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  His eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Bolan heard the scrape of metal on striker and looked to his right. A lighter flared briefly in the gloomy dark as the sentry lit another cigarette from the starboard gunwale. Bolan extended his arm and leveled the Beretta. It was a long shot for a silenced weapon.

  The pistol coughed once. The sentry crumpled, the cigarette tumbling from slack lips. The lighter fell and bounced off the deck, followed a heartbeat later by the corpse of the gunmen. Blood spilled out across the plate-metal flooring in a spreading stain of crimson.

  Bolan slid along to the port side and reached the aft superstructure where he found a flight of stairs. He followed them to the bridge. The wheelhouse door was locked but through a grimy window he saw the glow coming from a wide array of sophisticated, modern navigational controls.

  He crossed in front of the bridge and began checking doors. He was the consummate stalking predator, silent, deadly. He descend to the second deck on the starboard stair and found an unlocked galley door.

  Bolan opened the heavy portal and stepped slowly inside.

  The hallway interior was claustrophobically narrow and dark except for a single, dim emergency-light bulb set into the bulkhead at the far end of the corridor. Bolan moved carefully down the hall, trying doors and finding them unlocked.

  Each room was a comfortable cabin, obviously designed for the ship's officers when the vessel was under way. Bolan found the first two clean, made up and empty. When he opened the third door, a bodyguard rose from his bed, the glossy pages of a European porno magazine sliding out of his hand. There was a submachine gun on the bedside shelf that was twin to the H&K MP-5 the other sentry had carried.

  Bolan leveled his machine pistol and went to bark a warning, but the man was already in motion. The Executioner waited until the Serbian mercenary's hands found the weapon before pulling the trigger on his own.

  The Beretta recoiled smoothly in his grip and blood splashed the twisted sheets beneath the bodyguard. There was a sharp wet sound as the 9 mm Parabellum rounds slapped into the man's flesh and pinned him to the bed.

  Reflexively, Bolan put a third bullet into the man's forehead. The man lay still, and for a moment the only motion in the cabin was blood spilling from bullet wounds, then the Executioner was gone.

  Bolan ducked through the metal frame of the cabin door and only had time to throw up one hand in surprise as the eight-pound head of a sledgehammer sailed toward his face. The man wielding the sledgehammer let out a snarl of effort. Bolan's forearm caught the heavy tool on the haft just below the head of the maul. His arm exploded in pain and then went numb a heartbeat later.

  He managed to deflect the killing strike but was driven backward under the force of the blow. He staggered up against the cabin doorjamb as the silenced Beretta went spinning across the deck. Bolan saw a wild-eyed man with skin like dull onyx bearing down on him in filthy jeans and a dirty flannel shirt.

  The man lifted the sledgehammer and stepped in close to deliver another blow. The attacker's forearms and shoulders were thick with muscle and he was tall enough to see eye-to-eye with the six-foot-plus Bolan. His face was covered in stubble and his big, square teeth were stained nicotine-yellow.

  Bolan lashed out with his left hand as the man swung the sledgehammer back over his shoulder. Bolan's thumb caught him square in the eye and the man hissed with pain and tried to shake his head clear, but Bolan felt the peeled-grape texture of the eyeball squish under the flat plane of his thumb and knew he'd hurt the man.

  Bolan flexed the muscles of his back in the next instant and rebounded off the door frame and centered on his feet. Even as he repositioned, his left hand was drawing back and then lashing forward. His thumb targeted the man's neck adjacent to his Adam's apple.

  The blinded sailor suddenly gagged and his face distorted against the sudden bruising. Bolan darted in and used his left hand to grasp the heavy maul by its handle. He locked his grip around it like a carpenter's vise and then slammed his forehead into the man's face. Bolan mashed the man's nose flat and smeared it across his face.

  The man buckled at the knees and toppled, leaving the sledgehammer firmly in Bolan's grip. As he dropped, the soldier jerked his leg up and drove his knee into the falling man's jaw.

