Radical Edge

Food, still cooking on the stove…and the man lying dead at the table had been shot down in the middle of his skinhead’s breakfast of champions. Something about this was very wrong. Bolan took out his phone and photographed the dead men, noting the flashing icon that indicated transmission to the Farm.

“Sarge,” Grimaldi said in his earbud. “The first of the emergency responders is inbound to you in less than three minutes. A pair of uniforms. You’re about to have company.”

“Understood,” Bolan said.

There was a groan from nearby.

At the back of the kitchen, a door that appeared to have been punched several times—perhaps during some skinhead’s drinking binge, producing several fist-size holes in the cheap pressboard—led to the basement. The sounds of pain and distress became louder. They were coming from behind the door, which stood slightly ajar.

Bolan didn’t wait. He simply ripped the door open the rest of the way, angling the short barrel of the P90 against his body so he could target the space without turning his weapon into a lever to be used against him. The gaunt, shaved-headed man lying on the stairs within had full tattoo “sleeves” up his arms. The mesh muscle shirt he wore was ragged and bloody. He was hugging himself, holding his guts in, trying to staunch the massive wound where he had been shot.

“Don’t move,” Bolan ordered. The man held no weapon that the soldier could see, but that didn’t mean he was unarmed. In his time fighting terror and crime, Bolan had seen every sham I’m-wounded ploy in the book. He wasn’t easily fooled. “Who did this?” he said. “Who hit you?”

“I think I’m dying,” the skinhead said. “Hell…I think I’m dying… .”

“Tell me,” Bolan snapped. “Before it’s too late. Before you’re out of time. You can get even. You can hit back at whoever did this. Tell me who it was.”

“You gotta…” the man said. He tried to draw breath and apparently couldn’t. “You gotta…”

Just what it was Bolan had to do, he would never know. The man stopped gasping. The light left his eyes.

That was that. There would be no intelligence to be had here.

“Sarge,” Grimaldi said in Bolan’s ear, “I’m transmitting to the locals. I’m warning them that there is a Justice Department agent on the premises. They don’t like it. I’m not getting confirmation that they’ll hang back.”

“Understood,” Bolan said again. “Out.”

He placed two fingers against the dead man’s neck, knowing he would feel no pulse. A quick check of the skinhead’s pockets revealed nothing. Up once more, Bolan made his way carefully back through the kitchen, just in time to confront a pair of uniformed Alamogordo Police Department officers with their guns drawn.

“Freeze!” they shouted, almost in unison.

“Matt Cooper,” Bolan said, citing the cover identity that appeared on the credentials issued him by Stony Man Farm. “Justice Department.”

“Drop the weapon!” one of the cops called.

“You were contacted,” Bolan said. “You’re interfering in a federal operation.”

“Drop your weapon!” the police officer repeated. His partner looked at him dubiously, though he didn’t lower his own gun.

“Continue pointing that weapon at me,” Bolan said, “and we’re going to have a problem.”

“Are you threatening to fire on duly appointed law-enforcement officers?” the first cop demanded.

“No,” Bolan said. “I don’t shoot the ‘good guys.’ However, if you don’t stop pointing those guns at me—” he paused, and his voice became steel “—I will take them away from you and beat you unconscious with them.”

“Put it down, Jimmy,” the man’s partner whispered urgently.

Reluctantly, the first officer lowered his weapon. The second breathed a noticeable sigh of relief as he did the same.

“How many are you?” Bolan asked. It was only a matter of time before the safe house was swamped with law enforcement and emergency response personnel. He would need to move quickly if he was to find anything useful amid the debris before the place was overrun with competing administrative concerns. The crush of jurisdictional red tape would make Bolan’s job more difficult no matter how well-meaning the cops themselves were.

