Crucial Intercept

There were still shooters beyond the van, the last of the armed resistance. They fired at Bolan, but the angle was wrong. Both the soldier and his enemies were using the van as the only available cover between them, which meant the gunners had to be content with chewing away from the flanks. Asphalt and paint chips filled the air, ripping past with a noise like tearing cloth, while empty brass littered the street and curb. Those were not the sounds that worried Bolan most.

The police sirens were growing louder; the local authorities would be on the scene in moments. The Executioner did not dare let that happen. Deadly experience, always his guide, told him that the first thing the Farsi-speaking shooters would do, if confronted by police cars, would be to turn their automatic weapons on the law-enforcement officers. Though perhaps well-trained and well-equipped, the cops would not be prepared to roll straight into a barrage of automatic gunfire. Even a S.W.A.T. team would have a hard time coping with so sudden a burst of violence, and the new arrivals were likely road patrol responding to numerous calls of shots fired.

The Executioner had cut a bloody swath through the ranks of the criminal underworld and the international terrorism scene during his endless war for justice. Regardless of the side of the law on which he operated—and he’d spent plenty of time exacting a righteous toll on society’s predators on the “wrong” side of law and government, whenever that had been necessary to get the job done—he had done so while always respecting one rule above all else. He would not take innocent life, and he would not take the life of a law-enforcement officer who was simply doing his or her duty.

Given that, Bolan would no sooner allow those law-enforcement officers to stumble blindly into a killing field that was partly of his own making. It would be like herding cattle through the gates of an abattoir.

Bolan scooped up a fallen assault rifle and snatched two magazines from the belt of the dead man who had wielded the weapon.

The weapon was one he knew, but which he had not encountered often. It was a Khaybar KH 2002, a bullpup weapon based internally on the M-16 A-1 that looked like an ungainly cross between a Steyr AUG and a French FAMAS. He checked the rounds in the magazines by simple eye—this rifle fired the same 5.56 mm round as did the rifles that had inspired its design.

The Executioner took only a second to verify that the weapon was chambered and ready. Then, holding the rifle close to his body, he threw himself prone and rolled across the pavement, his head pointing toward the enemy.

The enemy gunners saw him but had been waiting for a target at waist level. Their fire went high and, before they could compensate, Bolan unleashed a series of tightly controlled bursts from the muzzle of the futuristic-looking rifle.

The 5.56 mm rounds tore through the knot of men, splaying them in every direction. One of them screamed; the others died silently. The screamer managed to clench the pistol grip of a small submachine gun as he left this world. The rounds it discharged caused Bolan to flinch from a fresh spray of sharp asphalt shards that drew blood from his cheek.

The gunfire echoed away at last. Bolan got to his feet, the Khaybar stock tight against his shoulder. He moved quickly and cautiously forward and around the vehicle, checking every direction with fast glances side-to-side and behind him. There was no more movement from among the gunmen. He had killed them all.

The first of the police cars reached him, LED light bars strobing, sirens howling. Immediately, officers threw open their doors and leveled their pistols at Bolan, shouting for him to drop his weapon and make no sudden moves.

The Executioner held the rifle up over his head in both hands. The shouting continued.

“I am an agent of the United States Justice Department,” he said very deliberately, emphasizing each syllable so they could hear him over their sirens. “I have engaged these men to—”

“Shut up!” one of the officers ordered. Two more came up on either side, all of them keeping a prudent distance from the soldier. “Place your weapon very slowly on the pavement!”

Bolan did so. “I am an agent of the United States Justice Department,” he repeated patiently. This was nothing he had not endured before. “I have credentials and identification on my person.”

“Hands behind your head!” the officer shouted again. “Interlace your fingers! Do it now!”

Bolan did as instructed. He was seized, cuffed none too gently and then patted down. The frisk was halted abruptly when the officer realized just how many pouches and pockets the blacksuit had, and how many of these had something lethal in them. His war bag, still slung over his shoulder, was brimming with things that would give an ATF agent apoplexy. Bolan could only imagine how the police would react when they got to that.

“Holy shit,” one of the cops muttered. “This guy is loaded.” He called for the other two officers, the ones who had braced Bolan. The soldier was half pulled, half dragged upright and escorted to a police cruiser. There, his war bag was placed heavily on the trunk as the officer resumed the frisk. The two backup men held their weapons on Bolan the entire time.

The sat phone Bolan carried, which was now on the trunk in a growing pile of his personal weapons and accessories, began to vibrate, skittering across the trunk a few inches as it did so.

That was probably the Farm. Once he spoke to them, word would get passed to Hal Brognola that he would need to intercede, yet again, on Bolan’s behalf. The big Fed had logged far too many hours of his life calming anxious representatives of local law enforcement who did not take kindly to Bolan’s wars waged through their bailiwicks.

Brognola was probably in the middle of having breakfast. Bolan imagined this would ruin his appetite.

3

Bolan sat in the open side doorway of the one intact cargo van, turning the small submachine gun over in one hand. He had his sat phone open and against his ear. Barbara Price’s voice, as sexy as ever to him despite her all-business tone, came clearly across the scrambled link to Stony Man Farm.

