Righteous Fear Read online

  The Executioner took the van to Murder Point, one of the closest ports to Flyright’s private residence on Portersville Bay. It was still early in the afternoon, so he wanted to take advantage of a quiet, no-questions-asked rental to get out to the island. The grim name of the peninsula seemed to be an invitation, especially since that was where the boats Flyright’s armed followers had come from.

  The Ford Transit van was packed for battle. The other weapons the Executioner had brought had been replaced and replenished by a prescient Barbara Price. The old weapons would be sent back to the armory for maintenance.

  Bolan’s sidearms were matched and replaced, the 9 mm Beretta and the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle as much a part of the Executioner as his arms and legs. The Beretta was his whisper-quiet killing tool, while the Desert Eagle was meant to bring thunder and power.

  Handguns alone were not going to win this battle, not against a minimum of thirty armed guards. That was why he had brought a crowd pleaser with which he was intimately acquainted—the M-16/M-203 combo, this one in its more modern iteration using the M-27 Infantry Automatic Rifle and the M-320-A1 grenade launcher. Both were rugged updates, but the M-27 lost nearly four inches of barrel and had a collapsing shoulder stock to be handier in close-quarter spaces, while the M-320 under its barrel was optimized for the shorter rifle, a shade over a foot in length.

  Going into battle with the over-and-under blaster, the Executioner also had a pouch belt loaded with 40 mm shells, alternating between high-explosive fragmentation and buckshot rounds. These turned the M-320 into a massive, single-round shotgun, for when the M-27’s payload wasn’t enough to sweep enemy soldiers out of the way or to root out a sniper from good cover.

  As he was following a state route, he was able to get to Murder Point. The cape, sticking out like a sore thumb into Portersville Bay, had plenty of coastline and berths for both fishing and recreational boats. Bolan decided to head to the marina where Flyright’s gunmen had found their transportation, and stopped his van outside the parking lot.

  It seemed that the thirty gunmen were going to receive reinforcements; a couple of vans full of uniformed hardmen were unloading gun cases and walking to the dock. Bolan weighed his options and realized that he had a golden opportunity. He hadn’t been wearing his combat load as he’d anticipated renting a boat then gearing up just offshore.

  Now, he threw on his load-bearing vest over his clothing, which covered his blacksuit. He donned a pair of sunglasses, piled the M-27 over-and-under combo into its case with spare magazines, and jogged to meet the rest of the mercenaries.

  “We all here?” one of the gunmen said.

  “Sorry! Car broke down,” Bolan said, waving and panting.

  “Don’t worry. We’ve still got a few minutes to load on board,” the group leader said. “Our boss is bringing a lot of folks together from all around, so I hope that we can get along and communicate effectively. Who here had military experience?”

  Almost everyone raised their hands.

  “Who was army?”

  Bolan kept his hand up. So did three-quarters of this group.

  “Marines?”

  The remainder of the bunch threw up hands.

  “Okay. Marines, you think you can handle the way we do it in the army?” the boss said.

  “You got it,” a bearded hulk of a man said. “Just as long as we don’t have any navy assholes with us, things’ll be peachy with you legs.”

  The boss chuckled. “I’m Weaver. And I’m glad that you nuts all showed up ready to party. Let’s get on board.”

  Bolan fell into line with the others. If there was one thing the Executioner had honed in his time fighting the forces of evil, it was role camouflage. Tall, with piercing blue eyes, Bolan was someone who could stand out quite easily in a crowd. However, his stance, his mode of dress and his behavior all combined to help him disappear into a group. He didn’t have to do much acting, as everyone introduced themselves to each other. Bolan carried his Steve Turner identity, one of many provided by Stony Man Farm, and hoped that nobody would bother with a duty roster.

  And if they did? Well, he was already on the ferry, a seventy-five-foot converted fishing boat, and the boat was expected by the guards on Dolphin Island.

