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  At one point in his career, he had been the Farm’s top agent. But Bolan was by nature a loner. And he had returned to his one-man war against evil in all its forms, while remaining on professional and friendly terms with Stony Man Farm.

  The telephone call bounced off several satellites, via phony phone numbers, before reaching its destination. The few seconds that took were well worth it when weighed against the possibility of a criminal or terrorist group intercepting the call. In addition, every word Bolan spoke into the phone, and every word spoken to him, would be scrambled beyond recognition to anyone who might have stumbled across the frequency.

  Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s chief mission controller, picked up the receiver. “Hello, Striker,” she said, using the Executioner’s mission code name. “Ten-twenty?”

  “Hovering over the steeple right now,” Bolan replied. “Getting ready to jump out to the end of this rubber band and engage in a little target practice.” He paused, taking in a deep breath. “The only reason I called is to make sure word got to the cops that I’m on their side.”

  “That’s been affirmed,” Price said. “The local law enforcement forces are expecting a Fed to come falling from the sky.”

  “Good,” Bolan said. “I just told Jack I didn’t want to start this fight with a broken leg. I’m not too crazy about bouncing around on this bungee, either, while the cops below fill me with lead, like some monkey on a string.”

  “They won’t,” Price assured him. “If you get shot, it’ll be by the bad guys.”

  Bolan chuckled softly. “That’s a great consolation,” he said with only a trace of sarcasm. “And we’re sure the guys who’ve taken over the church are Hezbollah?” he added.

  “Ninety-nine percent,” Price replied. “That’s what the informant was told, anyway.”

  For a brief moment, Bolan thought of the unusual set of circumstances that had brought him from the aftermath of an assault on the Chicago Mafia to Detroit. He had barely fired his final shot, ending the life and criminal career of the Windy City’s godfather, when his satellite phone had vibrated, alerting him that there was trouble in Detroit and that Grimaldi would meet him at the airport in a helicopter. Hal Brognola, the director of sensitive operations at Stony Man Farm, had told him that a Catholic chapel in Detroit was under attack. The informant had said it was the work of Hezbollah—the terrorist group of which the man had once been a member.

  The informant was a member no longer. He had been converted to Christianity by the Arabic-speaking priest of the chapel, and the terrorist group presently had a multimillion dollar contract out on his life. But he had not left Hezbollah before learning that they’d planned to place a bomb inside the chapel. And that they were going in heavy—with firepower—just in case they got caught during the act.

  Which they had.

  The new Arabic Christian had revealed this information during a confession to the priest, and since the crime had not yet taken place, and stood a chance of being prevented, Father Patrick O’Melton was not bound by the confidentiality code between clergyman and confessor. A former U.S. Army Ranger who had served his country during the First Gulf War, O’Melton had wasted no time contacting the authorities.

  Bolan slid the single-point sling of his M-16 A-2 over his shoulder. “See you later, Jack,” he said as he opened the chopper door.

  “I always hope so,” Grimaldi replied.

  The fall was short compared to a parachute jump, and before he knew it Bolan was reaching the end of the bungee cord and being jerked back up almost to the helicopter again.

  The men on the ground floor were at no vantage point to fire at him as he sailed through the air once more, but the snipers atop the building had taken note of the chopper, and finally realized it was not from any news station. They turned their bolt action rifles his way, and a pair of “bees” buzzed past the Executioner as he continued to bounce. But the slow operation of the weapons kept the terrorists’ fire to a minimum.

  Twisting to face them on the end of the bungee, Bolan raised the M-16 A-2 in his right hand and cut loose with a 3-round burst of fire. The first round struck the bolt of a sniper rifle, sending up a flash of sparks from the weapon, and a scream from the mouth of the man holding it, as the .223 hollowpoint bullet split and struck his chest and abdomen. The second and third rounds took the sniper perfectly in the heart, and he fell forward onto his face with no further shrieks or cries of pain.

  Bolan flipped the quick release snap on his bungee harness as the cord began to stabilize, and fell to the roof on his belly. With the M-16 in the prone position, he pressed the trigger again, and another trio of .223 rounds burst from the weapon, taking off the top half of the second sniper’s head.

  The Hezbollah man, wearing olive drab BDUs—battle dress uniform—like the rest of the terrorists Bolan had seen, didn’t make a sound. He just stumbled a few feet backward, then toppled over the short retaining wall that surrounded the roof of the church. The last things Bolan saw of him were his boots as he fell “half-headed” over the side.

  As the gunfire below him continued, the Executioner moved swiftly toward an open trapdoor near the center of the roof. Flipping the selector switch in his weapon to semiauto, he stared down into the darkened hole.

  Were the two men he’d just killed the only ones who had ascended from the bottom floor? There was no way of knowing. Other terrorists could be hidden within, waiting quietly for an assault from the roof.

  There was only one way to find out.

  Pulling a small ASP flashlight from another pocket of his blacksuit, the Executioner risked training a two-second beam of light down the steps. He saw and heard nothing. So, with the M-16 at the ready, he began to make his way down the stairs.

