Season of Slaughter Page 5

  He hit the gas hard, and wasn’t afraid to bounce Able Team or their prisoners around as he gunned the engine, sending the van blistering like a bullet away from the warehouse, fighting the wheel with one hand and staring our the rear window.

  Hitting the brakes, he didn’t quite send the Able team commander slamming into the rear door of the passenger section. Still, Schwarz heard the crumple of fender metal as they smacked a brick wall, sheet metal screeching on stone and spitting sparks as Kowalski kept the van plunging into reverse.

  In the distance, a tongue of flame snaked out the doorway, windows suddenly vaporizing as orange clouds of superheated air smashed them apart, raining in deadly fury down onto the access road alongside the warehouse. Had the van stayed there, everyone inside would have been incinerated.

  But what about Bolan?

  THE EXECUTIONER HIT the ground, skidding along the concrete until he was behind the huge tire and axle of an 18-wheeler’s trailer, the massive disk forming a foot-and-a-half-thick shield as the shock wave of the exploding fuel tank crashed numbingly across him. The trailer itself groaned, and Bolan looked up in helpless horror as it appeared for a moment that the thing would flip over onto him.

  Instead Bolan was engulfed by the outermost edge of a wave of superheated air. The glow of flash flared, casting him into midnight-deep shadow, then disappeared.

  The fireball hadn’t reached him, but Bolan’s skin was red, raw and dried out where exposed and his clothes were drenched through and through with sweat. His heart hammering, the Executioner got up, scanning the area, but he saw only desolation. Deep in his heart, he knew the quiet self-loathing that Carl Lyons and David Kowalski were flogging themselves with. Bolan knew how easy it was to beat oneself up over a setback. Right now, his ego was nearly as bruised and battered as his flesh.

  He’d lost Harpy, but he had the cell phone and the cloned line. It might not be much, but it was something.

  He had clues. The jamming. The paint. The cell phone. And two names: Harpy and DeeDee.

  “Gadgets? Pol?” Bolan asked, his parched throat crackling.

  Static greeted him, changing in tune with a muted voice beneath it.

  “Gadgets?”

  “…scrambling’s dissipating.”

  “I lost the targets,” Bolan said. “But I got some names and identification.”

  “We have two prisoners,” Schwarz answered. “You need medical assistance?”

  Bolan looked at his bleeding leg. The cut from landing on the chunk of wreckage was now accompanied by knees skinned raw through torn pants. He did a quick check and his elbows matched his bloodied knees.

  “A little,” Bolan answered. “But let’s wait until we get back to the Farm, unless you have someone worse off.”

  “Two prisoners with gunshot wounds in their legs. One’s nearly bled out,” Blancanales answered. “We’re pulling around to pick you up, but I don’t think we’ll be doing more than one interrogation tonight.”

  Bolan sighed. “I’ll be waiting by the 18-wheeler.”

  BURTON GROSS’S EYES opened gummily. His head felt like it was full of cotton wool and his legs were numb. He tried to wipe the crust from his eyes, but then stopped sharply and suddenly. He recognized the familiar grip of handcuffs and blinked away his grogginess.

  The room was dark, so dark he could make out only vague details around him, such as the fact that there were four men standing around him, and another figure in a chair next to him. That’s when Burton realized he was seated.

  The back of a chair pressed against his forearms, providing the leverage to keep him sitting upright, his legs entwined around the legs of the same chair. He shuffled his shoulders, trying to get some slack, but the people who’d chained him had done a thorough job. Looking down into his lap, he saw that his legs were bound in silvered duct tape, red-soaked gauze poking out around the sides of improvised bandages. He realized why his head felt so full of cotton; he was under sedatives or painkillers. Were he without drugs, he’d be screaming in agony.

  “You were shot in the legs,” a voice said grimly.

  Burton glanced up, seeing the tallest man he’d ever met. His lower face was obscured by a black scarf, nose and jaw completely hidden behind dark silk. The only features he could make out were dark hair and two icy-jewel eyes that stared through him with merciless regard.