“Cowboy verified it based on the photos you snapped and transmitted to us,” Price said. “The weapon is an MPT9K—an Iranian copy of the Heckler & Koch MP-5 K. That makes it a clean sweep, Striker. He says your identifications of the rifle and the pistol you picked up were dead-on.”

The Executioner was not surprised. After a tense half hour during which he had been allowed, on the strength of his Justice credentials, to contact Brognola, who then placed an immediate call back to the police department and local FBI offices, Bolan had been released. The grudging attitude of the officer who had cuffed him hadn’t prevented the man from doing his job in an efficient manner, especially after his own superiors had contacted him and doubly confirmed what Bolan had tried to tell him.

The soldier’s weapons and personal effects had been returned to him, at which point Bolan asserted Justice’s jurisdiction, at least at the outset. The officers had stood back while he used the digital camera in his sat phone to snap pictures of the dead men, their equipment, and the scene of the destruction Bolan had wrought on the street. He had transmitted them to the Farm for analysis.

A crime-scene team had since taken over, scouring the area and tagging and bagging anything that wasn’t nailed down. Once he had his photographs, Bolan had no further need to take charge of the aftermath of the fight. He was content to let the Farm run diplomatic interference behind the scenes. A great deal of covering up of the true nature of the shooters would likely have to be done, if reports of further terrorist shootings were to be averted. Already, several media crews were being kept at bay by uniformed officers wielding collapsible roadblocks and what appeared to be several miles of yellow caution tape.

“I’m done here,” Bolan informed Price.

“We’ll transmit directions to your phone’s GPS application, as usual,” Price said. “I assume you’re headed toward Norfolk.”

“Yes, since that’s the direction our boy was heading when I stumbled into this. You can get the field team moving there, if you haven’t already.”

“They’re well on their way,” Price confirmed. “They’ll beat you there and will act as our advance eyes and ears. Maybe we can yet get you ahead of the Iranians.”

“Iranians?” Bolan asked. “We have confirmation?” While all the weapons the shooters had used were Iranian, and rare enough in the United States, he would not assume the gunmen had been from Iran without some sort of verification. It was one of the oldest “plausible deniability” tricks in the book to equip a team with weapons not traceable to the nation fielding that team, or traceable to a completely different nation, in order to misdirect the enemy and confuse the issue should members of the team be captured or killed.

“That’s affirmative, Striker,” Price said. “We have identities back on half a dozen of your dead men, the ones who have Interpol records. All are Iranian black bag operators. Three were officially dead long before they ever met you. We’ve made some discreet inquiries through the usual channels, but of course the Iranians wouldn’t give us the time of day or a straight answer about this even if we were on good terms with them. It’s pretty obvious that you’re facing an Iranian-sponsored hit team, though what they could want with Baldero is still a mystery.”

“Something’s bothering me, Barb,” Bolan said.

“What is it?”

“It’s no small thing to sneak a small army of commandos into the country. Logic dictates that if you did, you’d equip them locally. Weapons are readily enough come by here, after all, and even illegally obtained automatic weapons would be more easily purchased through stateside contacts than smuggled into the U.S., wouldn’t they?”

“It would depend, Striker,” Price said. “If the Iranians were in a big hurry, they’d equip their team domestically and send them in as quickly as possible, the consequences be damned. It’s not as if we enjoy a good relationship with them.”

“True,” Bolan said. “But if that’s the case, how did they get in? This many men, carrying weapons and explosives? There’s a huge hole in our border somewhere, Barb.”

“That’s not really news, Striker,” Price said, “but I take your meaning. I’ll see if Bear and his people can come up with something. We’ll start prodding other agencies, especially DHS, Coast Guard and Border Patrol to see if we can come up with something.”

“All right,” Bolan said. “I’ve lost enough time already. Time to get moving.”

“Good hunting, Striker.”

“Out,” Bolan said. He closed the phone.

The officer who had first cuffed Bolan, named Sheddon, had been watching the Executioner from out of earshot, giving him time to finish his phone call. When the soldier closed the phone, the cop walked up to him and tried to smile. The result was genuine, if a bit sheepish. Officer Sheddon held up a plastic evidence bag in which Bolan’s bloody folding knife was sealed.

“Agent Cooper?” Sheddon asked, gesturing with the bag. The Justice Department identification that Bolan had flashed liberally to the officers on scene said that his name was “Matt Cooper.” He had worn many aliases in his fight against society’s predators. The exploits of Agent Matt Cooper would be somewhat legendary by themselves, if somebody had the time and the security clearance to start tallying them up.

“Yes, Officer?” Bolan said.

“They’ve cleared me to return your weapons to you, sir,” Sheddon said. He pointed to one of the cruisers. “See Officer Ames, the one with the blond hair, there. He’s got them locked in his trunk, sir. You sure you don’t want medical attention?”

“Thank you, no.” Bolan said. “I assume you have no more questions for me?”

“None that they’ll let me ask, sir,” Sheddon said. He looked irritated and a bit rueful, but he was a good cop and didn’t appear to be holding any serious grudges. “I’m afraid they want the knife, though, sir. Evidence.”

Bolan raised an eyebrow. “Then why not the guns?”

“Plenty of shell casings and bullets to be had.” Sheddon shrugged. “You know how it goes. They don’t want this—” he gestured with the evidence bag again “—walking off if it was used in one of the, er…deaths.”