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Moving without conscious thought, the burning driver clawed at the handle of the cab door and shoved it open to throw himself outside to try to escape the flames. Tumbling to the cool pavement, the driver beat at the fire with his blistered hands and only vaguely noticed some people coming his way. There was a metallic cough, a flash of pressure, and his pain ended forever.
BURSTING THROUGH the hedges, Osbourne and his people found the dead Libyans and the constable. But there was no sign of the Scion or anybody else.
“Son of a bitch, we’ve been tricked!” Osbourne cursed angrily, grabbing his throat mike. “Nest, this is Eagle. Evac, now! Scion may be compromised! Repeat, Zalhares may have turned! Acknowledge!” There was only the soft hiss of background static as a reply.
“Nest, do you copy!” Osbourne demanded, pushing through the foliage and starting back toward the distant library. He could see a plume of dark smoke rising from behind the building and doubled his speed.
Police and fire department sirens were growing louder as the CIA operatives circled the library. Tendrils of smoke sailed through the air, which carried an aroma oddly reminiscent of roasted pork. The older agents scowled as they identified the stench of burned human flesh mixed with the telltale reek of napalm.
The hot wand and pressurized tanks of a flamethrower lay discarded on the pavement. Sprawled nearby were two bodies; the uniformed guard, obviously shot in the head, and what appeared to be the driver, although the face was burned beyond recognition. There was no sign of the armored truck.
“The bastards got them,” an agent whispered. “Zalhares and his crew stole the entire shipment of Zodiacs!”
“Kissel, take two men and sweep the neighborhood for that truck or any more bodies,” Osbourne growled, slowly holstering his gun. “I’ll handle Scotland Yard. Wallace, grab a cab and get your ass to the American Embassy and call the White House.”
“We’ll need top authorization before we can brief the Brits on what’s loose in their city,” the agent replied, buttoning his jacket closed. “If then.”
“Yeah, I know,” Osbourne said woodenly as squads of police cars raced into the parking lot. “How can we tell anybody that the world just lost a battle in the war on terrorism?”
CHAPTER ONE
Aberystywyth, Wales
An old, dilapidated truck bearing two members of Scion trundled along the cliff road, the vast gray expanse of the Atlantic Ocean spreading in front of them to the distant horizon. No ships were in sight and no commercial jet planes flew overhead. Zalhares hadn’t even seen another car for the past hour, but he still kept a sharp watch on the sky for any sign of a Harrier jump jet. That’s what the British would send, the merc realized, something that could strike from the sky, then land to check the debris. He knew that the CIA would prefer a shoot-on-sight order, but with the Zodiacs in the possession of the Scion that would be far too dangerous. No, the orders would be to contain the merc unit and to call for reinforcements. But Zalhares had already taken steps to counter the event should it occur. Everything was under control, or rather, it would be in just a little while.
Hours passed as the two people in the battered vehicle bounced along the rough roadway, accompanied by the rattling of chains from the rear of the truck. A squat wooden box roughly the size of an office safe was securely chained in place on top of a thick bed mattress, the price tag still attached.
“Is this the best you could steal?” Jorgina Mizne muttered from the passenger seat, adjusting the baby blanket covering the 9 mm Uru submachine gun cradled in her arms.
“It will suffice,” Zalhares said, braking in the middle of the road to check the hand-drawn map. Ah, the turn was over there. Aberystywyth Avenue. Good.
“Welsh, ha! And I thought English was spelled oddly.” Mizne snorted in amusement.
“The English think of the Welsh the same way we do Bolivians,” Zalhares said, tucking away the map. “Idiot cousins who should not be allowed to play with sharp things.”
She flashed a predator smile. “Then they will not work well together to find us? Excellent.”
“It is why I chose here,” he said, shifting gears and starting forward.
Maneuvering past a pair of wooden markers that bracketed the gravel road, Zalhares shifted gears again to the accompaniment of loud grinding noises as the truck started along the steep incline that wound down the face of the cliff. He had heard that the locals often referred to the road as Dead Man’s Curve, but compared to the impossible mountain roads of western Brazil, it was a wide highway.