  Bolan struck at precisely the correct angle, and there was a sickening sound as the mandible separated from the skull at the hinge joint. The man slipped down to the floor and lay in a heap of slack, twisted limbs.

  Bolan set down the sledgehammer and retrieved his pistol. His heart was pounding in his ribs from adrenaline, and his arm was throbbing with an agonizing pain that put his teeth on edge. Holding his pistol in his left hand, he forced himself to work his right hand, wiggling each finger and making a fist to ensure the bones of his forearm had not been cracked by the heavy blow.

  The hand was weak and he knew his forearm would be black with a sheath of contusion markings, but he didn't think the bone had been more than bruised. He held the injured limb down by his waist and continued moving forward, weapon in his left hand now.

  He hurried down the hallway to the final door on the deck. He couldn't imagine Taterczynski staying in any of the smaller rooms belowdecks designed for the regular crewmen. From the position of the doorway Bolan realized the cabin he stood in front of occupied a corner area, making it larger than the officers' quarters he'd just investigated.

  He put out his injured hand and grasped the doorknob.

  8

  The President of the United States looked up from the report he held in his hand. His mouth formed a tight line, and his eyes were bright points in a dour face. He carefully set down the National Intelligence Estimate and scanned the pensive faces seated before his desk in the Oval Office.

  Finally he settled on the director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The INR had been the only intelligence-gathering agency exonerated by the exhaustive 9/11 Commission's report. Out of the sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, the INR was the one that got it right the most often.

  "Your people concur?" the President asked the INR director.

  The gray-haired man nodded. "Absolutely. I'd tell you it was a slam dunk, but I don't want to jinx it."

  Looking tired, the President sat back in his chair. He removed his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes as he slowly exhaled. When he was done he sat there, looking at the brief on his desk as if it had betrayed him personally. Finally he looked up.

  "The Israelis know, of course."

  It was a statement, not a question and no one bothered to answer the obvious.

  "It won't stand," the national security adviser said quietly. "We already knew this. Tehran with a nuke is a deal breaker for them. What we would or wouldn't do is immaterial. Defense Intelligence Agency reports that Israel began pгеррing bombers as soon as those Iranian jackasses moved the package down the highway under every military satellite in the stratosphere."

  "So Tel Aviv's going to want us to live up to our end of the bargain," the President said.

  No one answered him again. It wasn't a question. War, again, had reared one of its many ugly hydra heads.

  "String the fleet along the Gulf of Oman from Karachi to Muscat. Mobilize armor and mechanized forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to reinforce security activities along the Iranian borders there," the defense secretary said, speaking for the first time.

  "What about the Caspian?" the President asked.

  The defense secretary shook his head. "Their 1924 treaty with the Soviet Union left them underpowered there, with no naval bases on the Caspian coast. Our air elements in Turkey should be enough to seal the ports."

  "If—when," the national security adviser corrected himself, "the Israelis take out the threat they'll have to pass over U.S.-controlled airspace. Iranian forces will fire on our assets in retaliation. We have NSA transcripts confirming that. What do you want us to do?"

  The President looked up. "I won't send men into harm's way, the
n ask them not to defend themselves."

  "You understand, of course, where that will leave us," the secretary of state prompted, speaking for the first time since the meeting had started. Her voice was quiet.

  The President nodded. He pushed away the thought.

  "When the Iranians fire, we fire back."

  "Maybe there's another way," Hal Brognola said.

  "Another way?" a skeptical President asked.

  "Maybe. My man in Sarajevo, on that matter we discussed, may be getting his hands on something important in a matter of minutes."

  "For all of our sakes," the secretary of state said, "I hope that's true."

  * * *

  The door handle turned easily under Bolan's grip and he pushed the door open, following close in behind it. He stepped across the threshold and into a lavishly decorated space taking up twice the square footage of the other cabins he'd investigated.

