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“Copeland here,” he said.
“We’ve found something. That federal hotshot will want to see it.”
“That federal hotshot is right here.” Copeland grinned at the Executioner. “What have you got?”
“We found a video camera on one of the gravestones,” the voice came back. “It was still running.”
“Set to record what?” Copeland asked.
“It was pointing at the grave site.”
Copeland looked at Bolan.
“Publicity,” Bolan said. “Had this gone off as planned, they would have killed everybody down there, collected their video and left. Chances are the camera was left by this one.” He jerked his chin toward the dead Asian. “He must have decided getting clear was more important than working his way back around to retrieve the camera.”
“So if the shooting had worked—”
“If it had worked,” Bolan said grimly, “the video of those people dying would have been all over the Internet by the weekend. Count on it.”
“Bastards,” Copeland muttered.
“And then some,” Bolan agreed.
The soldier crouched over the dead Asian, once more taking out his secure satellite phone and taking a digital picture. He paused to transmit it to the Farm. No instructions were needed. Aaron Kurtzman and his team of cyber wizards would know that any corpse shot Bolan sent was a request for identification and intel. He did, however, take a moment to text message Kurtzman with the phone number he’d gotten from Mitch Schrader. It was unlikely the number would prove to be useful, but one never knew. So far Bolan’s enemies had been a curious mixture of sloppy and professional. Someone, somewhere, might have been careless and used a number that was traceable in some way.
Bolan and Copeland made the long walk back to the cemetery. The soldier’s own vehicle, a rental SUV, was parked on the opposite end of the access road leading out the front of the property. He would need to collect his gear and get back to the airport, where Grimaldi and the jet would be ready to go. While the Farm checked on the intelligence Bolan had gathered so far, the Executioner would travel to the nearest Trofimov facility from his target list. There was no telling what he’d find, but it was his experience that if he made enough forays into enemy territory, sooner or later he’d find something or someone would take a shot at him. That would be the only break he’d need.
Once the Executioner was certain how far deep the rot went, he was going to slash and burn it out of the nation’s heartland.
The Patriotism Riders remained on the scene, though the police were getting ready to pack up. The police changed their minds about that quickly when Copeland informed them that there was yet another body to account for. As they scrambled, a few of them shooting suspicious looks Bolan’s way, the soldier went to the group of Riders to see what held their attention so firmly.
“I don’t believe it,” Mitch Schrader was saying. This was met by a chorus of agreement from the others, who sounded angry. Bolan looked over the shoulder of the nearest Rider, who noticed him and moved out of the way. Sitting on one of the motorcycles, another of the Riders had a small portable television, apparently something he carried in his saddlebags. The little device showed a newscast with the TBT logo in the corner. Trofimov’s cable news network, Bolan thought.
“You’re not going to like this,” the man on the motorcycle said, looking up at Bolan. “You were military, right? You got the look.”
Bolan had nothing to say to that. He focused on the little television.
“We were getting ready to roll out,” Schrader explained, “when Norm thought to check the news, see if anybody’d gotten wind of all this.” He gestured around him. “I figured, no way, there aren’t any news cameras here, you know?”
“The locals are probably running interference,” Bolan said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a marked car parked at the entrance to this property, keeping the reporters out.”
“Figured as much,” Schrader said. “Anyway, Norm turns on the TV, and this is what we got.” He pointed to the television.
“…promising a full investigation at the highest levels of government and the military command in Afghanistan,” the young female news anchor was saying. “We at TBT are proud to bring you the following commentary from our president and CEO, Yuri Trofimov.”
The scene cut to the interior of a sumptuously appointed office. Behind a gleaming desk, Yuri Trofimov—text near the bottom of the screen identified him as such—looked out at the screen, his features grim. When he spoke, he had a slight accent, but this coupled with his expensive suit and his aristocratic manner gave him the aura of a foreign diplomat. He exuded confidence, competence and, above all, a barely suppressed righteous indignation. Bolan took one look at the man and knew he was dealing with a master manipulator. It oozed from every pore, from the man’s slicked, perfectly coiffed hair to the rings that glittered on his fingers as he clasped his hands on the desktop.