  Bolan spoke with and sized up the mercenaries on the boat. There were one or two genuine army professionals, but judging by various tattoos, like AYAK—Are You A Klansman—or 1488-numbered Iron Crosses, they hadn’t lasted long in the military. There was plenty of “white pride” imagery on display; even an appropriated beer brand logo that stood for Comrades of Our Racial Struggle. Confederate battle flags were on display, as well.

  The Executioner wasn’t the only one without a tattoo, thankfully, and he could always say his were under his clothing. The ink on his fellow passengers was telling the kind of lawless, hate-filled men whom Flyright had hired. The 1488 were particularly heinous. Their cross tattoos were the signs of felons who had been thrown into federal or state prison systems and had adorned themselves with the badges of honor of the Aryan Nations.

  That was why Bolan doubted that the men who were legitimately military and who wore those tattoos had lasted long in the army before committing offences that would send them to Leavenworth Penitentiary, or some other federal pen.

  Bolan looked at the pilot of the boat. He and the three members of the bridge crew were outnumbered people of color, and the paying passengers were sneering at them. They glanced nervously over their shoulders at the armed and chummy goons.

  “That’s some interesting iron you’re wearing,” Weaver said as he walked up to Bolan. “Not many guys carry a Desert Eagle and claim to be a professional.”

  “It’s all in proper maintenance and proper feeding of the pistol,” Bolan answered him. He held up his hand. “Besides, with my big paws, a normal .45 just gets swallowed up in the fold between my thumb and forefinger.”

  Weaver nodded. He had a tablet out, but didn’t pay attention to it. “What’s that piece in the shoulder holster? With the extended magazine?”

  “Beretta machine pistol. Again, I need something big and fat, and I figured, why not have a lot of firepower on hand?” Bolan posed rhetorically.

  Weaver narrowed his eyes. “You got an ID with you so I can confirm we’re not bringing an enemy to the island?”

  “Sure,” Bolan said. He reached into his pocket for his wallet. The Steve Turner identification, his VA ID and other assorted credit and business cards were linked to a non-federal agent dead drop that Stony Man Farm could pick up on if anyone ran a trace.

  “Shit, you really are army,” Weaver said, eyeing the Veterans Affairs plastic in his wallet.

  Bolan nodded.

  “Ain’t a Fed who’d put himself through that shit system,” Weaver muttered. “One less guy to check on.”

  “You sure?” Bolan asked.

  “These guys are wearing a shit ton of prison ink. You, you look like you washed out of the army because of injuries. Just the scar tissue on your forearms...”

  Bolan nodded. “Gotta pay for my oxy somehow.”

  Weaver winced. “I get ya. I really do. Fuck the VA for getting us hooked on that bullshit.”

  Bolan nearly felt a tinge of sympathy for Weaver, but his knuckles were adorned with 1488 on his right hand and COORS on his other. They were faint, and could disappear under a set of open-finger gloves in a moment. Flyright’s employment of him, and all of these other rough and ostracized men, was a sign that the evangelist had thoughts of more illegal activity in the future, and that these men, like those at the factory, were willing to kill for Flyright.

  Target acquisition would be easy. Just aim for white flesh or blue-inked skin.

  The trouble was that if Bolan started blasting, there were four people on this craft who could be killed in the cross fire. That was four too many lives that he was willing to risk. He need
ed a plan. One that could put the mercenaries out of commission without endangering anyone but the Executioner and twenty-odd gunmen.

  * * *

  Krahiat Majnuna’s arm and face hurt. The burns were livid and raw. He could feel the skin crack when he moved. As he sat in the car, flakes of sizzled skin fluttered to his lap.

  “We need to get you to a doctor, man,” his driver, Farouk Sayed, told him.

  “They’ll only give me up to the police,” Majnuna said. “If I’m going to die, I’ll die having done my duty.”

  “Killing a helpless doctor?” another man from the back seat said.

  “Quiet, Armin,” his companion in the back said. That one was Nadir Ladkani, and the man stroked the barrel of his revolver in anticipation of action.

  Majnuna smiled, or tried to. Half of his mouth didn’t want to move anymore.

  Ladkani spoke up. “That so-called doctor gave comfort and succor to the enemy. To blasphemers and heretics.”