The officers exchanged glances, probably trying to decide if it was safe to tell Bolan anything sensitive. Stepping toward them and lowering his own weapon, the Executioner removed the Justice Department identification from his web gear and waved it under their eyes. That seemed to mollify them, though the cynical part of Bolan’s mind told him that it shouldn’t have. Were the soldier some sort of assassin or other well-equipped hostile operative, forged credentials would pass such a quick inspection.

“Backup is on the way,” Jimmy said. “We’re it for now. What happened here, Mr.…”

“Cooper,” Bolan repeated. “Agent Matt Cooper, Justice Department.” He leaned on the last two words heavily. It wouldn’t hurt for these men to know he had the authority of Washington, D.C., behind him.

“I’m looking for this man,” Bolan said. He held up his satellite phone and called up the most recent mug shot of Hyde. “Shane Hyde. A wanted extremist with ties to several domestic terror organizations.” That simplified the issue quite a bit, but it would be enough to get his meaning across.

“You thought he might be here?” the second officer said. “Did you…did you kill all these people?”

“Negative,” Bolan said. He pressed his lips together. Even the implication was disturbing. “This location has been assaulted by a force of armed operatives, size unknown, affiliation unknown.”

“You don’t talk like a Fed,” Officer Jimmy said.

“You talk like a military man,” his partner stated.

Bolan ignored that. He gestured toward the kitchen. “Everything around you is potential evidence. Don’t touch anything. There’s a basement. I intend to investigate.” He turned to leave them. Over his shoulder, he said, “Stay out of my way.”

He didn’t enjoy being brusque with police, who were just trying to do their jobs. He simply didn’t have time to be diplomatic. Hyde wasn’t here and, if he had been, the assault on the safe house opened multiple worrisome possibilities. Had he already been taken out, possibly by one of the terrorist organizations to which he was connected? Had they mounted a daring coup, hoping to silence the security threat Hyde represented to them?

Bolan rejected that idea. Until his strike at the first of the pair of safe houses, Hyde and Twelfth Reich would have no reason to believe they were being targeted. Hyde’s allies, then, would likewise have no reason to be any more concerned than they already were about working with him.

Unless there was something else at ploy here. Some kind of leak, possibly within the web of law-enforcement agencies already homing in on Hyde. The man had, after all, been previously targeted, with disastrous results for the agents involved.

The Executioner dismissed this speculation. There was little value in it. He would simply have to keep moving forward through the priority list until Hyde, or some sign of him, shook loose. Until he could uncover new intelligence, there were no other options.

The temperature dropped to comfortable levels as he descended the open stairway to the basement, flicking on the combat light attached to the FN P90’s rail system. He was ready to fire through the stairs, if need be; he had ambushed plenty of men himself from such a position. The basement was largely empty, however. There were a few cardboard cartons of what appeared to be trash, a water heater, what looked to be a nonfunctioning furnace and several empty metal garage shelves.

Satisfied there was nothing here, Bolan started back up the stairs. It was then that he heard the sound of a thump in the living room.

He hurried back in that direction to find the police officers had ripped a heavy-metal band poster from the plaster wall, ignoring his instructions. They had uncovered a cavity into which a small but sturdy-looking safe had been set. Officer Jimmy and his partner had apparently removed the lockbox and dropped it on the floor of the living room. The safe was oblong, painted black, covered in deep gouges where its paint had been scraped away near the lock and handle lever.

“Don’t touch that,” Bolan ordered. Jimmy looked up, annoyed.

“There was a tear in the poster,” Officer Jimmy’s partner offered. He appeared embarrassed. “We weren’t intentionally—”

“He’s a Fed,” Jimmy said. “He’s not God, Gray. Relax. We’ve as much jurisdiction as anyone until—”

“And what happens when everyone else gets here?” Gray asked.

“How many times you going to try to call it in?” Jimmy said, irritated. He reached for the safe.

“I said,” Bolan interjected, “don’t touch that.”

Jimmy looked up. “Listen, Agent Cooper—”

He held up a hand. “Do you hear that?”