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“The Seven Stars. When they align it will be a sign that the time of great change is on us, blah-blah-blah. The usual.” Hal waved dismissively. “There’s a file on them that I can get Bear to download for you. It’s not pretty reading. The usual collection of misfits, criminals and the confused.”
Bolan nodded. “I get your point, but it could be dangerous to think of them that simply. These raids seem to have been pretty well planned and executed. If they can do that...”
“I know,” Brognola agreed, rubbing his forehead.
“Well, what would make her—or them—a target?” Bolan asked.
Brognola smiled wryly. “On the money, Striker. Dale is a very conscientious man. He serves on committees that deal with the procurement and deployment of software and hardware that are vital to homeland security. A lot of very sensitive information passes through his hands.”
“Blackmail, then?”
“It doesn’t have to be that crude. We’re pretty sure that the Seven Stars have put two and two together, and it won’t be long before other enemies of the homeland do so when more information leaks.”
“What kind of information?”
“Elena was a good student before the cult started to get to her. She was like her father—very studious, very conscientious, very hardworking...and very patriotic. College vacations weren’t a holiday for her.”
Bolan assented. “I think I see where you’re going. Not being one for spring break, Elena liked to busy herself helping her father, right?”
Brognola agreed. “She was an additional secretary and researcher, which meant she had access to a lot of sensitive information. Also, her mother died two years ago, so Elena became her father’s confidante when it came to his work.”
“I can see why you wanted to keep a lid on this, and why you’re keen to get her back. But if she had that much access, where the hell was security when they should have been keeping an eye on her?”
“Slipped through the net, Striker. She was never on payroll or official staff. Only Dale really knew how much she was privy to, and that was why he came to me. Make no mistake, this is a sensitive issue.”
Bolan’s tone was grim. “If you have too many agencies involved, crawling over half of Florida, then you alert everyone, from the press to our enemies, that Elena Anders is more than just a runaway daughter. If you leave it to the local boys on the ground, then you’re looking at Waco and a bad result for the senator personally. In between the two, there’s no knowing what these whack-jobs have got out of her and what they’ll do with it.”
“That’s about the size of it. Elena was at Tampa, but since hooking up with the cult she’s moved farther south....”
“I gathered that.” Bolan stood and walked across the room to where a map of the United States covered half of one wall. He reached out and indicated the southern Florida area, around the Keys. “If what just happened here—” he drew a circle with his finger “—and the other two robberies took place within a radius like this, then it figures that the cult is based somewhere within the circle, which would put it right in the swamplands—tough to access without drawing a whole lot of unwanted attention to yourself.”
Brognola nodded. “We know where they are. They make no secret of that. The problem is it’s not exactly easy to get to.” He stepped in front of Bolan and indicated a spot almost in the exact center of the circle the soldier had traced. “There’s an abandoned amusement park that was built in the seventies. Eveland. As in Evel Knieval rather than Adam and Eve. All the rides and attractions were themed around the old rider’s stunts.”
“Should have made a killing back then,” Bolan mused. “And he’s become almost mythical since dying, so why is it a wreck?”
Brognola grinned. “Money. First of all, they neglected to give old Evel any for using his name and image. And even if they’d done that, or won the resulting court case, they were too mean to grease the right palms when it came to getting an interstate re-routed so that it passed nice and close to where they were situated. As a result, it’s been closed for thirty years, a hunk of useless real estate accessible only by one or two small roads that wind through the tropics.”
“Not good for whoever was fool enough to put money in, but more than good enough for this cult’s purposes,” Bolan mused. “So what’s needed is a small force—maybe just one man—who can move quickly and without detection, to extract the Senator’s daughter. Once she’s safe, then that small force can blow them out of the water. That’s if that doesn’t happen during the extraction itself. And that one man would be me, or why else would I be here? Am I right?”
Brognola clapped him on the shoulder. “Striker, you are so on the money today that I’m tempted to send you to the racetracks en route.”
