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Graham frowned. “And you think this isn’t just some UFO case?”
“There have been enough rumbles out in the whisper stream that there is something deep and dark. All it takes is to scratch the surface,” Reader replied. He held out his hand. “I want you on my team, Graham.”
The big FBI agent took his friend’s hand. “All right.”
Stan Reader and his friend headed back to the Park City lodge. As they turned, Reader caught the flash of light on glass out of the corner of his eye. A shadow disappeared behind a pine tree, clumps of snow crashing onto the unmarked powder.
He wondered who would be so interested in a scientist and an FBI agent having a ski weekend.
Gulf of Thailand.
IT TOOK BOLAN SEVERAL minutes to convince the people in the cargo containers to stay put. There were too many armed killers on the upper decks, and if they started exploring, they might discover Pham and take out some revenge on the pirate. As far as the Executioner was concerned, being terrified and battered was sufficient punishment for the Vietnamese smuggler. Besides, Pham would be his messenger to the Thai underworld.
Finally, the former slaves were convinced to stay in the hold. The pile of dead smugglers exuded a wave of dread that the young Asians wouldn’t want to pass by. Some even stood back as puddles of blood continued to seep from the bodies.
Bolan liberated a shotgun from one of the dead guards, then filled his pockets with spare shells. Their AK-47s were fairly effective weapons, but in the confined spaces of the ship, a single blast of buckshot would prove more effective. The 12-gauge was made for up-close and dirty work.
The sounds of the blazing battle had drawn attention. As soon as Bolan had snapped Pham’s ankle, he heard the ship’s phone ring, trying to reach the guards in the hold. Bolan let the phone ring, knowing that the response would attract enemy forces.
As he headed to the hallway, he spotted furtive movements at the end and tucked against a bulkhead. Shielded by a steel girder, he leveled the 12-gauge around the corner. As soon as he spotted a solid shape, Bolan triggered the shotgun and a savage storm of buckshot ripped into the enemy.
Screams of panic and horror filled the corridor, and Bolan racked the pump on his gun and looked at the attacking force. The first man was down, his chest ripped apart by the shotgun blast. Two more behind him were pinned by the corpse. One screamed, covered in blood, clutching his chest in pain. The other tried to push his dead and injured partners aside, cursing them angrily. The Executioner fired again. The thug’s skull burst apart under the brutal blast, and his corpse flopped to the floor.
The injured sailor wailed even more loudly in horror, covering his head with his arms as if to preserve his life. Bolan ignored him and pumped the shotgun again, aiming at another gunman who had sprayed the bulkhead with rifle fire. The girder Bolan had hidden behind protected him, the heavy steel bouncing bullets away. With a pull of the trigger, the soldier launched another wave of shot, and the rifle fire stopped for a moment. The muzzle poked out again and erupted, spraying wildly before he ducked back.
The wounded sailor suddenly fell silent. His scalp had flipped forward like a wind-blown toupee, brains and blood splashed across the wall. Bolan heard a cry of dismay as the remaining hardmen realized that they’d just killed one of their own. The Executioner took the time to reload, then leaped across the trio of corpses and took cover closer to the intersection where his enemy was hidden.
One of the guards leaned out with a handgun to get a better shot at Bolan, but the shotgun roared again, its payload gouging out a generous chunk of flesh and bone. The gunner slumped lifelessly to the ground, dark eyes staring glassily at nothing.
That was enough for the rifleman. Bolan heard the panicked sound of retreating feet. The soldier slung the shotgun and drew the Desert Eagle in one smooth motion as he hurled himself into the intersection. The fleeing rifleman heard the Executioner hit the corridor wall and tried to turn to bring his rifle to bear. Bolan triggered his .44 Magnum pistol first, a heavy slug smashing through the man’s shoulder, detonating the joint as if it were a grenade. It continued to plow through his neck and destroy vertebrae in its wake.
The gunner’s corpse flopped, his head bouncing limply on the deck.
