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Gantz would have built his bombs somewhere else, at a spot where regular traffic would be expected. Maybe some kind of industrial site. A place where there would have to be the kind of equipment the panel trucks could be adapted for their intended use. It wouldn’t be an easy place to find, considering the number of such sites there were across the country.
Bolan took out his cell phone and contacted the Farm, asking for Kurtzman.
“What’s the miracle I’m expected to perform tonight?”
“We’re at Gantz’s house outside Tyler Bay. He already had visitors, but not the kind who bring a bottle of wine to accompany a meal.”
“Understood. Gantz?”
“He’d been tortured when we arrived. We mixed it with the visitors. The upshot is they hit the house with a .50-caliber mounted on that boat you spotted in the bay. They used it to get to Gantz’s house. Must have been waiting for dark and the fog to cover their approach. Gantz took a couple of shells. He’s still alive but critical.”
“Where do I come in?”
“Gantz couldn’t have made his bombs here. There has to be a manufacturing site somewhere.”
Bolan heard the big man’s deep sigh.
“Haystacks and needles just registered,” Kurtzman said. “That’s a hell of a request.”
“I realize that. I’ll go through the place here to see if I can turn anything up that might help.”
“How about a confession written down and personally signed by Gantz?”
“If I find it, you’ll be the first to know. Aaron, patch me through to Hal. And thanks.”
“For what? I haven’t done anything yet.”
“I have faith in you, buddy.”
Brognola came on the line. “Is Massachusetts in flames yet?”
“A small part of it is smoking.”
“I knew it. Tell me the worst.”
Bolan gave a detailed report of the Tyler Bay episode. He made it clear to Brognola that they were attempting to gain further information so he and Lyons could make their next move against the Brethren.
“Gantz name them?”
“He named them. I got the feeling the affair between them is over.”
“A .50-caliber round or two is a hell of a way to end a romance.”
“Hal, these people weren’t about to do it easy.”
“So why were they working the guy over if he was with them?” Brognola’s tone became irritable.
“A fallout? Maybe he had a change of heart after the bombings. The number of dead and injured might have hit home. He could have been attempting a shakedown. Asking for more money. Threatening the Brethren with exposure if they didn’t pay up. We need to ID these people. Hal, we’re all making guesses right now.”
“Yeah, I know. I wish we could make the right one.”
“Early in the game. I understand why you’re touchy. We all know the Brethren could stage more bombings before we get to them.”
“Yeah, sorry, Striker.”
“No apologies needed. I’ll touch base later. Right now we have the local law to keep on our team.”
“You need any backup just yell.”
“Will do.”
LYONS CAME FROM OUTSIDE, with a pair of hand cutters Harper had supplied from his vehicle’s tool kit. He handed them to Bolan, who severed the wire around Gantz’s limbs, freeing him from the chair. He covered the unconscious man with a blanket. Lyons went back outside as a precaution, prowling the area with the restless energy that never seemed to leave him.
Chief Harper joined Bolan inside the house. “I have my people on the way. They’ll seal off the area. And I radioed for an ambulance. It has to come some distance. I called the Coast Guard to check the area. The trouble is, by the time they reach the bay that boat will be long gone. Coast Guard is busy tonight with all this fog.”
“Best guess is they’ll find that boat empty and drifting.”
“My thoughts, too.”
“Best we can do is try, Chief.”
“How’s Gantz doing?”
“Touch and go. Those .50-calibers didn’t do him any favors.”
Harper eyed the big man, sensing there was a reason he wasn’t showing much feeling over Gantz’s condition. “Something I should know, Agent Cooper?”
“Tell me about Gantz.”
“Not much to tell. He turned up a few months back. This place had been rented out to him for twelve months. He only showed his face in town a few times. All we got from him was he was here to rest after an illness. The man wasn’t what you’d call talkative.”
“He have any visitors? Did he make trips away from the area?”
“Only a few visitors, but he did make a fair number of trips away from town in that SUV parked out front. You ask a lot of questions, Agent Cooper.”
