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  “I know a guy who knows a guy.”

  “Don’t we all,” Montenegro said, unfolding a map of the state. “Okay, if we follow this road for another fifty miles, we’ll come to the Tonawanda Wetlands.”

  “Swamp.”

  “Wetlands. There’s an alligator farm near the entrance. We should be able to steal an airboat there and swing around the edge of the swamp until we reach Gibraltar from the far side.”

  “ETA?” Bolan asked.

  “Depends on how good the security system is at the farm.” She smiled.

  “Do you really think they have any security,” he asked, “aside from a thousand hungry gators?”

  “No. So we should hit the base around midnight, maybe one o’clock.”

  “Groovy,” Kirkland said, putting the contact lens back into a case. “By the way, how the hell did you know that Glock was a 17? They’re identical to the machine pistol version.”

  “There was only one spare clip on his belt,” Bolan said. “An 18 goes through an entire clip in two seconds flat. Nobody but an idiot would carry only one spare.”

  “He might have been an idiot,” Kirkland said, then turned to Montenegro, “and don’t ask if I have any relatives down here.”

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” Montenegro replied, unable to stop a smile.

  A few miles later, Bolan saw a turnoff for the Tonawanda Wetlands. Heading that way, he soon spotted a billboard advertising Alie’s Gator Farm! Cute, he thought.

  Driving the Hummer off the dirt road, the Executioner parked inside a grove of banyon trees where the vehicle would be out of sight of any passing traffic.

  “By the way, does anybody remember exactly how to kill an alligator?” Kirkland asked, testing the edge of a Gerber knife on the ball of a thumb.

  “Very quickly,” Montenegro said, sliding clips of armor-piercing rounds into both of her Glocks.

  Packing their equipment into waterproof bags, the team discussed tactics while donning black ghillie suits, smearing on camouflage paint and putting fresh batteries into the UV lasers.

  “Ready?” Bolan asked.

  Kirkland smirked. “I was born ready.”

  “That must have been quite a surprise for your mother.” Montenegro smiled.

  “My dad, too!”

  Leaving the Hummer unlocked and the keys in the ashtray, just in case they returned with armed troops in hot pursuit, Bolan and the others then eased into the bushes. Minutes later, an airboat drifted away from the wooden dock of the gator farm to disappear into the approaching night.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

  It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. However, inside NORAD the atmosphere was tense, and nobody spoke above a hushed whisper. The smell of black coffee was almost tangible, and everybody was armed.

  The War Room was the heart of NORAD, the nerve center of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The front wall was a triptych of screens. The left showed Europe, the middle screen showed the North American continent, and the left showed whoever was considered a threat. For thirty years, that had been the Soviet Union. Nowadays it was sometimes North Korea, sometimes China, and for a brief few months it had shown Iraq. Enemies came in many shapes and sizes.

  The ceiling and walls were a flat black, the floor a dark reflectionless terrazzo. Banks of consoles curved before the three screens. There were a dozen of them in each line, and three layers deep. Busy technicians from every branch of the armed forces were working away at the twinkling controls, constantly whispering into their throat mikes to keep a moment by moment running communication to the duty officers, who in turn relayed the info to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the White House.

  The right wall was covered with clocks showing the precise time in every major city around the world. The left had a scattering of screens showing the worldwide weather, and the Stick, the indicator that showed the status of America. Only a few hours ago, the President had ordered it moved up to DefCon Two. DefCon Five meant open warfare. But as yet there was no known enemy.

  Currently, a massive central monitor displayed a map of the world marking every known lightning strike where a death had occurred. White for civilians, red for military, green for politicians.

  Since its inception, the War Room had always been noisy and busy, endlessly full of people coming and going, delivering reports. But that was good. Noise meant personal conversations, yawning, jokes. The louder the room was, the more peaceful and secure was America. At the moment, the War Room of Cheyenne Mountain was dead silent.

  Located at the rear of the huge room, two generals and an admiral were standing behind the visitor railing where tourists used to come to gawk at the technological might of America. That wasn’t allowed anymore for security reasons, but the facilities were still in place, and now congressmen and senators took tours and stood behind the railings while armed guards stood by and watched the movements of everybody and anybody inside the Hill.

  “How’s the Esteem?” an Army general asked, standing at attention behind the old visitor railing. Both hands were clasped behind his back.

  “Out of danger,” an Air Force general replied. “North Korea got twitchy until the Chinese arrived, then they stood down and backed off.”

  “Meaning that we now have to thank the Chinese for their assistance?” a Navy admiral asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Thank God it won’t be me,” the admiral muttered.

  Suddenly, there was a strange flash of light on the monitor showing the main access road.

  “What was that?” the admiral demanded with a scowl.

  “Maybe just a glitch in the equipment,” a brigadier general suggested, looking up from his clipboard.

