Orbiting Omega Read online

  At his desk in Portland, Oregon, the night monitor on the Federal Communications Commission took a phone call from his regional boss. It was 1:15 a.m.

  "Heard it yet?"

  "Heard what?"

  "The pirate broadcasting on three frequencies. He's blasting half the Portland stations off the air. What are you monitoring anyway? Get moving on it now. Highest priority. I just had a call from Washington, D.C., and this is hot. Get our pilot and our aerial triangulation team set up for takeoff at dawn from Troutdale airport. We have to find this outlaw an hour after daybreak or it's our asses!"

  The night man spun dials until he picked up the illegal broadcast. He rushed to the roof of the building and set up the portable direction antenna. Five minutes later he had a sighting line drawn on his map. It went nearly due east from Portland, passing directly over the summit of Mount Hood.

  The longer he looked at the line, the more he realized that the pirate was going to be out there in the middle of the Mount Hood National Forest, somewhere so inaccessible that they would have to hike in ten miles to find it. No. He made another phone call. There would be a chopper loaded and ready at the Troutdale airport at dawn.

  Once they were in the air they could work a quick triangulation and pin down the approximate position. Then another cross from ten miles away and they could pinpoint that transmitter and have the chopper over the spot in less than four minutes. He set his jaw grimly and turned back to the illegal broadcast.

  "There is no place in a peaceful world for the threat of a holocaust to be whispering overhead every waking hour. The twelve vehicles are now in orbit, circling the earth every ninety-four minutes. They are spaced apart and on different orbits, with primary target in the U.S. and Western Europe already coded and ready for firing. These warheads can hit any place on earth, can come smashing down out of orbit from almost straight overhead, giving practically no early-warning time.

  "Some experts say that a properly launched orbiting missile can be exploding at ten thousand feet over a radar antenna, at the exact instant that such an early warning radar picks up its first notice of a potential danger. In other words, zero warning time! Do you want to live with that monster over your living room, watching your baby go to sleep, following your teenagers on a picnic?

  "This is a warning to all nations with atomic weapons. The owners of such armaments from missiles to bombs to satchel charges to artillery shells will be destroyed soon. Contact your government representatives today to support me. Urge total disarmament now, before it is too late!"

  The air was silent for a moment, then the broadcast began again, repeating itself on the looped tape in the small tape recorder-player.

  At the Troutdale airport just before dawn, the Federal Communications chopper warmed up, awaiting the last team member. He arrived, jumped in and it took off as soon as the door closed. They had everything they needed on board, and headed due east toward Mount Hood. They would check the first azimuth, then pivot at a ninety-degree angle to that one and take another reading on the broadcast. When they had three given azimuths they would draw the lines and have an exact target. It would be easy — there was no movement at all of the signal.

  The chopper beat through the early-morning mists as the men inside worked with deliberate speed. They could not be wrong on this. The whole department could go down the tubes.

  They would know in twenty minutes exactly where the transmitter was. They had to. There was no alternative.

  11

  The Executioner ended his roll into the forest floor, holding the submachine gun against his chest. He came to a stop behind a huge pine. Three more slugs pounded harmlessly into the piñon five seconds late. The shooter was somewhere in front of Bolan. He wondered where Kitty was. She had started to circle to the left.

  Bolan peered around the trunk from the right side, saw movement ahead but was not sure who it was or the exact location. He crawled to the next tree four feet away, found he was in a shallow depression and scurried another twenty feet, moving around the suspected target. He came to his feet behind a ponderosa and looked around it.

  At first he could see nothing unusual. He concentrated on a sturdy tree ahead that presented a good field of fire in front of it. The position would be a natural protection for a sniper position. Bolan watched for two minutes and at last saw a head poke out from the left side of the tree to scan the area.

  The Executioner quickly picked out his new route to get to the side of the ambusher. He winced at the pain in his thigh, but knew it was a minor wound and ignored it. He fired a 4-round burst to the left of the target so the sniper would think he was safe. Then Bolan hurried for cover fifteen feet to the right and forward, starting to circle the enemy.

