Triangle of Terror Read online

  “We’re certain you have surplus on hand,” Fulgenzial said.

  The wheels were spinning in Poscalar’s head. “This would all hinge on how much you want, how much cash you can come up with.”

  Santival put an edge to his voice. “And that is all hinging, Colonel, on how our men fare tonight. How many return. How much of this hardware we receive as bonus.”

  “Meaning,” Fulgenzial added, “if the Yankee lives up to his arrogant words.”

  Poscalar hoped he kept a straight face. He looked in the mirror, spotting the white pile on their table. “Do you mind if I go to your table and help myself to a little inspiration on that note?”

  “Go crazy,” Santival said.

  “We’ll still be here,” Fulgenzial said, and chuckled. “Waiting on good news about the future between us.”

  Poscalar took the bottle, stood on legs fortified by tequila and felt the eyes on him in the mirror as he went to the table. Was all hope truly lost? he wondered, the din of buzzed and intoxicated bedlam fading in his ears suddenly as he felt the dark mood wanting to take hold once more. The American, he greatly suspected, was not coming back. And Braden and the useless General Compton were in the process of putting Brazil behind them.

  Then what? How to salvage whatever was left of the future?

  There was a chance, a slim one, granted, he could pry—more like con—a decent chunk of cash from the rabble. With that, he could pad his own money, seek out another trafficker in the Triangle for the time being, deal enough on his own to further gain ground on what he owed the Bolivians.

  Hope, indeed, there was a chance he could redeem himself, save his world, keep building the dream.

  He sat at the table, feeling better about the prospects of the future—perhaps it was time, after all, to form a new alliance. He was lifting the tube when he saw a tall dark figure walk through the front door. It took two heartbeats for Poscalar to determine the big man in the black leather trench coat didn’t belong there, and that he was a clear and present menace.

  He heard the rabble shouting at the stranger to identify himself. They were coming unglued at the bar, when the nameless shadow showed his right arm, hauling the assault rifle with fixed grenade launcher out from under the cover of his left coat flap. Poscalar felt his eyes bug, jaw slack, his sphincter twitch as he watched the big stranger blow the rabble off their stools with a burst of autofire that sent them flying, crashing to the floor in a bloody heap.

  Men were screaming, cursing up a storm, trying to haul out their weapons, when the stranger shifted his aim, the rocket launcher chugging. It was all Poscalar could do to keep from vomiting, as he flung himself to the floor, the missile streaking overhead, sailing on. He threw his arms over his head, held on, eating grimy floorboard. The explosion rocked his world. As rubble and bits and pieces of wet flesh rained down on the length of his body, it was next to impossible to discern if those were shouts of rage or screams of men shredded by the blast. He looked out. The stranger was cutting loose with the assault rifle, marching on, column to post, into the smoke. Poscalar couldn’t believe what he watched. The stranger was gunning down anyone left standing in the smoke.

  It was more than Poscalar could bear. The Bolivians’ coke going up in smoke—or reduced to a pool of green slime—paled in comparison to the notion he was moments away from being executed. It was time to take matters into his own hands.

  Poscalar was scrabbling across the floor on hands and knees, the AKM laying at the foot of the stool, growing larger, but still seeming a mile away. One by one they stopped screaming, bodies crashing across the room. He listened to the silence, thought he heard a scraping sound, saw the stranger—or the shadow of the man as it melted deeper into the drifting pall. He flinched, hating the startled cry that tore out of his mouth when he heard the 3-round stutter sealing the tomb on some wounded gangster’s moaning.

  He hauled in the AKM, wobbling to his feet, searching the smoke. “Whoever you are, listen to me! I am rich! I will pay you to let me walk out of here! This garbage here, they meant nothing to me! I do not hold you responsible! As far as I am concerned, you just made the world a better place!”

  Crouching, he darted down the bar, fell in behind a partition. Scouring the smoke, he cursed, then wondered if maybe the stranger had walked out. Another hideous groan sounded, followed by another brief stammer of weapons fire. Poscalar popped up, AKM sweeping the litter of bodies. “Answer me, damn you!” he shouted.

