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  “Which means the mercs were hired by terrorists pretending to be Sullivan,” Kirkland growled. “Somewhere in this castle will be a radio relay, so that the terrorists can hire whatever personnel they need for a mission while staying deep under cover.”

  “Then this is a trap,” Montenegro said with a hint of a smile.

  “Always thought it might be,” Bolan said, leveling both of his weapons. “Bill, any new hot spots?”

  “Are you kidding?” Kirkland replied. “Once you slit the sheet and the decomp gas escaped, the whole castle went live! There are video feeds all over the place!”

  “The terrorists want to see who is after them,” Montenegro said, holstering a Glock. “We’re going to try for a piggyback?”

  Bolan nodded. “If Sullivan was dead, as I expected, it would be our best chance to find the bastards.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Kirkland chuckled, then cursed. “Just watch your ass! The best way to learn about who is coming after you is to see them in action… Goddamn it, here come the tourists!”

  “Keep them back while we hunt for the radio relay!” Bolan commanded, pulling out an EM scanner. “Don’t let them get inside under any circumstances!”

  “Not a problem!” Kirkland said, and there came the boom of the Black Arrow. “Okay, I just removed both of their front tires. The car crashed into some bushes, and now a man and a woman are running away like their asses were on fire.”

  “Nothing subtle about our William!” Montenegro said, kicking open the washroom door.

  For almost an entire second nothing happened. Then the door at the far end of the corridor exploded into splinters as a machine gun cut loose.

  Already in motion, Bolan and Montenegro got behind a stone wall just before the arrival of the stuttering stream of rounds. The bullets raked across the washroom, denting the iron bathtub and splattering Sullivan across the tiled walls. Moving back and forth, the 9 mm bullets shattered the window and mirror and broke chunks off the porcelain sink.

  “That’s an auto-sentry gun!” Montenegro muttered, tightening her grip on the two Glocks. Then she lowered her voice and added, “I hate those damn things.”

  In the distance, police sirens began to wail.

  “Any way of telling if it’s being operated by a computer or remote control?” Bolan asked tersely, as another barrage hammered the lavatory.

  “Sure,” she replied, grabbing a towel off a rack and tossing it across the doorway. Instantly, the gun fired, tearing the towel into shreds before it fluttered to the floor.

  “It’s computer-operated,” Montenegro announced. “Which means we can easily take it out, but there’s no live feed for us to trace! Bill must have misread the scanner.”

  “Like hell I did!” Outside, the Black Arrow boomed twice, and the police siren went silent. “Okay, I bought us a few minutes,” Kirkland said. “But the local constables will send in a SWAT team next wearing full tactical body armor and riding in an APC. These Irish cops don’t play games. So move it or lose it, people! We have just officially run out of time.”

  “Agreed. Get the Black Hawk ready to go!” Bolan commanded as the machine gun fired again. “Heather, where would you hide a video camera to see who the gun killed?”

  She frowned in thought, then scowled. “Aw, fuck me running! The only place you could be sure of getting a clear picture would be from inside the corpse!”

  “I was afraid of that,” Bolan muttered, pulling the pin from a grenade. Moving as fast as possible, he tossed it through the doorway and the auto-sentry gun fired.

  As the lethal sphere rattled along the floor, Bolan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then the grenade cut loose, the blast shaking the walls and ceiling.

  Tossing another towel, Montenegro ascertained the auto-sentry gun was dead, but tossed a second grenade down the corridor just to make sure. However, Bolan was already up and moving across the bathroom. The grenade exploded just as he reached the tub.

  Grabbing the side, the soldier braced himself and heaved. Made of solid cast iron, the antique tub was incredibly heavy, but he got it moving upward.

  As it came off the floor, the ghastly ruin inside sloshed out, then Sullivan tumbled free. Partially dissolved, the rotting corpse broke into numerous sections, the head cracked apart and a small video camera rolled into view.

  Pulling out a tool kit, Montenegro started to move closer, but Bolan continued raising the tub until it flipped over and crashed down to completely cover the body.

  A split second later, there was a muffled explosion from under the tub, and it heaved upward, only to come crashing back down again.

  “Damn, that was close,” Montenegro said, kicking some sticky human residue off her boots. As a finger rolled into the corner, an explosion sounded from somewhere above them.

  “Heads up! All of the live feeds just stopped,” Kirkland reported crisply. “I think they blew up the relay.”

  “Damn, that was fast,” Montenegro cursed. “Whoever is running their tech knows his stuff.”

  “Think they got our pictures?” Bolan asked.

  “They got a good view of me,” Montenegro snarled, pulling out a cell phone.

  As she started to text a message, Bolan heard thunder rumble in the distance. His combat instincts flared at the coincidence, and he grabbed the phone from her hand and smashed it on the floor, then crushed the components under his boot. His numerous cuts voiced their strong objection about that, but Bolan kept going until the phone was totally destroyed.

  “What in hell did you do that for?” Montenegro demanded furiously. “My Florida driver’s license has my picture on it! I have to warn my people to get out of the gym!”