“We at TBT are deeply saddened to bring you this news,” Trofimov said. “But as always, we are committed to nothing so much as the truth, and to the unflinching reporting of that truth, no matter how graphic or unpleasant. I think I speak for many when I say, as proud as I am of my adopted country, that this is a dark day for the United States, and a day when I am ashamed to call myself an American.”
“Shut the hell up, you scumbag!” Norm interjected. Schrader shushed him, gesturing to the screen.
“It is my hope that we, as a nation, can eventually work through this,” Trofimov said soberly, “but I will not lie to you. It will be difficult. We will have to make some hard admissions about our standing in the world. We will have to come to terms with the barbarism that lurks, even now, within our armed forces. This will not sit well with many of us, but I know that we are up to the challenge. For TBT News, I am Yuri Trofimov, and I thank you for trusting us.”
Norm switched the set off in disgust. He looked ready to throw the little device.
“Can you beat that?” Schrader said. “I just…I just don’t know.”
“What happened?” Bolan asked.
“They’re reporting that a bunch of our guys attacked a village in Afghanistan,” Schrader said. “Totally unprovoked, they claimed. Burned the place to the ground, shot twenty, maybe thirty women and children. And Trofimov’s news says they have videotape of our guys doing it…and laughing about it.”
Bolan’s jaw clenched. Things were getting ugly.
They were going to get uglier.
CHAPTER THREE
“Word’s in from the Farm, Sarge,” Grimaldi said from the cockpit, his voice carrying over the jet’s intercom. “You’ve got another rental truck waiting for you at the field, and the care package you requested will be inside. The GPS unit in the truck should get you to the target location without any trouble.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Bolan said. He had finished cleaning the Remington and was replacing it in its Pelican case.
“I’ll stay with the jet once we land, and I’ll be ready to get us in the air again as soon as you’re done in Cedar Rapids. We’ll make good time to Kansas City after that. Barb confirms that your ‘driver’ should be waiting for you when we hit the tarmac again.”
“Copy that,” Bolan acknowledged.
His “driver” was, in fact, a government agent. As he always did, he had his reservations about the arrangement, but Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price, had done her homework. When she had contacted Bolan on his secure satellite phone minutes after the soldier boarded the new jet, she had wasted no time in breaking the news to him.
“The FBI,” she said, “wants in.”
“I’m listening,” Bolan had said simply.
“Kwok Jin,” the Farm’s honey-blond mission controller had stated. “That’s the identification that came back on your dead man, the Asian you said gave you such a hard time. I’m transmitting to you the files on the other shooters, too, but except for Kwok they’re amateur talent. Rabble-rousers with ties to known political agitator groups. Two were former members of PAAC and supposedly expelled, presumably because they were more radical than the group could tolerate. That alone says something. A couple have rap sheets, but nothing too serious. Some of the records go back quite a ways, and in one case it was a sealed juvenile case.”
“So in other words, they’re nobody. But someone put guns in their hands and sent them to kill innocent people. And somebody coordinated them and planned the operation for them.”
“That somebody was likely Kwok or, more probably, the organization that employed him,” Price confirmed. “Kwok Jin. North Korean, formerly with the country’s military. Fled the country and went freelance about ten years ago, in the company of a brother, Sun. Both of them sold the only skills they had on the open market. They’ve been mercenaries for the past decade, most of those ten years in association with one Gareth Twain.”
“I know that name,” Bolan had said.
“For good reason,” Price said. “Twain was one of the most murderous terrorists ever to work with the Irish Republican Army. He was so bloodthirsty, in fact, that the IRA expelled him. That was a good fifteen years ago. He’s been an international mercenary ever since, notable for the fact that he has absolutely no loyalties to any entity, governmental or personal. He’ll kill anyone for the right price, and no body count is too high.”
