Homeland Terror

Grimaldi glanced back at the BATF surveillance vehicle, then once again eyed the slain biker. The man was beyond being interrogated, but Grimaldi still found himself asking the foremost question on his mind in the wake of the ambush.

“No way you just stumbled across them,” he thought aloud. “You knew they were on stakeout. Who tipped you off?”

WALLACE “DUBBY” BYRNES, youngest of the three brothers who had followed their late father’s footsteps into the ranks of the American Freedom Movement, had banged up his knee when he’d skid-dropped his Husqvarna in the parking lot, but he ignored the pain as he clambered into the cab of the nearest of the two semis backed up to the loading dock. The keys were in the ignition, and he let out a joyous whoop as he started the engine.

“Hot damn!” he hollered triumphantly.

He’d done it! He’d helped steal a semi filled with enough guns and ammunition to handle a year’s worth of AFM recruits. Not only that—he’d been the one who’d taken it upon himself a few weeks ago to start dating a BATF dispatcher, figuring it would help determine the extent to which the Feds were on their trail. His brother Harlan and all the others back at the compound had thought he was nuts and mocked him for coming up with such a hare-brained scheme. This afternoon, though, that scheme had paid off when the dispatcher—who had no idea Dubby was with the AFM—had mentioned something about a pending militia bust in Georgetown. Dubby had convinced his brother they should hop on their bikes and rush over to check on things. Now here they were, riding to the rescue, and they’d done it!

Dubby couldn’t wait to see the look on his brothers’ faces when he told them the news. There’d be no more calling him Squirt. Not after this. From now on, they’d call him Dubby like everyone else.

The twenty-three-year-old biker’s euphoria was a bit premature. He may have taken over the wheel of the Mack truck, but there was still the matter of escaping from the parking lot and making it all the way back to the AFM’s mountain compound without getting caught. Dubby got his first reality check when the driver’s-side window shattered while he wrestled with the truck’s gearshift. The bullet whizzed past his face and lodged in the cab ceiling, but not before he’d been struck by a few shards of glass. Blood began to seep from gashes in his neck and cheek.

Neither wound was severe enough to take Dubby out of the fight, and he swore as he grabbed for the Uzi Eagle he’d used earlier to gun down the truck’s owner. He knocked loose the remaining glass in the window frame with the Eagle’s squat polymer butt, then shouted out into the night, “All right, who’s asking for it?”

JOHN KISSINGER COULD SEE that he’d missed the biker attempting to steal the Mack truck. The biker was leaning out of the line of fire, and Cowboy didn’t want to waste any more ammunition, so he turned his attention to the other truck. Bolan had neutralized the first guard trying to get inside the vehicle, but a second guard had yanked the body aside and climbed behind the wheel. Now the semi was pulling away from the loading dock, headed Kissinger’s way.

Kissinger propped his gun hand on the planter to steady his aim as he squinted past the glare of the headlights, keeping the driver in his sights. Once the truck had reached the exit, Kissinger pulled the trigger.

The windshield spiderwebbed as the round punched through the glass, striking the driver in the upper chest. The dead man’s foot slid off the accelerator, and the truck slowed to a stop halfway into the street, blocking the only exit from the lot.

“Whaddya know, something went right for a change,” Kissinger muttered.

The disabled truck blocked his view of the gunfight taking place between Bolan and the other guards, so Kissinger backtracked along the planter to his original position, hoping the biker would realized he’d been hemmed in and bail from the other truck. Before he could confirm whether or not the ploy had worked, Kissinger was distracted by the metallic plink of something bounding off the asphalt on the other side of the planter. Kissinger had been in enough firefights to know the sound.

Grenade.

Kissinger had no time to react before the projectile detonated. Half the planter disintegrated, as did a good portion of the stanchions holding up the massive sign he had taken cover beneath. With a cracking sound nearly as loud as that made by the grenade, the weakened posts collapsed under the weight of the sign.

Kissinger tried to roll clear as the marquee plummeted toward him, but the bottom edge caught him on the right arm and shoulder, knocking the gun from his hand. The next thing he knew, the Stony Man armorer was pinned to the ground. The air had been knocked from his lungs and a stabbing pain coursed through him. A blur of light crowded his field of vision, then Kissinger’s world was plunged into sudden darkness.

