Contagion Option

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Reader frowned. “What do they want?”

“To keep them informed of our progress in this investigation,” Graham said. “Their usual resources are busy, but one will be here soon enough.”

“Resources,” Reader repeated. This time it wasn’t dizziness, but nauseous dread. “Is that what they call ‘assets’ now?”

Graham looked defeated at the implication. “This isn’t the Company, Stretch.”

“And whoever we catch isn’t going to be outsourced to Egypt to be tortured?” Reader asked.

“No way,” Graham stated.

Reader’s lips were drawn into a tight line as he considered the identity of Graham’s mystery controllers. There had been a few cues in what his friend had told him that they were of a covert nature, and extralegal. The Justice Department wouldn’t bypass Special Agent in Charge Lieber to tap a low-level agent to get all the dirt on an investigation. And Lieber would tell the Justice Department whatever it wanted to hear.

It also had to have been a small organization from the mention of its resources being previously occupied. If that was the case, then it couldn’t be the CIA, since the Company had thousands of agents and operatives inside and outside the United States that they could call upon for assistance. Graham pinned his involvement with these people as stemming from a covert security posting a few years back, so they had the resources to legally employ law-enforcement operatives, but not use them as these “resources.” He regarded Graham for a moment.

“All right, Kirby. I’ll help out,” Reader stated.

A small organization, utilizing a network of law enforcement, and perhaps even ex-military men to supply it with intelligence and information outside conventional channels intrigued the polymath. It was one way to slip the fetters of interagency petty rivalries, without being a form of monolithic bureaucracy such as the Department of Homeland Security had proved itself to be. Perhaps he’d have an opportunity to learn more about these mystery men. If they were behind similar skullduggery as the “School of the Americas” or the “Air America” torture transports to Egypt, then Reader would bow out and try to salvage his friend Graham from their dark ways.

Either way, Reader already had one mystery to solve, and there was no way his intellect would allow such a puzzle to remain unanswered.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

HAL BROGNOLA RUSHED into the War Room as fast as he could, out of breath thanks to his race from the helipad.

“Has he crossed yet?” he asked.

Barbara Price shook her head, watching the transponder on the enlarged map. Grimaldi was still some distance away from North Korea. “They aerially refueled Dragon Slayer just a few minutes ago when they hit the Tushima Strait.”

Brognola inhaled deeply and watched as the helicopter wended its path slowly north. “If the Koreans or the Chinese catch wind of this…”

“Mack sanitized Dragon Slayer, and we have his and Jack’s cover identities ready for a system purge if anything goes wrong,” Price explained.

“I know procedure,” Brognola grumbled. He took out a cigar and clamped it between his teeth, working out tension as he ground the butt. “We’ve gone over it too many times before.”

Price let her boss blow off some steam. When it came to Brognola’s friendship with Mack Bolan and Jack Grimaldi, there were few ties stronger in the world. The thought of having to sever all ties with the men and allow them to fall into enemy hands galled the head Fed. She knew that all three of them would move Heaven and Earth should the others fall into trouble. That kind of loyalty could become a liability to the Sensitive Operations Group at Stony Man Farm, but so far, they had weathered every storm.

“It’s just a routine invasion of a hostile, sovereign nation, Hal,” Price said, ignoring the irony of her own statement. “Jack and Striker have done this hundreds of times before.”

Brognola’s jaw clenched, and Price knew that he was remembering every time the warrior and his pilot had been captured or injured. Price did everything in her power to keep such memories at bay, but even though she had been the mission controller at the Farm for years, there was no way she could match the depth and breadth of Brognola’s relationship with Bolan.

“Why are they approaching from the East Sea?” Brognola asked. “That wasn’t in your briefing.”

“Aaron cracked the hard drive Bolan recovered from the Koreans’ submarine. They were en route to Wonsan to look up a General Chong.”

“Anything on that yet?” Brognola asked.

“We have NSA satellites checking the area out, but no obvious activity so far,” Price responded. “Jack’s going to drop him off and then pop back down to a naval observation craft we’ve got parked offshore in South Korean waters.”

Brognola frowned. “Make sure they don’t get too close. Just remember the Pueblo.”

Price nodded. She knew of the U.S. naval intelligence ship that had been seized by aggressive patrol boats from the North Korean navy, decades ago. It had been a black eye to the United States, and another incident, with a high-tech prize like Dragon Slayer on board, would turn Southeast Asia into a powder keg.

