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  “Yeah, I know,” Bolan said in a hollow voice. “I’m going to need a crew as backup. Street soldiers. Good old-fashioned hardass killers.”

  “What about Ziggy? He might talk and blow the whole thing.”

  “We made a deal, and so far he’s keeping up his end with hard intel,” Bolan said. “The Farm is keeping him safely under wraps until this is over.”

  Stony Man Farm was the secret base of the Sensitive Operations Group, which was comprised of America’s top antiterrorist teams, Able Team and Phoenix Force. Hal Brognola was its director.

  “What about using Phoenix Force as your crew?”

  “Already asked. The guys are busy in Australia on some other matter, out of touch until further notice.”

  “Pity.”

  Bolan shrugged. “Also, they don’t have a street rep.” He paused. “I may need to do things they can’t condone to get the job done. For this mission I need real criminals. Not names, but known faces.”

  “Which means...Leo?”

  “He’s never let me down before.”

  “Man, this is going to be bloody,” Brognola said slowly, resting a hand on the shoulder of the larger man. “You ready for this?”

  “Got no choice,” Bolan said with a shrug. “I have to make Castle approach me. Then I arrange to meet the person in charge and burn down their house.”

  “Sounds simple enough, but you and I know that the truth is far different,” Brognola said, rubbing an old scar under his shirt. “You need anything? Fake identity, special weapons... I have a discretionary fund of a couple million.”

  “Thanks. I’m fine on that front.” Bolan emptied the brown paper bag onto the ground. The pigeons attacked the sprinkling of popcorn crumbs like the Allies at Juno Beach. “And my own discretionary fund is slightly bigger than yours.”

  “No doubt.”

  “But, Hal... If this should go wrong...”

  “I’ll keep a watch on your brother like he was my own kid,” Brognola said. “Promise.”

  “Good enough.”

  Bolan offered a hand and the two men shook. They separated as the pigeons exploded off the gravel in a flock, swirling and circling like windswept leaves. Chaos with feathers. Then they abruptly darted skyward and vanished into the night.

  “Rats with wings,” Brognola said, turning back to his friend. But the bench was empty. Bolan was gone, already moving toward the dark rabbit hole of the insane mission.

  Chapter 5

  Tarrytown, New York

  Taking off his tailored linen jacket, Torval Johnson hung it neatly in the closet, then pulled both of the modified Glock pistols out from his shoulder holster and laid them on top of the dresser for easy access. She would be here soon, and he wanted to be ready.

  Outside the bulletproof window of the room, Johnson could see soaring mountains and a whitewater river ending at a thundering waterfall. He smiled. As the pundits liked to say, location was everything!

  The heavily forested Catskill Mountains rose and fell in jagged majesty across upstate New York. A seemingly endless vista of blue-green pine and fir trees, many of the peaks were snowcapped even in the summer, but the deep valleys and misty glens stayed deliciously cool in the hot summer months.

  Wide and smooth, Route 95 cut through the lower foothills, extending downward all the way to the Florida Keys and upward into Maine. It was the main artery of travel along the entire eastern seaboard.

  In the Catskill Mountains, a wild tangle of paved roads connected the interstate to a host of lodges and resorts. Summer or winter, they were packed with visitors. Thus strangers were commonplace in the Catskills, out-of-state license plates attracted no attention whatsoever, and the occasional helicopter was considered uninteresting by the local residents. Even a Black Hawk. Summer or winter, the Catskills were the playgrounds for New Yorkers and Bostonians alike.

  There was a soft knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Johnson said, stepping in front of the dresser.

  The door swung open and in walked a tall, leggy blonde wearing a loose summer dress and ankle-strap wedge sandals.

  She was young and beautiful, looking like she had just done a commercial for a new health drink. Her makeup was simple, almost demure. Her natural blond hair hung loose to her waist and her toenails were painted a bright red, the exact same color as her fingernails and lipstick. As per standing instruction, she was not carrying a purse or anything else that might hide a deadly weapon.

  “All ready, I see, Thor,” she said with a smile.

  He smiled. “You’re the highlight of my week, Lu.”

  “So I gather,” Lucinda Stevenson said, closing and locking the door. “Well, sit down. I know this is a quickie.”

  “Sadly, yes,” Johnson said, removing the shoulder holster and hanging it off a mahogany coat rack. “Business... You understand.”

  “Who better?” Stevenson laughed, sitting to remove her shoes. She was a lot shorter now; the sandals added almost six inches of height.

  Most men she encountered liked tall women. But not Thor. He was so damn big that even professional female basketball players seemed short in comparison. Her guess was that he had given up looking for taller women years ago and now settled for average woman. As average and commonplace as he could find. But then, many unusual men sought acceptance through the embrace of a normal woman, even if it had to be paid for in cash.

  “I always wanted to ask, where do you get your clothes?” Stevenson asked, loosening the straps of her dress. She shrugged and the dress slipped off to form a loose silk puddle around her bare feet. There was nothing underneath but tan lines. She posed for a moment to let him admire the view.

  “Savoy Road, London,” Johnson replied in a husky voice.

  “Really?”