  Then it came again, out of the clear blue sky, a lightning bolt arched over the Rocky Mountains to directly hit a U.S. Army 6x6 driving toward the entrance to the underground base. The entire vehicle exploded as it was sent sailing away to crash in the decorative flowerbed edging the front of the massive underground base.

  “Here we go!” the admiral bellowed, just as a dozen sirens started to howl a warning. But then, almost as quickly, the light came again, and the sirens were blasted off the poles around the base, one at a time, like firecrackers on a string.

  “Primary satellite dish is gone, sir,” an Air Force lieutenant reported calmly from her console. “Switching to secondary…secondary is gone. It exploded the instant it went live.”

  “All right, damn it, switch to the—”

  “Gone, sir! As well as the next, and the off-site dish, and… We’re blind.”

  A split second later, all of the monitors flickered and went dark.

  “Son of a bitch!” the admiral growled. “All right, use the underground land lines and switch control of the defense grid to Space Command.”

  “Sir, we… I mean, you don’t have the authorization to do that,” the lieutenant began hesitantly, then nodded. “Confirm, sir. Fuck the rules. Switching control now!”

  “Good man,” the admiral said in highest praise.

  The Air Force general leaned closer. “He’ll be dishonorably discharged by tomorrow.”

  “If we live that long,” the admiral said. “Okay, America is saved. Now what about us?”

  “What do you think? We fight!”

  “How do you fight lightning?”

 
; “Fire the northwest SAMS!” the Army general ordered.

  “At what, sir?” a Marine corporal asked, both hands poised above the controls.

  “At the storm, you fool! Lightning isn’t alive, it can’t think or dodge!”

  Her face eased with understanding. “Aye, aye, sir!” the Marine corporal replied, her hands flashing across the console.

  Only seconds later, eight missiles streaked up from the hidden battery. Almost instantly, lightning flashed down, and one of the missiles exploded in midair. As the stormy sky rumbled, another bolt slashed downward, and a second missile was destroyed, then a third, and fourth. But the rest penetrated the cloud cover.

  “By God, it worked!” the Army general gasped. “Get that bunker reloaded, and start firing everything we have, in random patterns!”

  Just then, a lightning bolt flashed across the clear sky to slam directly into the closed door of the underground base. Thicker than a man was tall, the truncated slab of metal quivered from the hit, but nothing more occurred.

  Then another lightning bolt hit, closely followed by a dozen more, each bolt coming faster and with greater accuracy. Suddenly, a dozen meters on a control board flashed into the red, and whole sections of the internal power grid went dark. Then the monitor went dark.

  “Switching to secondary cameras!” a major announced.

  “The door is holding!” an Army colonel reported in a tight voice. “But the EM field is leaking through.”

  “Why, in the name of God?” the Air Force general demanded.

  The major spun in the chair. “Sir, we’re designed to withstand a direct nuclear attack. That only lasts a few seconds at the longest. Everything else is much weaker, shrapnel, heat corona… .” He gestured. “But these bolts last for several seconds, that last one maintained for almost seven seconds.”

  A sharp pain went through the admiral’s head. The world-famous, nuke-proof door to NORAD High Command wasn’t tough enough to stop a lightning storm?

  “What are our chances of survival if the front door fails?” a colonel asked.

  “Zero point zero,” a lieutenant replied brusquely.

  The colonel grunted in acceptance. “Okay, start escorting the nonessential personnel into the escape tunnel!”

  “We’ll never get them all out in time, sir!” the lieutenant countered, then stood tall. “But I’ll do my best!’

  “Good man!”

  Just then, lightning hit the front door again, the crackling bolt staying there for much longer than anybody thought possible. Then the monitor again went black.

  “Switching to long-range cameras,” the major said slowly, throwing a fast series of switches on the console. The screen came alive once more with a picture of the entire base. Then the picture zoomed in to focus only on the front entrance.

  The titanic door was burned and battered, with wide gouges in the surface over a foot deep. The concrete apron in front was littered with glowing red droplets of molten steel. A charred corpse lay nearby but it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman, much less their rank or service.

  “All right, fire one missile, repeat just one missile, every four seconds!” the Air Force general bellowed, gripping the railing. “And send out troops with cell phones through the emergency exit! Have them call for assistance from every air force base in the western U.S.!”

  “We’re going to need a shitload of missiles to last out this storm!” the Army general muttered, rubbing an old scar.

  “And if the missiles don’t work, sir?” a corporal asked with a worried expression.

  “Then it has been my honor to serve with everybody here,” the general said softly, the words carrying throughout the entire vast control room.

  Tonawanda Wetlands, Alabama

  THE ROAR OF THE AIR BOAT was nearly deafening as it streaked across the murky water. The flat-bottomed keel skimmed over sunken logs, alligators, sandbars, and flashed through thick forests of reeds and weeds.