Chapter 2 (#ulink_63acb84e-3fd2-5d80-b524-0a36f85fa1d6)
Elena Anders felt her breath catch as a sob rose in her throat. She tried to choke it back. Her heart was thudding so loudly that she was sure they could hear it as far away as Miami. Her clothes—ripped denim cutoffs and a soiled T-shirt—were clinging to her. She was dripping with sweat, yet her mouth felt as dry as a desert. Her ears were ringing and her head was thumping with the effort she had put in so far, and she could feel the lactic acid burning in her muscles, sapping them of strength as she tried to loosen the paling that was driven deep into the soil, supporting the wire fence. All the while, she was glancing nervously around, the tension and anxiety doing nothing for her aching head. Thoughts that were already a whirl of confusion became even more jumbled, making it an effort to concentrate on the task at hand.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, that part of the distant consciousness that was still able to attain any kind of clarity, she was sure that they were doping her up. She was pretty sure, in fact, that everyone in the compound was getting drugged, in varying degrees. She thought of the area as a compound, like a penitentiary, even though it was supposed to be a commune. Maybe it was someone’s idea of a commune, but it certainly wasn’t hers. Nothing about the Sanctuary of the Seven Stars had been how she had imagined it when they’d ensnared her in Tampa.
Ensnared. Again, that wasn’t what some would call it. Back then, she probably would have agreed with them....
Dammit, Elena, focus, she told herself. It was only by some miracle that she’d been able to slip away from the others. A chance like this wouldn’t come around again in a hurry, so she had to make the most of it.
She braced herself and pushed, so that the paling moved in a circular pattern, carving out a larger hole. Biting through her lip until she could taste the salt of blood, and feel at least a little moisture on her parched tongue, she used the pain to drive her beyond what she thought herself capable of. She gripped the paling, pulled it to her and heaved upward. Despite herself, the effort caused a gasp of pain to escape her bloody lips.
It was done. She staggered under the weight of the picket, letting it fall away from her before it could swing in the other direction and crush her. It dropped with a dull thud, and for a moment she stood panting, listening hard and not quite able to believe that it hadn’t created enough noise to draw anyone to the spot.
Elena forced herself into action. Every second mattered, as her absence could be noticed at any moment. She had to take advantage of this, even though her muscles protested and she felt as if she was moving through the swamp mud that she knew at some point she would have to face.
Where the paling had fallen, it had dragged the wire fencing out of shape, twisting it so that it was raised up from the scrub grass around the perimeter. It gave her a gap just big enough to crawl through. She fell onto her belly and dragged herself forward, ignoring the stones that scraped her stomach and knees, and the sharp ends of wire that snagged her T-shirt and the skin on her back and arms. The extra effort required to pull herself free was almost too much, but fear of what might happen if she was to be found like this, defenseless and with no chance of flight, was enough to spur her on. Finally, she pulled herself through to the other side.
Scrambling to her feet, she half stumbled and half ran into the cover of the thick undergrowth that threatened to encroach on the old theme park, and reclaim it for the Keys.
The main area used by the Seven Stars was on the far side of the park, where the entrance had once stood, the turnstiles now removed to make a large enough path for the cult’s traffic. There were administration buildings and chalets that had been designed for workers, with a cafeteria and shower block that suited the group’s communal lifestyle very well.
Farther into the park, where some of the rides had begun to crumble with age and disuse, the Seven Stars had converted several buildings into garages for the vehicles they had acquired. Farther back still, in the machine housing of some of the rides, was their armory. They used what had once been the operating booth for the park’s central attraction—a series of motorcycles that took riders over and around rows of buses, like a signature Knievel jump—as a safe block for the spoils of their bank raids and other money-gathering activities. This left great swathes of the park unused.
The cult was small—twenty people permanently on site, with a handful of others making forays into the outside world—and they preferred to stay in close proximity to each other. Vast tracts of land lay derelict, the rides slowly being absorbed back into the landscape as the humid climate took its toll on the metal and wood, and tendrils of vegetation crept through the fence and across the cracked concrete. Cult members patrolled these areas, ostensibly to ensure that any outsiders wishing to spy or cause harm were kept at bay. Elena was inclined to think, after a while, that it was more to keep the cult members in.