  “Only after we’re far away from here,” Bolan countered, striding from the room. “Then we’ll stop and you can use a landline. But from this point on, no more cell or sat phones!”

  “Why not?” Kirkland asked.

  “Call it a hunch,” Bolan replied, starting quickly down the granite stairs.

  Only a few minutes later, Bolan and Montenegro were back at the Black Hawk. Montenegro started for the pilot chair, but Kirkland was already there, revving the engines to full power. With a shrug, she took the copilot’s seat, and Bolan climbed into the rear.

  As the helicopter lifted off the ground, a long peal of thunder rumbled in the cloudy sky, and lightning slashed down to slam into the castle. Massive stone blocks flew off the walls as a fast series of bolts struck the Irish fortress, shattering the towers, cracking apart the battlements and setting countless fires.

  “Bill, get me to a landline, right now,” Montenegro said in a tight voice, clenching her hands into fists.

  “There’s a shopping mall only ten minutes away,” Kirkland replied, swinging the helicopter around. The pitch of the blades changed sharply as the chopper accelerated in the new direction.

  Behind them, lightning flashed brightly as it continued to destroy the castle.

  “Try and make it in five,” Bolan advised, removing his own phone and smashing it to pieces with the butt of the Beretta supplied to him by Brognola’s Indian contact.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Atlantic Ocean

  The door to the command room was slammed open and an unshaven Major Armanjani entered wearing only a bathrobe and slippers. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, tightening the belt to his silk robe.

  “The castle was activated,” Dr. Khandis reported, working the
control board.

  That startled the major, but he tried not to let that show. “Destroy it,” he commanded in an even tone.

  “Already done,” Khandis replied, flipping some switches. “I blew the relay and leveled the place with the Scimitar.”

  “Excellent work,” Armanjani said, walking closer to inspect the monitors. On them were several pictures of a man and a woman.

  “Are these the intruders?” Armanjani asked with a scowl.

  Still typing, Khandis nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m running the pictures through the internet using a boolean search protocol, but I have no confirmation on their identity yet.”

  “They might just be common thieves,” Hassan commented from where he sat.

  “Not with that knife she has,” Armanjani stated. “It is a Gerber, very expensive, and a favorite of U.S. Special Forces.”

  “And us, too,” Nasser said, pulling a blade from behind her back. “The knife proves nothing, sir.”

  “But those cuts do,” Hassan countered eagerly, his eyes shiny with excitement. “See there? She opens his left knee, then his right hip. Each time exposing surgical repairs.”

  “They knew about the wounds,” Nasser said in sudden understanding. “Were these things common knowledge? Something Sullivan bragged about to his friends when he was drunk?”

  “No, he was very close-mouthed about anything personal,” Armanjani stated with conviction. “Plus, he did not drink or indulge in most of the more common vices. That was why I chose him to be our puppet.”

  “Of course, most wise.”

  Scratching his head, Hassan asked, “Sir, could these be the people who gave him the wounds?”

  “That is highly doubtful.” Armanjani laughed. “More likely they’re British SAS agents who specialize in hunting down known Irish criminals.”

  Unexpectedly, a bell began to loudly clang.

  “Fire alarm?” Hassan asked nervously.

  “Intruders!” Armanjani snarled, as there came the crackle of an assault rifle. A man screamed, and a body fell past the porthole. Going for his hip, the major grabbed only cloth. “Lieutenant, give me your weapon!”

  “Yes, sir,” Nasser said, passing over the Tariq.

  As the assault rifle sounded again, the major checked the magazine, and Nasser went to a gunrack to grab her XM-25.

  “Doctor, keep working and lock the door!” Armanjani ordered brusquely. “Let nobody enter, even me, until you know for absolutely certain the ship is secure!”

  “Yes, of course,” Khandis said quickly. But the others were already gone, sprinting down the passageway.

  Following the sounds of gunfire, Armanjani almost stumbled over a body. He cursed to see it was one of the older men, a friend from before the war. His throat was slashed from ear to ear. His Tariq pistol was still holstered at his side, but the spare ammunition magazines were missing. The intruder had brought along a weapon, but no ammunition?

  “Not an invader, a cursed stowaway!” Nasser snarled, just as bullet zinged past. She dropped to the deck, and Armanjani fell, clutching his wounded shoulder.

  Swinging around his shotgun, Hassan cut loose with several shots, the barrage of lead pellets throwing off a fireworks display of sparks as they ricocheted off the steel walls and deck.

  Rolling to her feet, Nasser triggered the XM-25. The shell streaked away, and a powerful explosion filled the far end of the corridor. The lights crashed, smoke billowed and a man bitterly cursed.

  Charging that way, they found fresh blood on the floor, but the intruder was gone.

  “Damn, he’s fast,” Hassan muttered, thumbing fresh cartridges into the shotgun.

  “Be faster!” Nasser snarled, charging after the crimson trail.

  Taking the stairs to the main deck, Nasser and Hassan dove out of the way as a hail of rounds drilled past them. Rolling to the sides, they came up again with both weapons firing. Just for a moment, they saw a figure on top of a cargo container, then he was gone.

