Ballistic Read online

  So never mind the stealth.

  He fired the SPG-1A from twenty feet out and the front door imploded with a bang that rattled windows on the houses to the left and right. Using the shock to his advantage, Bolan plunged into a swirling cloud of smoke, eyes slitted, feeling more than seeing Maia enter on his heels. Ahead of him, a babble of excited, frightened voices told him where to go.

  They cut and bagged their product in the kitchen, teenage girls the workers, overseen by men with guns and hair that could have used an oil change several thousand miles ago. Three shooters were trying to recover from the HE blast when Bolan found them, one a little faster than his buddies, so he was the first to go. A 3-round burst from Bolan’s gun stopped his heart and pitched him back into the kitchen sink.

  The girls were screaming then, hightailing it for the back door, while the two remaining gunmen tried to earn their last paycheck. Bolan’s next burst defaced the gunner on his left, then he depressed the Pindad’s muzzle and his third burst buzz-sawed through the final soldier’s knees. The last man standing went down screaming, thrashing in a pool of blood.

  A heartbeat later, Bolan had the wounded gunman on his back, hands clamped across his mouth and nose until the keening stopped, dark eyes bulging from lack of air. When he released his grip, he asked the wounded mobster, “English?”

  He got a spastic headshake in return.

  “Translate,” he ordered Maia, then asked, “Where can we find Jin Au-Yo?”

  The wounded triad gangster babbled something. Maia said, “He doesn’t know.”

  Another clamp-down on the breathing apparatus, then the same question and same reply. Fear on the mangled soldier’s face told Bolan he was probably sincere.

  “He’s useless, then,” Maia said, reaching for a dagger on her belt.

  Washington, D.C.

  ON DAYS LIKE THIS ONE, Hal Brognola wished he could turn back the clock—or better yet, the calendar. Advances in technology had made it difficult, if not impossible, to keep a secret in the modern age. With WikiLeaks, Anonymous and God knew who else breaking news before it got to UPI or CNN, the good old-fashioned coverup was turning into an endangered species.

  “So it’s everywhere,” he said to Barbara Price, speaking over his private line to Stony Man Farm.

  “The hit, at least,” she said. “Nobody’s posted a connection to the Shenyang or its missiles.”

  “Yet, you mean,” Brognola groused. “If someone doesn’t manage to connect the dots within the next few hours, I’ll be pretty damned surprised.”

  “They’ve gone a different way, so far,” she answered. “Two attacks on ships in the South China Sea is news, but no one’s tumbled to the missile theft. Right now, the speculation’s running toward a feud between the PRC and hostiles on Taiwan. One crackpot claims Beijing is gearing up to nuke the Netherlands.”

  “Morons,” the big Fed muttered. “Striker’s doing what he can to find the Flying Ax’s honcho in Jakarta, looking for a way to link them with the Sword of Allah. Whether that will help us find the ship that’s carrying the second missile...well, that’s anybody’s guess.”

  “On that,” Price said, “the Company and NSA are working overtime on satellite surveillance. We have backdoor views of everything they’re doing, but they’re empty-handed at the moment. As it is, with their demands on record, there’s no reason to suppose the missile ship will even stay in the Far East. Nobody knows exactly what they’re looking for, and there’s no way to check out every ship afloat. It could be anywhere, en route to somewhere else.”

  “Could be,” he said, “but are they? Now that our Pacific Fleet is moving in, the targets will be headed their way. Why go anywhere?”

  Something was nagging at his mind now, and he missed Price’s answer. Brognola was on the verge of asking for a repetition, when the missing piece fell into place.

  “Is there any reason why the Brave Wind couldn’t launch from land?” he asked.

  There was a moment’s silence on the other end. The big Fed pictured Price frowning as she answered, “Not that I’m aware of, but I’d have to double-check on that. You’re thinking—”

  “That they’ve got us searching for a missile ship,” he said. “What if the test-fire was a lure, to bring one of our carriers in range? While everybody’s busy checking trawlers, junks and yachts, the shooters sit back on a spit of land somewhere and pick their time.”

