Hazard Zone

The little man with the wire-rimmed glasses nodded. “I know, I know,” he said. “I’ve got my orders.”

On the slab before him was the body of Amber Carson. The drug Bastiene had given her had done its work well. Half-conscious, she was almost unresisting as he’d raped her. The Obeah man had said that his seed would be the magic that ensured their success. As far as Bastiene was concerned, magic or not, taking the young woman had been a pleasure. Her body had been warm and supple, her breasts firm. The way she’d squirmed and wriggled beneath him in protest had added greatly to the experience. Even in death she was still beautiful, the perfect corpse, looking almost alive, a siren drawing in its prey.

After, it had been a matter of little work to smother her to death, then mark the body with his thin-bladed knife. This final step, however, was crucial. The little man was Dr. Steffens, and he’d been sent by the man helping them in the United States to perform a special surgery. Using a tiny camera and going in through her esophagus, Steffens was placing two items in Amber’s abdominal cavity. The first was a thin metal tube filled with anthrax spores, and the second was a unique triggering mechanism.

When the doctor performing the autopsy in the United States made the initial incisions to open her up, the mechanism would be armed by the change in internal pressure. Then, when he delved farther to explore her internal organs—specifically her stomach—the trigger would be released by this second change in pressure. The resulting small explosion would tear a hole in the metal tube, spilling the anthrax spores into the room and killing everyone present.

If it worked.

The double pressure switch had to be positioned perfectly next to the tube, and also resistant to the natural gases that would build up in her body as it decomposed and the pressure changes that would occur when her body was flown back to the United States. Finding the perfect methodology had been a matter of numerous experiments, conducted in extreme secrecy. Once they’d finalized their technique, they needed to decide on a target.

It had been their friend in the United States who had suggested Amber—young, beautiful and a senator’s daughter. Her body would be flown back to Washington, D.C., and treated with the utmost care. Taking the job at the private resort where she came to play had been a hassle, but the Obeah man often told Bastiene that the best magic came from association with the victim. It was unfortunate that he’d have to continue to work there for some time afterward—it was the only way to avoid being accused—and even then, suspicions would be high. There was always a price to be paid for such powerful magic, and if he needed to still play serving boy then he would do so.

Steffens mumbled something under his breath, then let out a long, slow exhale and leaned back.

“What?” Bastiene demanded. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Steffens said. “She’s ready. Just be sure not to bounce her around too much when you move her.”

“I’ll be as soft as a lamb,” he said.

“Good,” the man replied. “Then I’m out of here. There’s a chopper waiting to take me back to my ship.”

“Go, man,” Bastiene said, gesturing toward the door. “I’ll be takin’ care of the girl.”

1

Other than imminent violence, few things had the power to bring Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, fully awake like a phone call in the middle of the night. As the first tones sounded from his cell phone, he sat up in bed, aware that these calls never came with good news—usually just the opposite. Someone was either dead or someone needed to be.

“Yeah,” he said, answering before the second ring had finished.

“Sorry to wake you, Striker.”

He recognized the voice of Hal Brognola immediately. Brognola was the director of the Sensitive Operations Group—located at Stony Man Farm, Virginia. He used to work for the clandestine organization directly, but now had an arm’s length association with the outfit. Their mission hadn’t changed—they still took on terrorists and criminals that the U.S. government couldn’t or wouldn’t. When the situation was complicated, they called on Mack Bolan to uncomplicate it. His presence was never official.

“It’s not a problem, Hal,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve got a full-scale mess,” he said. “There’s been an anthrax attack in Washington, D.C. It’s been contained, but a senator was killed, and the whole thing is getting ready to turn into an epic disaster.”

Bolan knew the security precautions that had been in place since 9/11. “That’s a mess all right. How’d they get anthrax that close to a U.S. senator?”

“You won’t believe me when I tell you,” Brognola said. “It was stored inside the body of his dead daughter. Somehow, these terrorists rigged it to explode during the autopsy—and, of course, Senator Carson demanded to be on hand.”

“What?” Bolan was rarely disturbed by the things he saw and heard, but this was going too far. “Her body exploded?”

“Apparently it was some kind of pressure trigger,” Brognola explained. “When they got to her stomach…”

“Jesus,” Bolan said.

“Yeah, I know. It’s unheard-of, and the kind of play that only truly bad men would even consider. The entire thing is on video, and it will be in the file I’m sending. Anyway, Senator Carson was killed, along with his Secret Service agent, the doctor and his assistant, and several other people who ran into the room after the explosion. This was weaponized anthrax, Stricker. They’ve had to seal off an entire section of Bethesda Naval Hospital, and the other bodies in the morgue were contaminated, too. The whole place has to go through decon.”

“I assume you want me to track down the source of the attack?”

“Yeah, that and…” Brognola’s voice trailed off.

“And what?” Bolan asked. “Come on, Hal, you don’t usually hesitate.”