  He was listening to the thunder of his heart in his ears, panning on, when the big shadow fell out from behind a column. Poscalar was torn between throwing his weapon away or shooting when the stranger made the decision for him. As the colonel felt the bullets tearing into his chest, driving him into the bar, his dying thought was how terribly unjust it was.

  19

  “We’re on. Check and set. Ten seconds starting now.”

  When all hands copied over the com link, Braden hung the nylon bag over his shoulder. He marched out of the comm center, the last of the C-4 blocks fixed to Compton’s crotch—the gruesome coup de grâce to bringing down the roof. He figured it would take a team of forensic specialists days before they had enough of the man scraped up on a petri dish for a DNA sample, and by then they would have either wrapped up the overseas part of the operation, or Washington, D.C., would be a glowing speck.

  Or all of them would be dead.

  Braden didn’t even give the general’s sprawled body a last look. Compton had cracked, bottom line, the last vestiges of whatever honor in uniform he thought he owned getting the better of him. He was going to call Washington himself, he had reached for his weapon….

  Screw him.

  Braden had fifteen armed problems to contend with at the moment. And since he hadn’t been able to reach Hanover for a Stone sitrep he feared one more headache was on the way back.

  Braden palmed the remote detonator.

  Four, three…

  Thumbed on the red light. He’d rounded the corner when he heard the first retorts of weapons fire echoing his way.

  Game time.

  He hit the button, heard the thunder peal, sealing the tomb on the late and unlamented General Compton, and kept on marching into the future.

  ZHABAT WAS NOT ENTIRELY convinced the infidels were playing it straight. There was one dead Marine in the guard booth at the west gate, but Zhabat wasn’t about to let his guard down. Defying the order for radio silence, he had attempted to call the second group while waiting for the signal. No answer meant something had gone wrong, but what? If they were being marched into an ambush…

  Zhabat looked at the Marine, wondering which part he should take as a trophy, was sliding his knife free when a voice snarled in his ear, “You don’t want to do what you’re thinking. Trust me.”

  Something warned Zhabat right then it might be best to turn around, retrace the half-mile hike back to the trail where their vehicles were parked. This felt all wrong. He put the knife back in its scabbard, angry that he was being put in his place in front of his men.

  “Move it out!” the black beret ordered, holding back until Zhabat waved his men past, then fell in.

  Assault rifle in hand, Zhabat checked the wide open ground around and beyond the prison fence. East, he spotted the black transport plane, heard the turboprop engines firing up as it lumbered out from the hangar. A harder search of the hangar showed the string of tanker trucks and fuel bins, but no executive jet. At the last minute, though, the black beret had changed the orders. They were to storm the front gate. It was open. Closing hard, he made out the faint but growing rattle of autofire.

  He was jogging for the opening, then slowed the pace, allowing his men to gain some distance when a group of four Marines broke through a door in the prison. The Americans were moving to intercept the invaders, he knew, but suddenly faltered, turning back to the sound of weapons fire, shouting into handheld radios. Two more armed figures emerged from the lit doorway, and began spraying the Marines wit
h a storm of fire.

  THE EXECUTIONER WAS gripped by cold terrible anger, aware of what was happening inside the prison walls, and why.

  He was back in combat harness and webbing, the Blaster 61 stuffed with a mix of HE and incendiary rounds, slung across his right shoulder. From the gunship’s hatchway, as Michaels sailed them on a north to south vector, he took in the shock troops. Two groups were charging the prison walls on either side, each squad led by what appeared two Task Force Talon brigands, their weapons flaming away.

  And they were all gunning down any Marines who ventured beyond the open doors.

  Beyond treason, Braden was committing mass murder, having created the appearance of an assault on the compound by two different groups of killers he had hired from Ciudad del Este.

  Smoke screen, Bolan knew, for his planned overseas flight. He was certain Task Force Talon and its paymasters had more than just one iron in the fire, as he recalled Hanover’s vow that Washington was going to burn.

