Skysweeper Read online

  Skysweeper would be the crowning achievement of his field career. Then he would move into management, desk work, perhaps someday he could be director-general of the KGB! It was heady stuff. But first Skysweeper. And these men who had violated his territory. He must find out who they were and eliminate them as quickly as possible. That was his second order of business.

  Kara. He would invite her over for a conference, with just a hint at a promotion on the phone. Then when he told her, she would be more than ready to show her appreciation to Mother Russia and to him on a more personal basis. He checked the time: too late tonight. Tomorrow for sure. Then he would worry about the men who killed Smith.

  4

  In their dash down the alley after wounding the ambusher, Mack Bolan and Dr. Peterson got away clean. Bolan figured the gunman would go into the house at once. The Executioner's guess was that before morning the man who had fired at them would make sure all signs of death and illegal entry were removed. The KGB people had a way of cleaning up after themselves. They didn't like murder investigations concerning their helpers. Even now the corpses of Smith and the gunman were probably enjoying a common grave out in the desert.

  Making sure they weren't being tailed, the Executioner led Dr. Peterson on a quick walk two blocks to his car. Then they drove a mile and a half to the scientist's house on the other side of town. The physicist had been silent on the way home. Twice he had started to say something, but each time he stopped. Bolan had observed the worried look on Dr. Peterson's face. Perhaps the gravity of this highly dangerous game was only now beginning to sink in.

  Bolan had found Dr. Peterson's name on a list that was part of those KGB files Bolan had obtained on his mission to Russia. It was his one source for tracking down KGB operatives and projects in the United States and around the world.

  That was his current pursuit, the terror machine of the KGB. In his former role as Colonel John Phoenix, he had operated under official U.S. sanction. But now he was on his own again, freed from the constraints of government bureaucracy. Only occasionally did he receive help from his erstwhile allies.

  This way he operated exactly where he wanted to, where the enemy dictated that he must fight to defeat them.

  Yes, he functioned outside the law quite often, but with high regard for law-enforcement officers. And he would go to great lengths to avoid any confrontation with the police.

  In his personal journal Bolan once wrote: "I'm not above the law. In the final analysis, justice under law is the only hope for mankind. But sometimes a man just can't go by the book. I can't turn away from a fight simply because it conflicts with certain principles. There is a higher ideal at work here. At the same time, I have to keep my respect for the law. We are working toward the same end."

  Bolan had known from the start that the world was a frightening jungle, where the first law always had been survival. Perhaps Bolan's decision to travel alone once more came from this basic jungle law. He was an excellent fighter in every aspect. And this came from years of living on the edge, honing his survival instinct.

  Bolan often wondered how much difference one man could make. Years of experience had taught him how much a single individual could accomplish — if that person had a total commitment to his ideals. But he had to harden his resolve, and be willing to wade knee-deep in enemy blood to achieve his goal. All he required was the necessary tools, the determination and dedication, never losing sight of his objective, and he could walk that extra mile.

  Mack Bolan was the man who could do it. He had proved it before, and here in the blistering desert he would prove it again. But few would know. He did not battle the KGB for glory. He wanted no headlines, no medals.

  Only justice.

  He wanted some touch of humanity left in the world where innocents were free to wander without threat.

  Bolan had started on this mission two days ago. He'd explained carefully to Dr. Peterson the risks involved. When Dr. Peterson said he knew where his contact lived, the man who would funnel secret material to the Russians, Bolan had planned with him to visit the safe house.

  Now Bolan sat at the kitchen table as Dr. Peterson prepared instant coffee. The scientist had just seen two men killed. He was badly shaken and Bolan had to get him squared away if he was going to be any more help on this project.

  The coffee came, they stirred and sipped. Bolan stared over his cup at the scientist.

  "I killed two men tonight. Does that bother you?"

  "No. At my age, I have come to terms with violence although I'm a peace-loving man. But it shames me that I have been so weak and helped the Russians. That I caved in after only one meeting with Smith, who threatened my parents. The mere hint of danger to them was all I needed.

