Deep Recon Read online

The Executioner told Brognola to have the Coast Guard impound the Fidelis, and said that he'd contact the big Fed in the morning to discuss their next move.

  Once they'd returned to the safehouse, Maxwell — still in the tube top and boxer briefs, but having kicked off her sneakers — asked if Bolan was interested in a nightcap.

  He'd declined, which prompted her to remove the tube top and briefs and ask if he was sure.

  "Getting involved with someone you're working with is not the smartest move — it clouds one's judgment," he'd said in reply to her nudity. "I'd have thought that tonight would have driven that home to you, since we'd be in much better shape right now if you weren't so focused on avenging your lover's death."

  "First of all," she said, putting her hands on her hips in a manner that made her breasts wiggle provocatively, "I didn't know we needed to keep Lee alive. Second of all, I'm not talking about getting involved, I'm talking about sex. You know, letting off steam? Or can you only do that with the gun in your holster instead of the one in your pants?"

  He hadn't bothered to respond verbally to that insult, but instead had retreated wordlessly to the bedroom he'd used the previous night.

  A part of him was half-expecting her to follow him in, but apparently she wasn't quite that desperate.

  Maxwell might have been amenable to casual sex, but Bolan had to at least like the woman he slept with....

  So he slept.

  Then suddenly he was up and moving toward his SIG-Sauer before his mind was consciously aware of what was going on. Even as his hand closed around the pistol's stock, he realized that there were footsteps outside the safehouse.

  Wearing only briefs, he moved slowly toward the window in his room, which had the blinds drawn.

  It was possible, of course, that someone from one of the agencies affiliated with Justice was coming to use the place for his or her own needs, and either was unaware or uncaring of the fact that someone already had use of it. These sorts of things happened in this line of work, and if someone nearby needed a quick bolt-hole, they might not have had the luxury of checking to see if this house was occupied first.

  He used the barrel of his SIG-Sauer to separate two of the blinds.

  This was definitely not a legitimate use of the safehouse.

  There were three of them, moving in formation that indicated military training. They all had AK-74 assault rifles, and they all held them like they knew what they were doing.

  Also, they were wearing all black: long-sleeved shirts, thin gloves, pants, work boots, and ball caps. As well, greasepaint covered their faces. Bolan could only see as much as he could because of a nearly full moon.

  He thought their formation was a bit eccentric, until the Executioner remembered that there was a motion sensor that turned a light on if a car approached on the road leading to the house. Their movements were intentional and meant to avoid tripping it.

  These were professionals.

  Bolan had only been alerted to their presence because a lifetime of being a soldier in various and sundry wars, both declared and undeclared, had made him an extremely light sleeper.

  He moved to the other window and saw three more men moving in the same manner.

  Bolan figured he had maybe fifteen seconds before they reached the front and back doors and another thirty for each team to pick the locks, which were high-end locks, but hardly state-of-the-art, and certainly not insurmountable to a team of pros. The safehouse's security was more due to its secrecy and remote location.

  Looking at the door, he saw no light shining under it, meaning that Maxwell had turned the light off in the living room that lay between the two bedrooms. The entry to the front was into the living room, with the back door opening onto the kitchen, which, in turn, was open to the living room.

  That meant the best place to make a stand was in the middle of the living room.

  All this went through the Executioner's head in the first of the forty-five seconds he figured he had. Since the light was out in the living room, he could open his bedroom door without worry about the changing light through the window alerting the enemy.

  It took another six seconds to do that and move across the living room to Maxwell's bedroom and determine that her light was out as well. Three more seconds to open the door quickly — opening it slowly increased the likelihood of squeaking — and move to the side of her bed, where she was asleep under a cotton sheet.

  The next four seconds were spent clamping a hand over her mouth, which woke her up and prevented her from making any noise. Once she realized it was him, he pointed to the front of the house and held up three fingers, then to the back and held up three more — that took another four seconds.