WHEN HE SAW that his colleague was in trouble, Bolan broke from cover and started toward the fallen sign, only to be driven back by gunfire from the two rogue guards still prowling the loading dock area. The Executioner crouched behind a late-model Lexus illuminated by a nearby streetlight. Bolan shot the light out, emptying the last round in his Beretta. He fished a spare 10-round clip from his pocket and quickly swapped magazines, then peered over the hood of the Lexus. He fired at one of the guards and sent him sprawling across the body of a vendor who already lay dead on the loading dock next to an overturned crateful of MAT 40 subguns.

The remaining guard had fled to the rear of the second semi, which was trying to squeeze past the first truck, stalled at the parking lot exit. The engine rumbled as Byrnes drove forward, and seconds later Bolan heard a screech of metal on metal as Byrnes brushed against the other truck. Undeterred, the militiaman drove on, taking out another section of the planter as he forged a new path to the street. From where he was standing, Bolan couldn’t see if Kissinger had been in the truck’s path.

Dubby Byrnes turned sharply once he reached the street, then gave the semi more gas. When he spotted Bolan, he veered the truck toward the Lexus. Bolan had no time to fire. He dived headlong to his right, landing hard on the sidewalk just as Byrnes’s semi clipped the front end of the Lexus and sent it caroming backward into the Volkswagen Passat parked behind it. Bolan’s instincts had just saved him from being crushed between the two vehicles. Still, he’d scraped his right elbow landing on the sidewalk, and the entire arm throbbed as he scrambled back to his feet.

Much as he wanted to check on Kissinger, Bolan knew that trying to stop the truck was his top priority. Dropping the Beretta’s foregrip, he clutched the pistol with both hands and circled the crumpled Lexus. He was immediately spotted by the security guard who’d climbed up into the back of the fleeing truck. The guard fished through the shipping crate nearest to him and came up with an M-68 frag grenade similar to the one that had taken Kissinger out of the battle earlier. He slipped his thumb through the release pin and was about to heave the projectile when Bolan stitched him across the chest with a 3-round volley of 9 mm Parabellum bullets. The guard dropped the grenade and keeled over backward, his heart shredded. Bolan wasn’t sure if the pin had been pulled on the grenade, but he once again went with his instincts and dived back behind the Lexus.

Once the grenade detonated, shrapnel ripped through the truck’s cargo much the same way Bolan’s M-61 had stirred things up back at the storage shed in Sykesville. The chain-reaction blasts were equally devastating. The truck’s walls turned into razor-sharp shards, and flaming chunks flew out in all directions, pelting everything within a fifty-yard radius. A flash fire quickly consumed the crated weapons and ammunition, triggering still more explosions. The Lexus Bolan was crouched behind rocked in place for a moment, then came to a rest. By the time he rose to his feet to survey the damage, the truck had been turned into a rolling inferno.

DUBBY BYRNES WAS THROWN forward by the first blasts, breaking ribs on the steering wheel before he smashed into the windshield, cracking the glass along with his skull. By the time he’d rebounded back into the driver’s seat, shrapnel had ripped through the backrest and pierced his leather jacket, nicking his spine and puncturing his right lung. Miraculously, he was still conscious, but the spinal trauma had left him paralyzed from the waist down, and when flames surged through the cab, he was unable to escape. His shrill scream was abruptly silenced when the fire roared up into the engine compartment and made contact with the fuel line. A final explosion—every bit as loud and powerful as that made by the grenade—obliterated the cab, putting Byrnes out of his misery.

THE STREET HAD FALLEN SILENT, but the din from the chain-reaction blasts still reverberated through Bolan’s skull. Half-deaf, he cautiously approached the ravaged truck. Flames still licked at the charred shell, sending thick clouds of smoke up into the night. An eerie haze filled the street, almost like a fog, mingling with the light snowfall. Bolan knew the driver could not have survived the explosion.

As the Executioner turned to make his way back to Kissinger, another vehicle slowly rolled into view through the haze, passing the ruined semi. Bolan raised his pistol but held his fire. It was Grimaldi in the panel truck.

Bolan slowly slid his gun back into his web holster and waved to get Grimaldi’s attention. The panel truck picked up speed, then slowed to a stop alongside him.