But what mattered right now was that the patrols were generally conducted at night. Daytime watches were intermittent and mostly assigned when Duane got too much crystal meth in his system and his paranoia got out of control. He wasn’t top banana, but sometimes he acted as if he was. Ricke called him the head of security, and what Ricke said was law in the compound.
It was Ricke who had got her hooked on the Seven Stars. When Elena was at Tampa, she had been determined to devote herself to study. Since her mother died, she had been driven to achieve what both her parents had wanted. The senator was never as demanding a parent as her mother had been, at least not overtly. His attitude was that people had to be motivated by their own inner will and drive, not by coercion. He would have been appalled if he had realized how close to nervous exhaustion she had driven herself, working constantly when she should have been enjoying all aspects of student life, and then returning home to diligently assist her father in his work.
That was where it had all started to go wrong for her. She had no doubt that the senator had the best of motives. But the information that he was privy to, and the kind of actions he would have to sanction should the need arise, made her blood run cold. It seemed so contrary to his nature to be able to sign off on acts of war. Now, removed from the hothouse pressures of her own making, she could see how her father could prioritize and keep a sense of perspective.
She could only wish that had been the case for her. She’d become too wrapped up in her own world, and could not see beyond the realpolitik of the papers she’d read when she was assisting her father. The documents painted a worldview that, for her, was unremittingly bleak, and she despaired of finding a way of life that offered her some hope.
So when a local organization hosted a series of lectures on alternate beliefs and phenomena, she’d grabbed at it eagerly, both as a means of escape and also as a possible pathway to answers.
Looking back, she knew she’d been incredibly vulnerable, and oblivious. Her devotion to her studies and to helping her dad had left her not exactly friendless, but certainly distanced from her peers. Added to this, her absorption into the world of imminent political disaster had left her in a depressed state she only now recognized. The first glimmers of light in the darkness would claim her.
Daniel Ricke had been in the right place at the right time—a tall, graying and soft-spoken man with an insistent tone and a slow-burning, intense charisma. When he spoke, Elena felt that he was talking to her and only her. His voice was melodious, the rhythms of his words drawing her into the meaning. He spoke of how man must make a choice to face the new age with the courage of love alone, leaving behind the material and the venal so he could lose the trappings that kept him in a perpetual state of conflict.
To someone who was trying to come to terms with the kinds of measures that her country would adopt in an emergency, and the kind of actions that would trigger these responses, what Ricke was saying made perfect sense. She’d told him so afterward, and he’d offered to send one of his people to speak with her further.
That was how she met Susan Winkler. She, too, spoke in an insistent manner, though her own voice burned with the fire of the acolyte and was animated in a way that belied her impassive face. Winkler spoke of Ricke’s plans to build a series of communities across the USA, and then across the world—by eschewing the use of internet technology to communicate, and relying instead on the slower, more drawn out process of word of mouth. “The longer the seed takes to flower, the stronger the bloom,” was his creed. Winkler came from a life that had been littered with petty crime and drug abuse; she’d been sent on the wrong path by the influence of the world around her. Now she could see the right way. She had the zealotry of the convert, and the slightly unhinged air of the hard drug abuser. Elena, lost in her own confusion, had not noticed this until it was too late.
With Ricke’s words drummed into her by Winkler, Elena had left Tampa and journeyed to the southeast of the state to join the community. The group was small and hadn’t yet expanded, but they had the power of truth behind them.
“What...a...stupid...moron!” she gasped as she stopped running. Her breath came in rasps that burned at the pit of her stomach, and the humidity was making her sweat. She would have to find some fresh water soon, or dehydration would cripple her. She could already feel her muscles cramping up.
She heard scuttling in the undergrowth, some creature hidden in the lush carpet of green that threatened to trap her. The sun, directly overhead, was shaded by a canopy of trees that left her in shadow. She had no idea where she was headed. If she bore east from the hole in the fence, she should be able to circle around and come out on the rough road that led to the highway. She would have to hope she emerged far enough away from the entrance to the old theme park that she would not be seen.