“Why hasn’t the Farm targeted Twain before?”
“He’s always stayed one step ahead of us,” Price said. “Always on the move, and always in corners of the world where the most conflict was to be had. He’s a brutal operator, and his organization is extensive, but he’s managed to blend into the background noise of the various wars being waged in the Third World and elsewhere. He really gets around, too. He’s done stints all over Africa and South America. In Gaza, while reportedly working for Hamas and the PLO, his people blew up a freighter bound for Semarang last year. He’s been implicated three times in acts of domestic terrorism in the United States, including an aborted bombing of a federal facility in Virginia, sponsored by a homegrown ‘patriot’ group, and he’s wanted for the murder of an Interpol agent in Paris last year.”
“That’s quite a résumé.”
“It’s the Virginia bombing that put him on the Bureau’s radar,” Price reported. “Their Omnivore computer processing programs, which of course Aaron has fully infiltrated, are set to flag any mention of Twain or his known associates in any law-enforcement database, including Interpol and a dozen others. We ran Kwok’s identification and it generated a flag. The Bureau contacted Justice, wanting to know what we knew, and Hal ran some interference for us. He pulled a few strings and called in a few favors. Someone on the Bureau’s end did the same. Ultimately it was decided that an agent be assigned to what Hal is characterizing as a ‘domestic investigation’ on the part of Justice and its assets. Hal, in the spirit of cooperation and goodwill among government agencies, of course agreed.”
“In other words, they’ll raise a stink if we don’t let them in the door.”
“Exactly,” Price said. “And as sensitive as this could be, considering Trofimov’s access to the media and the harm being done to the nation’s military interests, our friend in Wonderland has decided it’s best if we go along to get along.”
“That’s a dangerous game,” Bolan said. “I’m not going to scale back my mission to accommodate the sensibilities of a by-the-book FBI agent.”
“There’s where we catch a break,” Price had told him. “I’m transmitting the file to you now. Jennifer Delaney, thirty-four. Been with the Bureau for the past ten years. A decorated agent, but also one who’s been disciplined more than once. You can read the details yourself, but I’ll sum it up for you—she has a recurring problem with authority and no compunctions about bending the rules to get things done.”
“But she’s still with the Bureau, which doesn’t tolerate loose cannons.”
“True,” Price said. “Which means she’s a very good agent, for all her willingness to be pragmatic in the field.”
“I can live with that,” Bolan said.
“We don’t know who talked to whom in the Bureau, but Delaney has a personal stake in Twain and has been pursuing him since the incident in Virginia. Her partner, a Paul Sander, was the lead on the investigation that eventually saw Twain and his outfit popped before they could plant their explosives. A couple of them went down, but Twain and his key people got away. Twain shot both Sander and Delaney in making his escape. Sander died.”
“So she’s looking for payback,” Bolan said. “Can I trust her?”
“She wants Twain,” Price said. “Wouldn’t you? But there’s no indication it has interfered with her work. There have been no disciplinary actions in her file since then, either, if it makes a difference to you.”
“I can understand.” The file was coming through on his phone. The digital photograph of Delaney showed an attractive red-haired woman with high cheekbones and green eyes. She had a small scar on her chin. According to the statistics appended to the file, she was five foot nine, with an athletic build. She’d twice won commendations for bravery in service to the Bureau. Bolan skipped the disciplinary flags; he wasn’t interested in the second-guessing of bureaucrats, who were only too happy to criticize after the fact the split-second, life-and-death decisions men and women of action were forced to make in the field.
“Delaney is en route and will meet you in—” Price paused to check something “—Kansas City. Jack tells me you’ll reach Eastern Iowa Airport momentarily, and that you plan to hit the facility in Kansas City after that?”
“That’s the plan,” Bolan said. “It’s the next logical location, geographically, on the priority list. Until something breaks free, I intend to keep the pressure on, keep blitzing Trofimov’s assets until he screams. I can’t verify the timing, though.”