  Bolan heard return fire, but it was aimed at his old position. He flattened behind a downed log and crawled to the front of it. He was far enough around now so he could see the sniper's legs spread out behind the tree. The man had not moved.

  Bolan lifted the Ingram and sprayed ten shots at the camouclad legs, and paused. The gunman wailed, spun around and started to return fire just as Bolan emptied the Ingram's magazine. The rounds slammed into the enemy's chest, pulping his aorta and slashing through his heart in a death surge that flung the bushwhacker to the side into sudden and everlasting death.

  Bolan tensed and listened. Was there one gunner, two or more? He heard nothing for two minutes. He invested another sixty seconds in caution, then moved soundlessly toward the body. It lay sprawled on the forest floor. Bolan had put a new magazine in the Ingram and now paused at the side of a protective pine watching the area ahead. It was far too early to move in. Kitty must be up there somewhere. He could see the dead man plainly now. He was Japanese and had a flattop haircut. The uniform.

  Bolan waited again. There had to be more than one man on a roadblock like this. As Bolan watched the greenery, he saw movement. Another minute and he could make out someone coming through the trees, working toward the lifeless defender.

  Another minute and he was sure it was Kitty. He wanted to yell at her to go back, but it was too late. She moved cautiously, but too soon. She held the submachine gun in front of her, ready. She ran the last dozen feet lightly, both hands on the gun, ready to fire. At the body she stopped, surveyed the area and was about to turn when Bolan saw someone else move. A man was behind her, deeper in the woods. Bolan tensed and swung the Ingram up. A few seconds later he spotted two men sliding from tree to tree, advancing on Kitty. Both were armed.

  He waited until they were ten feet from her. It was obvious they were trying to capture her, not kill her. At ten feet they had an open spot to cross, and Bolan drilled the first charging man with a 10-round burst, splitting his chest and neck with a cascade of buzzing rounds that drove him backward into perpetual silence. The second man vanished into the brush.

  "Kitty! Get down. There's another one," Bolan bellowed at the Russian agent. Then he ran in the direction the third defender had taken.

  They could not afford to let anyone escape and alert Dr. Dunning of their presence. Bolan was still surprised by the shooting defense. He had figured more benign measures, not bullets and combat-trained defenders. These National Guard troops were no slouches.

  The Executioner sprinted for fifty yards, then paused and listened. Ahead, he heard twigs cracking as he shifted course to the left. He could see little through the scrub cedar here. They were smaller and closer together, offering a good screen.

  Bolan ran through them cautiously, watching ahead, careful not to rustle a leaf or break a dead branch. Again he paused. He was on the crest of a small slope, and the direction still seemed to be straight ahead. Bolan scanned the bushy area and saw a man twenty yards down the hill. The figure paused, breathing hard, and looked backward. Then he came to a path, turned right and began to jog along it.

  Bolan checked the terrain. The trail led into a small ravine that worked upward toward a peak to the far right three or four miles away. Bolan turned more sharply ri
ght than the man had and ran through the sparser growth and down the hill to the right. He hoped to cut across the trail and wait for the runner.

  The Executioner pushed faster, sacrificing a certain amount of stealth now to permit speed. Five minutes later he came to the faint trail and found an observation point where the path came straight at him for ten yards. He settled down behind a rotting stump, checked his Ingram and waited.

  A few minutes later a Japanese man with a flattop came around the bend in the trail. He paused and looked behind, then put his M-16 between his knees so he could use both hands to retie a band around his head.

  Bolan fired a burst beside him.

  "Don't move if you want to take another breath!" Bolan barked.

  The man shivered, and the M-16 fell to the ground.

  "Leave it there. Hands laced on top of your head — now!"

  The man obeyed.

  Bolan walked up with the Ingram aimed at the center of the weekend soldier's chest.

  "Who are you and why are you trying to kill us?"

  "My name is Tommy Yashita. I was obeying orders."

  "What orders?"

