggling operation. You see, officially the NCF exists as a special interest to protest the treatment of French-Arab citizens and American involvement in Muslim countries. They get financial support from a number of sister organizations. They don’t deny their actions in saving victims from persecution, particularly if they can make it look as if America is behind its perpetration.”

“What you don’t hear in the papers is many of the people they’ve pipelined into America have a history of violence and known affiliations with terrorist groups,” Brognola added.

“Fine, so let’s assume Neely’s telling the truth. The million-dollar question is, why did he run?”

Price nodded at Kurtzman who dimmed the lights and projected a photograph on the screen. “That very distinguished-looking gentleman is Garrett Downing, age sixty-two, born in North Carolina. We think he’s the chief reason Neely’s hiding.”

Bolan did a double take at Price. “You’re talking about the Downing who’s former deputy director of the NSA?”

“The same.”

Bolan knew the name well, as did most anyone involved in covert operations for the U.S. government. Downing had spearheaded most of the projects dealing with electronic surveillance and countersurveillance following establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. His guidance and direction had tipped the scales to America’s advantage and put her well ahead of the game in technical sciences to achieve a superior intelligence community. His passion had saved countless lives, and significantly reduced not only the casualties of terrorist attacks in America but the chances of a repeat attack on American soil.

“How does Downing fit into this?” Bolan asked.

“Less than twelve hours ago, we received a report of a slaying of twenty persons in Atlanta,” Kurtzman said. “I wouldn’t have thought much more of it until our systems flagged it for probability scenarios on various algorithms I use to scan all data throughput.”

Bolan nodded. “Neely believed Atlanta was one of the major areas of operation for the NCF.”

“What Bear discovered is almost incomprehensible,” Brognola said. “Reports are still coming in, but I got wind as soon as it went down and we sent a team to investigate. It fell into the Justice Department’s jurisdiction when we discovered automatic weapons were used and thirteen of the victims were of French-Arab descent.”

“Looks like maybe someone beat you to the punch on this underground operation, Striker,” Price remarked.

Bolan nodded. “So how does Downing fit into this?”

“He’s taking credit,” Price said.

“Come again?”

“Downing claims the people who executed this operation were a special team of commandos operating under his orders. He also said this was the first official act of what he’s calling the Organization for Strategic Initiative.”

“Great,” Bolan said.

Brognola cleared his throat. “He issued a very heartfelt apology through all the major networks, as well as the press, for the families of the innocent people who died. He said while tragic, the losses were acceptable when we consider the costs of battling terrorists. He promised the next operation would be on a much larger scale, which signals there may be more, and I quote, ‘casualties of war’ before it’s over.”

“Sounds like a real lunatic,” Kurtzman remarked.

“Hardly,” Bolan replied.

“Mack’s right,” Price agreed. “Downing might sound fanatical but he’s not crazy. He views himself as a patriot.”

“An idealist,” Bolan added. “That makes him more dangerous.”

“Whatever his reasons, we obviously can’t let him continue,” Brognola said. “The President had suggested we use one of the teams to handle it, but I told him since you were here and already pursuing a lead we should ask for your intervention. He agreed.”

“Fine,” Bolan said with a nod. He looked at Price. “You mentioned Downing was the reason you thought Neely split the States. What’s the connection there?”

“Everything we have on Roger Neely says he’s a straight shooter all the way,” Price replied. “There’s no middle-of-the-road with this guy. His psychological profiles suggest he’s fiercely loyal, and his past performance reviews indicate he does everything strictly by the book. For a guy like that to suddenly give it all up and run tells us he’s afraid.”

“And with good reason,” Kurtzman interjected. “Barb, may I?”

Price inclined her head and Kurtzman keyed the projector to project a new photograph. “This man is Peter Hagen, fifty-nine years of age, born in Sarasota, Florida. He’s an MIT graduate who served as senior technology officer during Downing’s tenure at the NSA. He resigned the same year Downing did, but at the time he was working on a secret project to develop a comprehensive assault platform with Multi-Geo Transversal capabilities.

“MGT is a relatively new concept the U.S. military has only been inclined to pursue over the past six years or so. In essence, the concept is centered on small-scale assault mobility operations, like those conducted by elite military teams or antiterrorist units. Multi-Geo Transversal is actually the shorter version of Multiplied Geographical Transportation Universality.”

“Sounds like something out of a science-fiction novel,” Bolan said.

Kurtzman chuckled. “Simply put, MGT theory theorizes effective first-strike scenarios by small, specialized teams mobilized through some mechanism capable of traveling by sea, air or land.”

