Patriot Acts

Bolan wasn’t fazed. “By the time I’m finished with them, they’ll come to heel.”

COLONEL JACOB WEIST LOWERED his binoculars, then glanced over to Richards and Costell.

“You mean to tell me that we’re going to break into one of the most highly defended installations in this country and fly out with advanced, high-tech helicopters?” Weist asked.

Richards nodded. “Pretty much.”

Weist grinned and scanned the horizon. “The base layout is fairly generic. We could make the most effective equipment retrieval with a Delta Seven assault pattern, given the troops I have with me.”

Richards agreed with a slight grunt. “That’s what I was figuring too.”

Weist let the binoculars hang on their strap. “I can’t believe the Initiative tried to make you into a scapegoat.”

“It’s not so much that,” Richards replied. “I’ve been looking online, and the blame seems to be resting on our fellow true believers. The cover story for my op was changed, and now the last people in America who actually remember her purity and ideals are coming under blame for my so-called terrorist attack on Los Angeles.”

“They tried to kill you, though,” Weist said.

“No, they noticed that Cam was no longer under their chemical leash when he reported to his liaison,” Costell said. “With those drugs still running in our system, we wouldn’t think to look if the right people were taking the blame for the death of that anti-American Arab.”

Weist shook his head. “I knew it was too much of a good thing to be paid by the government to fight the important battles.”

“I’m just glad we pulled you off of your coyote patrol,” Richards noted. “We need good men. All the good we can find.”

“You have us,” Weist responded. “We can stem the tide of illegals across our border anytime. But when our own leadership betrays us…”

Weist grimaced. “I can barely believe it. But ever since we stopped taking our vitamins, you’re right. Everything is clearer. I’m no longer in the same haze I used to be.”

“You’re asking questions,” Richards explained. “The pills, they nullified our ability to reason, without hindering our tactical abilities.”

Weist’s eyes narrowed. “We can use the advanced X-birds in that facility to give us all the advantage we need against our enemies.”

“We’re not going to run,” Richards said. “We’re going to take the fight to them. But if we take down the Rose Initiative and the traitors they prop up, then we’re leaving our nation open to our enemies.”

Weist looked askance. “Not only that, but if we take down the puppeteers, the country will turn against itself. It’ll be a civil war again.”

“A civil war, war with China, the mullahs and the Mexicans hitting the disparate parties,” Richards said. “Apocalypse in a bag.”

“So what do we do?” Weist asked.

“We get those choppers, and we get to some truly nasty weaponry,” Richards said.

“The Extinction Archive!” Weist exclaimed.

“None other,” Richards confirmed. “From there, we can easily take out any opposition, including China.”

Weist rolled it over in his mind, and he nodded. “Fuck all of them before they fuck us again.”

Richards smiled, looking at the base. “How long before we make our move?”

“Give me two hours,” Weist said.

“Two hours,” Richards repeated. “Two hours, and the first step in freeing this country will be taken.”

5

The Executioner moved easily, slipping into the shadows of the alley. He grimaced as he mentally reviewed his war load, concerned about the implications of using too much firepower in the middle of Los Angeles. With his signature pistols riding under one arm and on his right hip and a sound-suppressed assault carbine in a gym bag, he had enough firepower to take on a company of enemy soldiers, and yet, only a few blocks back, children sat on a curb, fiddling with tiny electronic toys in their chubby little palms.

The building he was closing in on used to be an old machine shop, but an arm twisted here, and a leg broken there, informed him that it was a refuge for members of the Honduran immigrant community who could find easy profit in black market weapons and illicit narcotics. Bolan knew if something went wrong, he would drop a war in the middle of a civilian population. Unlike Richards, the rogue government assassin he sought, there was nothing in the Executioner’s heart of hearts that could allow a battle plan that turned unarmed bystanders into targets. And yet, except for targeting those who weren’t part of the battle, Richards’s extraction plan resembled the kind of hit and run blows against enemy governments that the Executioner specialized in.