  "To let no one pass through this area."

  "Who gave the orders?"

  "Sam Yamaguchi."

  "He works for Dr. Dunning?"

  "Dunning thinks so."

  "How many gunmen like you does Yamaguchi have?"

  "I'm not sure. Maybe twenty. Hell, a machine gun! He didn't tell us we'd be facing any of those."

  "What is Yamaguchi planning?"

  "Hell, you'll have to ask him."

  "I will, if he's still alive. Right now, smartass, you're going to show us how to get up the mountain to the trailer. And no arguments or I pull the trigger."

  "Okay, I'm out of the battle. I could have used the damn money, too."

  "Move it — back to your two buddies. Maybe you can bury them."

  It was ten minutes later when they came to the scene where the two bodies lay. Kitty was not there. He called softly, telling her it was safe.

  She came from a perfectly concealed position and nodded at him, the MP-40 up and trigger-ready.

  "Sorry," she said when she came in. "I should have known there would be more than one. You have saved my life."

  "We're even. The important point is we're both alive and we have a willing guide. He's going to take us right up the mountain to the trailer."

  "Uh-huh, unless the lady wants to take out a half hour in the brush with them tight pants down."

  Kitty smiled grimly at him and looked away. Suddenly she swung the submachine gun in a short arc, slamming the weapon against his chin. The man fell to the ground.

  "Now, what were you saying?" Kitty asked him.

  The flattop shook his head, holding his jaw. Blood was streaming from between his lips.

  Bolan had examined the two bodies. There was nothing on either one that would identify them or help his search. He nudged their guide with his toe.

  "Up, flattop — we've got to move."

  Kitty took out a small transistor radio and listened to it for a moment. When she turned it off she gave Bolan a quick rundown on the news reports about the captured MIRV and the two explosions and Dr. Dunning's explanation why he did it.

  "At least we know why he captured our MIRV," she said. "He is peace crazy. We have some of them on our side, too. He is crazy and thinks this will help. We had a nice balance of power before, a status of equality. Now he could be ruining it."

  "And he might drop the next warhead on Russia or on the U.S. as another warning," Bolan said. "We better move up there and stop him."

  Their guide walked with reluctance. Bolan stopped, grabbed his right arm and twisted it behind his back.

  "In two seconds I can break your arm. And I won't hesitate if I think that will help you do what I say. Am I getting through to you?"

  "Hey, I hear you. I'll show you the valley. It's right up the main road where it forks. No worry. I just want to come out of this thing alive. It's got me thinking a little."

  "Probably too late. Let's move."

  They jogged up the forestry road for a quarter of a mile to the fork. The heavy truck tire tracks led up the roadway to the left. Their flattop guide paced another hundred yards with them on the left arm of the trail and stopped.

  "Look, man. My deal was I could stay alive. Now up there another hundred yards are a few man traps. A Nam thing to catch you. I'm not sure what it is. I can't go up there, because there's some kind of a blocking position with two men in it. They see me helping you and I get blown away. This is as far as I go. It's right on up there at the end of this little valley. Hell, I'd get off the road, go around their traps."

  Bolan's experience dealing with hostages and frightened persons told him the Japanese flattop was telling the truth. He was scared.

  "Do you want to change your story? If you're lying to us, I'll come back here and cut your fingers off one at a time and make you eat them."

  The guide turned pale. "Look, man, I seen you blast my two buddies to hell. The blonde smashes me in the mouth with her machine gun. Don't you think I'm scared enough not to lie?"

  "I hope so." Bolan used his last two riot cuffs and left the trussed up ex-guide in the brush beside the road. He bound the man's hands in front of him. In a couple of hours he could chew his way to freedom.

  "Stay here. When we wipe out the problem up top, we'll come back for you. If you've lied to me, I'll be back quicker."

  Bolan motioned to Kitty to stay behind him as they began to move along the path. He used his K-Bar knife to cut a sturdy six-foot-long walking stick from a tree branch. Then they left the trail, heading into the trees. Bolan walked cautiously, testing every few steps with the stick, making sure the ground was solid. He had seen too many punji stake traps in Nam to blunder into one here.