  Armin grumbled. “Krahiat, please. I know someone who can take care of those burns...”

  “She’s lived too long,” Majnuna said. “As have I.”

  Cell sympathizers on the lookout in Mobile had reported seeing a van that matched the description of the one driven by the Soldier, at this rundown motel. There were a couple of cars in the lot, but very little activity within. There was just one woman, a mannish-looking creature, thick and lost to the slovenly American diet.

  For confirmation of Hassan’s presence, Sayed had asked around a neighborhood bar, handing out drinks until a big drunkard named Baxter showed up, boasting about the “sexy Arab woman” staying at his motel. It was as if she had been delivered up for Majnuna’s sake.

  He had followed the drunkard back to where he worked. Baxter seemed to head into one of the rooms to sleep it off after his post-shift drinking session. And Sayed had seen Hassan leave her room to go to a vending machine and get a soda.

  “A gift, handed to us on a silver platter,” Sayed said. “We can show these fools exactly what we can do if we set our minds to it. They think this place is so safe?”

  “This could be a trap,” Ladkani commented.

  “If it is, my suffering is almost over,” Majnuna agreed. He thumbed back the hammer on the Beretta he had tucked into his belt.

  “I didn’t come here to die,” Armin said. Cowardice made his voice shake.

  Majnuna resisted the temptation to waste one of his bullets on the fool.

  “Then stay here,” Majnuna growled. He opened the car door. Ladkani followed him, and the two men walked to the motel room, guns in hand, low by their legs. The afternoon crept on, and they had the cover of shadows from nearby buildings.

  Majnuna eyed the thick woman, the corner of his mouth dancing up his cheek. “Wait.”

  “We’re going to let her live a little longer so you can indulge in pleasure?” Ladkani asked, appalled.

  The Taliban veteran shook his head. “I’m telling myself to wait until Annis Hassan is dead. Then we can share the woman.”

  “Share her?” he asked.

  “She’s woman enough for both of us. We won’t even—”

  Majnuna stopped cold. A wall of a man, six feet if he were an inch, with a cold scowl on his face, appeared in Hassan’s doorway. He held something long and dark in both hands. He was shadowed from the sun with the late-afternoon shade, and the lights had been removed from the fixtures around the door.

  It was a gun of some sort, Majnuna realized.

  “You took your time getting here,” Carl Lyons told the two men.

  “It is a trap,” Majnuna said.

  Ladkani brought up his cannon, thumbed the hammer back, but a thunderous boom stopped him cold. He dropped to the ground, no longer any kind of threat. The muzzle-flash illuminated the gunner’s features, and the flare was the size of a soccer ball. Majnuna lunged instead of bringing his gun up. The Beretta in his fist did bark, but it blasted away at the concrete between both men’s feet, which was completely unexpected, and it jarred Lyons’s aim. The big man’s shotgun ripped into a parked car, not Majnuna.

  The Taliban veteran clawed at the huge American’s eyes with his bad hand and brought the muzzle of his pistol up to Lyons’s gut.

  The Able Team leader grunted as the Beretta fired, then he bit down on Majnuna’s burned arm, ripping skin and flesh from his forearm. Majnuna was already in pain, but this violent slash of teeth and the rending thrash of Lyons’s head produced a wail of agony. His knees lost their strength and he crashed to the ground, face-first.

  A dark smear of ash and skin broke loose from the wounded terrorist’s face. Hot, wet blood lubricated the concrete, but Majnuna had to release his pistol. His one arm was ruined, and he could only support himself on his gun hand, which was now empty.

  Sayed didn’t bother leaving the car. Majnuna heard the engine rev, tires squeal from across the street, but that damned shotgun boomed again, this time in rapid fire. The Taliban killer couldn’t see Lyons cut loose with his Auto Assault-12 shotgun on full-auto, its 20-round drum more than enough to hammer the accelerating sedan. Sayed took buckshot and slugs through the windshield. That same combination of 12-gauge loads also chewed through the radiator, battery and the engine. The car stalled out and skidded to a halt sideways in the street.