  It took time for Bolan’s eyes to readjust to the near darkness of the third floor of the chapel. But he waited, not wanting to risk giving away his position with another flash from the ASP. A small amount of light came down from the open trapdoor, so he moved to a corner of what appeared to be a Sunday school classroom. He was ninety-nine percent certain that no one was with him on the top floor of the chapel. But in case that one percent came through, he wanted the darkness to work for him rather than against him.

  As soon as he could make out the blurry shapes of tables and chairs in the room, the Executioner glanced around. He saw no light switches or signs of electricity in any form. But on the tables, and built into the walls, were large candles and oil lamps. Moving toward the staircase in the middle of the room, he passed a large crucifix, then a painting of Jesus Christ with his hands folded in prayer. Continuing on toward a hallway and another set of steps, Bolan kept listening to the rifle rounds exploding below him. They had become more muffled since he’d entered the building, but were just as regular.

  And, he knew, just as deadly.

  When he reached the staircase, Bolan aimed his assault rifle downward and stared at the steps. The second floor of the small building seemed as deserted as the third, and he nodded to himself. The clock was ticking. There was a bomb somewhere inside the chapel. What kind of device, and how it was rigged to go off, had not been included in Brognola’s brief. Bolan had barely had time to find out how Stony Man Farm’s director had come across the intel in the first place.

  He needed to talk to the priest and the converted Hezbollah man. This was a golden opportunity—a one-in-a-million chance to learn the ins and outs of what else the terrorist group had planned for the near future. But that was not the primary goal at the moment. Before he interviewed the informant and the priest, he needed to keep Saint Michael’s Chapel from blowing up. And to do that meant both ridding the world of the terrorists on the ground floor and deactivating the bomb without destroying the chapel and the neighborhood surrounding it.

  The Executioner’s brain continued to roll near the speed of light. He suspected this was a fairly low-tech
operation on Hezbollah’s part. That meant that as soon as the terrorists began to think they were losing the gun battle, they would detonate the bomb by hand.

  Slowly and quietly, Bolan began to descend the steps to the second floor. With each creak his boots made he paused, listening, to see if the men below had noticed it. But the gunfire continued, drowning out his quiet sounds on the stairs. Bolan realized the men below weren’t likely aware that he’d taken out their two snipers. That meant he still had surprise on his side.

  And he’d need it. He was vastly outnumbered, and surprise was the only advantage he would have in this ongoing firefight.

  Reaching the second floor, Bolan saw that it was as deserted as the third, and he realized that the terrorists’ plan for rifle fire had been as elemental as their plan for the bomb. Except for the two snipers he’d taken out on the roof, all of them were on the first floor.

  Bolan halted his progress again, rapidly analyzing the situation. He could probably take out the men below by suddenly bounding down the final set of steps and launching a furious barrage of fire from the rear. But if he didn’t get the individual in charge of the bomb, or if the explosives were connected to a dead man’s switch, which would go off as soon as whoever was holding it relaxed his grip, Bolan might as well blow up the chapel himself.

  He paused another moment before starting down the steps to the first floor. He had to admit, Hezbollah’s attack might be low-tech, but it included a well-thought-out battle plan. Men who didn’t mind dying, and thought it bought them a first-class ticket to paradise, held an incredible edge over warriors who were trying to kill the enemy and stay alive at the same time.

  Bottom line in this situation was that the sooner Bolan wiped out all the terrorists on the first floor, the sooner the bomb would go off and destroy the chapel and probably the police officers surrounding it. Not to mention him.

  He was fighting himself on this one.

  * * *

  THE CHAPEL WAS SMALL in comparison to most churches, and built of irregular stones that formed both the inside and the outside walls. One main room per story, with the staircase near the middle of each.

  That meant that from where he stood presently, at the top of the steps, Bolan had a clear view of about half the ground level. The up side to this situation was his superior position. The down side was that many men firing out through the shattered stained glass windows could see him if they turned around.

  And there were bound to be more Hezbollah out of sight behind the open staircase.

  Luckily, the three men he could see were too engaged in their battle with the police to pay attention to their flanks or rear. So Bolan crept farther down the steps, the M-16 A-2 aimed and ready. He squatted momentarily, resting the rifle across his knees as he again sized up the situation. Blasts from the firearms of more men—unseen but heard—confirmed his suspicion that there were other terrorists at the rear. Exactly how many murderers there were in all was anyone’s guess.

  Squinting slightly, Bolan searched the men he could see for any sign of a bomb or a remote detonator. Several wore rucksacks, and such packs could hold anything from the most simple dynamite or nitroglycerine explosives to a small tactical nuclear device. But the scanty intel he had received from Brognola told him there was no nuke involved. Not in this strike, at least.

  The Executioner took in a deep breath. At least that was something. He nodded to himself as the gunfire below continued. What he was facing was most likely plastic explosives—probably Semtex left over from the old Soviet Union that had found its way into Hezbollah hands. If he fired quickly on semiauto, he suspected he could put a .223 caliber hollowpoint round into the back of all six brains before whoever had the explosives even knew what was happening.