  The trip wire caught him by surprise. It was waist high between two trees, and made of a fine copper wire that he could not see. It broke at first contact. He only had time to grab Kitty as he dived to the ground, dragging her with him.

  The explosion that rocked the pine forest was not a concussion grenade. To Bolan it sounded like three fraggers tied together, triggering each other and scattering the deadly shrapnel over a large area.

  Instinctively Bolan had ground his face into the pine mulch and crossed his arms over his head. When the sound of the zinging hot metal and the roar of the explosions died away, he heard Kitty gasping beside him.

  "Damn!" she said, sucking in a breath. He sat up and saw blood on her blouse. Bolan unbuttoned it and peeled the cloth back as she watched. Her bra was bloody and he saw the shoulder strap had been cut by the shrapnel that had slashed across her upper chest over her left breast. The wound was two inches long, but the metal had not bitten deeply before it had exited.

  She looked down at the blood. ''Only a scratch. Let me get rid of the bra — it is ruined." She slipped out of her blouse, took off the bloody bra and looked up at him. "Now it is your turn to see me without clothes," she said with a little laugh that he noted with surprise was slightly nervous. She let him look at her full, rose-nippled breasts, then shrugged and put on her blouse.

  Bolan pulled a package from his web belt, broke out a packet of dry medication and sprinkled it on the slash, then pressed on a giant-sized sticky bandage from the same envelope.

  "That should stop the bleeding," he said. She cleaned the blood off her breast and side and buttoned her blouse.

  "The man back there warned us about surprises, did he not," she said.

  Bolan nodded.

  The afternoon thunderstorm came suddenly, with jagged lightning cracking into the timber, and a light sprinkle showering them but only settling the dust, then it was over and the sun came out again.

  They had kept moving slowly forward during the rain. Bolan wanted to move farther into the woods, but now in the filtered sunshine he could see more thin strands of copper wire gleaming between many of the trees. There were none straight ahe
ad.

  They moved forward slowly another ten yards, and Bolan probed with his walking stick at a bent sapling in the path. At once he jumped back. Something on the floor snapped, whipping the walking stick out of Bolan's hand. A thin nylon line jerked the stick twenty feet into the air, where it hung from the top of a small ponderosa tree that had been forced downward.

  "A snare," Bolan said. "That could be you or me hanging upside down in that tree."

  He cut another walking staff and they moved ahead. Bolan saw a dozen blinking strands of copper wire in the path. He cautioned her to get behind a tree, and he threw his walking stick ahead of him, then jumped behind a pine. Three grenades went off one after another as the stick triggered the trip wires. The shrapnel whizzed around, the sounds echoing into the trees.

  "With this kind of a defense they sure don't want anyone discovering their transmission site up on top, or maybe the antenna," Bolan said.

  They moved again, walking along a faint trail another twenty yards when Bolan suddenly started sinking into the ground. He lunged back just in time and caught Kitty's hand. She fell away from him, dragging him back to solid footing.

  They sat on the ground, both panting from the sudden exertion, the surprise.

  "A tiger pit," Kitty said. They pushed aside the camouflage and saw a six-foot-deep pit, four feet wide and six long, across the trail. On the bottom were two dozen sharpened stakes two inches thick, all pointing upward.

  "Punji stakes," Bolan said. "It's one hell of a painful way to die." He tested the ground on each end of the trap and found another pit on the "safe" route around the end. The other end was solid ground.

  "Try the radio," Bolan said. "Maybe there's more news."

  The little set came on at once and was still tuned to the all-news station in Phoenix.

  "There was absolutely no excuse for the Soviet Union to have warhead-loaded missiles orbiting the earth. The President launched what one official called an all-out campaign to discredit the Soviets for maintaining guided missiles in orbit after agreeing repeatedly over the last dozen years that such an act would grossly endanger the population of the entire world.