Reaching the rocky ground, a side road extended to the sleepy hamlet of Aberystywyth, which was so reminiscent of his home village of Botcaku it made Zalhares momentarily homesick. The bitter memories of wearing dirty rags for clothes and going to bed hungry for countless years killed the gentle recollections of playing with his brothers and sisters. His mind returned to the task at hand. Making money.
Soon the gravel became dirt, which abruptly turned into smooth pavement again as the truck rolled along the prehistoric-looking granite dock. Wooden jetties reached out to sea, the thick planks shiny from the constant spray of the waves crashing on the pillions underneath. A motor launch was moored at the farthest slip, guarded by several large men in raincoats. Two were smoking pipes, one was eating an apple, all were carrying Uzi submachine guns slung beneath yellow slickers.
More guards occupied the launch. A lone figure stood on the foredeck armed with an American surface-to-air Stinger missile, while another watched the skies through compact Russian military binoculars. American weapons, Russian equipment, Australian-registered cargo ship, the smugglers were the UN of crime operating in these waters, a covert cartel that dealt in the oldest currency in history—human misery.
Parking the truck a safe distance away, Zalhares got out as Mizne removed the blanket and leveled the Uru out the open window. The men on the dock reacted, then relaxed slightly as Zalhares stepped between them and the unusual weapon.
“Who the hell are you?” one of the smokers demanded, resting a hand on the checkered grip of the Uzi. The bolt was already pulled, the weapon primed and ready to fire.
“I hear this town used to mine tin for a living,” Zalhares said loudly to be heard over the endlessly crashing waves.
The man with the apple tossed it away and stepped forward, wiping his hands on his pants. “Now we sell trinkets to the tourists,” he said carefully. “But it’s a living.”
Code phrases exchanged properly, Zalhares touched a gloved finger to his ear to let Mizne know to stand down.
The leader of the sailors pulled out a military radio and hit the transmit button. “They’re here,” he announced, then turned it off.
Not a phone, but a radio. Zalhares approved. With so many high-orbit satellites scanning the transmissions of cell phones, it was safer to use a short-range radio for local communications. The signal was too weak to be intercepted by the military satellites and their damn code-breaking computers.
“The cargo is in the truck,” Zalhares said, nodding in that direction. “You’ll need a forklift.”
“Jones, Smitty,” the man shouted over a shoulder. “Get humping, boys.”
The two men walked off, the third staying near the launch, puffing steadily on a briarwood pipe that looked older than the granite dock.
“So where is the Tullamarine anchored?” Zalhares asked, glancing at the rough sea. There was nothing visible to the horizon.
“Just past the ten-kilometer mark,” the man replied gruffly. “That puts her in international waters and will be hard for the Brits to get on board without a bloody good reason.”
“Then do not give them one,” Zalhares said, locking eyes with the sailor for a moment.
The other man tried to match the gaze and had to turn away. His crew were professional smugglers, hardcases and killers from a dozen countries, but this dark foreigner had the look of a buttonman, a stone-cold assassin, and the boson knew that he was out of his league here.
Standing on the dock, the two men watched as the crew of the Tullamarine removed canvas sheeting from a forklift parked at the base of the cliff, far away from the corrosive salt spray of the surf. With the Uru in hand, Mizne stood guard as they dragged out the heavy wooden crate and hauled it over to the waiting launch. Everybody stayed alert until it was firmly lashed into place again with ropes and more chains.
Checking the lashings himself, the boson grunted in satisfaction, then climbed back onto the wet jetty and pulled out the radio. “Clear,” he said before turning it off and tucking the transmitter into a pocket.
On the launch, the sailors started to release the mooring lines. The craft’s big gasoline motor purred to life.
“Anything else?” the boson asked, pulling out another apple and polishing it on the front of his shirt before taking a bite.
“Yes,” Zalhares said unexpectedly, pulling his flesh-colored gloves on tighter. “If there’s any trouble, destroy the cargo. Just firing a few rounds into the wood should do the trick. The crate is packed with thermite charges so it will burn even if you toss it overboard.”
“Fair enough,” the boson replied, taking a juicy bite. “Not going to get a refund though.”
The armed sailors laughed at that as they stored the lines in preparation to leave. Only the guard with the Stinger didn’t join in, his hard eyes never leaving the clear blue sky.