The handgunner’s radio crackled on his belt and Bolan scooped it up. The captain was cursing in Italian, wondering where the hell his men were.
“They’re all dead,” Bolan replied in Italian. “You’re welcome to join them.”
He then hit the mute button on the radio and contacted Grimaldi. “Blind them. Anyone tries to get off the ship…”
“I got it, Sarge,” the Stony Man pilot responded. “Nobody but you and the cargo are getting off the ship.”
“I’ve got one messenger to send back to Thailand, too,” Bolan amended. “Give these flesh smugglers something to dream about while I’m gone.”
“Dream, or scream?” Grimaldi asked.
“Their choice,” Bolan replied. “Check their communications. It’s a mishmash of Italian and Oriental languages.”
The Executioner relayed the radio frequency to his pilot.
“Got it,” Grimaldi replied. “Oh, man. They’re burning up the airwaves. I guess when the shooting started, they put out the call for help.”
“Help? To whom? They wouldn’t call the harbor patrol or the navy, there’d be too many questions to answer,” Bolan mused as he dumped his partially spent Desert Eagle magazine, feeding it a few loose rounds to top it off. He reloaded and stuffed some shells into the shotgun.
“I don’t know. I’ve been listening on various frequencies and…radar contact, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered.
“Radar contact?”
“Yeah. Big and coming up under the water. It just showed up. It looks—”
“A submarine,” Bolan growled, and he headed to the stairwell. He paused only long enough to grab the fallen gunman’s rifle and its spare ammo. He slung the weapon over his shoulder on the run, keeping the big Desert Eagle ready to greet anyone who appeared in the stairwell, trusting the shorter length of the handgun in such close quarters.
“Yeah,” Grimaldi said. “I’m running an IFF radar check on it.”
“Probably a Soviet-era sub,” Bolan said into his headset. He paused as he neared the top. “I don’t hear any welcoming crew topside…Jack?”
“No, the entrance to the hold’s all clear,” Grimaldi informed him.
“Keep hanging back and watch out for the submarine. It might have an antiaircraft gun. Soviet 12.7 is more than enough to damage Dragon Slayer,” Bolan stated.
“I know that. Don’t worry, I have TOW missiles locked on the sub,” Grimaldi replied.
“Cripple it and knock out its defenses if you can,” Bolan replied. “I want to be able to figure out what’s going on here. And that sub has all the answers I need.”
“All right, Sarge. I’ll trust your instincts.”
Bolan made it to the deck and transitioned to the dead pirate’s rifle, a Krinkov. A stubby, foot-long-barreled version of the classic AK-47, it was more of a submachine gun than a full-powered rifle, but even without the extra muzzle length, it packed an awesome amount of firepower, throwing .30-caliber slugs at 800 rounds per minute. With three spare magazines, the Executioner was able to hold off a small army.
There was a shout up on the mast, and Bolan spotted three gunmen near the bridge. Their attention, however, was directed off the starboard rail. They had to have seen the submarine as it breached. Bolan shouldered the Krinkov, leveled his front sight and milked the stubby rifle’s trigger.
One of the guards was swatted off the rail, his limp corpse dropping to the deck where he landed in a jumble of twisted limbs. Another collapsed, holding his gut, and Bolan realized that his aim was off. The short-barreled rifle wasn’t as accurate as a full-size AK-47, and that meant that he’d need to adjust his aim for targets as distant as the bridge sentries.
The third one, uninjured, brought his weapon to bear and sprayed the deck next to the Executioner. In the shadows and darkness, he had only Bolan’s muzzle-flash to go on, and the soldier had already shifted position after his first burst. He held his aim high and ripped off another burst. He’d been intending to hit the smuggler in the stomach with the salvo, so he aimed at a spot just above the man’s head. Instead, bloody blossoms of gore flowered on the thug’s thighs and he crashed to the walkway. Bolan cursed, wishing he’d had an opportunity to get a feel for this Krinkov’s sights. He reloaded the stubby rifle, then slung it. Pulling the Desert Eagle, he charged toward the bridge.