  Price cursed, a most unladylike response, then said, “We’re screwed, I guess. A couple of years ago, they found a thousand islands in the Indonesian chain nobody had ever mapped before. God only knows how many places there could be to set a launcher up between Jakarta and the Philippines.”

  “Worse than a needle in a haystack,” Brognola allowed.

  “I’m going back to work,” she said, and cut the link.

  The Justice man closed his eyes, envisioning a carrier in flames, then started tapping out a number for the Pentagon.

  Rawamangun, East Jakarta

  THEY’D TORCHED the Pluit drug house, Maia shouting warnings to the neighbors as they left. The next mark on their list was a triad social club, Silver Nights, whatever that was meant to signify beyond the obvious allusion to glitter balls and “hostesses” in glittery metallic costumes. Bolan had no reason to believe the club would be open for business at noon—or open at all, on this day when the Flying Ax troops had to be scrambling to play catch-up from his early hits in town—but Maia thought there was a chance they’d find the manager somewhere around the place.

  And since he worked for Jin Au-Yo, he might know where to find the boss.

  Rawamangun lay to the east of downtown Jakarta, accessed via Jalan Pramuka, then by way of Jalan Kaya Pubh Raya southbound. Rolling down the main drag, Bolan watched for cops, although he didn’t think their vehicle had been identified so far. When a patrol car passed him, headed in the opposite direction, and the driver didn’t spare a second glance, it put his mind at ease on that score, anyway.

  Their luck was holding, but it wouldn’t last forever. Daylight raids were always riskier than night moves, but he couldn’t spend the afternoon in hiding while the Sword of Allah found a target for its second missile. Maia had been translating the news that came to them through the Toyota’s radio: the Dutch ship lost with all hands, impossible demands on Washington, a U.S. Navy strike force steaming toward the South China Sea in response, warnings from mainland China that its territorial waters had to be respected.

  A recipe for disaster.

  He’d grown up in an age of brinksmanship, and therefore found it hard to picture any crisis blowing up into a nuclear exchange between two superpowers, but it didn’t have to go that far to rate as a catastrophe. One aircraft carrier boasted a population larger than that of many small towns in the States. A loss on that scale would make 9/11 seem like a love tap. The hysteria that would inevitably follow such a blow, complete with calls for military action against any nation found to be involved, would set the stage for catastrophe.

  Al Qaeda’s strike in 2001 had embroiled America in more than a decade of war overseas, with no end in sight. What would result from a blow that doubled 9/11’s body count?

  The Executioner meant to avert that horror at any cost.

  Even if it meant wading waist-deep in blood.

  Pondok Indah, South Jakarta

  STILL NOTHING. Jin Au-Yo felt his impatience simmering, imagined the thoughts that Wu Guchan had to have been entertaining, sitting in his Beijing penthouse, far removed from any danger. The leader of the Flying Ax Triad admired Jin’s courage and determination. Why else had Jin been promoted to command the clan’s business in Indonesia? Still, that admiration could turn sour overnight if Jin proved unable to control his territory and eliminate a threat posed by two enemies.

  And one of them a woman!

  It was an insult to the t
riad, to his very manhood. Nearly all his soldiers in Jakarta were combing the streets, each team carrying sketches of the two offenders. How hard could it be to find a tall blue-eyed American accompanied by a Chinese woman, after all?

  And what of Chou Hua Tian? The Deputy Assistant Minister for State Security had promised to identify the agent Jin was tracking, but so far he had delivered nothing in the way of useful information. How long could it take to scan computer files? How many female agents had the ministry sent to Malaysia following the Shenyang hijacking?

  Suspicion was an aspect of Jin’s character that helped him stay alive. For all their oaths of loyalty, he understood the mind-set of his fellow triad members. They were only human, which, of course, meant they were treacherous, mendacious and responded more to fear than any show of kindness. Any one of Jin’s subordinates would likely stab him in the back for self-advancement. Some might call his feeling paranoia, but it came from personal experience.