“Don’t worry about it,” Zalhares replied, turning to walk back to the waiting truck. “We have already gotten our full money’s worth from you.”
Still chewing, the boson frowned at that and glanced nervously at the packing crate in the launch. Just what the hell kind of contraband were they smuggling out of England this time?
Washington, D.C.
HAL BROGNOLA SAT hunched over his desk, looking at a picture of his family, then at the clock, and back to the telephone, silently willing Mack Bolan to call. As he stared at the photograph of his wife and two children, he felt a momentary pang of remorse over spending too much time on the job and not enough with his loved ones. But such were the demands of his career. He had no choice, really. So here he was again, behind his desk at the Justice Department on the weekend. The big Fed sighed loudly. No rest for the wicked.
The phone rang. Darting out a hand to grab the receiver, Brognola forced himself to wait until the trace circuits finished their work. It only took a few seconds before the small plasma indent screen showed the phone call was coming from a delicatessen in Brooklyn, then switched to a motel in Staten Island, a synagogue in Long Island, gas station in Harlem, Queens, Empire State Building, 42nd Street subway station, and so on, the location steadily changing every two seconds. Good, that meant it was Bolan and the Farm had tracked him down. Any phone call could be traced in time, but Aaron “The Bear” and Kurtzman the electronic wizards at Stony Man Farm had cooked up a device about the size of a pack of cigarettes that gave a hundred false identifications along with the legitimate location. It was classified as President Eyes Only and very few people in the entire world even knew of its existence, much less possessed the scrambler. Mack Bolan had the very first model released.
“Brognola,” he answered, lifting the receiver.
“It’s me,” Bolan said.
“Thank God, Striker,” Brognola exhaled, leaning back in his chair. “Do you know what Project Zodiac is?” he asked without preamble.
There was a brief pause. “I have heard rumors,” Bolan replied. “Some sort of doomsday plan from the cold war.”
“Damn close. President Kennedy wanted something to put the fear of God into the Soviets, and the CIA cooked up Project Zodiac. Twelve deep-cover agents scattered across Europe, with wives, jobs, children. They lived undercover for years before receiving their Zodiac.”
“Twelve agents, each with a code name after a sign of the Zodiac,” Bolan said. “Capricorn, Virgo, and such. Cute. Sounds like the kind of nonsense the CIA thinks is clever.”
“Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Only these sleeper agents weren’t saboteurs sent to blow up certain targets, they were equipped with a compact nuclear device that fit into a standard-size briefcase.”
“Can it be that small and achieve threshold?”
“Different configuration,” Brognola stated, “and they work just fine. I’ve seen the films from the White Sands bomb range. Each of these has a full one-quarter kiloton yield, just about enough to vaporize six city blocks and destroy six more with the concussion and heat flash. Very nasty stuff, and as dirty as hell.”
“So if America fell to an enemy sneak attack, these sleeper agents walk their Zodiac to some military target and blow it up,” Bolan said, clearly thinking out loud. “How did they handle the blast? With a timer or by radio detonator?”
“A Zodiac detonates by hand,” Brognola said without emotion. “It’s a suicide device. After you set the internal trigger and close the lid, the agent only has to grab the handle tight and the next time he releases it, the bomb detonates.”
“The handle is the trigger. So shooting the agent would only set off the Zodiac when he let go. Just like shooting a man holding a primed grenade,” Bolan said, the disgust strong in his voice. “America strikes back from the grave. So what went wrong? Somebody find a list of the agents? Or did one of them turn and sell a Zodiac to some terrorist group?”
In reply, the big Fed inhaled, then let it out slowly.
“Or is it worse than that, Hal?” Bolan demanded.
“It’s worse,” the man admitted. “Last month the President canceled Project Zodiac. But when the CIA recalled the Zodiacs, they deliberately let the information slip out.”
There came a soft rustle of cloth as if the man on the other end of the line was shaking his head. “They used the nukes as bait, a damn stalking horse,” Bolan stated, not needing to hear any more. “Okay, what went wrong?”
“At first, nothing. The CIA was blowing away terrorist groups from across the globe, and then…the perimeter guards stole the truck of bombs right from under their noses.”
That only took Bolan a second to translate. “So the cheap bastards were using mercs again,” he growled.