Mack Bolan wasn’t walking the razor’s edge now. He was cutting his feet on the blade, and only his and Grimaldi’s skills could keep his blood from spraying the U.S. government in the fallout.

It was risky. And when Bolan called Stony Man Farm for the intelligence update and to inform them that he was going into the enemy nation, it wasn’t to ask permission. Such a request would have been construed as nothing less than an act of war, even if it was in utmost secrecy.

The Executioner wasn’t a government employee, and there was a conspiracy summoning him into the depths of an enemy stronghold.

And he either succeeded, or the world would be drawn into a war that could explode into a three-way conflict with China.

Brognola chewed on his cigar, reminding himself to breathe as he watched Dragon Slayer close with the Korean coastline.

Tongjosun Bay, North Korea

IF THERE WAS ANY POINT where the Executioner would have had the option of turning back, they’d long passed it as Jack Grimaldi skimmed the helicopter along at more than 200 mph, its belly only a few feet above the bay, racing parallel to the coastline toward the crook of its elbow. Bolan was dressed in black, simple peasant clothes stuffed into his waterproof backpack. A Beretta 93-R knock-off made by the Red Chinese NORINCO company nestled in his underarm holster, loaded with a flat-based 15-round magazine. A second holster rode on his right hip, but that would disappear completely under baggy pants and a jacket. The big man tilted his head back and placed in the brown contact lenses that masked the piercing cold blue of his eyes, then tested the feel of the semihardened prosthetic appliqués to the orbits of his eye sockets, to duplicate the epicanthic folds of an Asian. He checked the mirror, and his dark-tanned face and Asian eyes made him appear less likely as an American intruder. Bolan’s command of Korean was sketchy at best, though, and he was too large and powerfully built to make a convincing Korean. However, with his paperwork, a much better knowledge of simple Chinese, and his mastery of Vietnamese, he would be able to pass himself off, for a few moments, as a Chinese citizen of ethnic Vietnamese descent. He’d be treated like a third-class citizen if he was noticed.

“It’s pretty thin, Sarge,” Grimaldi said.

“Thicker than what we usually have, Jack,” Bolan replied.

“You sure you don’t want to pop back to Pattaya and load up with some AK-47s with grenade launchers?” Grimaldi asked.

Bolan patted the Beretta knock-offs in his holsters. “I have more than enough for this. I’m on a quiet probe, not a full-fledged invasion. If the North Koreans figured out we were on to their smuggling operation…”

“Yeah,” Grimaldi replied. “Nothing on our scanners, and nobody’s lit us up with surface-to-air missile radar.”

Bolan’s lips were drawn tight as he opened the side door. Dragon Slayer’s stealth capabilities were second to none. There was no sound from the rotors as it blazed along. Infrared baffles, a Kevlar-coated hull, and dark paint robbed the enemy of its ability to make a visual identification of the phantom war bird. Without running lights and operating under starlight scopes, the aircraft was a shadow that sliced over the water. Anyone seeing it might take it for a UFO…

That brought Bolan back to the mutilated cattle. He had encountered enemies with stealth helicopters before. Untrained observers had taken them for unidentified flying objects, and assumed them to be alien visitors.

You don’t get more alien than me in North Korea, Bolan mused mentally. He tensed as he continued his internal countdown, settling his goggles over his altered eyes.

Dragon Slayer flared to a halt, centrifugal force struggling against Bolan’s nylon harness, trying to hurl him out into the gulf. As the momentum bled off, Bolan unsnapped and launched himself out the side door, spearing into the water in a graceful dive.

Grimaldi spun the stealth helicopter away, automated mechanisms closing the side door.

No words of encouragement were necessary, and none were spoken.

Instead, the Executioner swam for the shore, fifteen yards away. No boats floated in the darkness, and nothing moved on the beach. If North Korean forces were perched in wait beyond the tree line, rifles trained on whoever would come from the surf, they would cut Bolan apart effortlessly.

It was a risk that Bolan was willing to take. Something stirred behind the Bamboo Curtain, a monster that reached its tentacles from Thailand to, possibly, North America. Finding its heart would give the Executioner the opportunity to kill it, or at least to slow it so that Hal Brognola could mobilize Stony Man Farm and the United States government against whatever insidious plot lurked in America’s backyard.

Bolan padded up onto the sand and crossed the beach, his waterproof backpack bobbing on his back. He was free and clear, for now.

Unfortunately, getting into North Korea was only the beginning.

He still had miles to go before he reached the smugglers’ destination.