  “When you’re this big, everything needs to be hand-tailored,” Johnson said with a dismissive shrug. His voice sounded oddly similar to the waterfall outside.

  “Wow, that must cost a fortune.”

  “So do you.” Johnson laughed, removing his pants. He folded them neatly on the dresser, near the guns, but not covering the weapons.

  Going to a massive oak chair, he sat and spread his legs wide.

  Allowing herself to giggle, Stevenson slowly walked closer and knelt in front of the giant to start using both hands. He inhaled sharply as her nails raked tender flesh. “You know, I’ve seen bigger,” she said.

  Breathing heavily, Johnson raised an eyebrow. “Have you?”

  “Sure, on a race horse!”

  Johnson chuckled politely at the joke, even though he had heard numerous variations of it ever since he was ten years old.

  In his youth, Johnson had read a lot of medical books to see if there were any others like him. There were not. Giants were as rare as dwarves.

  Everything Johnson wore had to be specially made, including his weapons. His fingers were too massive to fit into the trigger guard of a standard handgun. His Glocks had cost thousands to modify properly, which was why Johnson always carried two. In case he dropped one or lost one in a fight, he’d have a spare.

  Outside of a circus or a freak show, work for a genuine giant was extremely hard to find. Thus he had been delighted when the local prison had accepted his job application to be a guard. The warden had decided the minor cost of modifying the uniform would be more than paid back by the sheer intimidation factor of the colossal teenager.

  Foolishly, Johnson had assumed the job would be mostly walking dark corridors and escorting people into their cells. There had been a riot on his first night and Johnston had been forced to gun down two prisoners to keep them from killing another guard.

  Disgusted with the savage brutality of the system, Johnson had started smuggling small items into the prison to comfort the prisoners: instant soup,
chocolate bars, cigarettes and such. However he was soon caught, jailed and sent right back into the very system he had tried to improve. Johnson got a view of life behind bars from the other side. Before long he’d reestablished his old smuggling network, rapidly escalating to drugs and weapons.

  Then on a cold November night, Johnson had broken out and faked his own death. A free man again, he’d immediately started work on a new organization to legally change the prison system. But for that he’d needed huge amounts of cash. To get it he began helping rich prisoners escape, and thus Castle was born. Although many others disagreed, at first Johnson thought of himself as a folk hero, fighting fire with fire. But with wealth came power, and soon that was all that mattered anymore. The exhilarating sense of freedom that came from unrestrained power....

  Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door.

  “Busy!” Johnson bellowed.

  “Albania, sir!” a muffled voice announced.

  Johnson snapped his head toward the door. “What did you say, Carter?”

  “Albania!” the man repeated in an urgent tone.

  Growling unhappily deep in his throat, Johnson pushed the woman away and stood. “The money is on the dresser, Lu,” he said, grabbing his pants and stepping into them. “There’s a car waiting outside to take you back to town.”

  “But I haven’t... I mean, you haven’t...” Stevenson spluttered.

  “Business,” Johnson growled, quickly getting dressed.

  Checking the magazine in both Glocks, he swiftly left the room, leaving the door open behind him.

  “See you next week, honey!” Stevenson called out, her voice echoing along the bare concrete hallway.

  Impatiently following Carter, Johnson waited until they went down the stairs and across the hall before asking anything. The last thing Johnson wanted was Lucinda hearing anything about his real business. She thought he was a Wall Street banker named Brian Gunderson. If she learned the truth, Johnson would have to bury her in the stone quarry with the rest of the people who had gotten too close to Castle. Secrecy was paramount in this line of work. Exposure meant disaster. It was that simple.

  Entering a library, Carter closed the door. A cheery fire blazed in a stone fireplace and every wall was lined with books. Newspapers and magazines from around the world were neatly stacked on a row of tables, and fluorescent lights softly hummed from the smoke-stained timbers overhead. In the far corner was a weapons cabinet, the door ajar to show racks of AK-47 assault rifles.

  “All right, what is it?” Johnson demanded gruffly. “Are the police here?”

  “No, sir, nothing like that,” Carter said. “One of the guards from Preston attempted to track down Lieutenant Dooley. We intercepted the online search, backtracked it to his ISP and...” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Any chance they’re old friends?”

  “No, sir, it was blackmail.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Sir?”

  “I meant Dooley,” Johnson huffed, cracking his knuckles. “I told the man that ridiculous beard was not enough of a disguise.”

  “Yes, sir, but you know the lieutenant.”

  “Stubborn as a Mississippi mule.” Johnson rubbed his face with both palms. “All right, where are they?”

  “Dooley is still in Texas. The guard is downstairs in the basement.”

  “So the lieutenant doesn’t even know about this yet?”

  “No, sir. Lane wanted to break radio silence, but I refused.”

  “Wise move,” Johnson said, pulling out a Glock. He racked the slide to chamber for immediate use. “Okay, let’s go have a chat with our guest.”

  Cutting across the spacious library, the two men walked past the empty dining hall, then down a long flight of stairs. The door at the bottom was sealed with BRS, and Johnson placed his hand against the glowing plate set into the wall. There was a short buzz, and the door unlocked.