“The grenade launcher’s still in back here,” the Stony Man pilot called out to Bolan as he leaned across the front seat and threw open the passenger door. “How the hell did you turn that truck into toast?”

“I had their help,” Bolan conceded. He had to raise his voice, as the night had come alive with the screaming of sirens. He got in the truck and explained what had happened, then told Grimaldi, “Let’s get back to the hall. Cowboy’s down.”

Once they were within view of the fallen sign, Grimaldi pulled to a stop in front of the stalled semi. He and Bolan scrambled to the planter and carefully lifted the toppled marquee, then shoved it to one side so they could get to Kissinger. The armorer wasn’t moving, but he had a pulse and was breathing, however faintly. Bolan and Grimaldi both saw a thin crimson rivulet seeping from the corner of the man’s mouth.

“Internal bleeding,” Grimaldi murmured.

Bolan nodded. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the flashing rooflights of several approaching vehicles.

“Let’s hope one of those is an ambulance,” he said, turning his attention back to Kissinger. “He’s hanging on by a thread.”

3

McLean, Virginia

Three hundred yards from the lean-to rooftop where Edgar Byrnes lay peering through the night-vision scope of his M-136 AT-4 rocket launcher, Roberta Williamson was finishing another routine workday on the sixth floor of CIA headquarters. Yes, she’d put in overtime, but that was the norm for her these days. She’d only been at the Langley facility ten months, and she still felt the need to do extra work to prove herself worthy of the promotion she’d received after five years of field work with the Agency’s Paris bureau. She was now an intercept analyst for the Company’s counterterrorism division, part of a thirteen-person team charged with ferreting out communication links between al Qaeda sleeper cells in the States and their overseas contacts. It was demanding work, but Williamson loved the challenge.

For Williamson, the biggest downside to her job was its sedentary nature. She’d put on twelve pounds since reporting to Langley, and long hours at the desk had given her lower-back problems, as well. She knew more exercise would help on both fronts and she tried, whenever possible, to leave time at the end of the day to do some stretches and then jog around some portion of the facility’s 130-acre grounds. This night it was snowing outside, so Williamson figured she had an easy excuse to skip the workout. When her phone rang, however, she suspected her boss had other ideas. She smiled ruefully as she picked up the receiver. “Williamson here.”

“Hey, Robbi. It’s your conscience.”

“I figured as much,” Williamson replied.

“So, whaddya say? Up for a jog?”

She chuckled, “Do I have a choice?”

“Be right there.”

“Bastard,” Williamson teased before hanging up the phone. She was still smiling as she pushed away from her desk and kicked off her pumps.

Her “conscience” was former Army Colonel Felix Garber, the fifty-seven-year-old California native who’d recommended her for the job with counterterrorism and had served as her mentor these past ten months. Before joining the Company, Garber had put in twenty years with the XVIII Airborne Corps, concluding his service as the officer in charge of demolition operations in Khamisiyah following the Gulf War. He was now deputy director of the CIA’s counterterrorism division, and Williamson suspected it was only a matter of time before he took over the top position. She and Garber had worked alongside each other several times when the colonel had come to Paris on assignment, and they’d struck up a friendship based on their mutual passion for country music, haute cuisine and the Los Angeles Lakers. Working in adjacent offices now, they’d drawn even closer the past few months, and another incentive Williamson had for losing weight was her anticipation of the day when their relationship led to the bedroom and Garber would have his first look at her without her clothes on.

She had changed into her jogging sweats and was tying her running shoes when Garber appeared in her doorway, wearing rubberized biker shorts and a sleeveless ski vest. He was in good shape and had a better physique than most men half his age.

“You want to go running dressed like that?” Williamson said. “You’ll freeze!”

“Wimp,” Garber said with a grin. “It’s not cold out—it’s brisk.”

“Yeah, right.” She laughed.

As they left the office and headed down the hall, Garber floated the idea of having dinner together after their run. He mentioned a new sports bar that had just opened up across the river in D.C. They’d have the Lakers game on, he told her, and their crab cakes had just gotten a good write-up in the Post.

“Can’t say no to a good crab cake,” Williamson said.

They were waiting for the elevator when Garber snapped his fingers.

“Damn!” he groaned. “I forgot to update Tangiers on that cable intercept we just cracked.”