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  Feeling slightly dizzy from the injection, the soldier stiffly moved behind the tree stump and tried to force his vision clear. But everything had faint contrails of blurry colors.

  “Deter, look over there. I see blood,” a man whispered from among the trees.

  “Okay, you were right, Bob,” said a second man. “There was somebody following us.”

  “Told you so.”

  To Bolan, the first man sounded young. He marked Bob as the observer from the beltway. Deter had to be the driver of the Volvo. “Those leaf things worked pretty good,” Deter said. “What were they called again?”

  “Caltrops,” Bob said with a note of pride. “New version.”

  “How did we get any of those?”

  “I know a guy who knows a guy.” Bob chuckled.

  “Shut up and kill the lights,” a third man growled. “I don’t want Giancova to know we’re coming.”

  “Sir, you don’t really think he’s still alive after that crash?” Deter asked.

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Whatever you want, Mr. Johnson, sir.”

  The two halogen flashlight beams vanished.

  Johnson? Breathing slowly, Bolan sneaked a peek over the tree stump and saw the silhouettes of three men exiting the bushes. Each man was carrying a compact Uzi machine gun equipped with a bulky sound suppressor.

  One of the men was slim, one had the broad shoulders of a professional football player and the third... Bolan shook his head to try to clear his vision, then looked again. No, he was seeing correctly. The third man was a giant. Easily eight feet tall.

  A rush of adrenaline washed away the last of the fog from Bolan’s mind. Johnson was a common name, and there could easily have been several of them in the organization. But calling the guy by his last name sealed the deal. If a platoon had two or more soldiers with the same name, everybody got a nickname to avoid confusion. “Mr. Johnson, sir” was the man he was after. The man in charge of Castle.

  “Switch your mags,” Johnson ordered. “I want him alive.”

  “After what he did to the lieutenant?” Bob muttered.

  “For questioning. Then we’ll kill him.”

  “Now you’re talking, sir,” Deter said eagerly. “I’d love to strap this asshole into the chair and take him apart, nice and slow....”

  Easing off the safety on his weapon, Bolan heard the metallic clicks of magazines being exchanged. They wanted him alive, and were switching magazines? Rubber bullets were the only possible answer. Damn. That changed everything.

  As much as Bolan wanted to stand and gun down the three of them, in his present condition the outcome would be a total gamble: problematic. And too many innocent lives depended upon his success. He was wounded, and it was now three against one. Torture was not a factor. Death came to every man, but it galled Bolan to consider withdrawing. However, it was basic tactics to retreat in this type of situation. The logic was indisputable.

  As Johnson and the others started following the trail of debris stretching behind the smoldering wreckage of the motorcycle, Bolan eased down to the cold ground and began crawling farther into the marshy weeds.

  Keeping his movements to a minimum, the soldier tried not to disturb any of the tall plants to reveal his location. The cool mud actually helped clear his mind a little, but it also smeared the cracked visor of his helmet.

  Rolling into a trickling stream of water, Bolan tried to wash the visor clean, but that only made it worse. Also, the sight of the dirty water suddenly filled him with a powerful thirst, along with the urge to cough.

  Trying to concentrate on what he was doing, Bolan released the chinstrap of the battered helmet and eased it off his head. As it came free, a chunk of the shield came loose and fell into some soft grass, less than an inch away from a rock. Close call.

  Blinking his sight clear, Bolan scooped up some of the dirty water, let the swirling contents settle into his palm and took a small sip. That moistened his parched throat enough to kill the urge to cough and he moved onward, following the trickle to reach a small creek.

  The water was not deep enough for him to try floating downstream, but any silt he disturbed would at least flow away from Johnson and his men. It was a pity the sound suppressor had been damaged, but Bolan wasted no time on useless recriminations.

  Cows and wishes, Bolan thought in wry amusement, remembering his drill sergeant back in boot camp. Put out your hand to the universe to make a wish, and put your other hand under the ass of a cow, then see which is filled first. True words.

  Unfortunately, that was when Bolan noticed the stream was winding out of the marsh and back into the suburbs, cutting across several lawns littered with toys. With no choice in the matter, Bolan grimly turned and started back upstream. If this was the hand the universe was dealing out, then so be it. Quickly, he formulated an attack plan. If the stream went anywhere near his destroyed motorcycle...

  It did, and Bolan crawled out of the weeds to warily approach the burning machine. The spilled gasoline was long gone, but the seat was still on fire. Dropping the magazine from the Beretta, he thumbed out half of the rounds, tossed them into the smoldering blaze then ducked back down. Slapping the half-filled magazine back into place, Bolan rolled out of the creek and onto the opposite shore. The bank was clear of weeds and he scrambled up the muddy slope to get behind a maple tree.

  Bolan barely got there when the bullets started loudly cooking off, the rattle of blasts disturbing the birds in the trees.

  A few seconds later men appeared from the bushes, their Uzi machine guns sputtering a dull staccato. The foliage around the motorcycle jumped and jerked from the subsonic passage of the nonlethal rounds. As their magazines cycled empty, Bolan waited until the gunners started to reload, then boldly stepped into view and snapped off a fast six rounds. Gushing hot geysers of life, both men crumpled to the ground.