  Walking inside, they saw several more guards standing in a loose group around an old man tied to a metal chair. The chair was bolted to the concrete floor and the man was securely tied in place, each limb lashed to the chair with a different rope. A cloth was tied across his mouth and there was dried blood in his hair. His eyes were closed, his head bowed in sleep.

  “Why didn’t you use a Taser?” Johnson asked with a scowl. “He’s useless to us dead.”

  “We did,” Carter replied. “But he still managed to pull a gun. So we had to get...aggressive.”

  “Tough old bird,” Johnson said in grudging admiration. “Who is he?”

  “Dana Rathburg.”

  Johnson scowled. “Did you search his apartment?”

  “Apartment, car, garage and toolshed,” Carter said. “We found nothing.”

  “Damn! Okay, wake him.”

  Carter snapped his fingers and another guard crossed the basement to fill a plastic bucket full of tap water. Returning, he splashed it across Rathburg. The man awoke sputtering and coughing.

  Pulling another chair in front of the prisoner, Johnson waited until the man settled down. “Hello, we’ve never meet before,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’m Torval Johnson, the owner and operator of Castle.”

  Writhing in his bonds, Rathburg flinched as if being beaten with a whip.

  “What’s that?” Johnson asked, cupping an ear. “If you know my real name, then I’ll have to kill you?” He smiled without any warmth. “That is sadly true. This is the end of your life. Nobody likes blackmailers.”

  Breaking into a sweat, Rathburg mumbled some sort of a response through the gag.

  Flicking open a knife, Johnson cut away the dirty cloth and Rathburg spent several moments spitting and clearing his throat.

  “I don’t know...what you’re...talking about,” he wheezed.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t believe you.” Johnson sighed, closing the knife and tucking it away. “So now I’m going to ask questions about where you hid... Well, whatever it is you hid to try to blackmail Dooley.”

  “Who?” Rathburg asked, blinking in confusion.

  Reaching out with a hand, Johnson slapped the old man across the face. Rathburg’s head snapped to the side and blood exploded from his broken nose.

  “You have two choices,” Johnson said in a friendly voice. “Tell me the truth and get a painless death. Or play stupid and we will take you apart until there’s nothing left but your bones.”

  Suddenly going pale, Rathburg began trembling.

  “Nothing personal,” Johnson said. “It’s just business.”

  “No, please...” Rathburg whimpered. “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Wrong answer.” Johnson held out a hand.

  Stepping closer, one of the guards placed a cordless electric drill into his palm.

  Tapping the button a few times to listen to the revving electric motor, Johnson then gently laid the steel drill bit against the man’s left knee. “What do you have, where is it hidden and who else have you told? The police? A friend? A lawyer?”

  “In the name of God, don’t do this!”

  “Damn, another wrong answer,” Johnson said, pressing the starter button.

  The drill whined, the man screamed, red blood spurted and the interrogation began in earnest....

  Chapter 6

  Los Angeles, California

  Throwing her legs off the bed, the naked woman rose and walked across the hotel room. Knowing that the man would be watching, she rolled her hips as much as possible to give him a good show.

  “Well, that was fun,” she said, checking her makeup in the dresser mirror.

  “I’ll say,” the man replied happily. A crumpled sheet covered his groin and his skin glistened with sweat.

  Turning, the woman lit a joint and inhal
ed deeply, allowing the sweet smoke to fill her lungs completely before slowly exhaling.

  “Ever been with a congressman before?” the man asked, putting both hands behind his head.

  “No, you’re my first,” she replied, walking closer to the bed. Demurely she sat on the corner and primly crossed her legs at the ankles. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Ashtray?” the congressman asked, reaching for one on the nightstand.

  She smiled. “No, nothing like that.” The woman inhaled again, exhaling the smoke through her nose this time in twin columns. “Would you stop that investigation into the strange prison breaks?”

  Jerking his head around sharply, the congressman stared at the woman for a minute, his features slowly hardening.

  “I should have known a gorgeous babe like you wouldn’t have anything to do with a guy like me unless it was business,” he rumbled, sitting up in the damp bed.

  “Half business,” she said with a laugh, gesturing with the joint. “You are very sexy, and I do like older men with money and muscles.”

  Muttering crude vulgarities under his breath, the congressman rose and padded naked to the chair in the corner. “Hope you had a good time,” he said, grabbing his pants and stepping into them. “Because we’ll never do this again.”

  “Oh, but I think we will,” she replied, bending to get something from under the bed.

  Straightening, she pointed a remote control at the flat-screen television on the wall and pressed a button. The screen swirled with colors and then cleared into a view of the two of them naked and having sex.

  “You bitch!” the congressman roared, charging across the room and slapping the remote control out of her hands.

  “That hurt,” she said in a small voice, rubbing her fingers. “Now be nice, or else this will be emailed to your constituents, political party, every major TV station, your wife, kids and oh, yes, the President of the United States.”

  Breathing deeply, the congressman said nothing, his hands opening and closing into fists as if by their own accord.

  Smiling demurely, she patted the bed. “Now sit down and let’s talk a little business. Okay?”