They must know by now she was gone. Ever since Duane had taken her on an expedition with them, forcing her to hold a gun and play a part in an armed robbery, she had been kept under close observation. She wasn’t sure why. It had taken her long enough to work out any kind of escape, and she was completely unsure of what to do next. She was unlikely to get away and raise an alarm, leading the police to the compound. If she was honest with herself, she was more likely to get lost, have an accident and die alone out here. With a sinking in her gut, she realized that this was the most she could realistically hope for—and what was worse, she would prefer it to being recaptured.
She tried to get her bearings, but all she could see was semitropical swamp that would probably lead her into water and quicksand, with a dense wall of wood and vine before her, in which critters keen to bite her face off certainly lurked. She would just have to guess, hope for the best and press on. There was little else she could do, and standing here waiting to be captured was not on the list. She knew it was illogical, but movement gave her hope.
She began to blunder through the undergrowth once more, now heedless of the sounds she made as she crashed through the vegetation, stumbling over roots and slipping on mud and leaves. Her only goal was to get as far from the compound as possible.
As she ran, her confrontation with Ricke came into her mind. She had replayed it time and again since it had happened. How had she been so stupid as to be taken in by such a charlatan...? Or was he? Maybe he truly believed in what he said, but was so stupid himself that he couldn’t see his own failure to strip himself of the venality for which he castigated the entire human race.
Ricke lived in one chalet with the five women who were his “wives.” It had the best quality furniture, including some antiques that he had acquired along the way, and a large collection of books that spilled untidily across the floor. The “wives” were his alone, whereas everyone else slept and shared communally in a kind of “free love” arrangement that had scared the hell out of Elena. Interestingly—given his preaching—Ricke used a tablet to keep in touch with the outside world, which Elena had noticed at their last meeting. Such things were forbidden to the rest of the community.
Once again, she had told him that she wanted no part of the robberies, that she had no wish to do anything other than leave in peace and say nothing to anyone about the compound. In part this was true, since she would rather no one knew how idiotic she’d been to be sucked in. But she could also see that Ricke was dangerous. Not on a grand scale, but certainly on a local one, especially with psychotics like Duane and Arnie as his right-hand men.
Ricke had sent his wives away when Elena had finished speaking. Only Arnie was left, lurking by the door and laughing softly to himself.
“Sweet child,” Ricke had begun, in tones that made her shudder. “You have to understand that there are means to an end. These people in the outside world are so wrong and misled, and they don’t understand us. It isn’t their fault, but they would never cooperate unless we used the kind of language and behavior they understand. What we do is for the greater good.”
“You can’t seriously expect me to swallow that,” she had replied, despite her instincts screaming out to keep her mouth zipped.
Ricke smiled, but not with his eyes, which stayed ice-cold and hard, penetrating into her. “I don’t expect you to swallow anything, Elena. You came here because you believed. I think you still do. You just need to understand that our methods are justified by the results they obtain. It is all toward the greater good. Perhaps a period of quiet contemplation away from the others would help you realize this. I’m sure we can arrange that. And while you have this quiet time, you may do well to reflect on the things you’ve learned about our pig government from your father—a good man, I’m sure, but misguided. If we know what you know, we can use that to further the cause. Then there will be no need for the measures that, justifiably, cause you so much pain and anguish. Let Arnie show you where our cell of contemplation lies. And think carefully about what I have said to you....”
The softly giggling Arnie had led her out of the chalet and away from the main buildings to the place she had come to think of as a prison cell. And Elena had realized with an awful finality that the only way she would ever see the outside world again was if she escaped.
Thoughts of Ricke and her imprisonment were driven from her head as a black shape stepped out from behind the shelter of a tree and swung a lump of wood, catching her full in the solar plexus as she ran into it.
She retched, spitting out strings of bile, then looked up into the wolfish, leering face of Duane.
“Sugar, you didn’t really think you could outrun me, did you?”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_7d3546d1-0c98-5c58-8b3e-649120825c3f)
First stop for the soldier was a Miami naval base. Flown in by routine flight from Washington, he alighted and was greeted by the site’s chief security officer, who showed him to a one-story block on the perimeter of the airfield.