  Charging in straight, Nasser made it to the ladder that led to the elevated rear of the ship, while Hassan proceeded to go systematically from cover to cover, always shooting in short bursts to conserve ammunition.

  Standing in the open, Nasser frowned. Nice, orderly, precise and much too damn slow!

  Suddenly, a ferocious roar of heavy machine-gun fire erupted from above, and she looked up to see bloody Armanjani standing in the open doorway of the bridge. He was with six other members of Ophiuchus, and awkwardly cradling a 7.62 mm RPK machine gun.

  Immediately, a pistol fired twice, and one of the soldiers cried out to topple sideways over the gunwale.

  “Abdul!” another soldier cried out, reaching after his friend.

  The unseen shooter fired again, and another soldier staggered backward, a red geyser of life pumping out his ruined throat.

  Mercifully shooting the dying man in the heart to end his pain, Armanjani then unleashed the Russian-made RPK, the spent brass rattling along the deck, while hot lead ricocheted wildly between the stacked containers.

  “Blue dog, blue!” Nasser shouted.

  Nodding, the major pointed at the other men, and they quickly fanned out, firing nonstop.

  Trapped by the unexpected assault, the invader was driven out of hiding and burst into view for a moment. Dressed in the uniform of Ophiuchus, he was a young man, slim with black curly hair, and he carried two Tariq pistols.

  Instantly, everybody cut loose. He fired back in a syncopated hail, killing two more soldiers and wounding others. Shooting from the hip, Nasser missed with a shell from the XM-25, then Armanjani attacked with the RPK. Hit several times in the chest, the invader was forced backward by the hail of 7.62 mm rounds until slamming against a cargo container, his head audibly cracking on the painted steel. Shuddering, he slid to the deck, both guns falling from twitching hands.

  Firing as she ran, Nasser sent both of the weapons skittering across the deck and straight through a wash port into the ocean.

  “Filthy pig!” Hassan growled, grabbing the unconscious man by the hair and hauling him upright.

  The invader mouthed something unintelligible, a string of spittle drooling from slack lips.

  “He’s out!” Nasser declared, lowering her weapon.

  “I don’t care!” Hassan announced, slapping the man across the face with a pistol. The blow sent the man spinning around to land in a crumpled heap.

  “Enough! Check him for traps,” Armanjani commanded, keeping his distance, both hands wrapped tightly around the machine gun. The barrel never wavered from pointing at the intruder.

  “Yes, sir.” Slinging the shotgun over a shoulder, Hassan drew a knife and began to cut open the invader’s shirt, carefully avoiding the seams and buttons. Those were where most people hid the trigger for a personal self-destruct.

  Nobody was overly surprised when Hassan found a PSD strapped to the upper arm of the invader. Resembling a decorative leather band, the buckle contained a small charge of high explosive, just enough to blow a hole in the major artery located less than an inch away, just inside the armpit.

  With a scowl, Hassan deactivated the PSD, then cut away the belt, uncaring of the slashes he made in the man.

  “Should I kill him now, sir?” Hassan asked, reaching down to press the point of the knife into the throat of the unconscious man until a bead of blood formed. “I can do this slow and hard…”

  “Perhaps later,” Armanjani said, resting the RPK on his good shoul
der. “But for the moment, I want him alive for questioning.”

  “Haul him to the interrogation room!” Nasser commanded.

  With Armanjani leading the way, the other soldiers carried the invader through the maze of containers and down into the hold of the ship.

  “Sir, do you think that the auction may have been compromised because of this?” Nasser asked with a dour expression. “We have no idea if the spy got off a message to his confederates before being discovered.”

  “That possibility has occurred to me,” Armanjani replied, stuffing both hands into the pockets of his robe.

  “We could always move to another location,” Nasser suggested, taking a corner.

  The major smiled. “True, but instead we will allow the auction for the Scimitar to proceed as planned.”

  “Sir, it could now be a trap!” Khandis exclaimed, clearly puzzled.

  “I am counting on it,” Armanjani said.

  Since no further details were forthcoming, Khandis grudgingly accepted the rebuff. To date, everything had worked out exactly as Armanjani planned, so he would accept the major’s word that the situation was under control, and wait to see what happened.

  In a large, empty room, soldiers lashed a thick rope around the wrists of the invader, then tossed it over a beam. They hauled the man upward until his boots were dangling inches off the deck.

  “Strip him,” Armanjani commanded.

  Staying alert for any more PSDs, the soldiers used straight razors this time, the clothing carefully removed and piled to the side.

  Under the shirt was molded body armor unlike anything they had ever seen, and that was it. There were no dog tags or tattoos. There was no cell phone or transceiver. His clothing had no labels, there was no wallet, only a large sum of cash in euros, U.S. dollars and Swiss francs.

  “This is a spy,” Nasser said in disgust.

  “Of course, but for whom?” the major asked, walking around the limp prisoner. “His manhood is not mutilated, so he is not a Jew.”