  "Then tonight I saw what these men are truly capable of. They do not simply threaten, they kill and maim. And I had been helping them, but no more. I am glad that I've found someone like you to help me."

  "Good. I'll need your help to get inside the research base."

  "That won't be a problem. I am the number-two man on this project. We have been given almost carte blanche to get it completed successfully. My signature is almost as good around the Naval Weapons Center as the President's. I'm not bragging when I say I can get you into any section of the base."

  Bolan felt a burden lift from his shoulders. He held out his hand to the scientist. The man grabbed it and pumped it enthusiastically.

  "I'll set you up with badges and clearance for anything on base first thing in the morning."

  Peterson took a pull on his coffee and stared at Bolan.

  "I promised myself not to ask who you really are or who you work with, but I am curious. Guess it doesn't matter a whit, as long as we get the job done, right?"

  "Right."

  Bolan opened the paper sack filled with the things from the Smith safe. He spilled the contents onto the table.

  "Recognize any of the items?"

  Dr. Peterson picked up the document marked Top Secret and frowned. "I didn't think he had stolen this yet. It doesn't matter, that whole basic design has been changed."

  Bolan riffled through the pages and found data about laser technology that was so advanced, he could not even recognize most of the words.

  "Look at this," Dr. Peterson said. "A list of six phone numbers. I wonder what they have to do with Smith's operation. At least my number isn't there."

  Bolan picked up the two packets of U.S. bank notes and passed one to the scientist. "Count this for me, would you?"

  By the time they finished they found the tally to be slightly over $30,000. Then Bolan looked up at Peterson.

  "Do you know who Smith reported to?"

  "No, he never said. I thought he had some contact at an embassy somewhere."

  "I'll find out." Bolan shuffled the papers. "Which of these should we destroy?"

  "They are only copies. All of them should be shredded or burned. We could use the fireplace right now."

  They tore the documents into strips and fed them into the hearth.

  Bolan finished his coffee and drew up a chair. "Now, Dr. Peterson, tell me everything we haven't already covered about Skysweeper."

  Peterson nodded. "Generally the research is done. It has been for almost a year. Dr. Roth Ludlow made the breakthrough and is now the director of the project to get it into practical form and then into production.

  "It is unlike anything we have had before. With ten or fifteen of these lasers surrounding the United States in parking orbits at twenty-two thousand miles, we could sweep the sky of every single enemy missile that Russia could aim at us. There is no running-dry problem, no ten percent of the enemy missiles that would get through. It is an amazing weapon and one that could insure world peace for the next hundred years.

  "Conservatively, we are twenty years ahead of the Russians on this one. That is why they are trying so hard to get the research secrets and destroy our test projects. They have stopped only one of twenty-two tests we have conducted."

/>   "What about this Dr. Ludlow?" Bolan asked. "Can we trust him?"

  "He's the only reason I came up here from UCLA to work on the program. Roth Ludlow is a near genius. He is dedicated, a brilliant 'what if man and a good friend. I'd say right now he's the most valuable single individual in the entire United States defense establishment. He was an Air Force pilot in Vietnam.

  "He is not an easy man to know. Tends to be a bit moody and something of a loner. He has a beautiful and gracious wife, and two kids. But there is no way Smith or his people could subvert him, blackmail him, even get close to him. So they have to work through others."

  "So Dr. Ludlow is not one of our problems? He would not sell out?"

  "I'd stake my life on that, Mack."

  Bolan had told Dr. Peterson his name was Mack Scott, a cover name he had used before. The scientist sighed wearily as he looked at the Executioner.

  "I should get a couple of hours sleep if I want to function tomorrow," Dr. Peterson said.

  He noticed the puzzled expression on Bolan's face.

  "Mack, the one guy in the whole place you don't have to worry about is Roth Ludlow. There is not a chance in the world that he could be involved."