Bolan smiled. “I suppose I do. It’s necessary, Chief. We need to get a line on the people Gantz was involved with.”
“And who are these people? Not the friendly kind, from what’s happened here tonight. Or is this a need-to-know operation?”
“We believe Gantz may have been involved in the recent mass bombings.”
“The Federal Reserve banks and the department stores? And those National Guard units?”
“The intel we have is moving more and more toward Gantz being involved.”
Harper took a slow look around the room. “Son of a bitch wasn’t making the bombs here?”
“Most likely he worked out his details here, then took trips to wherever they actually constructed the packages.”
“How did you tie him in?”
“Gantz was involved in making similar kinds of bombs some years ago. Back then he was never convicted, and appears to have been keeping low ever since, but recently he was seen in the company of a radical militia group.”
Harper digested the information. “Come to think of it, Gantz did make some of his away trips days before the recent attacks.”
“He make any trips out of town since the attacks?”
“His last one was a couple of days ago. Hell, you think he was setting up more bombs?”
“It’s what we have to find out, Chief. I’d be grateful if you could arrange for photographs and fingerprints of all the dead. I need to get them to the lab for positive identification.”
“I can do that. We might be a small department, but we have the equipment. I’ll call for my guy to do it for you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
The digital and fingerprint images sent from Bolan were in the system, being scanned by the FBI’s AFIS recognition program. Kurtzman also had them being scanned by military databases and any other recognition systems he could work into his search. Huntington Wethers was taking his turn watching the scans running across his monitors. It was just over an hour when he got his first hit.
“We got one,” he called.
Kurtzman rolled up to Wethers’s workstation as a hard copy slid from the printer. He snatched it up and scanned the information.
“There it is,” he said. “Henry Jacks. He’s done time for assault. Over the past ten years he’s been associated with three different militia groups. Guess who he’s been with the last three years? The Brethren. He hates the government and doesn’t agree with anything they do. He has been quoted as saying ‘when we burn you down, it will be a new day for real Americans.’”
“His burning days are over,” Wethers said.
“Let me run a check on known associates,” Kurtzman said. “We might hit lucky.”
It was quickly found that Jacks’s two closest friends were both members of the Brethren, and a cross-check revealed they had both died in the assault on Jerome Gantz’s Tyler Point home.
Carmen Delahunt, who had been quietly monitoring her data input, called for Kurtzman’s attention. “A news service in Washington just received a claim from a group calling itself America the Free. They are saying they are responsible for the recent bombings, and there are more to come.”
“New name to me,” Kurtzman said.
“I just ran a trace through FBI files,” Delahunt said. She was former FBI herself, so her knowledge of their procedures was a great help to Stony Man. “There’s no data on such a group. But the information they included in their claim is pretty close to what the FBI has on the bombings.”
Kurtzman pondered on that. “Okay, Carmen, you stay on that for a while. See what else you can find on America the Free. There’s something odd in this. Let’s see if we can dig it up.”
Kurtzman relayed the current information to Bolan and advised they were continuing with the identification of the others involved.
Tyler Bay Hotel
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION came through the laptop, and it was Bolan’s turn to check the screen when another Brethren connection popped up. He found himself staring at an image that took him back to the Gantz house and the boat retreating into the fog shrouding the bay.
The image stared at him from the screen. A long, lean-featured face. The stare was hard and direct, and above it the hair was pale and cut short. It was the man Bolan had seen at the stern rail. He had been right at the time—it was a face he wouldn’t forget. He called Lyons to take a look.
“He’s the one I spotted on the boat just as it pulled away. Deacon Ribak. One of the Brethren’s top lieutenants. Ex-Army Ranger out of Fort Benning, Georgia. Served thirteen years. Last couple of years his personal politics clashed with the Army’s. He refused to change his views and took a discharge a couple of years ago. Joined the Brethren six months later and has been with them ever since. He’s a trained professional, Carl. He’s seen a lot of hard action.” Bolan ran his fingers down the column that detailed Ribak’s military career. “One hell of an asset for the Brethren.”
