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  “But how... Ah, Ziggy talked.”

  “Reluctantly,” Bolan said, as if apologizing.

  “I see,” Dooley muttered. “You are a most remarkable man, Mr. Giancova. But Johnson is a very bad man to cross, and also owns a wood chipper or two. May I have a day to decide?”

  Bolan kept his face neutral. Johnson. The enemy finally had a name. Was it real, or another false front like Ishmael and Gator? “Sure, take all the time you wish,” he replied, smiling. “There’s a cell phone tucked into the money. Call when you’ve made a decision.”

  “I can leave with the money?”

  “It’s only a couple million.”

  Dooley paused, uncertain, then took the suitcase and departed.

  A few moments later Gonzales and Cosentini entered the office.

  “How did it go?” Gonzales asked, flopping into the chair.

  “As well as can be expected,” Bolan said after filling in the newcomers. He pressed a button on the intercom. “Holden, close the lab and send everybody home for a week...with pay.”

  “The guards, too, sir?” His voice crackled through the speaker.

  “Everybody else now. You and your men a little later. We’re redecorating,” Bolan said, releasing the button again. “Okay, I’m taking bets. How long until Dooley hits us?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Gonzales said. “He can’t risk us pissing in the pool.”

  “Agreed,” Glenn said. “He’ll hit us hard. Maybe burn the factory to the ground as a draconian warning to other upstarts.”

  “Upstarts?”

  “I said draconian, too.”

  “Rhan, better get your little friend out of the bag,” Bolan said, looking at the man.

  Flexing his hand, Cosentini grinned. “About damn time.”

  “I also want everybody to start hunting for bottles,” Bolan said, pressing the intercom button again. “Holden?”

  “Sir?” Holden responded.

  “Find me all of the empty glass bottles you can. Along with foam cups, rags and plenty of gasoline.”

  “We’re going to make Molotov cocktails?” Weinberg asked with a scowl. “What for? We’ve got military grenades a lot more deadly than crappy homemade firebombs.”

  “Not like these,” Bolan countered, and started to explain.

  Chapter 12

  Crescent City, California

  Morning mist flowed heavily across the crashing waves as dawn arrived. In an orderly procession, a convoy of law-enforcement vehicles streamed down the coastal highway, their lights flashing to warn off the curious and the foolish.

  Riding as the vanguard in front were six state troopers on motorcycles, and then came two FBI cars, an armored patrol van, two more FBI cars and another six state troopers.

  High overhead, a pair of U.S. Army helicopters kept pace with the convoy. A fully armed Apache gunship stayed directly over the patrol van, while a Black Hawk helicopter continually circled the convoy to maintain a wide safety zone in case of trouble.

  A few miles outside the city limits, the convoy reached a nameless side road blocked by a wooden barrier. Security cameras hidden in the trees marked their approach and the barrier swung aside to let them pass and then promptly closed in their wake.

  The sound of the crashing surf grew steadily louder as the convoy crested a low hillock and started along a single-lane road that cut across a wide field. The green grass was so neatly trimmed it resembled a golf course, except that there were no sand traps, trees or bunkers. Just dead-flat land that couldn’t hide a mouse.

  Slowly rising in the distance was the bleak concrete edifice of the Pelican Bay State Prison, aka Pelican SuperMax. Like a medieval fortress, the prison was surrounded by a ring of guard towers and a double fence. Armed guards walked dogs on the inside of the fencing, the razor wire on top audibly humming with electricity.

  As the convoy passed a second wooden barrier, a wide expanse of steel spikes hissed as they descended into the pavement to allow them access to the main gate. The power was cut, the gate cycled open and the convoy rolled through, once again, the gate closing immediately behind them.

  Braking in formation at the front entrance of the facility, a squad of prison guards wearing full combat armor surrounded the patrol van, their weapons at the ready.

  Standing slightly away from the guards was a tall, heavyset man with a full mustache and beard. His gray hair was cropped in a military buzz cut, and a long puckered scar bisected his face, giving him a permanent sneer.