Though he and Richards paralleled each other tactically, ethically they were polar opposites. Richards saw his duty to his government as a license to kill without restraint. Bolan was obligated to his duty to justice, which meant that the only ones who should suffer directly by his hand were the predators who inflicted their own suffering.

The smell of gunpowder was strong as Bolan closed in on the machine shop. A burly, bullet-headed man stood guard, the ugly outline of a heavy handgun bulging against his washboard stomach as he leaned against the back door. Cruel, dark eyes scanned the alley as Bolan nestled in the doorway, observing him.

The door guard was a hardened professional thug, observant and obviously quick. Only Bolan’s stealth and the lowering of the sun in the sky, extending shadows, gave him an element of surprise. Bolan set down his war bag containing his collapsed assault carbine and stepped out of the shadows. He had his Beretta shielded from view behind his leg, and the alley was empty enough that a stray shot wouldn’t end up in a noncombatant.

The tough guy saw Bolan and didn’t even offer a vocal challenge. His instincts were good, and his hand dived to the pistol-butt poking out of his waistband. With the Beretta already in hand, the Executioner had the advantage, snapping it up and punching a sound-suppressed bullet through the bridge of the gang member’s nose. The 9 mm slug drilled through bone and brain, and lifeless fingers dropped the thick, ugly pistol in his hand.

Bolan turned back and scooped up his rifle, pulling it from its concealing case. This wasn’t going to be a soft probe, but the quiet approach had already been risked. The moments before the contraband runners discovered that they were under attack were falling away quickly, the countdown to a full-fledged conflict was evaporating like alcohol under a blow torch. He strode swiftly up to the door the thug had been guarding, and pulled the trigger on the Masterkey shotgun under the barrel of his carbine. The “key to any door” was a 12-gauge chunk of enamel-fused lead filings weighing an ounce, a hybrid slug of metal and polymer that disintegrated on contact with a lock, but in the process rendered the lock useless. A blunt gas collecting canister on the nose of the Masterkey muffled the thunder of the shotgun’s bellowing report, but the door still slammed open violently, its clatter alerting a pair of men looking over an open crate of hand grenades.

The handguns jammed into their belts informed Bolan that they weren’t choir boys, and the Executioner milked the trigger on his folding stock VEPR, the stubby suppressor swallowing most of the chatter of the American-made AK-47 as its 7.62 mm COMBLOC rounds ripped into one heavily tattooed gang member as his hand dropped to the pistol at his side. The other one gawped at the Executioner in stunned shock, so Bolan reversed the VEPR and smashed its tube-steel buttstock hard into the man’s chin, knocking him senseless. He relieved the prisoner of his handgun.

Bolan rested his foot on the stunned man’s thigh and replaced the VEPR with the huge, gleaming Desert Eagle. The big .44 Magnum pistol was pure intimidation. The big American addressed the dazed arms inspector in Spanish.

“You sold some Uzis to a group of white men,” Bolan said. “Where are they now?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” the gang member answered.

The blocky muzzle of the Desert Eagle crashed across the man’s cheek, splitting skin and laying bone bare. “Who would?”

“Armageddo,” the wounded man grunted.

“He in the building?” Bolan asked.

“Next room,” the Hispanic answered.

“What does he look like?”

“He has devil horns tattooed on his forehead. Bright red, amid the crown of thorns,” the gang member stated.

A second swipe of the big Magnum’s barrel to the temple left Bolan’s captive unconscious on the floor.

“What the fuck is the noise in here?” someone cursed, opening the door, gun leading.

Bolan checked for the devil horns, then pulled the trigger on the Desert Eagle, spearing the hapless man back through the doorway, a gaping hole in the center of his face.

The Executioner burst into Armageddo’s workplace as the arms dealers were still gawking in shock at their dead partner thrown to the floor. Bolan was in the room among them, even as the corpse flopped on the floor tiles, transitioning from the Desert Eagle to the folding-stock rifle. The gang members scrambled in wild panic as the heavily armed Executioner exploded into action.