“It shouldn’t matter,” Price said. “By the time you’re done in Iowa and moving to Kansas Delaney should get there not too much before you do.”
“We’ll make sure not to miss her. How much can I tell her?”
“While her interest is primarily Twain, the folks at the Bureau aren’t stupid,” Price said. “Hal chose to share some off-the-record intel with them. She’s going to be at least vaguely aware of the Trofimov connection. Officially, there’s no FBI interest in Trofimov, but unofficially you can bet they’re every bit as concerned about murderous, possibly even seditious actions taken by an American citizen to undermine the United States military. You know how much they have to dance around these days, pretending not to peer too closely into the lives of private citizens. There’s just been too much public outcry over things like the domestic wiretapping program, civil rights violations by Homeland Security, that sort of thing. The Bureau wants to know what Trofimov is up to as badly as we do, but they can’t admit it right now.”
“Meaning they’ll be happy to take the credit once I’ve found all the loose ends and burned them down,” Bolan said.
“Possibly,” Price admitted. “Hal will be only too happy to let them, too, given how the Sensitive Operations Group’s cover has to be kept out of the public eye. We can operate, at least partly, under the aegis of FBI ownership of this thing, if it plays out well.”
“It’s going to get ugly enough behind the scenes, once the body count grows. I assume Hal has worked the phones and okayed my involvement.”
“As usual,” Price said.
“All right, then,” Bolan said. “This Delaney can ride along. Make no mistake, though, Barb. I’m not going to let her get in my way. My priority is Trofimov and whatever programs he’s running to kill Americans and interfere with the military.”
“Understood,” Price said. “I doubt that will be a problem. You have goals in common. The implication here is, of course, that Twain and his people are working with Trofimov, and probably have been for some time.”
“Yes,” Bolan had agreed. “The activists, the amateurs with the guns, were obviously being run by someone else, and that someone in this case was apparently Kwok and whoever he works for. If Kwok is known to work for Gareth Twain, we likely have a winner. Twain is just the sort of gun for hire that someone like Trofimov would use. Given Twain’s history, and Trofimov’s deep pockets, it’s likely Trofimov is using Twain and his organization extensively.”
“Taking out Gareth Twain would do a lot of people a lot of good.”
“Don’t worry, Barb,” Bolan said. “I won’t leave anyone out. Anybody connected to Trofimov, everyone involved in the killings of U.S. service people and in Trofimov’s antimilitary operations, is going to answer for their crimes. What have you heard about this videotaped massacre TBT is shouting about?”
“Nothing beyond the reports so far,” Price replied. “We’re checking. So far our contacts within the armed forces are drawing blanks. The Pentagon is stonewalling, saying only that it will conduct a full investigation.”
“Which means they have no idea what’s going on.”
“Exactly,” Price said. “That’s the response they give when they’re caught flat-footed. So far, we have no confirmation of the incident itself, or even of the identities of the soldiers supposedly involved. The quality of the tape is poor. It’s going to be hard to get facial recognition, and the names on the soldiers’ uniforms are too blurry to be readable. Bear did uncover some data traffic indicating the Pentagon is trying to run some enhancement on the tapes, to get to the bottom of just who is doing what to whom. Nothing so far.”
“How bad is it?”
“Really bad, Striker,” Price said. “The foreign press is screaming bloody murder. Our own people are just as loud. The massacre is the talk of every cable news show, radio program and major network broadcast. It’s on every channel and it’s twenty-four hours a day.”
Bolan said nothing; his fists clenched in anger as he considered the implications. “All right. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Understood. Everything’s uploaded. You have all the data now,” Price said. Bolan checked his phone and confirmed that. “We’re still working on the phone number you gave us. It has several layers of redundant encryption protecting it. Bear has Akira running a back-end trace to try to find it through the network in which it’s hidden.”
“Understood,” Bolan repeated. Price was referring to Akira Tokaido, one of the Farm’s computer geniuses. “The fact that someone wanted the Patriotism Riders there, just to make sure they were killed with the others, is significant. It makes the whole thing that much bolder a statement, that much more horrible. It says a lot about the people we’re dealing with.”