  Bolan wasn’t about to mentally kick himself for losing time on the last round of the Ciudad del Este kill parade. Braden thought himself clever, he was sure, sticking Hanover to his six while rustling up a cutthroat army to do his dirty work. To have allowed Poscalar to live to corrupt another day, to let the hired vermin go on perpetrating crimes against decent citizens would have galled him to no end. In the terms of cold logic that the only good venomous snake was a dead one, Bolan had eliminated a group of vipers who lived to serve only their own criminal interests and act out murderous impulses.

  A plan quickly taking shape in the ice-cold resolve of lethal intent, Bolan keyed his com link and told Michaels what to do.

  As the Stony Man blacksuit swung them out over a fenced arena inside the southern prison gate that Bolan assumed was the prison yard, he took in the firefight going full-tilt between Marines hunkered inside a doorway and a group of twelve or thirteen invaders.

  Judging the leather jackets, AKMs and a smattering of red berets, Bolan decided to begin his bloody quest by savaging a few of Poscalar’s thugs. The Marines had their firepoint inside the doorway dug in, their M-16s hosing the yard. Several of the thugs were spinning, weapons flying. It should have proved no match, trained professionals against criminal rabble, but one of the Task Force Talon commandos hurled a grenade at the blazing M-16 fingers.

  The Executioner hopped out of the gunship, and bore down on their blind side as the smoky thunderclap cleared the way for the enemy to charge the door.

  20

  At first, Jabir Nahab didn’t trust the moment. The diabolical plot of American soldiers murdering their own and freeing Islamic revolutionaries to lead them to a cache of WMD was so fantastic it defied his imagination. It flew in the face of everything he knew about the enemy. If they could so easily kill their own kind to get what they wanted, surely his number would come up when he was no longer required.

  Yes, there was willingness on his part to go along with the mad bloody scheme—what choice did he have?—but there were no altruistic motives on anyone’s side of the fence. As for himself, he determined, unless this proved to be a setup to execute any or all of them, he would go along with the plan. Once he was in Turkey, there were contacts, allies among the militant Turks who despised the West. He could link up with them and dish back to this Braden what he had so savagely taken. Once, of course, the WMD was in his possession.

  “What are you waiting for? Get your ass in gear!” one of Braden’s men shouted.

  They hadn’t shackled him, and he found that one more interesting tidbit. Were they hoping he lunged for a weapon? He heard the shouting and cursing down the hallway, the din of weapons fire swelling in his cage as moved for the open door. There, he was yanked into the hall by Braden who was shouting orders at his men near the edge of the last cage in line. Something about falling back or fragging them, head for their bird, but the hellish racket of weapons fire, the distant crunch of an explosion was making it near impossible to hear.

  And Nahab marveled at the sight of five, maybe six dead Marines strewed down the corridor, the stark white concrete floor running red with infidel blood. He looked at a discarded weapon, hands trembling, eyes wide, then Braden snarled in his ear, “Don’t even think about it!”

  THE EXECUTIONER HIT the rabble with a 40 mm buckshot round, using one of their hapless lot for his point of impact. As the thug was obliterated in the gory cloud, countless razor-sharp steel bits blew through the cutthroat’s heart as the blast. Men were screaming in agony, weapons falling and all but forgotten as they were ravaged by the steel locust swarm. A few simply bled out, toppled as shock took over to finish them off. A few more, howling mad, stood their ground, wheeling toward the source of terrible attack.

  Rolling ahead, Bolan saw the two TFT thugs vanish beyond the doorway, and he held down the M-16’s trigger. It was a clean sweep of merciless autofire, raking them, left to right and back.

  Beyond the litter of bodies, Bolan spied the TFT traitors in the doorway. Pros, not hesitating over the sight of the massacre, they started winging gunfire when Bolan beat them to it, driving them to cover as he sprayed the doorway with a long dousing of 5.56 mm lead. From the sound of it, Braden and thugs were engaged in a firefight with the Marines at some point deep in the core of the facility. With any luck, Bolan thought he might be able to save a few good men. If not, he intended to exact a heavy blood debt from whatever butchers popped up along the way.

  He armed a frag grenade and pitched it for the doorway. They came around the corner again, firing, spraying the yard, one of the TFT thugs maybe getting lucky as he spotted the steel egg bouncing up, vanished two heartbeats before the fire cloud blossomed.