“You got it. Save a buck and lose the war. Those guys spend too much time playing politics and trying to look good to Congress than they do getting the job done.”
“Preaching to the choir here, Hal.”
Softly in the background, Brognola could hear people chatting and machinery moving. Was it a recording, or was Striker actually calling from an airport or bus terminal?
“So the mercs now have twelve atomic bombs.”
“No, only four,” Brognola corrected. “The CIA may screw up big sometimes, but they’re not complete fools. Nobody but the mission chief knew that identical armored trucks were going to carry away every third collection. The mercs probably thought they were stealing all twelve, but they only got four.”
“Only four,” Bolan said in a graveyard voice.
“Yeah, I know. And that’s about the only goddamn good thing about this whole mess.”
“So why call me? Can’t find them?”
The man’s mind moved like lightning. “That’s about the size of it. The rendezvous point was in London somewhere and the Brits are having a fit over this going down in their backyard without their okay. MI-5 has every agent on the hunt, with the city sealed tighter than a virgin on prom night. The SAS and the CIA are tearing the countryside apart trying to find the mercs, but so far nothing. Meanwhile, the PM is screaming bloody murder at the White House.”
“Can’t blame him,” Bolan said calmly. “If another country had tried that here, we’d tear them a new one.”
“At least one, maybe two.”
“Got an ID on the mercs?”
“Yeah.” Brognola sighed, leaning forward in his chair and lifting a Top Secret file from the clutter on his desk. “I’m holding their Agency dossier in my hand. The Scion. Know them?”
There was a short pause. “Never heard of them before. Give me the basics and have the full dossier sent to a drop site at Grand Central Train Station.”
“No problem,” he said, opening the file. “Okay, their leader is a guy named Cirello Zalhares—”
Interrupting, Bolan grunted at that. “Wait, big Brazilian guy, used to work for the S2,” he said. “Works with Dog Mariano, Minas Pedrosa, and a woman, Jorgina something. A real looker, loves knives.”
“Jorgina Mizne, that’s them.”
“So Zalhares now calls his group of mercenaries the Scion? Yeah, that sounds like right. He always did enjoy grandstanding.”
“Christ, Striker,” Brognola said with a dry chuckle. “Have you got every freelance killer in the entire world locked in that mental file of yours?”
“Only the live ones,” Bolan said humorously. And yeah, he knew them. An elite group of mercs who were all former S2 agents cashiered out of the service for various crimes against their fellow police officers: murder, rape, blackmail, torture and worse. During the communications blackout, Phoenix Force had had a brief encounter with the S2 when they tried to flee Brazil. They were serious hardcases, tougher than any of the street soldiers from the Mafia or the defunct KGB.
“Is this intel hard?” Bolan demanded.
“Confirmed and double-checked,” Brognola replied. “Now we have the Middle East sealed tight, and the leader of every known terrorist group under surveillance, along with the arms dealers and top smugglers.”
“Now you want the unknown groups covered,” Bolan said slowly. “Then I’m in the right town. If anything big like this is coming into America, I have contacts in New York who will know.”
“Just one more thing, Striker. You should know that these are kamikaze models. Shoot one, and even if its not already armed, the bomb detonates automatically. The Zodiacs have to be recovered intact and undamaged.”
“Then the sooner I move, the better the chances they won’t be damaged,” Bolan said unruffled. “Talk to you later, Hal.”
“Hold the line, Striker,” Brognola said as the encrypted fax machine whined into life on his desk. “I have a report coming in from the Oval Office…. Well, I’ll be a son of bitch. We found them! The Brits got an anonymous tip from a reliable source that an Australian cargo ship, Tullamarine, is ferrying the Zodiacs out of England. The captain has refused to turn around for an inspection and now they’re pretending the radio and cell phone are all dead. RAF fighters are on the way to do a recon.”
For a moment Bolan said nothing.
“Looks like this was a lot of excitement over nothing, old friend. We have them cornered.”
“Hal, recall those planes,” Bolan stated firmly. “I’m betting that anonymous tip came from Zalhares.”
“But why would he do that?”
“Trust me, Hal. It’s some sort of trick. Recall those planes.”
Just then, the fax whined once more, extruding another encrypted report. “Too late,” Brognola said out loud, reading fast. “The RAF has already engaged the Scion.”