“A multiterrain vehicle, then,” Bolan said. “Is that all we’re talking about here?”

“MGT is a wee bit more than that. A core group of military scientists first toyed with this idea toward the end of the 1990s. The thought was that if they could create a transport with MGT abilities, it would allow them to cross-train smaller units more effectively. This, in turn, would reduce the cost of special operations, and by eliminating the coordination of multiple branches during insertion and extraction operations, secrecy stood severely reduced chances of compromise.”

“You see, we think Downing diverted enough funds from government surplus and project remainders to actually come up with a prototype,” Price said. “Peter Hagen was the brainchild of the operation at the time, but he’s now supposedly working in the civilian sector with a government contractor.”

“And guess where he’s currently residing?” Brognola asked.

“Atlanta,” Bolan said with a nod. “Okay, that’s enough evidence for me. What’s the plan?”

“We’re inserting you as a last minute add-on with the federal task force Justice sent to investigate the slayings down there,” Price said. “You’re cover will be Matt Cooper, a weapons specialist with the ATF. We have the full credentials ready.”

“You should have no trouble fitting in there,” Brognola added.

“Right,” Bolan agreed. “I’ll have to find some way of getting in touch with this Hagen. What do we know about him?”

Price handed him a personal digital assistant and smiled. “That contains all the information we have on Hagen and Downing.”

“It also has the ability to access our mainframe data systems through a cable network or wireless connection,” Kurtzman added. “You can even plug it into a phone line and get to us by dial-up.”

“Understand, the information on that device is encoded and will only unlock if you place your thumbs simultaneously on the back of it,” Price said. “If anyone other than you attempts to access the information or tampers with it in any way, the thing will instantly melt its circuits.”

“A little extra fail-safe we added at Hunt’s suggestion,” Kurtzman said with a grin.

Bolan could believe it. Some of the greatest minds on Earth comprised Kurtzman’s technical team. Huntington “Hunt” Wethers, the black former cybernetics professor from Berkeley with a near genius IQ; Carmen Delahunt, former FBI agent turned assistant extraordinaire; Akira Tokaido, a young computer hacker with an intellect as profound as his punk rock attire.

“I’ll find this Hagen,” Bolan assured them. “What has me more concerned, though, is Neely. I’ve known Roger quite a number of years now, and he’s always been dependable. Something must have really scared him that he would run.”

“We believe it’s possible Downing found out about Neely’s involvement from a mole inside the NSA,” Brognola replied. “It’s proving it that might be a bit more painful.”

“We’ll keep an eye on Neely,” Price said. “I promise if anything happens we’ll let you know right away.”

“I just don’t want things to go sideways before I can get to him, Barb,” the Executioner said. “I’m sure this is his way of calling for help.”

Price nodded, and Bolan could see from her expression that she empathized with his concerns. Since he had severed official ties with his government, Stony Man had never interfered with his right to pursue private missions. If anything they had supported him more times than he could recall. He’d tried to return the favor whenever possible. Sure, he could have walked away right now from this thing and chosen to go after Neely instead, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good.

Bolan believed Neely was on the run because of Downing. The only way he could clear Neely’s name was to get the heart of the issue as soon as possible. Barb and Hal were right. This mission had to start at the source, and the soldier knew if he could get to the source of Downing’s operation he could get to Downing. By removing the threat posed by Downing’s OSI group and whatever project this Hagen was working on, the threat to Neely would probably go away, as well.

“We’ve arranged for a commercial flight out of Dulles,” Brognola said. “Tonight. I wish we could have sent Jack with you, but he’s currently on assignment in Turkey with Phoenix Force.”

“Cowboy’s arranged to have all your special friends waiting for you in Atlanta,” Price said with a knowing wink.

That was good news. John “Cowboy” Kissinger was Stony Man’s chief armorer and a first-rate operative. Cowboy had a unique talent for assessing the needs of the Stony Man crew before they even knew what they needed. Rarely did a weapon jam or fail when serviced under Kissinger’s practiced eye and meticulous craftsmanship.

So Garrett Downing was calling out the terrorists. Unfortunately, he’d chosen to ignore the rules of the game and he’d called out the Executioner, as well. Even in war the purposeful taking of innocent lives was unacceptable. Bolan knew that creed well, and he’d lived by it. It had earned him the respect of his comrades and the moniker of Sergeant Mercy. The Executioner would have to teach Garrett Downing this lesson the hard way.