Bolan knew exactly where the big .44 Magnum pistol would put its bullets at any range out to 200 meters. He’d reserve the Krinkov for close-quarters mayhem.
Bridge officers threw open the hatch to the command center and cut loose with their own handguns. The Executioner still had ten yards of deck before he reached the steps to the bridge, so he blasted away with a salvo of 240-grain hollowpoint rounds. The devastating slugs crashed into the chests and faces of the pair of officers, smashing the life from them with brutal force. One corpse slid down the steps toward him, but Bolan grabbed the railing, vaulted over the limp form and continued up the stairwell.
Off the starboard bow, a powerful cannon opened up and Bolan hit the deck as shells smashed into the ship’s superstructure. Huge holes, larger than the soldier’s own fists, were punched through the bulkhead, and he knew that it had to be a 20 mm antiaircraft cannon from the submarine. Heartbeats later, a thunderous explosion sounded overboard.
Jack Grimaldi and Dragon Slayer had the Executioner’s back, so Bolan continued on toward the bridge. Another blast resounded on the water as the ace Stony Man pilot slammed another TOW missile into the submarine, this one most likely directed at the screws of the sub. With Dragon Slayer’s computerized targeting systems, and a database of thousands of oceangoing craft, Grimaldi was able to target the enemy submersible where it was most vulnerable, leaving it bobbing and as helpless as a bathtub toy, rather than a deadly threat, or allowing it to escape into the Stygian depths of the ocean at night.
“Sub’s crippled. You’re right, it’s Soviet design,” Grimaldi announced.
“Black market, no doubt,” Bolan returned. He holstered the Desert Eagle, and brought up the Krinkov. He had no time to play with the remnants of the smuggler crew, so he emptied the full magazine into the bridge. A blast of 7.62 mm ComBloc slugs pierced sheet metal and blasted through the confined cabin. Screams of horror filled the air as Bolan reloaded and burned off a second magazine into the command center. He let the empty Krinkov drop to the deck and entered, his shotgun leading the way.
As soon as his shadow fell across the door, a pistol cracked and Bolan ducked. He triggered his shotgun at the muzzle-flash and heard metal clatter on metal.
Captain Tinopoulos glared at the Executioner, his chest and shoulder torn by the shotgun blast. Blood had splashed messily up into his beard, and his handgun lay where it had fallen.
Bolan looked around at the rest of the bridge crew. There had only been two left in the cabin beside Tinopoulos, and they slumped across their consoles, slaughtered by the Executioner’s autofire. Blood dripped to the deck in a drumlike patter.
“You planned on meeting the North Koreans?” Bolan asked in Italian, hoping the wounded captain could recall that language.
“Bastard…” Tinopoulos snarled, blood frothing on his lips.
“You don’t have much time left,” Bolan told him. “But if you want, I can make those last moments hell.”
Tinopoulos spit a glob of blood at the Executioner. It stained his blacksuit. “We can talk in hell, when my allies bring you down.”
Bolan shook his head. “The submarine’s crippled. Listen…”
Tinopoulos lifted his head, and in the quiet cabin, the rip-roar of Dragon Slayer’s automated Gatling guns rolled through the open hatch. Tinopoulos nodded and looked at the Executioner. “The Koreans are dying…”
“You don’t owe them anything,” Bolan told him. “Who were they?”
“They had money to spare. We’ve been sending them bodies, human and cattle, for the past five years,” the Greek captain rasped. “We’d officially rendezvous east of the Son Islands, but they told me that they’d shadow us in the Gulf of Thailand.”
“Why there?” Bolan asked.
“To inspect the cargo. Take what was priority,” the captain answered. His speech was slurring. “Then we went the rest of the way…to the Yellow Sea…”
“And was there anything priority on this trip?” Bolan asked.
