Radical Edge

“I know, Striker,” Brognola said. “There are few men I would ask even to try. But we need him breathing and able to tell us what he knows. The Man is getting a lot of pressure from agencies here and abroad. Strings were pulled to make sure we’re on point in this, which means we’re running interference with the National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to keep them out of the mix.”

“They don’t like not knowing who’s handling it,” Bolan offered.

“Yes,” Brognola said. “It’s our job now, but there are plenty of people who’d like to take it from us. The Man himself was very clear about this. The President needs this problem resolved before it starts to seriously hinder his credibility with the international law-enforcement community.”

“The logical thing to do,” Bolan said, “would be to send blacksuits to each target. Simultaneously.”

“I can’t give the order not to fire on Shane Hyde to that many men,” Brognola said. “They’ll be walking in there with their hands tied behind their backs. They’ll either hold off too long and get shot up, or they’ll be too quick to fire, and a stray bullet or a miscalculated shot will take Hyde out for good. There’s also the fact that we need to do this more or less discreetly because we’re doing it extralegally. We don’t have enough hard evidence on Hyde and Twelfth Reich, not to justify an operation as decisive as this. We’ve been ordered to cut out a cancer. I need a surgeon. I need you, Striker.”

“Understood,” Bolan said. “What about support?”

“We may be able to draw a certain amount of backup from DHS or the Bureau,” Brognola said. “It will mean admitting that Justice is in charge, which will get my phone ringing. That’s nothing I’m not used to doing whenever you’re in the field. But again, discretion is called for…if not simply because the Man needs this done quickly and quietly.”

“Or he looks as if he’s not in control of the situation,” Bolan said.

“Exactly.”

“And if I don’t find Hyde at this Priority Alpha? Follow-up is going to have to be fast, Hal, if I can’t count on simultaneous containment. Frontal, hard assault will get Hyde’s attention. When word gets out that I’m rattling cages, he and his men will hunt for cover and dig in. I’ll have to run them down site to site.”

“I know,” Brognola said. “I’m transmitting files to your phone now. Jack has orders to report to your location. He’ll bring suitable transportation, something fast with decent range.”

Bolan nodded, though Brognola could not see him. Jack was Stony Man pilot Jack Grimaldi, a man whose war against society’s predators dated back almost as far as Bolan’s own. “Have him bring me something that goes bang.”

“I’ll make sure the armory sends along a care package.”

“Then I’d better go,” Bolan said, as his phone vibrated under his hand, signaling receipt of Brognola’s data files. “I’ve got a lot of reading to catch up on.”

“You do, at that,” Brognola had said. “Good hunting, Striker. I realize I’m dropping you into a meat grinder. I wouldn’t ask if I had any other option.”

“Yeah,” Bolan said.

“And…Striker?”

“Yeah?”

“You could say no. You always have that option.”

“I know that. Do you?”

“I do,” Brognola had admitted. “You’ve made it very clear that what you do occurs on your own terms.”

“Then you also know why I won’t refuse,” Bolan said. “Striker, out.”

That had been mere hours ago. Now Bolan’s boots were on the ground in New Mexico, his familiar Beretta was in his hand and dead terrorists were already assuming ambient temperature in his wake. A double-edged Sting combat knife rode in a custom Kydex scabbard inside his waistband behind his left hip; a massive .44 Magnum Desert Eagle rode in a similar Kydex holster behind his right. Over the shoulder of his formfitting combat blacksuit he wore an olive-drab canvas war bag, which carried the other munitions and tools he might need. He had not yet deployed his subgun, but he would need it only too soon.

The promised care package had turned out to be the FN P-90, Belgium’s contribution to the world’s most innovative submachine guns. The lightweight bullpup weapon, no longer than the width of Bolan’s shoulder blades, fired 900 rounds per minute of 5.7 mm cartridges to an effective range of 200 meters. Equipped with a tritium-illuminated reflex sight, the weapon fired from a closed bolt for maximum accuracy. It was one of the quietest weapons of its type Bolan had ever fired, with superb ergonomics. Its horizontal magazines were loaded with fifty rounds each.

It was time to knock on the door.

Bolan made sure his Beretta was set to 3-round-burst mode. He reached into his war bag, grabbed a flash-bang grenade and popped the pin with his thumb. Counting silently, he pushed the grenade through the corner of one of the windows, where the Plexiglas didn’t completely cover the gap. Then he quickly made his way across the front of the building to the opposite side of the front door, opened his mouth wide and shut his eyes.