  5

  First Lieutenant Roth Ludlow, USAF, sat in his small cell-like room in a special "rehabilitation and retraining" center just south of Hanoi. Life had been much better lately. For a while there, just after his capture, he had considered suicide. There was nothing to look forward to but pain, torture, degradation and continual verbal and physical attacks. He came close to taking his life one night in the dark when he was trying to sleep a foot away from his own excrement.

  The first month had been the worst. He had been moved from one village to another in the tiger cage. He had become a perpetual naked curiosity and a manifestation of the American enemy, who were fighting the VC and bombing them. They vented their rage on him. They jabbed him, spit on him, and the old men delighted in urinating on him.

  At last he was transferred to a prison compound where he was confined to a large barracks-type room, given clothes and then interrogated for twenty-four hours straight. But he did not break. He told them his name, rank and serial number, and then began inventing all sorts of fanciful stories. By the time they found out each one was not true, days had elapsed.

  His nose had been broken twice, his arm twisted behind him until it nearly broke, and one knee dislocated. He had told a friend in the compound how to pop it back into place, and a week later the leg was back to normal. A smash on the skull with a teakwood club had left him partially blind in one eye for a week, but that gradually improved.

  He had been in the camp four months when he and four other prisoners were hauled out of the compound, told to take showers and cut their hair, then were given new clothes and shoes. He had not seen a pair of shoes since his flight boots had been taken from him the day of his capture.

  When they talked in the shower they discovered all five were officers, four pilots and an infantry captain. They were put on a truck and taken into Hanoi where they were interviewed separately. Ludlow never saw the others again. The talk was conducted by a Vietnamese officer who spoke English like an American.

  He offered Ludlow cigarettes, a candy bar and a bottle of Coca-Cola. In an hour and a half of tape-recorded conversations, the pilot gave out nothing of military significance but felt almost human again. He enjoyed it while he could, knowing he would be back in the mudhole of a prison camp within hours.

  He was not. Instead he was taken to a high-security area, which had individual rooms for each prisoner. There was no rule against talking, and he talked for an hour at his cell door with the prisoners already there. They knew little. But they agreed that living conditions were better than before. They came from various prison camps. None of them knew why he had been brought there.

  The next day it began. He had heard of psychological torture. "Brainwashing," some called it. It began with total darkness, thirty-six hours of blackness and noise so he couldn't sleep. Then the questions came, and the instructions. He quickly found that he had a low pain threshold.

  Within ten days he learned how weak he was. He would do anything, say anything to gain favor and to get sleep, food and quiet. The part he hated most was when they placed the metal bucket on his head. His hands were tied behind him and they pounded on the pail with a metal rod until he succumbed, screaming.

  One day they gave him a revolver and showed him that all six chambers were empty. Then they put one round in, closed the weapon and told him to spin the cylinder. He refused. They knocked him down. After a ten-minute beating he spun the cylinder, aimed the revolver at his foot and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  They did it four more times, forcing him to aim the gun at his head. The last time it discharged and for a millisecond he thought he was dead. But his Vietnamese tormentors howled in laughter. They had put a blank in and he only received a third-degree burn on the side of his head.

  The next day he met Moskalenko for the first time. He was a full colonel in the Russian army and Ludlow guessed he was in the secret police, too. What did the Russians call them now, the MKVD, or was it the KGB?

  For two months Moskalenko visited Ludlow every day. They talked of world power, of peace, of World War II and of America. Moskalenko had spent three years in Washington, D.C., at the Russian embassy.

  Colonel Moskalenko was a master psychologist and a talented hypnotist. His subjects never realized they had been hypnotized, so could fear nothing from the sessions. Slowly he had put together a complete file on Ludlow.

  At times when Ludlow came back from these sessions he could remember little of their conversation except the good-morning and the handshake. They were a blank, a void, and that worried him. But he was being treated humanely for the first time in nearly eight months. He was eating good food, well prepared and served on a steel mess tray.