  Both? Bolan advanced carefully, his every sense alert. There was no sign of Johnson.

  The Beretta felt uncomfortably light with the two remaining rounds as Bolan knelt alongside the bodies. He took a thirty-round magazine from the bloody hand of Deter and dropped it into his own pocket. The 9 mm ammunition would fit his Beretta, but this was not the time or the place to risk reloading.

  Over the soft crackle of the burning motorcycle, Bolan almost didn’t hear the metallic ping of a safety lever being released. Diving into the bushes, he slapped both hands over his ears as protection from the coming concussion.

  A moment later a powerful explosion rocked the area, loose dirt, leaves, caltrops and broken bits of the bike flying around in a thundering maelstrom. A piece of chrome-plated tubing slapped into a nearby tree, the ragged chunk of the handlebar quivering slightly. Almost immediately, another grenade detonated, but much farther away.

  Not falling for that old trick, Bolan used the precious few seconds to remove a couple rounds from the boxy magazine of the Uzi, and tucked them loose into a pocket.

  Rising to a knee, Bolan fired twice, then ducked back down and coolly thumbed the new rounds into the mag for the Beretta. As expected, they were rubber rounds, nonlethal, but still better than nothing.

  Picking up a rock, Bolan tossed it straight into the air. It came back down and landed with a clatter on the other rocks at his feet.

  There came the sputter from another silenced Uzi a hundred feet away. Partially hidden behind a flowering bush, a big man was facing in the wrong direction, obviously thinking that Bolan was trying to outfox him with a similar diversion.

  “Hey,” Bolan said.

  As the man spun, the soldier emptied the Beretta into his opponent’s chest. The Uzi went flying as he crumpled from the brutal hammering of the nonlethal rounds.

  Watching the bushes for any suspicious movements, Bolan went back to retrieve another magazine from the two de
ad men, this time making sure it was filled with standard 9 mm, copper-jacketed rounds.

  Swiftly reloading the Beretta, Bolan warily approached the groaning man, then moved in fast to kick a 10 mm H&K pistol from his hand.

  “And who are you?” Bolan demanded, scanning the surrounding forest and marsh. The man on the ground was clearly not Johnson. He was big, but no giant.

  “A-ain’t telling you...sh-shit...” the man gasped, cradling his chest.

  There was blood on his lips and Bolan could guess there had to be some internal damage, probably just some broken ribs.

  “Unless I call an ambulance, you’re going to die,” Bolan lied with a straight face. “Tell me where to find your boss and you can live.”

  With a long sigh, the man went still.

  Pressing two fingers to the carotid artery, Bolan could not find a pulse. Killed by rubber bullets. Pure bad luck, for both him and Bolan.

  Just then he heard the sound of a car engine. It revved in power, then raced.

  Breaking cover, Bolan sprinted in that direction and saw the Volvo streak up the main road to hit the access ramp of the beltway. Sparks flew as the bouncing undercarriage scraped along the concrete, and then the speeding Volvo crested the top and vanished from sight.

  Holstering his weapon, Bolan frowned. Instead of using the extra man to help in the search, Johnson had kept him in reserve to be a diversion in case of trouble. Smart and ruthless.

  Turning, Bolan started back toward the three corpses to check for anything that might lead to the location of Castle, or better yet, Johnson himself. He found only personal items: chewing gum, cigarettes, a dog-eared paperback and such. But nothing helpful. Bob’s and Deter’s cell phones had been shattered by the blast of the first grenade, and the cell phone of the nameless fourth man turned out to be a fake. It was actually a disguised gun that fired .22 bullets.

  Tucking the trick gun into a pocket, Bolan pulled out his own cell phone and started walking back toward the elevated highway. He tried to tap in the number for Grimaldi, but everything was a little blurry, and he kept getting it wrong. Bolan knew what was happening. Now that the adrenaline rush of combat was over, the Hot Shot was starting to wear off.

  Fumbling for the medical kit, Bolan tried to get it open for another shot. But his fingers felt impossibly thick and the red plastic box went flying into the ditch alongside the street. Painfully dropping to his knees, Bolan tried to grab the kit and went sprawling, the box tumbling away to burst open, the contents scattering across the ground.

  As Bolan lay there, everything kept moving out of focus until the world began to rapidly spin around him, and a warm darkness filled the universe.

  Chapter 14

  Washington, D.C.

  As was usual during business hours, the door to the Oval Office was wide open.

  Standing in the corridor just outside, Hal Brognola could see the President sitting at his desk. The chief executive of the nation was dressed in a somber three-piece suit, but with the necktie removed and stuffed into his breast pocket, the fabric lolling like a striped tongue. The desktop was decorated with photo cubes of his family, along with a tall stack of sealed folders. Off to the side was a steaming silver urn surrounded by cups and saucers. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air.