  She nodded in understanding, threw off the sheet — revealing a still-naked body, save for the bandage on her left arm — and grabbed her Beretta, which took another two seconds.

  Five seconds later, they were in the living room. Bolan could hear the sound of something metal being applied to the locks of both doors. By his calculation, they had another twenty seconds before they'd be inside.

  The couch — where Bolan's Desert Eagle was — faced the front door. Before grabbing his .357, Bolan pointed at Maxwell and then at the front door.

  She nodded and stood in front of the couch. The first thing the three front-door hitters would see was a naked woman pointing a 9 mm pistol at them. It might not make much difference — these guys were pros, and less likely to be distracted — but it couldn't hurt to try, and that extra second of distraction might determine the advantage.

  For his part, Bolan put the SIG-Sauer in the rear waistband of his briefs, and pointed the Desert Eagle at the back door while standing in a sanchin stance for maximum stability.

  Then they waited.

  They weren't back to back. The front door was in the center of the living room, while the back door was on the far side of the kitchen. So from where Bolan was standing, Maxwell was about three feet to his left.

  The back door opened first, and did so five seconds after the Executioner had estimated. As soon as the tumbler clicked aside to allow the door to open, Bolan squeezed the trigger.

  The .357 round caught the outer edge of the door as it swung inward, but that did little to slow it. It did send splinters flying through the air, though.

  The bullet continued into the crown of one of the gunners, who was still on his knees from where he had been picking the lock, shredding his ball cap and shearing off the top of his skull. Amazingly, it didn't kill him instantly, as the damage was only to his scalp and skull; his brain was still intact.

  Exposed as it was, though, the gunner's brain was unlikely to stay in one piece for long, especially since the impact of the .357 round sent him sprawling onto the rectangular wooden platform that served as a makeshift back porch for the house.

  Bolan dived behind the kitchen island while shots from two AK-74s pounded into the safehouse.

  Once the gunfire had started, the gunners in front gave up on picking the lock and shot off the doorknob, then the point man kicked the door open.

  He caught an eyeful of Maxwell.

  Then he caught an eyeful of a 9 mm bullet. Maxwell's shot pulped the point man's eyeball and carved a tunnel through his brain.

  After squeezing off two more shots, Maxwell turned and jumped to the other side of the couch, using it as cover against the AK-74 rounds flying through the front door.

  They had lost the element of surprise, but now it was 2-1 instead of 3-1 in favor of the bad guys. Both Bolan and Maxwell would take it.

  Bursts of automatic fire came in through both doors. At the pauses, Bolan fired his Desert Eagle and Maxwell her Beretta, but neither was able to take proper aim.

  The leather cushions of the couch were proving resistant to allowing the bullets to make it through, but Maxwell knew that was a temporary situation.

  Then she noticed that only one weapon was firing through the front door. Glancing over the couch, she saw the shadow of a form
in the window next to the door moving toward the side of the house where Bolan's bedroom was.

  She caught Bolan's eye, pointed at herself and then at his bedroom. He nodded, then squeezed off three more shots from his Desert Eagle while she ran into the bedroom.

  Moving to the window, she grabbed the string for the blinds and yanked it down in order to raise the blinds.

  It revealed one of the gunners moving past the window, which was open, with a screen down to keep out the mosquitoes.

  The gunner noticed and whirled to point his AK-74 at Maxwell.

  But that motion took half a second, and Maxwell already had the Beretta pointed forward. She drilled four shots into his chest, which sent him stumbling backward. Only then did she realize that the man was wearing Kevlar, and she fell to the floor, AK-74 rounds firing over her head through the now-destroyed window screen.

  Then, suddenly, the firing stopped, and the gunner yelled, "Shit!"

  Thanking the firearm gods for making Russian guns that jammed easily, Maxwell leaped to her feet and fired two shots at her adversary's leg. The bullet shattered every bone in his right foot and ankle. That kept him still long enough for her to place a single shot to his head, which traveled between his eyes and embedded itself in the center of his brain.