Waiting for him, laid out on a table, was a driver’s license, rental car registration, a billfold with cash and cards, a TEKNA knife and sheath, a Desert Eagle, gleaming and loaded with spare clips, and a shoulder holster. Sitting on a chair by the side of the desk was an attaché case with surveillance equipment including a monocular night vision headset, a camera and monitor with fiber-optic leads, and long-distance eavesdropping equipment with mic and receiver.
“I didn’t know what kind of ordnance you required, Mr. Cooper, and as for a cell or tablet...well, I figured you’d probably be carrying your own. I can supply extra if you require.”
Bolan nodded appreciatively. “No, that’ll be fine, chief. You’ve done a great job, thanks. Did they give you any indication of why I’m here?”
The security man shook his head. “No, sir, and it’s none of my damn business unless someone decides otherwise. The only thing I will say is that should the need arise, you just call in. Someone with your level of clearance has the privilege of telling me to jump, and how high.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, chief, but I appreciate the offer. As for the ordnance, I figure it’s best for all concerned if I sort that out. No trails,” he added cryptically. “There is one thing you could tell me, though.”
“Just ask,” the chief replied. He was in his late thirties, and had the deep tan of a man who had spent a long time around Miami and the Florida Keys. It was a good bet that he had the kind of local knowledge Bolan needed to tap.
“I’m heading over toward Griffintown, and I could use any on-the-ground intel that I won’t pick up from regular background. You know the place?” The answer was obvious from the way the chief’s eyebrows raised at the mention of the town, despite his attempts to keep a straight face.
“If I may say so, sir, it’s a little off the beaten track for anything major to happen. Sleepy, small-town America—the kind of place they’d set some TV melodrama. The only thing that’s happened there for the last fifty years was a recent bank robbery, where the guard was killed, and even that was supposed to be out-of-towners.”
“Maybe, but isn’t that kind of odd? All my other intel points to the county being a swampland free-for-all. Moonshine and buckshot,” Bolan added for effect.
“That’s true enough, but you’ve got to remember that they’ve got the Midnight there. No one wants to end up on the front page, so they keep their noses clean. It’s always been one of those tabloids that peddles morality, and as it’s the main job provider, it doesn’t pay to cross them. It helps that a lot of whackos are attracted to the area because of it, too. Guys who want to be abducted by little green men don’t tend to be making moonshine,” he added with a grin.
“That figures. Plenty of whackos around here, too, right? Cults and communes?”
“I hear there’s one in an old amusement park, but they act like they’re the Amish, you know? Keep to themselves and don’t have much time for modern technology. They’re harmless.”
“That’s good,” Bolan said, keeping his voice level. Unless someone had reason to look below the surface, the Seven Stars must seem ineffectual from afar. But then, people had said that about Manson, his family and the Spahn Ranch half a century earlier.
For now, though, it was best that the security chief keep his illusions intact. Bolan thanked him and left the base, picking up the Ford sedan from the parking lot before heading out of Miami and into the less populated swamplands. Florida had one of the largest populations of any U.S. state, but the people were tightly packed into areas around the coast, such as Tampa and Miami, state capital Tallahassee and the largest single city, Jacksonville.
That gave Bolan pause for thought. Myres, the security guard who had been brutally struck down, had spent a long and distinguished term of service with the Jacksonville sheriff’s department. Even at his age, he should have been ready for the quartet that had invaded the bank. The fact that they had taken him out so ruthlessly and efficiently suggested that they knew what they were doing, and that they were professional enough to have done their research. This gave the soldier two warnings: one, that they were not going to be caught out on their home turf that easily, and two, that they had sources of information in at least one town in the county. Either that or a source that could cover the whole county...a source such as the sheriff’s office.
Bolan didn’t want anyone to get a scent of who he was or why he was in the area. That meant the press, the Seven Stars themselves, and maybe even the local law enforcement.
Extract the target before her value—other than her human value—became a known commodity. Extract her with a minimum of disruption and consequent attention.
If he was going to do this, he would need more than just a handgun, and he knew where to get ordnance without raising questions or creating ripples in the swamp waters.