  “I’m a prisoner of war. I demand proper medical attention,” Burton said through a dry mouth. Blood loss was making him slur his speech, and he fought to raise his indignation up to be strong enough.

  The cold, icy eyes regarded him in silence.

  “I said, I’m a pris—”

  The chair was kicked out from under him.

  “Shut the fuck up!” came an out-of-control bellow. “Fuck your medical attention!”

  Burton twisted, seeing two other men, wearing similar scarves, wrestling a fourth man. It was a struggle.

  “Not yet.” The grim man spoke. Reaching down, he lifted up Burton effortlessly and sat him upright.

  “You inhuman pricks….”

  Iron fingers clamped around his throat, cutting off his words.

  “Do I look like an official member of the government?” Bolan asked. “Those bandages are only in place long enough for you to spill whatever knowledge is in that hate-filled little skull of yours, Burton Gross.”

  Gross tried to take a breath, but the grip of the tall, grim man was irresistible, crushing down. He felt the blood vessels breaking in his skin and stars flashed in his vision as he struggled to wheeze down a lungful of oxygen. “No…wait…”

  “You wait.” Those icy eyes burned now with a hatred that Gross shrank from. His wrists strained against the handcuffs, blood pouring down his fingers as he fought to pry himself free. He wanted to find the nearest mountain and take shelter beneath its tons of stone, but he couldn’t move.

  Even his eyelids failed him, peeled wide open in abject horror.

  “There are passengers and crews of two passenger jets who won’t be breathing, who won’t be getting medical attention. Ever again.” The tall wraith’s growl seemed to shake the room, shaking Gross’s very soul. “You can wait a few moments for your next breath. And you can do without treatment for your legs.”

  The fingers released Gross’s throat and he coughed, spasming and bending as far as his bound arms would let him. Sputum filled his throat and he spit it up into his own lap, not caring about the mess, only sucking in sweet fresh oxygen.

  “I’m a true Christian soldier in the—”

  Gross’s head suddenly bounced and it was only a moment after he was in midfall that he realized something had struck him in the head with the force of a sledgehammer.

  “Restrain yourself or leave the room!” Bolan admonished Kowalski.

  “Just let me start cutting pieces off this sick, baby-murdering fuck!” the U.S. Marshall bellowed. Gross could see the strain on the other two men’s faces. He couldn’t be sure if it was a ploy, but they struggled to hold back the enraged man. Muscles bulged and veins rose on taut arms as they gripped him.

  “The Army of the Hand of Christ, Our Lord, doesn’t believe in abortion,” Gross murmured, almost defensively.

  Kowalski got one arm loose, popping free. Schwarz literally leaped to bring the fist back in line before it smashed Gross’s face into a smeary pulp.

  “Fourteen children died on those planes, and another three died in the airport, asshole!”

  “That’s enough. Pol, watch this man,” Bolan growled. He moved over to Kowalski and Schwarz, and the three people disappeared through a doorway.

  Blancanales stepped around to a table and poured a glass of water for Gross, putting it to his trembling lips. A lot of the cold water splashed down his neck, chilling him, but he savored the long drags of cool liquid down his throat.

  “You’ve got a break,” Blancanales said sympathetically.

  Gross sucked in frightened gasps. “I wasn’t behind this. They only told me to watch over th
e warehouse.”

  “I know. But ‘I was only following orders’ doesn’t satisfy some people,” Blancanales answered. He pointed toward a shadow off to Burton’s right. “We got as much as we could out of him.”

  Gross glanced over to see Jacob Kelly and winced, turning away to avoid looking at the horribly butchered corpse. “Jesus God!”

  “God isn’t here for you, Burton,” Blancanales answered. “And the colonel, he hates men who take God’s name in vain.”

  “But we don’t…”

  Blancanales shook his head. “You don’t get it. You believe in your god. He believes in his god. Trouble is, he slaughters punks like you for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a late-night snack. You’re with the Army of the Hand of Christ? He’s the incarnation of the Fist of God,” Blancanales growled. “And whatever made you think we have anything to do with the government? Do they do that?”