  His eyes narrowed in concentration, the President was speed-reading through a dossier, each sheet of paper turning bright red as his fingers touched the top-secret documents. As he finished each page, the President removed it from the folder, then fed it into a humming machine that shredded it into irregular pieces designed to be impossible to reconstruct.

  When the President finished, he tapped a button on an intercom complex enough to launch a space shuttle.

  “You can go in now, Mr. Brognola,” a secretary said with a smile.

  Nodding in reply, Brognola paused at the open doorway and politely knocked.

  “Come in, Hal,” the President said, waving him over. “Shift Commander, may I have a minute alone, please?”

  As Brognola entered, the Secret Service agents stationed around the room stepped outside and closed the door.

  “It always seems a little odd to me that you have to ask your bodyguards to do anything, sir,” Brognola said, walking closer.

  “Look up the word Praetorian sometime, Hal.” The President chuckled, gesturing at a chair. “Now sit down. We need to talk.”

  Brognola sat. “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “First, would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you, sir.”

  “Okay... Hal, what’s going on?”

  “Sir?”

  “You can lose the innocent demeanor,” the President said, leaning back in his chair. “We’ve known each other for too long to try to hide behind social protocol.”

  Brognola leaned forward. “Okay, what have you heard?”

  “Just rumors, so far,” the President replied, “but they’re damned disturbing and post hoc ergo propter hoc.”

  “One thing does not always lead to another, sir,” said Brognola, translating the Latin. “You’re talking about the prison deaths.”

  “Damned right I am,” the President said. “The FBI is checking into the allegations of gross incompetence within the Board of Prisons, or worse, rampart corruption....” He paused. “But I think something else is happening. Something much more sinister.”

  “Sinister?”

  “Along with the strange deaths, there are wild rumors about files going missing, investigations oddly curtailed long before any concrete results have been produced, lies, malfeasance and plain old-fashioned stonewalling.”

  “In which department, sir?”

  “All of them...none of them. Hell, if I knew that,” the President said in an exasperated voice, “I wouldn’t have called you.”

  “Are we off the record, sir?”

  Reaching out, the President tapped a button on the intercom. “Now we are.”

  “They’re not deaths, but escapes.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “I thought it was some vigilante group killing off the worst criminals to make sure they never got parole, or something insane like that, but this...” The President poured himself a cup of coffee. “Is the DOJ conducting an investigation, or just you?”

  “This is within the purview of Sensitive Operations,” Brognola said. “I have somebody special handling the matter.”

  “I see,” the President said, taking a sip from the cup. “Is our special person close to a solution?”

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “Damn,” the President muttered, setting down the cup. “Can I assist in any way? I know Stony Man is currently busy with other matters, but perhaps—”

  “Striker works best alone, Mr. President,” Brognola said formally.

  “Considering his history, I would have to agree,” the President said. “Has any progress been made so far? Are these escapes orchestrated by a foreign power?”

  “There is no known connection to any terrorist organization,” Brognola said. “So far, it seems to be a straightforward business deal from a criminal organization that calls itself Castle. Pay them a million bucks and they bust you out of jail within twenty-four hours and fake your death.”

  “Castle?”

  “Source unknown.”

  “To be honest, I’m surprised that nobody has ever thought of this sort of thing before,” the President said, shaking his head. “Then again, perhaps they have.”

  “And the matter was kept quiet for the very reasons we are currently experiencing?”

  “A valiant attempt by the government to prevent a general disintegration of law and order.”

  “We can only rehabilitate a small percentage of
prisoners,” Brognola pointed out. “The rest are incorrigible, and there can only be the threat of punishment.”

  “Sad, but true,” the President agreed. “Did you know that all the way back in 1950 a pair of French lawyers submitted a report their government that there should only be two classifications of criminals? The impulse criminal, such as when a hungry man steals a loaf of bread...and the career criminal, who has weighed the options and decides upon a life of crime as a business career. The first should be treated and released. The second should be summarily executed as an enemy of the state.”

  “Don’t like that,” Brognola said with a frown. “Although there is something to be said for the sheer expediency of the idea.”

  “Agreed. Unfortunately, there are a thousand shades of gray between the moral concepts of right and wrong,” the President said, running a hand across his face. “Which is why we have judges, and juries, and parole, and...”

  “And when all else fails, there is always Striker.”

  A long moment paused between the two men, each of them locked in somber thoughts about the elusive nature of crime versus punishment.

  “I wish him well,” the President said, breaking the reverie. “Because the details of this situation are starting to leak, and soon we will have a massive influx of criminals from around the world seeking refuge in America because of Castle.”

  He frowned. “Eventually we’ll have gang warfare in the streets over resources and territories, just like it was back around the turn of the century. Then I’ll have to send in troops to assist the police to quell the riots.... To protect the citizenry, America will have to temporarily become a police state.”

  “That could easily spark a revolution,” Brognola said hesitantly.

  “Yes, I know. The death toll could reach into the thousands, possibly millions, before we regain control.”

  Suddenly, Brognola realized that the Man looked much older then he remembered. The terrible pressure of taking responsibility for everything that happened in the nation rapidly aged any man. Smiling politicians marched into the executive office full of life and left as old men.