Bolan took the first turnoff on the road out of Miami, which would take him to Kendall. It was one of the smaller cities in the Miami metropolitan area, but it was still big enough to have more than its fair share of criminal activity, and not so small that being there would attract any undue attention.
Kendall had a number of housing projects and run-down inner-city areas where businesses and homes had gone to the wall, leaving gangs and street corner crime in their wake. But it also had some areas of regeneration that had sprung up before the double dip recession had hit, and in these areas, entrepreneurs had made some good out of the bad. Suburbs that were buoyed by these pockets of cash still had manicured lawns and stucco one-story haciendas with well-maintained pools. It was into one of these areas that Bolan piloted his rented Ford, pulling up before a house whose address he’d had to check with Stony Man. It had been a long time, and maybe his contact had moved. A large sum from one of Bolan’s war chests had also been wired into a bank account connected to the cards he had picked up. He would probably need it.
Leaving the sedan, Bolan walked across the lawn and through the open side gate. He could hear laughter and voices from the backyard. Three teenage girls in bikinis were frolicking in the pool, splashing each other and laughing. A bony man with cropped graying hair, clad in an orange robe, sat under an umbrella sipping iced tea.
As Bolan approached, the man spoke without turning around. “You’d better have an appointment, old chap. If not, then a lawyer and a doctor, though maybe not in that order.”
“Knock knock,” Bolan replied. “If I knew appointments were necessary these days, I would have called. And you can tell your shadow he can drop the piece. If you still talk in those terms. A Glock semi, right? He’d better be accurate if he wants to be stupid, because I’ll bet I’m quicker.”
“Matt Cooper,” the man murmured in an immaculate—if fake—British accent. “How nice to hear from you again. I always like returning customers, even if they do take several years to come back. Carl,” he added in a louder voice, “do as the man says. He’s not given to exaggerating. And please learn to be a little more discreet.”
Bolan glanced over his shoulder. Through the open patio door he could see a man in a floral shirt and shorts lower his gun with a sour glance at the soldier. Bolan allowed himself a small grin. Nothing wrong with his peripheral vision.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Yates,” Bolan said. “Not many men would have noticed him there.”
“It only takes one, dear boy,” Yates said, languidly rising from his chair and turning to face the soldier. “You’ve worn well, I’ll give you that. Better than I have. Better than anyone in our business has a right to.”
“You’re still alive,” Bolan countered. “That’s all that counts. And you’re still pretending to be English.”
“I am English. At least, my father was. I might have been born in Chicago, but my blood is that of the aristocracy, not the Mafia.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Bolan shrugged. “This is a pool party, is it?” he added, gesturing toward the girls.
“My daughter. Her mother was my maid. I think she’s back in Mexico now, though I really don’t care. I like her friends to come over.”
“That’s sweet,” Bolan said heavily. “Now, if you don’t mind, much as I’d like to chew the fat, I’m here to do business.”
“Of course.” Yates gestured toward the house. Leaving the girls to continue splashing around, seemingly oblivious to the men’s activities, Bolan went in through the patio doors.
Inside, the house was richly furnished in whites and creams, with splashes of purple from the drapes, rugs and cushions. It had a feminine touch.
“Carl, stop looking so pissed off and let Mr. Cooper through. He was always a good customer,” Yates said in an almost prissy tone. From the way Carl deferred to him, with a barely concealed petulance, Bolan wondered how the hell the faux Englishman had ever managed to conceive a daughter.
“He doesn’t look much like a Carl,” Bolan remarked as they descended the stairs hidden by inset shelves. The walls were decorated with hangings depicting historical battles, and as they reached the basement he could see that the heavy oak desk and cases of weapons were more in keeping with the man as he knew him than the decor upstairs. A plasma-screen TV and a laptop were the only signs of the twenty-first century on display. A glass-fronted bookcase contained a large number of old books in lurid dust jackets.
“He isn’t. That’s just my little conceit. I call him Carl Petersen, just as I call myself Dornford Yates. The IRS call both of us something else completely. Or at least they would if they could find us.”
“Touching, I’m sure. But that’s none of my concern.”