  Gross swallowed, going pale as Blancanales forced him to look at Kelly. His eyes accustomed to the half light, he saw the man’s lap strewed with messy, rubbery loops. “Please! Please!”

  “I can try to make it merciful on you. A quick bullet to the head and it’ll be over, no torture. No being thrown into the lye pit with Jacob….”

  Burton shuddered, tears pushing out between his closed eyelids. “I’ll tell you anything, make it quick. Not like Jacob….”

  “Do you know the woman who was in the warehouse?”

  “Only by the name Harpy,” Burton whispered.

  “She looked Asian. What were you doing with one of those people?”

  “We couldn’t really tell. The Army, we were just getting money from her people. She was flashing it around, and the bitch wasn’t treating us much better than shit on her boots.”

  Blancanales nodded. “And what were you paid to do?”

  “To paint a helicopter. Trouble is, I think Martin spent half the money for the paint.”

  “Martin Sellers?” Blancanales asked.

  Gross looked up. “You…you know all of this?”

  “Enough. We just want to confirm what Jacob told us before he died,” Blancanales replied.

  “He was a good man. He believed in God, and this country, not the way these politicians are tearing down our freedoms and liberties. You’re a man outside…you know what I speak of,” Gross murmured.

  Blancanales shook his head. The guy had lost it.

  “You didn’t have to destroy him like that. He has a family. He has a mother and a sister and two beautiful nephews,” Burton continued.

  Nothing more of use was going to come out of Burton Gross. He turned Gross to look at Kelly, and thumbed the horrifically hollowed eye socket. Clay crumbled free.

  “It was maroon-colored fuller’s earth. The intestines are just sausage casings. Jacob bled to death on the way here, and we got most of our information about you from your fingerprints,” Blancanales told Burton.

  The captive militiaman looked over, tears flowing down his cheeks. “And me?”

  “We’re leaving you for the cops, and an ambulance. You’re not worth the bullet it takes to kill a sellout like you,” Blancanales told him. He pulled a syringe with 200 milligrams of Thorazine and injected it into Burton’s pinned arm.

  Sleep claimed him in moments.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The flame blazed with almost blue heat before DeeDee Thunder pressed her cigarette into the lighter. Two puffs, and already the smoke burned good into her lungs. She flipped the little lighter shut, then stepped into the conference room, knowing already who would be there and who would be making a fashionably late appearance.

  Mojo, with his weird little glasses strapped to his head, reminded her of her little brother, she thought with a wry grin. His rusty hair poked up like a brush, accentuating the thinness of his face and neck, which seemed almost like a continual twig. He looked up from a book as she entered, leaned over and flicked on an air filter sitting in front of him, then went back to reading.

  “And a bloody happy good day to you, too, Mojo,” Thunder told him as she strode past, exhaling an extra-long lungful of smoke over his head. She gave a grin as he gave a couple of wheezing coughs before his air purifier cleared the air.

  Harpy was here, too, and she didn’t look happy. Her hair was in disarray, unlike the neat feathering that she normally had. It was badly chopped, and she clacked her claws on the tabletop, lips pursed tightly.

  “Bad hair day, love?” Thunder asked, cigarette bobbing between her lips.

  “You could say that,” Harpy said with a half scowl.

  Thunder nodded. “How did the cleanup go?”

  “I blew up the helicopter. A couple of the AHC bastards piled into the SUV with me as we got away,” Harpy said. She managed a serene smile, the tension leaving her. “I shot them both in the head and dumped their asses into the Potomac.”

  “Washington, D.C. police found a couple other bodies, and they have one of them in custody.” Skyline spoke up. If Thunder knew what nationality Skyline was, it wasn’t from his face. His dark-skinned features were craggy and could have been anything from sunburned Italian, Hispanic, Japanese or Arab and all points in between. When he spoke with the other members of the RING core group, it was in completely unaccented English, but he spoke other languages with such fluency that it made it impossible for anyone to figure out his true native language.