His quick surveillance of the building prior to making his run had told him there was only one entrance. Unless they threw themselves from the windows, the skinheads would have to flee through the—

The flash-bang detonated. The explosion, even contained within the house, was almost loud enough to hurt. The flash left afterimages in Bolan’s vision through his eyelids. The screams and cries from within were immediate and not surprising. The warped wooden door at the entrance was thrown open, and it banged against the front of the building.

The skinhead who stumbled out carried a .45 automatic pistol in one hand. His eyes were clenched shut and streaming tears. He was moaning, producing no words but making a lot of noise. He had probably been near the door when the flash-bang went off. He had obviously taken some of the worst of it. Bolan raised the Beretta and squeezed off a 3-round burst into the center of the man’s chest. He fell, hard, and did not move.

Moving smoothly, with deliberate, gliding strides, the Executioner made for the doorway. He held the Beretta 93R in a firm, two-hand grip as he crossed the threshold. Within the main area of the house, thin plywood walls had been erected to create a warren of tight, mazelike rooms beyond the central party area in which he now stood. Thermal imaging from Stony Man Farm’s satellite photos had told Bolan everything he needed to know about the layout.

There were two skinheads, writhing on the floor, a revolver and a sawed-off shotgun nearby. When the pair heard Bolan’s footfalls, they clawed along the floor for their lost weapons.

The Executioner walked through a kick to the head of the closer target, which snapped the skinhead’s skull to the side. He couldn’t reach both men in time; the second had his hand wrapped around the cracked wooden grips of the oldest and rustiest revolver Bolan had seen in a long time. A single burst from the Beretta put a stop to that.

He heard the scream then. Of course. There would be women here. Wherever there was human trash, there were dissolute paramours. Whatever their sins, if the women weren’t skinhead terrorists themselves, they were innocents.

But there was no way to tell, quickly, which they would be.

He heard the shuffle of feet on the other side of the plywood wall he faced, almost felt the clack of a shotgun pump being racked. He threw himself to the floor as the blast punched first one, then another, then a third quarter-size hole through the crumbling wood. The shooter was loading deer slugs.

From his sight angle on the floor, Bolan could see movement behind the slug holes. He waited until the gunman—who was tall and wide enough, from what Bolan could see, that he must be male—blocked the light over all three holes. Bolan heard the sound of the shotgun pump being hauled back again. He lined up his target at the center of the three-hole group and squeezed the Beretta’s trigger.

The Executioner’s 3-round burst provoked a grunt; the body blocking the holes fell away. Bolan could feel the vibration of the gunman as he dropped to the floorboards.

The soldier pushed himself back to his feet, staying low. The doorway leading beyond was really just a ragged opening in the plywood walls. It offered no true cover, only concealment. He would have to stay mobile to clear the rest of the house. A spray from an automatic weapon could rip through the entire structure with ease, ending his life while mowing down anyone else who happened to get in the way. That option wasn’t open to Bolan.

He heard the scream again, followed by an angry retort. That was a male’s voice.

“Shut up! Stand there! He’s coming!”

That was all Bolan needed. He had the man’s position fixed and, diving through the doorway, he punched the Beretta up and out from the floor, flicking the selector to single shot as he did so.

The skinhead, crouched behind a three-legged wooden table, had a naked, bleached-blond, heavily tattooed woman in a headlock. She wriggled and squirmed, trying to escape the line of fire in which her captor had put her. When she screamed again, the would-be domestic terrorist tightened his arm, choking off her cries. The skinhead glared at Bolan. He held a huge Bowie knife in his hand.

“You just back off, man, or I’ll—”

Bolan fired.

CHAPTER TWO

Bolan’s bullet plowed a furrow through the skinhead’s cheek and kept on going at an angle, blowing his brains out the back of his head. The woman screamed again, falling to her knees as the corpse dragged her to the floor. She had been sprayed with the punk’s blood.

The soldier reached for her, pushing to one knee. She would need treatment for shock.

The blade came up in a wild arc that nearly laid open his face, the lightning-bolt SS tattoo on her wrist flashing across Bolan’s vision. He counter-slashed with the barrel of the Beretta, knocking the Bowie knife aside, feeling the edge dig into the steel of the pistol’s slide. He dropped to a crouch and whipped the pistol against the woman’s temple. She bleated once, then folded. The knife she had taken from her dead companion clattered on the floor.

Boot steps on the plywood floorboards were all the warning Mack Bolan needed. He rolled onto his back and pumped several bursts into the corridor opening as more terrorists approached.

They boiled through the opening like angry ants, firing without aiming. Two had heavy pistols; a third had a semiauto MAC-11. Bullets tore runnels in the floor, the walls and in the stunned woman on the floor behind Bolan. She yelped once as her fellow terrorists killed her.