  The room was dark as he stepped in and moved quickly to one side to avoid silhouetting himself in the entrance. A pool of stark light illuminated the far side of the room, revealing a lamp on an old-fashioned desk of deep walnut grain. Bolan looked at the man sitting there. Looking tired and old, Peter Taterczynski stared at him from a plush wingback chair.

  The ceiling of the room was high enough to allow for a fan, and one turned lazily overhead. The room was thick with shadows but obviously ornately decorated. Bolan risked a quick look to ensure he was alone with the American traitor while making sure the man's hands remained flat on the desk.

  "Your men are dead," Bolan said without preamble. "It is time now for you to answer for your crimes."

  "How noble." Taterczynski smirked, but the smirk was tired and his voice held a tremble.

  "Rise slowly and put your hands on the wall behind you," Bolan instructed.

  Bolan moved forward several steps. He had cornered dangerous men numerous times before in the past. When faced with the reckoning for what they had wrought, many of the men had chosen a last desperate attempt at escape. Bolan was keyed to such a gambit now while his willpower alone suppressed the lightning bolts of pain from his injured forearm.

  The former intelligence analyst made no move to follow Bolan's orders. His hands remained motionless on the desk. Beside him was a bottle of vodka and a water glass half filled with the alcohol.

  "I said get up," Bolan repeated.

  Taterczynski smiled. He lifted the glass to his lips and gulped half the contents, then carefully set his glass on the smooth grain of the expensive desk.

  "Are you a killer?" he asked.

  "Yes," Bolan answered.

  "I can't go back. I can't stand the humiliation. I'm too old, too sick now to go to prison."

  "Things you should have considered before you betrayed your nation," Bolan countered.

  "True."

  The man's hair was lank and gray in the harsh light. He met Bolan's eyes with his own, and the bags under them were heavy. Despite his wealth, it was obvious that life as a fugitive had not agreed with the former government agent.

  "I can't go back," the old man said.

  "I'm taking you back." Bolan looked down at him.

  "Are you a religious man?"

  "Religious enough."

  "I was—still am, I guess—a Catholic. I thought I had cynically put such things behind me in my youth. But now that I am old and ashamed I find myself no longer quite so certain."

  "What is your point?"

  "That I can't kill myself. It's a sin and my soul is already so stained by my actions I fear receiving forgiveness now that I'm so close to seeing the Almighty."

  "I don't have time for this crap," Bolan snapped. "I'm not going to kill you when you hold so much information. You can live a life of repentance in prison. I'm not here to offer mercy. I'm not here to judge you—your actions judged you, but I am your judgment."

  "I told you I can't go to prison. I can't commit suicide. You must kill me."

  "I won't shoot an old man just to release him from his own cowardice."

  "I'll pay for my life."

  "What?" Bolan demanded.

  He was put off by the turn of events he had discovered on this ship. He was a past master at reading the intentions and sincerity of people. It was a prerequisite skill for survival in his world, and he had survived for a very long time in that world. Taterczynski was sincere, but about what Bolan still had not figured out.

  "I was prepared for you," the man answered. "I put something of value on a flash drive, but I encrypted it. Let me show you."

  Bolan suddenly remembered what Brognola had told him over the phone as he moved from Palermo into Sarajevo. "The Iranian connection?"

  Taterczynski smiled and nodded.

  "Move slowly," Bolan said.

  Carefully, with a hand shaking from palsy, Taterczynski opened a drawer on his desk. He reached in and pulled out a flash drive.

  Bolan caught a glimpse of a Walther PPK inside the drawer from where Taterczynski had removed the flash drive before the old man pushed it closed again. The traitor carefully set the flash drive on the desktop between himself and Bolan.

  "What's this?"

  "The price of my release. Including the Iranian connection."

  "I could just take it, along with you," Bolan pointed out.

  "It's encrypted with a binary box trap. Try to open it without the code, and it'll scramble into incomprehensible zeros and ones."

  "Then we'll get the code from you."