  Warily, guards with steel mirrors on steel poles checked the undercarriages for bombs, while the military gunships overhead maintained their constant circling. The wash of the blades startled the gulls living on the rocky shore of the peninsula and they flapped away, loudly announcing their strong displeasure.

  “Clear!” a guard announced, collapsing the pole. “No bombs!”

  Speaking into a throat mike, another guard confirmed the results.

  “Okay, open it up, Sergeant!” commanded the warden, stroking the scar on his face.

  Putting their keys into the complex lock set into the rear door of the patrol van, the state troopers counted to three, then turned them in unison. Nothing happened.

  “Try again,” the warden ordered.

  “No need, sir,” a state trooper reported crisply. “We haven’t unlocked the door yet. We were just turning off the self-destruct.”

  “The what?” a prison guard asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “If the door is forced open, or if we crash,” another state trooper said, “thermite charges ignite and destroy the vehicle.”

  “Including the prisoner?”

  “Yes, sir. Especially the prisoner. Nobody wants Seville free.”

  Now two of the FBI agents replaced the guards, inserted different keys, counted down and unlocked the doors. They swung aside on a row of thick hinges, revealing a steel cage welded to the middle of the van.

  Inside the cage was a man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. His ankles were shackled. He was wearing a straitjacket, and a bizarre helmet that resembled a hockey mask covered his head. Wrapped in chains, he stood erect, tightly secured through the bars to a small forklift.

  “So that’s him, eh?” a state trooper muttered.

  Seville remained quiet. “Creepy-looking son of a bitch, wrapped up like that,” a guard muttered, thumbing his shock stick to maximum voltage. “So that’s the Butcher of Seville.”

  “Some of the other wardens called him Satan,” an FBI agent said. “He’s escaped six times from six different prisons in under six years.”

  “Six-six-six?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Looks like he’s in there good and snug,” one of the guards said smugly.

  “Don’t let the outfit fool you,” said a state trooper. “He’s maimed or killed more than fifty people since we took over.”

  “How many?”

  “Fifty.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Bit the fingers off a dentist fixing a cavity, and a month later broke his own arm trying to get out of the straitjacket. When the doctor came, he stabbed the guy to death with the bone splinters sticking out of his arm.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Well, he’s never leaving Pelican. We’ve never had a successful escape. Not one!”

  “There’s always a first time,” a state trooper pointed out, a hand resting on the Glock in his gun belt.

  “Not here!”

  “Hope you’re right. Nobody wants to see The Butcher loose. Not even the bleeding-heart liberals.”

  “Stop calling him that,” the warden growled. “This is just prisoner 4422378, legal name Mary-Anne Seville.”

  “Mary-Anne?”

  “According to the trial record
s, his parents raised him as a girl for the first thirty years of his life. Long hair, makeup, dresses...even gave him breast implants when he was sixteen.”

  “Did they cut off his...you know...”

  “Medical reports say that was done at birth,” an FBI agent stated, unable to keep a tone of revulsion out of his voice. “His parents were his first victims. Killed them, then found out the house was fortified and he could not escape. After the food in the kitchen was gone, he ate the dog, then...” He shrugged. “Finally he set fire to the place to die, and the fire department rescued him from the flames. He killed a nurse in the hospital, stole her clothes...”

  “We know the rest.”

  “Sweet Jesus, no wonder the poor guy went bananas and started eating people!”

  “More than a hundred known victims, most of them married couples with one daughter.”

  “Glad I’m single!”

  “I said mostly,” stated an FBI agent, “not exclusively.”

  “Any chance of rehabilitation?”

  “Unknown,” the warden said, flipping through the transfer papers attached to a clipboard. “There’s never really been anybody like him before. We don’t have a word for what he is.”

  “You mean, aside from crazy.”

  The warden scowled at the prisoner. “Crazy doesn’t even start to describe Seville.”