  It didn’t matter to Thunder if Skyline was human or Martian. He could read the pulse of a city, any city, with his own personal network of info scouts. He was also so quick and stealthy that he made Dark seem like a stumbling-drunk elephant, and was a chillingly precise and deadly sniper.

  Everyone in the room was among the best in the world at what they did.

  Harpy was a highly skilled pilot who was wanted by a dozen nations for drug, gun and fugitive smuggling. She was also fast on the draw and had gunned down more than a hundred thugs—police or criminal—who had tried to interfere with her.

  Mojo was a biochemist who, before Operation Iraqi Freedom, had been doing research on the sly for Saddam Hussein. The man, despite his twiglike build, was a survivor. An Israeli assassination team sent to murder him got sent back to the prime minister in assorted small boxes.

  Thunder awaited the arrival of Fixx, Dark and Adonis, knowing that tempers were on edge because of the warehouse debacle. She cursed inwardly as she spewed out a plume of smoke.

  This should have been a time of celebration. The strike on Dulles had gone off flawlessly.

  Or almost flawlessly.

  Someone had caught the Black Hawk’s arrival on radar.

  There was resistance in the airport. Dark called it the best fight he’d ever had.

  The conference room doors burst open in an explosion of black, twisting trench coat. Speak of the devil, Thunder thought. And literally, Dark was a devil by reputation. For years, he was one of the CIA’s top black operations assassins, a cleaner without peer. After teaming up with the man now known as Adonis, the two of them ruthlessly eliminated threats to the free world, from the lowest protestor to the most deeply ingrained terrorist cell in the nation’s capital. Then, one day, Dark and Adonis disappeared.

  Thunder had managed to find them. She’d recruited them because she needed the best. Though, with his face covered in bruises, lip swollen to disrupt his speech, he didn’t look like the best.

  Despite the battered features he wore like a mask, his mood seemed good.

  “Hello, ladies, gentleman…Mojo,” Dark said out loud.

  If Mojo looked up from his book, Thunder couldn’t tell through his blood-red goggles.

  Adonis and Fixx were both behind him, separating and going to their respective seats at the conference table, sitting down to relax.

  “Have a seat, Dark,” Thunder said.

  “No, thanks, none of these match my decor,” Dark returned.

  Harpy sneered. “You’re in a good mood for looking like that.”

  Dark grinned. “You should see the other guy.”


  He grabbed a chair, gave it a twirl and hopped into it, letting the spinning leather seat bring his battered combat boots to a gentle rest on the polished mahogany of the table. He folded his arms behind his head and reclined.

  “This isn’t a joke, Dark. The Feds have a live prisoner,” Thunder told him. “The man’s only a Christian Identity thug, but he does know about the RING forming an alliance of terrorist groups, especially among al Qaeda-allied groups and American militias.”

  Dark sighed. “But that was your plan all along, DeeDee. The Feds find out and don’t have a clue as to our real plan.”

  Thunder flicked ashes in Dark’s direction, prompting him to sit up and brush off his beloved trench coat. “They weren’t supposed to find out yet.”

  “You did tell us to split up,” Adonis said. “If Dark and I stayed at the warehouse, we could have taken care of the snoopers without starting a five-alarm fire.”

  Thunder grimaced. “I know. I screwed up, and nearly got Harpy cooked. We have to be careful. Just because we’re the best of the best, it doesn’t mean we can walk on water.”

  “Says you,” Dark interrupted. “How goes the RING rumors?”

  “The Righteous International Nihilism Group is only picking up attention at high levels. Nobody is even remotely interested in letting the world know about us through news agencies,” Thunder said.

  “I still say we should have called ourselves the Right Indignant Nasty Gobs. Posh ass Nihilism Group,” Dark said, holding up the point of his nose, his voice coming out in honks.

  Thunder stared from her seat, lighting another cigarette as Dark rose and paced the floor. “Dark, I know for a fact that you were born in Arizona. What the hell are you doing talking like a damn Londoner? And why don’t you paint the logo of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants on our headquarters while you’re at it?”

  Dark scowled. “First, I’m a mimic. I spent eight years doing cleaning for the government in England and posing as a limey. I like talking like that.”