Decision Point

“It’s me,” he said when the big Fed answered.

“Let me turn on the scrambler. Done. Have you had a chance to review everything we’ve got so far?”

“I have,” Bolan said. “It’s not much to go on. Once we have everything that we need, Heather Daniels is likely to be dead if she isn’t already.”

“Agreed, but we’re working on it. We have come up with a theory that might fit.”

“Let’s hear it,” Bolan said.

“We’ve got an intelligence report on the region that mentions rumors that the KP Branch of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil have reformed in that part of the world.”

“The LTTE?” he mused. KP Branch was the group’s nickname, taken from the initials of its top operative, Kumaran Pathmanathan. “I thought the Sri Lankan government had finally put an end to those guys.”

“That’s the common belief,” he said. “But this group, calling themselves the Ocean Tigers, is operating a lot more like a military than a bunch of pirates. They’re organized, efficient and deadly. Their tactics are way too familiar.”

Bolan considered the information briefly. “It fits,” he agreed. “Do you have anything else on them?”

“Nothing concrete, but if this is the LTTE back in action, then you’re heading into a hell of a hot zone. They’ve always been the real deal, and if this is a reformation of the KP Branch, there’s even more going on beneath the surface than just piracy.”

“Interesting,” Bolan said. “What do we know about this KP Branch?”

“They were pretty secretive and mostly dealt with weapons smuggling, explosives and dual-use technology. They wreaked havoc in that part of the world for a long time, and destabilizing the government was their specialty. Supposedly they went out of business when their leader was arrested. It’s the dual-use tech that worries me.”

“What do you think they might be after? Civilian stuff with military applications?”

“That’s the most likely scenario,” Brognola said. “So maybe someone stepped into the role of leader and is taking them in this new direction. We just don’t know precisely what that direction is or who the man running the organization might be, but I do know that they can be formidable and if they are setting their sights on political captives their appetite has gotten a little bigger.”

“At least it’s a place to start,” Bolan said. “Do you have anything else for me?”

“One thing,” he said. “But I’m reluctant to mention it, since I know you’re already reluctant. It’s about the woman, Agent Michelle Peterson.”

“What about her?”

“She wasn’t lying when she said she did field ops for the CIA and the NSA, but she ended up getting pulled from the field toward the end of President Daniels’s last term. It was only his intervention that got her a spot on his personal detail.”

“Why was she pulled?” Bolan asked.

“She had a mission go bad. Really bad. She was working a case in Libya and was taken. They held her and tortured her for two months. When she finally got out of there, it was six months before she could walk again. They wanted to retire her, but the President intervened and she ended up assigned to him. According to her file, she was diagnosed with severe PTSD.”

“That’s not all that surprising, considering what happened to her,” Bolan said. “Not many people can live through a situation like that without problems.”

“That’s true,” Brognola said. “But I wanted you to know. Despite the fact that he’s no longer in office, President Daniels has an enormous amount of influence with the current administration, and he and this woman are obviously close. And she might be unstable. If something goes wrong, it could come back and bite us right on the ass. I tried to talk him into letting you go this alone, but he wants someone who is interested in his daughter’s safety and will make it a priority. He knows that any other operative will put the mission first and he wants to make certain that his daughter isn’t collateral damage. He can talk a big game about her not being the objective, but I guarantee that she is Agent Peterson’s objective.”

Bolan sighed. “We’ll just have to hope she’s tough enough to handle it,” he said. “I prefer to work alone, but the President insisted, so I’ll just have to make the best of it. I can always find a convenient place to stick her if she becomes too big of a problem and then deal with Daniels later.”

“It’s your mission, Striker, but taking her into the field might be a good way to get yourself—or her—killed. I’ve never been willing to lose an operative to satisfy the politicians, even the President.”

“I appreciate the heads-up and I’ll let you know if things are becoming problematic. You’ll get back to me with any additional intelligence? We need to get moving on this quickly if Heather has any chance of coming out of this at all.”

“I should have more for you in a few hours,” he said.

“Thanks, Hal. We’ll talk soon.”

Bolan clicked End on his cell phone and flipped back through the file one more time. There were things he would need in country and even more than usual if he couldn’t convince Peterson to stay in the States and provide support. He knew she wouldn’t, just as she likely knew he’d try anyway.

Bolan wasn’t a sexist. He’d met any number of women capable of doing good work in the field. It was never a question in his mind of capability, except on an individual level, and it had nothing to do with gender. But in his experience, a woman in the field could be distracting, and in a situation that was personal—as it was in this case—a person was less likely to make objective decisions and that almost always ended badly. Bolan knew that he personally operated most effectively when he worked solo, pulling support from individuals in the area who could serve as resources to the needs of the mission at that particular moment, rather than dealing with the complexities of a partner or a full team.

He pulled out his laptop and booted the system. After going through the installed security protocols, including thumbprint and retinal scans, he opened his contacts folder and began to search through them. One name came to the top of the list, but Bolan almost groaned aloud at the thought of dealing with this man. Still, Bashir Faizal, for all his flaws, was as good as money could buy and in this case, it might not cost him anything.

Bolan picked up his phone and began to dial. Bashir’s resource phone, as he called it, required a password. When Bolan heard the tones he dialed the password and waited as the call rerouted. He got an answer after two rings.

“This is Bashir.”

“Hello, Bashir. Matt Cooper.”

“Ah…my old friend! Long time. Who can I help you blow up today?”

“Well, I hadn’t planned on blowing up that drug boat, but who would have thought they booby-trapped their own stash?”

Faizal laughed. “I told you they would,” he said. “Remember?”

“I remember,” he said dryly. “Are you ever going to let it go?”

“Same old Cooper, no sense of humor for these things,” he said. “All right, I’ll let it go for now. How can I help you? I still owe you for saving my life.”

“You owe me twice, as I recall,” Bolan said.

“You only risked yourself one time for me, my friend. The other time you were saving your own skin and I got to tag along.”

“Fair enough. I’m putting together an op in that part of the world, somewhere in the Bay of Bengal, if my intelligence holds up. Hostage rescue.”

“The Bay is bad news, Cooper. The word is that the Ocean Tigers are prowling those waters these days and they aren’t like normal pirates.”

“Who are the Ocean Tigers?”

“I don’t really know who they are—no one does—but I do know that they are a patch of bad that you don’t want to get pricked by.”

“Are they the kidnapping kind?”

“They have ransomed some. But if it’s them, then you may just as well save yourself the trouble of coming. Decent pirates treat their prisoners like they would treasure, because this is how they make their money. The Tigers, they only ransom a handful of their prisoners, and then they still play games, making people pay and pay. The rest they toy with, making demands no one can meet, then executing them as some kind of political statement. Military and law enforcement ignore them because they’re too dangerous to tangle with and have too much money. Not like the Somali pirates at all.”

“Hence the need for an operation, Bashir. I’m going in before they have an opportunity to execute this particular hostage.”

“Does this one hold state secrets or something? Diplomat’s daughter?”

“Bashir, I’m about to change the operation target to you.”

“Fine, fine, what do you need?” he asked. “If it’s not too outrageous, you’ll get it.”