  The two moaning traitors were treated to a compassion burst they hardly deserved.

  Bolan fed his assault rifle a fresh clip and dumped a 40 mm HE round down the M-203’s gullet. A check of his compass on the roll, all clear, and the Executioner penetrated the doorway, navigating his course around the bodies on the floor. Homed in on the raging firefight he gauged in progress near the prisoner cages, the Executioner gathered steam to go in search of fresh blood.

  “YOUR BUDDY, STONE? He’s back and he’s presently right up my ass, sir!”

  Braden gritted his teeth. Why wasn’t he surprised? Hanover was AWOL. There’d been no beefing up the Arab contingent with a few more bodies from a second group. No Poscalar death squad on hand meant the SOB had done a bloody fine number on the whole sorry bunch. Whether planned or coincidentally stumbling into those safehouses—and his money was on the former—before the first shot was even fired, Stone had decimated at least half of the force he was supposed to have storm the compound. The gunship he borrowed certainly aided in getting the bastard back in swift course, under the roof and swinging for the fences if he judged Lieutenant Crawley’s sitrep accurately. The big, ballsy one-man wrecking crew, who the hell was he? Who did he really work for? And did it even matter anymore?

  “Sir, do you have any answers for me before I get cut to ribbons!?” Crawley’s voice came again over the radio.

  Under normal circumstances, Braden would have ripped the young commando’s sphincter wide enough to shove a howitzer through for his flip tongue. But Braden had enough problems on an already overflowing plate. In short, Crawley was on his own. If he made the transport, fine. If not, that would simply be one less chunk of cash he’d have to hand out on payday. Assuming there was a pot of gold to dip his hands into at the end of this blood ride.

  Keying his com link he snarled at Murphy, Sanders and Andrews to get the prisoners moving. Braden told Crawley, “Keep moving our way, son, but try and hold the bastard back as best you can.”

  “With what sir? He’s holding everything from a harness chocked with frag grenades to a handheld cannon! He fragged Bradley into beef stew and just blew your hired garbage all to hell!”

  “Do something, damn it, even if it’s wrong!” Braden shouted, fighting back the urge to scream at the kid to take one for the team
. He grabbed and shoved the last extremist ahead, the line of orange jumpsuits finally moving out in a sort of shuddering shuffle step. He’d heard enough from Crawley to know hellfire was on the march. If nothing else, Stone had come to play hardball, ready to go the distance, burn them all down. Now that the man knew he had thwarted an ambush, there would be no dialing back the level of anger and determination.

  A twenty-foot white shark was headed their way, Braden knew, the scent of blood in his nose.

  He was about to order Crawley to link up with his group at the far edge, when the guttural grunt and curse sounded in his ear. The frag blasts began in thunderclapping torque as his men began lobbing one steel baseball after another. The Marines were holding on, cursing and shooting for all they were worth, but Braden wouldn’t have expected anything less. The frag show began taking care of that lion pride, clearing his six so he could march east by north, out to their waiting taxi. Unless, of course, Stone came blasting in from behind.

  “Crawley?”

  He was repeating the soldier’s name, suspected the kid had already been devoured by their man-eating problem, when the wall at the far end of the corridor vanished in a cloud of smoke and fire.

  ZHABAT SNATCHED THE RPG-7 from al-Habrak. In pairs, his men were trailing Braden’s men into the tight confines of the chain-link tunnel, bypassing the corpses of the opening Marine casualties. He knew the assault rifle would prove no match if they ran into an armed force, dug in somewhere and blazing away. There were three more Marine problems at what he assumed was the front door. All of them were winging out autofire, rounds shrieking off the steel housing of the tunnel-cage, the thundering retorts of explosions lighting up the facility behind them. As he crouched, deciding to hang farther back, he saw two of his men grabbing at their chests, slick dark fingers shooting skyward. They were toppling. Zhabat was more afraid than enraged at the sight of his men on their way to Paradise, when a fireball erupted in the doorway. The mangled stick figures were sailing across the no-man’s land, Zhabat thinking he could turn around and flee the madness in this sudden burst of mayhem, when Turkle swept over him.