  Jin had employed the same technique himself.

  He wondered now if Wu Guchan was having second thoughts about their dealings with the Arabs. Granted, it was too late to reverse the deal, but Wu might reason that he could escape responsibility by isolating Jin, letting him take the fall alone. In that case, would he let the government dispose of Jin? And would he risk the losses in Jakarta that the Flying Ax had suffered since the agent and her soldier came to town?

  Jin used the office intercom to summon Ma Mingxia. Ten seconds later, Ma was in the doorway, saying, “Yes, sir?”

  “Reach out to each team on the street,” Jin ordered. “Find out where they are and what they’re doing. Tell them I want updates at fifteen-minute intervals from now on.”

  “Consider it done, sir.”

  Ma vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared, leaving Jin to his thoughts once again. The vanguard meant to solve his problem and emerge victorious, either surprise or disappoint the old men in Beijing. But it was also time to think of viable alternatives, an exit strategy that left him situated for a comfortable life under a new name, with his skin intact.

  Jin Au-Yo had laid the groundwork for escape the day he joined the Flying Ax Triad. He’d known then what some of his fellow members never understood: that all the vows of brotherhood meant nothing when your world turned upside down. His numbered bank accounts in Switzerland and the Bahamas waited for him, fat and ripe. His rural home in Mexico was ready to receive him. Jin could leave at any time.

  But only if he knew the game was lost. And he wouldn’t concede that yet.

  In fact, he’d just begun to play.

  Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta

  GOH CHOK SWEE WAS nervous. He’d been keeping up with the reports of raids on triad property around Jakarta and had processed the alerts from headquarters to be on guard. He’d asked for more security, but had been told that everyone available was on the street, hunting an agent from the Ministry of State Security who traveled with a white man, either British or American. The agent was a woman, but headquarters rated both of them as dangerous.

  So here Goh sat, with three men to secure the triad’s counterfeiting plant. They didn’t deal in currency, but rather in designer labels that were placed on bootleg products for domestic sale—a racket that put four billion U.S. dollars in the triad’s pocket every year. The bogus products processed by Goh’s team included makeup and shampoo, insecticide and pharmaceuticals, shoes and clothing, automotive parts and office equipment, sunglasses and handbags, not to mention movies, music, video games and other such items mass-produced in the People’s Republic for sale overseas. The list was virtually endless, and the profits were huge.

  But now, Goh had a target on his back. He hadn’t seen the trouble coming, still had no idea exactly why the Flying Ax was being singled out for these attacks. Not his end of the operation, anyway. At least, not yet. Family business was compartmentalized, thus limiting the damage any given individual could do if he decided to forsake his oath of loyalty and silence.

  Not that Goh would ever be a damned informer and betray his brothers.

  Not unless it was required to save his skin, that was.

  He was prepared to make another circuit of the factory, observe the workers and let them observe him watching them, so that they did their jobs efficiently. The printers, for example, had a tendency to be a trifle lax unless they knew that Goh was breathing down their necks. Perhaps a touch of discipline would break that habit and relieve some of his nervous tension at the same time.

  The blast jarred Goh, caused him to drop his clipboard with a clatter that was lost in the explosion’s rumbling reverberation. Fine dust filtered down around him from the ceiling as he got his bearings, but it didn’t mask the scent of smoke and high explosives.

  There was nothing in the factory that should explode. The printing presses failed from time to time, but with a wheeze and clatter, not a blast that rocked the squat two-story plant. The rest was all assembly stations and rooms filled with products awaiting their labels. Nothing that should burn unless it had been doused with gasoline and set afire. And even then, the clothes, cosmetics, VCRs and other items had no blast potential.

  Goh moved toward the sound, tracking the HE stench in the direction of the plant’s broad loading bay out back. When he was halfway there, he heard gunshots and knew that he was in the wrong place at the wrong damned time.

  Cursing, he turned and ran.