  “A friendly word of warning before we leave,” an FBI agent said. “Be damn careful removing that mask or else—”

  In perfect synchronicity with those words, Seville softly hissed, then violently exploded. The people standing closest to him were thrown yards away to land sprawling on the sidewalk and pavement. Stunned, the other men staggered backward, knocking over motorcycles. Visibly shaking from the concussion, the FBI sedans began blaring their horns, while the state police cars started flashing their light bars.

  A split second later a white-hot fireball blossomed inside the patrol van to completely engulf the vehicle, forklift and the tattered remains of the prisoner.

  Battling the powerful thermal currents, the two helicopters attempted to get closer to the growing blaze. But the rising column of fiery air was too strong and they had to circle away, retreating to the cooler air above the nearby coastline.

  * * *

  INSIDE PELICAN SUPERMAX, sirens began to howl and fire alarms started to clang. Gates automatically closed, sealing off critical hallways, a recorded message was sent to the National Guard base asking for immediate assistance and hundreds of prison guards grabbed body armor and assault rifles from weapons cabinets. Inside their individual cells, the prisoners screamed and yelled, banging on the steel doors with their bare fists or flushing the toilets to try to lower the water pressure needed to fight the blaze.

  Working in unison, a group of guards forced open the buckled front door of the prison but were forced back by the intense waves of heat radiating from the melting patrol van.

  “Looks like the Victims Association finally got Seville,” a prison guard growled, raising an arm to try to protect his face.

  “Can’t say that I’m sorry,” another guard stated.

  “Did they get Seville?” a guard asked, raising his rifle.

  Taking careful aim, he fired a round and blew open a padlock holding a small ventilation window closed. Using the stock of the assault rifle as a cudgel, he hammered the retaining bar free to swing open the window. Wisps of pungent black smoke poured into the prison, flowing along the ceiling like an upside-down river.

  “What did you do that for?” a guard demanded with a scowl.

  “Take a whiff!” the other guard ordered, craning his neck to get closer to the dark fumes. “I only smell burning rubber and hot steel and gasoline. But no—”

  “Pork,” another guard gasped. “People smell like roasted pork when they burn.”

  “I’m not getting that,” an old guard said hesitantly, then his face went pale. “Oh, hell, there was nobody inside the van when it blew!”

  “Seville escaped again,” growled a guard, starting for the front door. “That son of a bitch escaped six feet away from the prison!”

  “How did he get away from the blast?”

  “Nobody could have. Look at it! He must have escaped long before reaching the prison, probably put a dummy in his place.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “How should I know!”

  “Okay, what can we do, sir?” a young guard asked, nervously twisting his hands on the assault rifle.

  “About Seville? Nothing,” the guard said, squinting to try to see through the billowing clouds of smoke. “Everybody back to their stations! Our job is in here, keeping the animals in their cages.”

  “But—”

  “The fire department will rescue the people outside!” he snapped, turning to march down the hallway. “And the FBI will just hunt down Seville again.”

  “I wish them luck.”

  “I wish they’d blow his head off...this time.”

  Columbus, Ohio

  DAWN WAS JUST breaking when Bolan saw his wristwatch tick to five-thirty. Almost immediately sirens began to howl and a fleet of police vehicles came racing up the driveway toward the factory.

  Studying them carefully through a monocular, Bolan counted sixteen cars and an armored response van, which, back in the old days, would have been called a paddy wagon.

  “Anybody going into that steel box is never seeing daylight again,” Weinberg said into her throat mike.

  “Even if these were the real cops, they’d never take me alive,” Gonzales replied. “I killed an FBI agent down in Austin. That’s life for me.”

  “Better dead than in fed?” Glenn chuckled over the radio relay.

  “Shut up.”

  “Everybody stay loose,” Bolan cautioned, touching his throat mike. “We move on my command, not before.”

  “Whatever you say, chief,” Cosentini replied in an eager whisper.