Tinopoulos sneered. “No…just women and cattle…”
Bolan racked the shotgun’s slide, but the Greek smuggler had already spoken his last words. One last gush of blood drooled from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes stared blankly into oblivion.
“Jack?” Bolan asked.
“They tried to unload amphibious troops,” Grimaldi answered. “But the lady and I took care of things.”
“I heard,” Bolan stated. “Give me a quick sweep of the ship. See if there are any hostiles still moving.”
“Just the cargo in the hold,” Grimaldi stated. “Want me to call in the carrier?”
“Not until I’ve had a good look at the sub. But land on deck. Save your fuel,” Bolan suggested.
“Gotcha, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered. “You’ll need more than what you’ve got for a submarine penetration.”
CHAPTER THREE
Salt Lake City, Utah
Special Agent Rachel Marrick pulled her car to a halt and took out her cell phone again. She brushed aside her silken brown hair and put the phone to her ear. Her soft, hazel eyes scanned the street under a furrowed brow as she tried to reach her partner. “Kirby, you bastard. Where are—”
“Is that any way to talk to your partner?” Kirby Graham said over the other end of the phone.
“So, you finally decided to pick up?” Marrick asked.
“I was halfway down the side of the mountain when I got your first call. What’s up?”
“A Korean street gang just hit a bank and took hostages,” Marrick told him. “Where are you now?”
“On the road from Park City. SLC SWAT in place?” Graham asked.
“Yeah,” Marrick answered. “But it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to move for a while yet.”
“I can be there in a half hour,” Graham responded.
“I keep forgetting your trunk is loaded with SWAT gear,” Marrick responded. “Be careful.”
“You want me to be careful, or do you want me to get there in time for the festivities?” Graham asked.
Marrick rolled her eyes. “Just don’t kill any other drivers.”
Graham chuckled. “On my way.”
Marrick sighed and checked the .40-caliber Glock in her hip holster, and was about to double check the backup .38 she wore underneath her armpit when the windshield starred violently. The woman crouched deeper into the driver’s seat and stared at a fist-size hole in the glass. The driver’s door opened, and she nearly drew and fired when she saw a policeman in full uniform.
“They’re shooting at everyone who drives up,” the big, brawny black cop said. “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to warn you.”
Marrick looked up the side of the building.
“We tried to spot the sniper, but there’s either more than one, or he moves quickly,” the cop explained. Marrick noted that his name was Cage. “They’re playing with us until the hostage negotiator gets here.”
Marrick grimaced. “Sounds like a fun party. We got all the entrances sealed?”
“Alleys and the rooftops are covered. No way they can escape,” Cage said.
Marrick crawled out of her seat and slammed the door, joining the cop behind cover. “Anyone hurt?”
“Security guard’s corpse was dumped outside. They left his .38 in its holster. They didn’t need it,” the police officer replied. “Tore the shit out of my car and my partner’s got two bullets in his legs.”
Marrick took a deep breath as she saw the carnage wrought on the Salt Lake City squad car. It was perforated hundreds of times, and both front tires were flat. The hubcaps had been torn off by the brutal salvo that had crippled the vehicle. Smoke poured from dozens of holes. “What the hell weapons do they have?”
“I didn’t have much time to see what they were cutting loose with,” Cage answered. “But it didn’t sound like anything American.”
Marrick tilted her head.
“I was a SAW gunner in the Gulf war,” Cage replied. “I know what an M-249 sounds like, and an M-60, too. This wasn’t either of those, and it sure wasn’t an M-16.”
“Russian?” Marrick asked.
Cage shrugged. “We’ve got the two bullets from my partner’s leg. Maybe you could make it out better.”
Cage guided Marrick across the street to an ambulance that had parked out of view of the five-story bank. The windshield of the vehicle had been pockmarked with several slugs, but the paramedics had pulled it out of the line of fire.
“No respect for medics,” Cage mentioned. “These are just punk kids.”