The big Fed sighed heavily. “Look, this wasn’t just a well-executed biological attack. They used her, Striker, and I mean that in the most literal sense. The coroner had already completed the rape kit and some of the toxicology before the explosion. She’d been given Rohypnol. She was raped and killed. Symbols had been carved into her body with some kind of thin-bladed knife. And then they filled her with a deadly virus and killed her father, along with some other good people. I don’t just want the source, Striker. I want to know every bastard that was behind this and…”

Bolan could hear the deep anger in Brognola’s voice, and he felt some of it himself. “What exactly do you want me to do, Hal?”

“I want you to do whatever it takes,” he snapped. “I want the son of a bitch responsible for this to pay. The full tab.”

“All right,” he said. “Where do I start?”

“Looks like you’re going back to Jamaica,” Brognola said. “Amber Carson was down there on vacation. I’ll send you over everything we’ve got on her. You’ve been booked on a flight leaving in—” Bolan could hear the clicking of a keyboard in the background “—five-and-a-half hours.”

“What’s my cover?” Bolan asked.

“I know you prefer something less flashy, but I’m going to send you in as CIA, and I’ll get you a meet at the American Embassy in Kingston. Amber’s death has already created a shitstorm down there, and it’s a guarantee that every government agency we’ve got is going to have people traipsing around. One more agent asking questions should go unnoticed, but still get you a little cooperation.”

“I don’t know that traipsing is the word. With a dead senator, you won’t be able to move five feet without running into some government official from here or there. Our deal is usually low profile, and this has the makings of a very high-profile mess. Why is Stony Man Farm so quick to jump in when there are so many other agencies involved?” Before Brognola could respond, he added, “Look, I understand it’s bad, what they did to the girl, and the anthrax, even the death of a senator, but that doesn’t automatically make it one for us.”

“Striker, I know,” Brognola said. “It’s… Yeah, this one is a little personal, I get that, but it’s well within our mandate.”

Bolan considered his friend’s words. “And you’re sure this is how you want to play it, Hal?”

“I’m sure, Striker,” he said. “I need you on this one. I can’t trust that anyone else will do it right, and I don’t want there to be some kind of cover-up if this gets really big.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll find whoever did this, Hal.”

“I know you will, Striker. Good luck.” Brognola ended the connection.

Bolan put his phone back on the nightstand and headed for the shower. It was going to be a long day, and he wanted to review the file Brognola was sending to him before he got on the plane, as well as review anything the news might have on the situation.

As he stepped under the hot spray of the shower and leaned into the pressure of the water, Bolan couldn’t keep the disturbing thought of how brutal it was to kill a man’s daughter and then use the grief to kill the parent, as well. There was a lot of evil in the world, but this was a level of brutality that didn’t come around too often.

He decided it wouldn’t hurt to do some research online. He’d run across some Jamaican gangbangers in the past, and they played hardball. He also had a recent run-in with chemical zombies in Jamaica. But biological weapons didn’t seem to fit with anything the gangs had done before. Any intel he could come up with before he went in might be a weapon he could use later.

And Bolan had the feeling that he’d need every weapon he could get.

SITTING IN FRONT of his laptop, Bolan reviewed the file Brognola had sent, then went online and used the instructions the big Fed had given him in order to view the video file of what happened at Amber Carson’s autopsy. It had been stored behind several federal law-enforcement firewalls, but Aaron Kurtzman and the cyberteam at Stony Man Farm had no trouble finding work-arounds to get him in.

The video showed the autopsy suite at Bethesda Naval Hospital. On the stainless-steel table, a beautiful young woman was covered with a sheet. Nearby, the coffin in which she’d been transported back to the States sat on a table, the lid open. Bolan froze the image and saw that the coffin was metal and stamped with the seal of the Coast Guard. That explained why the trigger, which had to have been pressure based, didn’t activate prior to the autopsy—the coffin had been pressurized and sealed to preserve evidence.

He tapped the play icon and the video resumed. Standing over the body of Amber Carson was a man who spoke into the hanging microphone, identifying himself as Dr. Harvey Palfrey. He gave the particulars of her name and date of birth, while across the room, a sad-faced man Bolan recognized as Senator William Carson stood and watched. Next to him, a Secret Service agent stared at nothing, while occasionally speaking into his wrist microphone to update the other agents that were undoubtedly outside the room. Reading from a sheet of notes, Palfrey gave the findings of the already completed toxicology report and the rape kit.

Bolan felt a thread of anger burn in his stomach. Amber Carson had been young, beautiful and well educated, with a world of opportunity in front of her. She should have lived a long, full life. Now she was dead—raped and murdered by some thug. He also felt badly for Dr. Palfrey. As one of the handful of physicians at Bethesda Naval Hospital who regularly served members of Congress, it was his unfortunate task to conduct the autopsy. Under normal circumstances, performing an autopsy on a young person was undoubtedly unpleasant; with Senator William Carson watching as he did so, would have made any doctor tense.