Bolan nestled in a copse and changed into his peasant gear and a wide-brimmed hat to further obscure his western appearance. A fast check of his disguise prosthetics, and he knew that he was in business. The Beretta pressed against his ribs under the baggy, shapeless gray jacket, its twin cinched against his hip under his belt.

But those were only to come out when he found the heart of this operation, if he got that far.

Throwing the sack over his shoulder, and leaning against the walking stick, Bolan stooped enough to seem a full foot shorter and began his march toward the smugglers’ destination. It was a simple disguise, making him enfeebled and bent with age. His paperwork, battered as if it were twenty years old, would pass a cursory inspection, and his knowledge of Southeast Asian languages would carry him even further.

It had been a long time since the Executioner had disappeared among the teeming masses of the Orient, but he still knew all the tricks of role camouflage that had proved a far more effective weapon than a handgun or a sniper rifle.

As prepared as possible, Bolan disappeared into North Korea.

“WE’VE GOT TROUBLES, Doctor,” General II-Raye Chong said into the phone.

“We, General? You’re the one discussing things on an open line.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. Our ship out of Thailand was intercepted by the United States Navy.”

“And your submarine disappeared without a trace. Yes, yes, I know,” the doctor responded, seeming bored and tired.

Chong grimaced at the dismissive tone. “We’ve been out of communications with the submarine, yes.”

“You would think that if they spotted U.S. Navy helicopters around a ship smuggling your latest round of experiments, they would have retreated to a safe harbor and contacted you.”

Chong felt his cheeks heat with anger.

“And there were no reports that the submarine was captured, even on the most sensitive of communications,” the doctor responded. “I know. I checked.”

“So, what now?” Chong asked.

“We presume that your operation has been compromised,” the doctor answered. “But, even if they did recover any intelligence from the submarine, there is nothing tying you and your smugglers to me here.”

“But—”

“And it’s highly unlikely that you’ll end up having an enemy visit you in force,” the doctor stated. “You’re safe in Korea.”

“And if someone is coming?” Chong suggested.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “At most, a handful of intruders into your territory. You should have sufficient forces to deal with them.”

“Doctor…”

“You truly are determined to try my patience, aren’t you?” the doctor asked.

“You know something about what I’m going to run into, don’t you?” Chong asked.

“I know everything, General,” the doctor returned. “That is why I am not some overdressed, desk-bound pencil pusher with delusions of adequacy, and you are not at the heart of this operation.”

Chong took a deep breath.

“Careful, General, we wouldn’t want you to get too upset. You could drop dead of the most innocuous ailments,” the doctor replied. “At least, that’s what the coroner would make of my skill.”

Chong’s spine chilled at the thought. He’d seen how the doctor had been able to strike down enemies miles away. Chong and several of his underlings had met with the man once. When the doctor returned to his home base, thousands of miles away, the doctor had informed the general and his staff of their vulnerability to his whims via a conference call.

At the utterance of the word “whim,” Lieutenant Sung had suddenly fallen into a fit of seizures. Foaming at the mouth, the Korean thrashed on the carpet, unable to cry out in agony as the doctor described how Chong and the rest of his staff had been implanted with subdermal, remote-control devices. Each contained a highly lethal biotoxin that became untraceable within moments of the victim’s expiration.

Sung lasted fifteen minutes, puking and twisting violently on the floor before he died.

Fifteen minutes that had to have felt like an eternity in hell.

“Remember, General. Deal properly with me, or I shall become very, very cross,” the doctor informed him.

Chong cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

“Excellent.” Chong could hear the doctor’s smile as he spoke.

The strange doctor gloated on the other end of the phone line, and there was nothing that General Chong could do to stop him.

He had entered into the bargain with the man to forge his own destiny, free from the Beloved Leader who seemed determined to hurl the world into chaos.

Instead, Chong knelt before a new master who cherished the power of life and death as if he were a sorcerer.

“If you are going to receive visitors, General, I advise you to be prepared now. They should arrive within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If you can, call in all the high-tech surveillance and all the best soldiers you have access to,” the doctor advised. “I’ve lost several friends to the kind of opposition that can make a submarine disappear without a trace.”

Chong tilted his head. “So soon?”

“If they’re not in the country already, they’ll be there by dawn,” the doctor informed him. “And they will arrive invisibly, but with enough force to level your base.”

“Is there no one you can send to aid me?” Chong asked.

“Not presently,” the doctor replied. “But, please, feel free to kill yourself before falling into enemy hands. Because if you do become a prisoner, I can guarantee that it will be the longest, and last, fifteen minutes you’ll ever spend.”