  After two months of talks with the colonel, Ludlow was moved to a two-man room in another wing. The prisoner inside with him was a corporal from Pittsburgh. He was constantly suspicious, foul-mouthed and angry. His one purpose in life was to kill his jailers and get to the arms-storage room where he could get enough weapons and escape.

  Ludlow respected the man for his courage but thought his reasoning was faulty. There wasn't a chance of breaking out of there. Their captors had warned them about that, shown them the security. It was tight.

  One day Ludlow went as usual to the sunlit room where a bowl of fruit sat on the table. A cold bottle of Coca-Cola stood beside the fruit.

  "Help yourself, Captain. I have promoted you. We hear on the radio all pilots captured will be automatically promoted on their eligibility date, so I have made you a captain. Congratulations."

  The colonel wore thick glasses, and as he often did, he shook his head from side to side as he stared at Ludlow.

  "No, Captain, you do not need to thank me, you deserve it. You deserve it, Captain Ludlow."

  As the Russian officer said his name, Roth Ludlow's head dropped forward. The colonel continued.

  "That is correct, Ludlow. You are sleeping. When I say your first name, you will be alert, bright, cheerful, and you will remember none of this interview. Now, good morning, Roth."

  Roth Ludlow opened his eyes and looked up.

  "Morning, Colonel. Damn fine day out. May I have that Coke? It sure looks good."

  "Of course, Roth, that is why I brought it. You have been doing well in your training, Roth. Now I have a special mission for you. It is hard, but you can do it. It is hard because one of your countrymen has been collaborating with the enemy, and he must be eliminated. No, I cannot do it. We need someone inside, someone who knows the man, so he will not suspect. We want you to do the job, Roth Ludlow."

  "Collaborating?" Roth asked, suddenly serious. "That is a serious crime, punishable by death by the Uniform Code of Military Justice!"

  "True, Roth. True. And the man has been tried in your own court by his peers. He h
as been condemned and now the execution is waiting. The prisoner committee has asked me to have you do the job, since you are the senior commander here."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you have any qualms about it?"

  "No, sir. An order is an order. I'm a soldier. He is a traitor, and my men have given me the honor of the execution."

  "Good, good. I could not have said it better. You will take care of this small task the moment you get back to your cell." The colonel handed Ludlow a thin-bladed, six-inch knife. "You can conceal this from the guards?"

  Ludlow smiled. "Of course. These Cong guards are stupid. You know that, sir."

  "Yes, but they do give us an excellent laboratory to conduct our experiments, is this not true? You will remember nothing of this. You will begin stalking your victim when the guard brings your evening meal. The guard will say 'food' in English. Then you strike. Afterward you will be taken back to your regular cell and there I will use the words, 'well done' to bring you out of your trance. Do you understand all of this? If you do, repeat it to me verbatim."

  Ludlow did, a slight frown on his face.

  A few moments later Colonel Moskalenko smiled and used the word he always did to bring Ludlow back from his hypnotic trance. "Baseball," the colonel said.

  Roth Ludlow blinked, looked at the partly full bottle of Coke in his hand and took a swig.

  "My, but that's good! You don't know how I miss the little things, Colonel."

  "Like the Yankees. I saw in the New York Times that they lost again yesterday. That puts them well out of the pennant race this year. You are a Yankee fan, are you not, Roth?"

  "No, sir, Dodgers."

  When the Coke was finished, the colonel told Ludlow to take some of the fruit, indicating that the session was over. Colonel Moskalenko watched Ludlow feel in his pocket and recognize the shape of the knife, but Ludlow didn't say a word. He took the two bananas and went with his guard back to the two-man cell.

  That afternoon at four-thirty, Ludlow slit the throat of a corporal in the United States Army, and watched him die. Then the lieutenant was taken to his regular cell, where he and an English-speaking guard talked about baseball for a few minutes.