  * * *

  PULO GADUNG’S MAIN CLAIM to fame was Cipinang Penitentiary, a prison built during Dutch colonial days and still in use by Indonesia’s current government, housing a mixture of felons, alleged terrorists and political dissidents. A recent survey of Cipinang inmates by Amnesty International had found eighty-one percent claiming that they had suffered torture or some other form of abuse at the hands of their jailers. Protests to the state, thus far, had fallen on deaf ears.

  Bolan had driven past the prison on his way to the triad counterfeiting plant, third on the list of local targets Maia Lee had put together. The factory was on Jalan Bekasi Raya, with access to a loading bay behind it, and he’d chosen that approach to minimize attention from the street. The doors were locked back there, and Bolan used a 40 mm key to open them, in lieu of wasting time with lock picks.

  Once inside, he heard the workers scrambling for cover, exits, anything, their feet on concrete sounding like a swarm of panicked rats. He wished them luck and hoped that they would stay the hell out of his way. As for the triad’s watchdogs...

  Maia tagged the first one, caught him coming from a hallway to their right and zipped him with her P2 SMG. The guy let out a squeal and dropped his weapon, sprawling on the floor beside it with his arms outflung, reaching for nothing they would ever grasp. She played it safe and made a quick detour, kicked the gun away from him, then followed Bolan down another corridor, into the old plant’s musty heart.

  Two women met them, squealed, then spun and ran the other way. Bolan kept moving, following the muzzle of his Pindad SS2 deeper into the factory, past rooms piled high with jeans and blouses, women’s shoes and purses, cardboard cartons filled with who knew what. He thought they’d have a chance to torch the inventory later, but the first order of business was pinning down whatever guards remained—and seeking out the man in charge.

  The guards, as it turned out, were easy. Only two were left, and they came out to fight without much thought behind it, blasting from the hip before they had a target in their sights. Bolan and Maia caught them with a crisscross double stream of automatic fire and rolled them up, no hits on their side as the triad shooters fell.

  Still cautious, Bolan moved ahead, clearing the several rooms they passed, homing in on what could only be an exit to the street. He got there just in time to find a man trying to clear the double dead-bolts, fumbling in his haste. Well-dressed, apparently unarmed, he looked like management.

  “That’s far enough
,” Bolan said.

  Maia echoed it in Chinese.

  The man turned, raised his hands as if it were a mugging, studied each of them in turn with jumpy eyes. “You are the ones,” he said at last.

  “Which ones?” Bolan asked, confident that he already knew the answer.

  “Who are being hunted,” the man said.

  “Funny,” Bolan replied. “I thought we were the hunters.”

  “Killing me will gain you nothing.”

  “It’s one less Flying Ax to deal with,” Bolan told him.

  “I am not a soldier.”

  “Management, I take it?” the Executioner asked, and got a curt nod in response.

  “We want your leader,” Maia interrupted, cutting through the chitchat. “Where is Jin Au-Yo?”

  “If I betray him—”

  “Thunderbolts and myriads of swords,” Bolan said. “Yada yada.”

  There was something cagey in the man’s attitude. “You only want an address?” he said. “Well, why not?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Beiheyan Street, Beijing

  Commodore Feng Jingwei was edgy as he left his chauffeured limousine and climbed the concrete steps outside the Ministry of State Security. No one enjoyed a summons from the agency that functioned, in effect, as China’s

  KGB. Some who were called to answer questions here wound up in prison or in rural camps that practiced reform through labor. Others simply disappeared.

  Feng felt all the worse because he knew why he’d been summoned. It was no relief to get the call from Chou Hua Tian’s terse secretary, even though the Deputy Assistant Minister for State Security was Feng’s accomplice in the crime that could result in both of them facing a military firing squad. Chou might be planning to off-load responsibility on Feng and thereby save himself.

  But Chou might surprise him yet. And if their meeting realized the commodore’s worst fears, he had a secret stash of evidence that would make life most uncomfortable for the deputy assistant minister.