  But what of the men he couldn’t see, in the rear of the chapel? What if the bomb was with one of them? They would have more than enough time to see what had happened to their brothers in terror and detonate the explosive no matter how fast the Executioner descended the steps to take them on.

  The gunfire both out and into Saint Michael’s Chapel continued relentlessly. Through shattered remnants of stained glass still stuck in corners of the windows, Bolan could see dust floating through the outside air—the product of police rounds striking the stones of the walls around the apertures. As he continued to watch, one of the terrorists took a round in the head and fell backward, dead on the cold stone floor.

  That was good. But it didn’t change things much for the Executioner. Shooting two men and then turning toward the rear of the building was hardly different from killing three. The bomb would still have plenty of time to go off.

  The unusual history of the antiquated chapel, and how out of place it looked in the neighborhood, ran through the Executioner’s mind once more. He was surprised that the city inspectors would have passed the candle and oil lamp lighting. Even more remarkable was that the Detroit Fire Department would have allowed a three-story structure to be built with only one way up and down. The chapel would be a death trap if any of the lamps or candles was ever mishandled.

  The realization struck Bolan suddenly: the building inspectors might have insisted on a second escape route. One he couldn’t see. And medieval architecture was famous for hidden rooms, staircases and tunnels.

  Quickly and quietly, he rose to his feet. There was a second way down; he could feel it. A route the terrorists would undoubtedly be unaware of, so that he could emerge suddenly, with surprise on his side.

  He just had to find it.

  But time had become a factor, too. Every second he took searching for the hidden route down was a second during which the Hezbollah might decide that the gunfight had gone on long enough. And that they should detonate the bomb.

  The Executioner retraced his steps to the second floor and moved away from the staircase. Crouching near a stone wall, where he felt confident his whispers would not be heard by the men below, he pulled out his satellite phone once more. A few seconds later, he had Stony Man Farm on the line.

  “Hal,” Bolan said to Brognola. “I’m in a fix here. I can take out the men in front of me. But if one of them isn’t in control of the bomb, then whoever is—that person being out of my field of vision—is going to detonate it and bring this place down as if it was built of straw instead of rock.” He paused a moment, taking a deep breath. “Do you have contact with the priest and Hezbollah informant?”

  “That’s affirmative,” Brognola said.

  “This place is built to look like it came straight out of King Arthur’s court,” Bolan said. “The only obvious way up and down is the main staircase. But there’s got to be another way out. The fire inspectors would have never passed it if there wasn’t. What’s more, I can feel it.”

  It was Brognola’s turn to pause. Bolan knew the man was thinking. And that what he had told him last meant the most of all.

  The director of sensitive ops never questioned the Executioner’s battle instincts. He knew that if Bolan sensed there had to be another set of stairs, there quite simply had to be one.

  “Hang on,” Brognola said. “I’ve got the priest and his new convert on the other line.”

  Bolan heard a click and found himself on hold. The gunfire below continued, and the seconds ticked away, feeling like hours. He knew it was a strange and precarious predicament they were in. The better the Detroit police did in this gun battle, the closer they’d be to destroying the chapel and themselves.

  Finally, Brognola came back on the phone. “I just talked to the priest,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “And?” Bolan answered.

  “You’re on the second floor now, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did you see a painting of Jesus and a crucifix on the wall?”

  “I passed them on the way to the stairs,” Bolan said. “There’s an identical setup on the
floor above me.”

  “Okay,” Brognola said, and Bolan could practically see the chewed stub of the ever-present unlit cigar in the director’s mouth. “The picture and the crucifix work in conjunction. Take the painting off the wall and set it on the floor.”

  Bolan slung the M-16 over his shoulder and turned to the wall. He lifted the painting of Christ off a nail and set it on the floor. “Done,” he whispered into the phone.

  “Good,” Brognola said. “Now, go to the crucifix.”

  It took Bolan only two steps to reach the metal cross. “I’m there,” he said quietly.

  “The painting and the crucifix work together,” the Stony Man Farm director said. “The painting acts as sort of a safety. Now that it’s off the wall, twist the crucifix to the right.”

  Bolan reached out and grasped the bottom on the cross. “How far?”

  “You’ll know when you’ve gone far enough,” Brognola answered.

  Bolan twisted the crucifix. When it reached a 45-degree angle, a section of wall began to slowly swing backward, revealing an opening.

  “You got it yet?” Brognola asked in Bolan’s ear.

  “Got it,” he confirmed. He squinted into the dark opening. “I can just make out steps. Can you tell me where they come out on the ground floor?” As he waited for an answer, he slipped the sling off his shoulder and readied the M-16 in front of him.

  “You’ll exit in the middle of the bottom room,” the Stony Man director said. “Facing the rear.”

  The exploding gunfire below had not let up as Bolan stepped into the secret staircase and slowly descended. Brognola was still on the line as he did so. “Is there a peephole or anything like that, Hal?” he whispered into the satellite phone. “It’d be nice to get an idea what’ll be in front of me when I come out of this thing.”