  Back in the kitchen, the Executioner saw that he couldn't get a shot at the gunners, hiding as they were behind the house walls, but he did have a clear shot of the small wooden platform. The walls were resistant to even .357 bullets, but the wood wasn't.

  So he aimed and fired at the porch, splintering the wood and causing the gunners to temporarily lose their footing.

  Using the last shots in his clip, Bolan fired at the heads of the two gunners, which were now both in view.

  One shot connected, pulping the hardman's right ear on its way through his skull and brain. The other missed.

  The man he hadn't hit recovered faster than Bolan expected, firing blindly into the kitchen before Bolan could pull out his SIG-Sauer. The Executioner dived behind the island again. The base of the island was made of oak, so it would hold up for a while, but there were limits.

  And then Bolan remembered something he should have thought of while he and Maxwell had been getting ready for the gunners' entrance: this was a government-run law-enforcement safehouse.

  Which meant there was an armory in the living-room closet, located about three feet behind him.

  Cursing himself, Bolan reached back and risked exposing his left hand long enough to turn the knob to the closet door.

  As bullets riddled the door, the Executioner peered inside to see several pistols and rifles of various kinds — which weren't of much use, especially since they weren't loaded, and the man shooting at him was unlikely to give him time to load them — and a rack filled with M-84 stun grenades, or "flash-bangs."

  Snagging one, Bolan yanked out the ring and tossed the grenade to the back door, then curled himself into a ball to protect his eyes and ears as best he could.

  Even with his eyes closed and his arms covering his head, Bolan could see the flash through his eyelids, which briefly went bright orange. Accompanying that was a loud explosive noise that made Bolan's ears ring.

  When the noise died down, the Executioner heard no gunfire, which he took as an encouraging sign that the M-84 had not only temporarily incapacitated the gunner at the back door, but also the one at the front as well.

  Getting quickly to his feet, he saw both men stood dazed in the entryways to the respective doors.

  Bolan fired two shots from his SIG-Sauer, and they both slumped to the floor, seconds later, dead without having a chance to bring their weapons into target acquisition.

  Maxwell exited his bedroom, rubbing a finger in one ear while blinking quickly. "You wanna warn a girl next time?"

  "I warn you, I warn them," Bolan said a bit loudly, as he was having trouble hearing himself talk.

  Maxwell looked at the bodies on the floor, then folded her arms over her exposed breasts. "Why is it when I kill people you yell at me, but when you kill people it's okay?"

  "Because we needed Lee alive. These six men are professionals. They would never say who hired them — assuming they even knew."

  "Yeah, I know, I was just giving you a hard time," Maxwell said with a wry smile. "So now what?"

  "Get dressed. This isn't a safehouse anymore."

  "I heard that." She moved across the living room toward her bedroom. "You have a new spot in mind?"

  "Not yet."

  "I think we both need to be off everybody's radar until we know what's going on."

  "Agreed. Do you have a place in mind?"

  "Yup," Maxwell called out from the bedroom. "And don't worry, nobody knows about it — not even Jean-Louis. Hell, I never even told Johnny about it."

  Once he was dressed, Bolan grabbed the Canon EOS 50D digital camera that Maxwell had brought with her and went back into the living room to take pictures of each of the gunmen. Between the greasepaint and the blood, they would probably be tough to ID, but he needed to know who these people were.

  Once he shot all six of them from multiple angles, he pulled the memory card and grabbed the sat phone.

  Shoving the card into a slot in the phone, he called Brognola.

  "Striker? What's going on?" Brognola's speech was slurred, as if Bolan had woken him up.

  Quickly, the Executioner filled him in on what had happened. "I've uploaded their photos," he finished.

  Now wide awake, Brognola said, "Got them. Aaron's running them through the database." A pause, then, "You have a new place to go?"

  "Yes," was all Bolan said.

  "Good. I'll call you back as soon as I get a hit on these images."

