Pirate Offensive

Bolan headed back toward the truck, slipping on his gas mask before walking through the swirling clouds, then drove away into the night. Leaving the inlet behind, he pulled out a cell phone, tapping in a memorized number.

“Phoenix has the egg,” Bolan said.

“Confirm,” Hal Brognola replied. “Luck.”

Bolan switched the phone off and tossed it out the window. It was still airborne when the thermite charge ignited. The phone landed in an explosion of flames.

After a few minutes, Bolan reached a dirt road and parked the truck. He pulled out his night vision goggles and watched patiently as the halon gas swirled past the warehouse windows. On the ten-minute mark, it stopped abruptly. Everybody in the warehouse was now dead from asphyxiation. Flipping open a second phone, Bolan punched in a local number. “Panama City Fire Department?” he said in halting Spanish, trying to sound unfamiliar with the language. “There is a warehouse on fire over at Cordan Quay.”

“Madre mia!” the man on the other end gasped. “Are you sure? Who is this?”

“Just a concerned citizen,” Bolan said, turning off the phone and also consigning it to the wind.

Shifting into gear, Bolan drove onto the highway and pulled a small remote control from his pocket. He pressed the switch twice and a light on top turned red, then he pressed it once more. In the far distance, he heard a muffled bang as his abandoned backpack inside the warehouse exploded.

Trundling carefully along the dirt road, Bolan counted the seconds. It was almost a minute before the first explosion occurred. The blast ripped off the disguised roof of the warehouse, wild tongues of flames extending for a dozen yards from every door and window. That was closely followed by another, bigger explosion and several small, irregular blasts. Then the entire warehouse lifted off the ground as the multiple mega-tons of stolen ordnance detonated in ragged unison. The blast illuminated the sky for miles.

Angling fast behind a sand dune, Bolan hit the brakes and braced himself. A few seconds later, the shockwave buffeted the truck, and Bolan heard the patter of shrapnel smack into the dune. Long minutes passed. The sirens of fire trucks were getting uncomfortably close before the rain of debris finally eased.

Bolan pulled back onto the road and started toward Panama City. So far, so good. Cordan was dead, his organization was destroyed and Bolan now possessed a hundred million dollars in illegal weapons, mostly surface-to-air missiles.

The easy part was over. Time to raid police headquarters.

Chapter 2

Cancun, Mexico

Sluggishly, the woman roused herself from the depth of unconsciousness.

Renee Collins glanced around the brightly illuminated room. She was naked, hanging from the ceiling in steel chains. A padded leather corset kept the steel links from strangling her, but her arms were painfully drawn behind her and angled upward. The pain in her shoulders first made her scream, then pass out.

When she came to again, she saw him. Oh my god, she thought. Narmada! I’ve been captured by Narmada!

Collins began to cry as each horrid detail of her kidnapping came rushing back. The tear gas attack in the alley, the constant beatings with cushioned clubs that hurt but left no marks afterward.

No marks that could be seen, she mentally added, flinching at the humiliating memory of being forced to remove her clothing.

Drawing in a deep breath, Collins screamed again, an animalistic combination of rage, fear and desperate frustration.

“Well, at least you seem to have some strength back,” rumbled Captain Ravid Narmada, swinging around in his chair. “This is good. I still have so very many questions about the next shipment of microchip warheads.”

“Pig!” she snarled, then spit at him. “I will tell you nothing. Nothing!”

“That is, sadly, quite incorrect,” he said, rising from the chair and walking over to a small workbench in the far corner.

Narmada was almost twice the size of any normal man, and Collins had at first thought him merely of colossal girth. But Collins now knew the terrible truth. Oh, there was fat to be sure, but underneath were muscles of incredible strength, and even though Collins had seen his speed, she still had trouble believing it. Nothing that big could move that fast. Elephants were slow; whales were slow. But he moved with the speed and grace of a mongoose, a cheetah. Almost in a blur, when he wanted. It felt like a contradiction of natural laws.

“I’ll tell you nothing,” Collins repeated with less conviction.

“We shall see, eh?” Whistling through his teeth, Narmada began opening drawers in the bench, extracting tools and equipment.

“Perhaps...we can make a deal,” Collins whispered hoarsely. “I am still very beautiful...”

“Not interested, sorry.”

“I have money!”

“All I want are the microchips.” Donning insulated gloves, Narmada put a screwdriver into the hissing rush of flame and calmly waited until the tip was glowing red.

“Please...don’t do this,” she groaned in a small voice. “I’m...just a working girl...”

Smiling widely, Narmada lifted the screwdriver to inspect the tip. “This is true. But a whore who specializes in corporate espionage,” he said with a low chuckle. “Now, if you were much better at your job, I might have offered you a position in my organization. Information is often more valuable than gold, eh? Trite, but true.”

“I accept!”

He walked closer. “I said might, young lady. You are also a stupid whore and now must pay the price for failure.”

“Please!”

“No,” said Narmada, and Collins screamed, again and again, for a very long time....

When the interrogation was finished, Captain Narmada checked the sagging thing dangling in the chains for a pulse and found none. He then snapped her neck with a bare hand just for the practice.

“Pity we didn’t get to ride her for a while,” Lee Chung muttered from the doorway.

Standing almost six feet tall, Chung had the physique of a fanatical bodybuilder—a barrel chest and narrow waist. His hands were covered with old scars. An ornate silver buckle bearing the Confederate flag held a place of honor on the front of his garrison belt, and his alligator cowboy boots shone with fresh polish. The man wore his long black hair cut in a mullet, a style favored by many Southern Americans.

“This is a business, not a brothel,” Narmada snapped, crossing the room and tossing the screwdriver onto the workbench.

As Narmada glanced over a shoulder, Chung forced himself not to flinch or turn away. The captain always appeared calm after extracting information from uncooperative personnel. That was a major warning sign. The slower Narmada spoke, the angrier he was, and nobody sane ever wanted to tangle with the captain. Once, in a bar fight in Madrid Chung had watched Narmada kill twenty men while crossing the room at a regular pace, his hands bloody pistons that crushed faces and snapped necks with every strike.

“Yes, sir! My apologies, sir.”

Narmada waved the matter aside. “Please dispose of the body overboard.”

“At once! So, do we have a destination?”

“Of course,” Narmada replied, leaving the room.

Left alone with the corpse, Chung scowled in annoyance, then hit a control on the wall to summon a cleaning crew.

On the main deck, Captain Narmada stood with both hands on the gunwale, breathing in the cool salty air. Inside the nearby wheelhouse, three men were watching a Chinese anime movie on a portable DVD player, eating sandwiches and drinking German beer. Just for a moment, Narmada longed for the company of other men. His colossal size had always kept him alone and separate. Doorways were too narrow, every chair was a potential danger, and very few women were attracted to giants.

Shaking his head to dispel the dark thought, Narmada focused on the next part of the journey. Key West. He had never been there before.

Across the deck, Chung appeared from a gangway with several men carrying a canvas bundle. Shuffling to the gunwale, they heaved it overboard, and Chung turned away before the body splashed into the water.

“Helm!” Narmada shouted over a shoulder.