“We’re on it,” Price said.
“Let me know if you find anything. I’ll see you when I see you.”
“Striker?” Price had asked.
“Yeah, Barb?”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
The soldier had busied himself with cleaning his weapons, making sure to disassemble the Beretta and give it a thorough once-over. The usually gregarious Grimaldi was quiet, for the most part, content to let Bolan work through the operation in his mind.
Bolan reviewed the mission data on the site in Cedar Rapids. It wasn’t especially significant in terms of his priority list of targets, but it was the closest Trofimov asset. The type of operation Bolan was about to run was based on the notion of shaking the tree. You targeted the enemy’s assets, made a lot of noise, caused a lot of damage and then stood back to see what shook loose. Along the way, some of Trofimov’s secrets were bound to be exposed; the facilities, by definition, were somehow dirty, or the Farm’s cybernetics staff wouldn’t have ferreted them out as suspicious.
Trofimov’s reaction to Bolan’s incursions would tell the soldier, and by extension the Farm, everything he would need to know. Countless times, Bolan had marched willingly into the jaws of death to see what would try to bite him. This was no different.
The facility outside Cedar Rapids was ostensibly an assembly plant for DVD players. The parts were manufactured abroad, mostly in China, then imported and put together for domestic sale in the United States. The legal details were irrelevant to Bolan, but he was at least vaguely aware that such an arrangement allowed Trofimov to claim the devices were “made in the U.S.A.” while achieving the cost savings of foreign import manufacture. There were probably certain import restrictions that were also being circumvented.
What was important about this particular plant, according to reports Price had sent and the data Kurtzman and his people had compiled, was that it had never made any money. Quite the contrary; when the financial records were traced all the way to their virtual conclusions, past several holding and front companies and through more than a few creative bookkeeping tricks, the plant consumed more money than it would if it were operating at a total loss. That meant it was burning through cash a lot faster than ever it could, even if Trofimov was building DVD players free of charge. While it wasn’t unheard-of for a large company to produce a commodity at a loss, to gain market share or build brand loyalty, the degree of financial drain in this case was staggering. It was far too much for the plant to be anything but a front for something else. Bolan intended to find out just what was being done behind the scenes.
When he knew that, he’d be a step closer to learning just who and what this Yuri Trofimov was, and why the man had chosen to make the United States his enemy. Bolan had no illusions. This wasn’t an investigation, nor was it a mystery. He wasn’t a detective. He was a soldier, and he was performing a soldier’s task.
Search and destroy.
CHAPTER FOUR
Yuri Trofimov sat at his desk as the makeup girl swabbed the last of the television makeup from his face. He favored her with a smile full of perfectly capped teeth. From his elaborately styled hair to his tailored suit to his spray-on tan, there was nothing about Yuri Trofimov that was not meticulously groomed, controlled and managed to effect. The man left nothing to chance, and he was very proud of that fact.
Swiveling in his chair, he took in the view from the window overlooking downtown Orlando. Several buildings, not quite as tall as his own TBT headquarters, were still under construction. He had never quite lost the joy he had felt as a boy, watching construction work, and there were times when he watched the cranes below slowly swiveling over the steel skeletons that were taking shape in the shadow of Trofimov’s own building. Downtown Orlando had been undergoing something of a commercial revitalization for some months now, though in these turbulent economic times it was anybody’s guess how long that would last.
There were precious few memories from his childhood that were pleasant ones. Growing up, he had believed he was destined for the navy. He had never known his father; his mother, little more than a prostitute who existed on the kindness of the many men she bedded, had hinted more than once that Yuri’s father had been a naval officer. Her indifference to him had set the tone for his early life. He was neither abused nor loved, neither cared for nor hated. The empty ache left him eventually, when he learned to substitute for it other, preferable emotions. Chief among these were anger and ambition.