  The air was thick with earthy smells, most of them unpleasant, and insects swarmed around the hurtling machine as if they knew in advance that bloody meals always accompanied such a fearsome racket.

  Still riding high on their hearty meal, nobody felt like grabbing a few winks, so Bolan and the others discussed in detail how to find the secret files, and what to do with Edgar Barrington afterward. Montenegro favored turning him over to the FBI, while Bolan had a vastly different idea.

  “There’s no chance we’ll get any assistance from the local police,” Kirkland stated. “I’m not even sure that the governor could send in the National Guard against Barrington. He’s too well connected.”

  “And that’s not even considering that fact that the bastard has more guns and helicopters than the FBI,” Bolan said. “He even has a tank.”

  “A Panzer, perhaps? Or maybe a nice Sherman?” Kirkland asked hopefully.

  “Nope. He has an Abrams M1A, and in full working condition. Officially, it’s an exhibit for a military museum.”

  “An Abrams.” Kirkland sighed. “That’ll get the job done, sure enough.”

  “Brognola could call in the Air Force for a bombing run, but there could be innocent civilians inside the compound.”

  “Besides, it would reveal too much to Major Armanjani if he heard about it on the news.”

  “My, my, Barrington really has carved himself out quite a nice little kingdom in this fetid swamp,” Montenegro said thoughtfully.

  “Sure has,” Bolan agreed, checking the magazine in the Desert Eagle. “Now let’s take it away from him.”

  Skirting along the edge of the swamp, or the wetlands as the U.S. government preferred to call the place, the team spotted dozens of burned-down shacks, what remained of the structures riddled with bullet holes.

  “It would appear that Edgar does not like neighbors,” Kirkland stated, slathering more insect repellant along his arms and across his nape.

  “Considering what he does for a living, would you?” Montenegro retorted, trying to ignore how her hair was rapidly expanding in every direction at the same time.

  “Try this,” Bolan suggested offering a black ski cap.

  With no small amount of tugging, and a liberal use of inventive cursing, Montenegro finally got the woolen cap in place, her brilliant explosions of yellow hair properly under wraps. Almost instantly, she began sweating profusely.

  “After a couple of hours of this, the alligators will come swarming after me,” she muttered, tying a handkerchief across her forehead as a crude bandanna. “They like their meat ripe and reeking.”

  “So, no significant change to your general demeanor, then?” Kirkland said.

  Spinning, Montenegro jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. He grunted at the blow, but pretended it hadn’t happened.

  As midnight approached, Bolan finally throttled down the airboat, and the craft decelerated naturally until it was relatively motionless again. Drifting close to a mud island, Bolan stepped ashore and used his Gerber knife to hack down some saplings, then trim them into barge poles. Climbing back onto the airboat, he passed one to Kirkland and the two men started the long, slow process of stabbing the pole down into the water at the front of the craft, then walking the pole to the back, pushing with all of their might to make the craft slide a few scant inches forward.

  Sitting on the dirty deck, Montenegro had her equipment bag open and was carefully monitoring for any live or passive sensors in the water or mud or hidden among the thi
ck plants. So far, she had only found a few sonic fishing lures, the type that were sold on cable TV for a low-low introductory price, and were generally less useful than a flare gun for actually catching fish.

  This deep in the swamp, the water was an oily deep black, impenetrable to their flashlights and thicker than porridge. How the countless underwater creatures lived in the muck was anybody’s guess. But they constantly saw fish darting just below the surface, frogs hopping along the muddy banks and huge snapping turtles sitting like rocks among the reeds and aquatic plants. They seemed harmless enough, but everybody knew the jaws of the turtles were powerful enough to remove someone’s hand in a single bite.

  There was no indication of the countless alligators known to inhabit the swamp. They lived down deep in the mire, hidden and slow, lazy leather logs until violently exploding into deadly action.

  Clusters of weeds and dense curtains of Spanish moss hung off every tree, sometimes making it difficult to know where the swamp ended and the land began.

  “Why did I ever leave Miami?” Montenegro said, fine-tuning the controls on her scanners. Her shirt was thoroughly soaked, the fabric sticking to her figure.

  “What, and miss this pleasant little tour of hell?” Kirkland asked with a wide grin, yanking the sapling free from the sticky swamp bottom. A creature stirred.

  With a mightly lunge, a hissing alligator tried to climb into the boat.

  Guns were out of the question, the noise would travel for miles, so Bolan rammed the Gerber knife directly into the left eye of the swamp monster, trying for the brain, while Kirkland did the same thing to the tiny, almost hidden ear hole. Whipping out a military stun gun, Montenegro shoved the device into the creature’s open mouth. A terrible light flashed as a half-million volts crackled into operation.

  Going stiff, the alligator exhaled deeply as it slid backward into the swamp and sank from sight.

  “Think we killed it?” Montenegro asked, squinting to try to see into the syrupy morass below.