“I still don’t get why they hit Gantz. What they did screams interrogation. If you want the guy dead, it can be done quick and easy. Unless you want him to tell you something.”
There was a knock on the door. Lyons turned and flattened himself against the wall, his Colt Python in his hand, as Bolan crossed the room and cautiously opened the door. Chief Harper stood on the threshold.
“Come in, Chief,” Bolan said, more to warn Lyons to stand down.
Harper stepped inside. When Bolan closed the door the cop saw Lyons putting his weapon away.
“Don’t tell me you guys sleep with your guns under your pillows.”
Bolan smiled. “I keep mine in my hand and one eye open.”
“Damned if I don’t believe you.”
“What can we do for you, Chief?”
“Quit the ‘Chief’ crap. The name’s Jason.”
“Coffee?”
Harper nodded. “I feel like I’ve done a week’s shifts in one night.”
Lyons handed him a cup. “You mean, this isn’t normal for Tyler Bay?”
“Hell, no. If it was, I’d been retired and gone by now. I came to tell you I had a call from county hospital. Gantz is still in surgery. The outlook isn’t too good. Apart from the damage those big .50s did, he has broken ribs on both sides of his body and two kneecaps more mush than bone. Lower jaw totally shattered and most of his teeth are gone. That crack on his head split his skull clear open.”
“Your officer get anything from him?” Bolan asked.
If Harper thought that was coldhearted he made no comment. He simply shook his head. “Edgar stayed with him all the way to the hospital. Gantz didn’t say a thing. Edgar didn’t leave his side until they wheeled him into the operating room. He’s still there in case Gantz survives. Not that it seems likely.”
“Something to look forward to,” Lyons said quietly.
Harper rounded on him. “Son, I figure you’ve had a tough time tonight, but every man deserves a little Christian pity when he’s down.”
“You think so?” Lyons snapped. “Get out of small-town U.S.A. and smell the real world, Chief.”
Bolan stood between them. He put a big hand on Lyons’s shoulder. “Doug, go and cool down, okay?” He met Lyons’s anger with a calm manner that stood the Able Team leader down. He turned aside and crossed the room to stare out the window.
The soldier faced Harper. “You heard about the bombings and saw the TV reports cut and dried for public viewing. We had the official versions. No hiding the results of those explosions. Every little detail. Men, women and especially the children. Innocent victims. Americans like you and me, Jason. Going about their business and not expecting what happened to them. It doesn’t leave us much room for pity when we realize this was done by Americans to Americans. We have to deal with the aftermath, and have done so before. There are times it’s hard to distance ourselves. Sometimes we succeed. Other times we don’t.”
Bolan’s quiet explanation had its calming effect on the cop. Harper drew a hand across his tired features, staring into the blue eyes of the big man who seemed to have total control of anything that came his way. He was unaware it was the way Mack Bolan dealt with tangled emotions. The ability to move away from crisis moments and bring his natural skills as a mediator into a tense situation. It served Bolan well. He employed the same emotion to clear his own anger when faced with a mental struggle.
Over his years of conflict he had learned long ago there were times he needed to detach himself. Not to completely forget the evil his enemies employed, but to put them on standby while he refreshed his mind and body. The things he had seen he would never fully forget. That was an impossibility even for the Executioner. It was not something he wanted to forget. As long as he had his memories of the terrible things witnessed in the past, he remained strong for his battles in the future. Mack Bolan was human. A caring human being. He understood the deep and dark acts his enemies were capable of. He was also aware of his own strengths, which kept him fighting his War Everlasting.
Harper glanced across to where Lyons stood at the window, shoulders hunched and taut as he struggled to contain his anger. “Could be maybe I have been here in Tyler Bay too long. Backwater town. Nothing much happens. Worse thing about it is, I like it that way.” He looked at Bolan. “Hell of an admission for a professional cop.”
“You keep it that way, Jason. So we can all remember there are places like Tyler Bay. That there are still sane and safe places in the middle of the madness. That’s something we all need to hang on to.”
“I guess so.” Harper went across to Lyons. “Rough night for us all, son. Best excuse I can come up with right now.”