  "Time. What is on that flash drive is time sensitive. Open it in time and you'll have an intelligence coup that could save lives, perhaps as many lives as I've destroyed in my hubris. Take too long and the window closes."

  Bolan looked into the man's eyes, read the truth there. "Give me the code," he said.

  "Give me my release. It is the only thing I ask."

  "What is the code?"

  "Give me your word."

  "How do you know I'll keep it once you give me the code?" Bolan countered.

  "Faith is all I have left. Give me your word and I'll give you the code."

  The Executioner looked at the traitor. He nodded once.

  Taterczynski picked up a burgundy-colored pen from the desk and quickly jotted a series of numbers on a blank sheet of creamy paper. Bolan looked down at the numbers.

  The old man looked back up at him. "This is the combination to the safe set behind the Monet on the wall over there. Inside you will find a hundred-dollar bill in an envelope. The code to the binary trap on the flash drive is the serial number on that bill."

  Bolan looked at the former analyst. The man looked back at him. Tears made his eyes look weak and shiny in the unforgiving brightness of the lamp. His neck shook with his suppressed emotion.

  "Please" the man whispered.

  The Executioner lifted the Beretta and gave him his final freedom.

  9

  Mack Bolan sat in the War Room at Stony Man Farm. At the conference table with him were Hal Brognola, Stony Man's director, and the Farm's mission controller, Barbara Price.

  The big Fed and the former NSA officer watched the phone set in the middle of the table. Bolan formed a steeple with his fingers and leaned forward to respond to the speakerphone. A bit of white tape showed from the end of his sleeve where the forearm had been bandaged.

  "Yes, sir, I can understand your situation," Bolan replied. "I would be willing to help out, provided that this is a Stony Man operation. I'm getting too old to play with new friends."

  "The DNI tells me that most of my usual assets are too occupied anyway, Striker," the President said. "As of late I've had to divert everything toward Iran not already tied up in other places in the Middle East. We need this done tomorrow, and we need replacement players. If we're going to get this done, we need you. Do it, and you and Hal will have earned my gratitude... again."

  "I'll see to everything, Mr. President," Brognola answered.

  "I trust you, Hal. Keep me informed. Thanks again, Striker."

&n
bsp; "I'll do my best," Bolan answered, and the President hung up.

  They sat in brooding silence for a few minutes, contemplating the task set before them.

  Taterczynski's flash-drive information had been helpful, but only a single brief on the memory stick had been truly critical. Of course the most vital piece of information had also been the most time sensitive.

  In forty-eight hours at a resort in Mandalay Bay, Myanmar, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations would convene. ASEAN had first been created to form a bulwark against the spread of communism in the region, but as the cold war subsided Vietnam had been allowed to join the association on July 28, 1995.

  The ASEAN meeting would be attended not only by high-level diplomatic functionaries from the respective nations, but also by their intelligence services. Industrial espionage, bribery and trade secrets were always high on the agenda at such gatherings, deep behind the scenes.

  Vietnam would be participating in these discussions with a zeal and skill level unrivaled by their Southeast Asian counterparts. Part of their team would include a man named Andrei Lerekhov, a former KGB officer and now an adviser to the Vietnamese government.

  Hal Brognola sighed. "Let's start at the beginning, go over it slowly and build a plan of attack from there. Barb?"

  The honey-blond, mission controller oversaw Stony Man operations with skills both subtle and overt. She did not miss details, she did not fail to plan for contingences, she treated nothing as a "slam dunk" assessment.

  "Andrei Lerekhov. The electronic intelligence expert is sixty-seven, a devoted Communist who fled to Hanoi during the glasnost years of Boris Yeltsin. He serves as a tech expert for their communications intelligence program in the TC2," Price began.

  Bolan grunted in recognition. TC2 was the abbreviation for the Vietnamese Department of Military Intelligence. The agency had been around for quite a while but was believed to have really cemented its reputation during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. Despite its designation as a Military Intelligence entity, its sphere of influence went well beyond military matters.