  Screeching around the fountain, the police cars stopped in a ragged formation and dozens of men poured out wearing full-body armor, helmets and carrying plastic riot shields. However, everybody was carrying a 9 mm MP5 submachine gun instead of a regulation M16 assault rifle.

  “They’re not cops, for sure,” Weinberg growled.

  “Hold your fire!” Bolan ordered. “Target is not confirmed yet!”

  If these were the police, Bolan would have to call off the attack and surrender. He had long ago sworn to never kill an innocent in his endless war. The man would rather take a bullet himself than kill a cop—even if he was on the payroll of Castle. That was the difference between him and them. There were lines Bolan would never cross.

  Surrounding the factory, the people dressed as police officers waited a few seconds until the response van arrived. It braked to a halt, then reversed and turned to park alongside the splashing fountain. Instantly the rear doors were thrown open and out walked a pair of men carrying industrial flamethrowers, the blue flames of the propane preburners licking at the fluted nozzles.

  Filling the rest of the van was a Vulcan minigun with Dooley standing at the controls. Adjusting his protective headgear, the man squeezed the controls. As the six barrels spun into a blur, he raked a line of 20 mm rounds across the fifth-story windows of the factory. The top of the building exploded into flames; glass shards and splintered furniture rained to the ground.

  In ragged harmony, the others cut loose with the MP5 machine guns. The 9 mm armor-piercing rounds punched holes through the fire doors, while the men with flamethrowers laid down a heavy blanket of liquid fire across the front entrance.

  “Sons of bitches are trying to trap us inside,” Weinberg growled. “Satisfied, chief?”

  “Yeah, they’re not cops,” Bolan said, an icy calm flowing through his veins. “Let’s do this.”
>
  Cosentini sent a whining stream of .223 rounds from the spinning barrels of his M134, the spent brass cartridges sailing away in a golden arch. But the small-caliber rounds pounded futilely against the resilient riot shields and body armor of the Castle street soldiers.

  Instantly the disguised Castle soldiers spun to face this new menace.

  Making sure their military-grade gas masks were secure, Holden and his guards hammered the fake cops with their AK-47 assault rifles. The 7.62 mm rounds slammed the MP5 machine guns out of their enemies’ hands and stitched ragged lines of wet red holes across exposed throats.

  Then from a dozen assorted locations inside the hedge maze, Bolan and his crew started throwing Molotov cocktails. The bottles sailed high and arched down to crash on top of the police vehicles.

  As the dark smoke from the firebombs blew over them, the Castle gunners began to weave, their weapons shooting randomly into the ground or into the air. Their movements becoming steadily slower, the fake cops dropped to their knees, some of them starting to drool.

  When the last of the crystal-meth-laced Molotovs was used, Bolan unleashed a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle. The seven-hundred-grain bullets slammed into the drugged men, punching clean through their riot shields and body armor. Gaping holes erupted between their shoulders, white chunks of broken bones mixing with the gory spray of pulped flesh.

  Unexpectedly, the response van lurched into gear, the reeling driver struggling to steer the armored vehicle. Losing control, he slammed into the fountain and crashed into the windshield. He stayed there for a moment, then slowly dropped out of sight, leaving behind an irregular crimson smear.

  Then the side of the van was ripped apart as a stream of 20 mm rounds tore through, cutting the vehicle in two.

  As the dented roof crashed to the ground, an exposed Dooley adjusted his gas mask and started triggering short bursts of shells at the greenery, blowing up flower beds and decorative bushes. Holden’s positioned guards yelled as their lives were ruthlessly taken away, the 20 mm rounds blowing them into ragged pieces.

  Diving to the grass, Bolan felt the passage of the bullets just above his head, then rolled over with the Barrett booming death. It was difficult to see clearly because of all the smoke, and the soldier was not overly surprised when his first shot only scored a crimson streak across his target’s neck. But before he could take another shot, Dooley spun the minigun in his direction again and Bolan had to scramble for cover inside the bedraggled hedges.