Critical Exposure

“We got a call from the Man this morning,” Brognola said. “Some very odd incidents have occurred with the nation’s intelligence operations. The reports are strangely isolated and the details surrounding those incidents even more puzzling. The intelligence is also spotty.”

“Let me guess,” Bolan replied. “You’ve had a compromise of sensitive operations around the world and the only common denominator is that there is no common denominator.”

“You know about this?”

“I keep my ear to the ground,” the Executioner said. “In fact, I just got wind of it myself. I thought maybe when I got Barb’s message there might be a connection.”

“Your intuition was right—as usual,” Price said.

Brognola shook his head and tried to collect his thoughts. “Striker, the only thing we can tell you at the moment is that all three missions seem to have been blown in much the same way, and that all three were highly classified military intelligence ops. Unfortunately what we know is a lot less than what we don’t.”

“Anything on the hostiles involved?” Bolan asked.

“Two of the three are offshoots of al Qaeda,” Price replied. “A reconnaissance platoon from a Marine expeditionary force got ambushed by choppers. The survivors managed to repel a vehicle convoy of weapons being funneled into the Syrian village of Sadad, an area that has seen a lot of terrorist activity as of late. The second attack was against SEAL Team Four in Benghazi.”

“What about the third?” Bolan asked.

“A neo-Nazi terror group called the League of Aryan Purity,” Brognola said. “Heard of them?”

“Vaguely,” Bolan replied. “They’ve recently gained support from like groups here in the United States, but Homeland Security seems to have kept most of those activities under control.”

“Three cheers for interagency cooperation,” Brognola said as he popped a couple of antacids from a fresh roll he kept in the breast pocket of his suit coat.

“Do you think these things are related, Striker?” Price asked.

“I don’t know,” Bolan said. “Doesn’t seem like we have enough information to tie them together logically yet. But it would seem from what I’m hearing that you think there might be a connection.”

“The timing of the incidents would seem to point to it,” Price replied.

“Okay, I’m willing to accept that in the absence of more intelligence,” Bolan said. “And if there is a connection then the military angle seems the best approach.”

“I’m curious to know how you came to be aware of this,” Brognola prodded.

Bolan didn’t reply immediately. While the Executioner had broken any official ties with the U.S. government long ago, they knew he still trusted Stony Man implicitly. His hesitation wouldn’t have been out of mistrust, therefore, as much as his desire not to steer them down the wrong path. Mack Bolan had survived his War Everlasting this long by acting with diligence and forethought. His battle strategy—thoroughly and accurately assess the threat and determine enemy resources before hitting them where it hurt most—had remained the same for many years because it was effective. To act too soon could only spell doom for a man in his line of work.

“I helped out an old acquaintance a while back. Oz figured he owed me and contacted me by using an encoded number I gave him the last time we got together. The number goes through a series of cutouts, but leads back to the voice mail of the phone in my Stony Man quarters,” Bolan said. “He oversees military intelligence signals operations between Washington and NORAD, particularly in the area of deterministic patterns analysis.”

“Glad to hear Oz is on our side,” Price remarked.

“Me, too,” Bolan said.

“Should we pull out the stops, Hal?” Price queried. “Put Phoenix Force on it?”

Brognola scratched his chin and sighed. “Striker? I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

“I think between what he told me and now your call, there’s enough unrest I should get involved. It might be nothing or something big. At least let me check it out further. If an international terror group has compromised our military intelligence operations on a global scale, any major response on Stony Man’s part could alert them. Better I make soft inquiries first.”

“You have a lead?”

“Nothing more than I’ve already told you. I think it’s time for me to pay a visit to my contact directly. See what I can shake out of the tree.”

“Okay by us,” Price said.

“How do you want to play this?” Brognola asked.

“I’ll work under my usual military cover,” Bolan said. “I’ll need you guys to get all the background information handled, credentials and such. And I could use Jack if he’s available.”

“Both Able Team and Phoenix Force are currently unassigned,” Price replied. “He’s yours.”

“Tell him I’ll meet him at the private hangar, say...three hours from now.”

“Destination?”

“I’m going straight to the source of all the rumblings,” the Executioner said. “NORAD.”

Fort Carson, Colorado

STONY MAN DIDN’T have to ask Jack Grimaldi twice.

Any time the ace flier got the opportunity to work with Mack Bolan he jumped on it with the eager abandon of an adolescent. Working a mission with the Executioner was always an adventure, and Grimaldi liked the action. The downtime between operations for the Stony Man field teams could grind on the nerves, and while Grimaldi welcomed the break, he always knew a job with Bolan would challenge his skills and provide a change of pace.

What few people knew about the Executioner was that his success drew in large part from his ability to remain highly adaptive and upwardly mobile. Bolan’s alliance with his government remained largely one-sided in the sense of the terms. He took only the jobs he wanted and he set the mission parameters. Often his work required him to improvise on a level that wasn’t always afforded the warriors of Able Team and Phoenix Force. When working those teams, Grimaldi had to “fly under the radar” to coin a phrase, but with Bolan he experienced a new sort of liberty.

Hence it came as no surprise to Grimaldi when he’d completed the taxi procedures at Fort Carson and came out of the cockpit to find Bolan holding up a brand-new set of U.S. Army Class A’s and grinning.

“I assume those are for me?” the pilot asked with a sheepish grin of his own.

“Can’t strut about as a colonel without an adjutant.”

Grimaldi’s eyes twinkled in the cabin lights when he noticed the insignia. “Wow—captain’s bars. I’m humbled.”

“Don’t let it go to your head. And hurry up. We only have a few minutes.”

Grimaldi grabbed the uniform and headed aft while Bolan finished buttoning his own coat. Several rows of ribbons adorned the breast pocket of the uniform jacket, a Combat Infantry Badge and blue infantry braid among them. In this case, it wasn’t far from the truth. Bolan had earned all of them during his years as part of a sniper team in the Army.

When the two were dressed, they descended the steps of the C-37A aircraft, a U.S. Air Force version of the Gulfstream V business jet. The aircraft boasted advanced avionics, countersurveillance sensor packages and a hidden armory kept fully stocked with assorted pistols, SMGs, assault rifles and explosives of variable type and capability.

Bolan chose not to wear a sidearm for this visit. He could have secured his Beretta 93-R in shoulder leather beneath the Class A uniform, but he opted not to go that route. They were on a secure military installation, about to transfer to an even more secure location at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. A full-bird colonel showing up with a concealed sidearm or even a loaded pistol in military webbing around his waist would have attracted suspicion. It was Bolan’s skills in role camouflage that had kept him alive these many years, and he wasn’t about to blow it out of a sense of misguided paranoia.

An airman first class saluted the two officers as he opened the rear door for Bolan. Both men returned the salute, Grimaldi opting to take shotgun. The airman greeted them respectfully but didn’t say anything the remainder of the roughly twenty-minute trip along Norad Drive from the airfield on Fort Carson to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex entrance. After the security police waved them through following a close inspection of their vehicle and Bolan’s orders, stamped and certified by the Pentagon, the airman escorted them into the secure communications area.

Within minutes they were seated in the office of Bolan’s contact, Lieutenant Colonel Roland Osborne.

“How do you know this guy?” Grimaldi whispered.

Bolan seemed to consider the question for a moment. “I met him during my early days with the Stony Man program. I’ve helped him out a time or two since then.”

“So he knows Brandon Stone’s a cover.”