  “Get up,” Lyons snarled.

  Majnuna rolled over. His facial burns had been scoured away by his face plant, leaving only pink flesh and an exposed eyeball.

  “How did I taste, infidel?” Majnuna ground out.

  “Like bacon,” Lyons growled.

  “Bastard.” He was no fan of pork and being told that he tasted of swine was the final insult. His good hand stretched to get the Beretta.

  Lyons emptied the last of the 20-round drum of the assault shotgun into the Taliban vet. It was as if someone had taken a fire hose to a birthday cake, the flesh of the dying terrorist sprayed away in a torrent of fire and lead.

  Armin shouted from the back seat of the wrecked car, begging for mercy.

  Lyons let his AA-12 hang on its sling and aimed his .357 Magnum Colt Python at the lone survivor. It took only moments for the trained professional to determine that Armin was harmless and empty-handed. He stepped into the lot, ripped the frightened Arab out of the vehicle and slammed him against the fender of the smoldering automobile.

  “Tell me there are more of you assholes out there,” Lyons prompted as he bound Armin’s wrists together with a nylon cable tie.

  “There’s no one else in Alabama,” Armin whimpered.

  Lyons clicked his tongue in disappointment. “I knew I should have gone after the racist rednecks. There’s a never-ending supply around here.”

  “Actually, there’s a large gay community here, and the city itself lends a lot of support to festivals celebrating their diversity,” Armin offered.

  Lyons sighed. “It’s called a joke, pal. And thanks for ruining it.”

  Armin swallowed hard. “You’re not going to...”

  Lyons grunted. “No. Relax. You’ll live to a ripe old age. In prison.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Under the pretense of making sure the boat’s pilot “wasn’t trying no hood shit,” Mack Bolan had gotten to the cabin of the craft. There, he was able to convince the captain, Alan Pierce, that he was undercover.

  “You know that you can do a lot of damage to my boat,” Pierce whispered, pantomiming getting an earful of threat from Bolan.

  “Hulls can be patched. Sucking chest wounds can’t,” Bolan returned.

  Pierce nodded. “That’s true. I’ll get Riley, Ogden and Farr in here to help me in the wheelhouse.”

  “Good. Once they’re out of my way, I’ll fumigate your ship,” Bolan promised.

  “How’s it with those bastards?” Weaver asked Bolan as he left the bridge.

  The Stony Man
warrior sighed, rolled his eyes then bent his face in frustration. His exasperation was with the army vet’s bigotry, a blight upon the service where the Executioner had trained and learned his war craft. Weaver would just assume it was a fellow racist’s disappointment in the intelligence of the same brown people he himself despised. “They’re telling me that there’s a problem with a fuel pump up front.”

  “You know, I think one or two of our guys could fix it,” Weaver began.

  “These idiots have been living on this boat for about ten years. They know its problems better than we do,” Bolan replied. “Besides, you want one of our fighting men to get tetanus from equipment they’ve laid their greasy hands all over?”

  Weaver winced. “Ugh. Yeah, no telling what kind of STDs these bastards have.”

  Bolan held his tongue. Talking with racist troglodytes only reminded him of how satisfied he felt when he interrupted and ended their plans of mayhem, be they so-called Christians, Muslim extremists, racists of any sort. That people saw others as subhuman, worth being disposed of, was one of the reasons that Bolan found himself going to war. Greed and entitlement to power were also right up there, and to be certain, Morris Flyright Junior was the poster boy for that avarice.

  Bolan saw Ogden and Farr make it to the bridge.

  No sign of Riley. Laughter broke out on the stern of the ship.

  No good plan ever survived enemy contact, Bolan reminded himself. His plan involved getting out his M-27 under the pretense of maintenance, then drastically evening the odds with a pull of the trigger on a buckshot round from the grenade launcher. The 40 mm–wide tunnel and a mass of hundreds of .25-caliber pellets would have sliced through bodies easily. Unfortunately, the Infantry Automatic Rifle and its grenade launcher were in a case on the other side of the boat. “Weaver, what’s going on back there?”