  After disconnecting, Bolan packed the remainder of his items, then headed outside. Maxwell followed him a minute later, wearing a T-shirt, cargo pants and sneakers.

  Maxwell headed toward the Olds before realizing that Bolan was moving in the direction of a large black SUV, which she assumed the gunmen had come in.

  "Why are we taking that?" she asked.

  Bolan opened the door and saw that, as expected, the keys were in the ignition. The hardmen were supposed to be quick in-and-out, and they wanted to be able to get away fast once the hit was over.

  "Because that Olds can be connected to both of us at this point. This SUV is probably completely clean. Except..."

  Bolan dropped to the ground and crawled under the vehicle, searching on the undercarriage for a GPS tracker. Sure enough, he found one — a Garmin GPS. Then he frowned. "This isn't good."

  "What isn't?"

  Yanking the GPS out of its slot, Bolan crawled out from under the SUV.

  "This," Bolan said, pointing at the GPS, "is a Garmin VIB 11C."

  Maxwell frowned. "Okay, I know about the VIB 11 — I've got one in the Mustang, actually, but what's 11C?"

  The Executioner shook his head. "It's a variant that they make only for the government. There are only about thirty of those things in the world." He walked back to the SUV. "Whoever hired these people has friends in high places. Or is in high places."

  Maxwell cut him off before he could get into the driver's side. "It's easier if I drive — I know where we're going."

  Bolan nodded. Besides, if Brognola called back while they were on the road, better if he wasn't driving.

  "Well, at least some of it makes sense," Maxwell said as she settled into the driver's seat. "If Lee's boss has the kind of connections that gets a government-exclusive GPS put on his goons' car, it's no wonder BATF couldn't get within ten feet."

  Bolan had been thinking much the same thing, but didn't bother to voice so obvious a thought aloud. Besides which, he was too busy trying to determine the last route the SUV took.

  Normally, VIB 11Cs were secure, but Bolan knew a password that worked on all of them. "Son of a bitch," he said. "The SUV was last at the north end of Niles Road."

  Maxwell frowned. "There's nothing up there except a couple of private
docks."

  "They must have come in by sea. Forget where you were going to take us. Head up Niles Road. I want to see where this car's been."

  Maxwell nodded and took a left onto Route 1, then an immediate right onto Horace Street. That eventually crossed with Niles Road, and she took it north for the next two miles until they got to the end of the road.

  Bolan's sat phone buzzed and he put it to his ear. "Talk to me, Hal."

  "The search was done faster than I'd expected, but I wanted to double-check it to be sure. All six of those men are freelancers who've done work for the CIA and a few other agencies. I checked, and they all have only one handler in common.

  "She's retired now, though," Brognola went on. "Actually, she disappeared. Her name's Yvonne Dessens, and six years ago she fell completely off the grid. I'm trying to track down some more intel on her. Give me five more minutes."

  The road they were on was completely dark, illuminated only by the full moon and the SUV's headlights. They were approaching a part of the road that was dimly lit, but which stood out like a beacon on the dark road.

  "Will do, Hal," Bolan said, and signed off as Maxwell pulled the SUV onto a small dirt patch near the light source.

  There was a single boat tethered to a small dock enclosure, lit by a mounted halogen lamp in the enclosure's wall.

  The docked vessel was a motorboat that only sat eight. Bolan saw indentations in the leather of six of the eight seats, with the two rear seats remaining flat and untouched.

  Like the Fidelis, the motorboat had a state-of-the-art computerized navigation system.

  Unlike the Fidelis, this one hadn't been wiped.

  Just as Bolan called up the coordinates of the boat's previous stop to this one, the sat phone buzzed again.

  "Okay, Striker," Brognola said without preamble, "here's what we have. Dessens came up in the 1970s, and she did a great deal of work in North Africa and the Middle East. Later on, she was part of Operation Cyclone, the team that worked on arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. After that, she was promoted, and she oversaw most CIA operations in Cuba and the rest of Central America. And then right after 9/11, she disappeared."