Critical Exposure Read online

  Bolan disappeared into a dense part of the foliage. Once he’d proceeded far enough to be out of the view of Shoup or any of the other squad members, he crouched and withdrew a thin, cylindrical object just a hair larger than a pill. The device contained a high-frequency micro-transmitter that would pinpoint his exact coordinates to the dedicated GPS satellite maintained for Stony Man’s use. The codes were strongly encrypted, not to mention there would only be one man looking for them.

  Bottoms up, Jack, Bolan thought as he downed the pill with a swig from his canteen.

  Bolan unslung his M-4 carbine, wrapped the strap around his wrist to prevent the sling from making noise, then got to his feet and continued circling the perimeter of the camp. He moved with measured strides, cat-footing his way through the dense brush with hardly a sound. Most men his size would have been unable to move with such sure-footedness while simultaneously remaining whisper quiet in their course.

  Mack Bolan wasn’t most men.

  Bolan ventured a good hundred yards before circling back toward the camp. Something caught his attention—a low thrumming sound reached his ears and forced him to stop in his tracks in an attempt to identify it—enough to heighten his sense of alertness. It took him a minute or so but finally he identified the sound: some type of generator. Probably belowground given the dampened noise. If he’d been stomping around the jungle floor, he might not have heard it until he was on top of the enemy.

  So there was some kind of encampment here. At least Shoup hadn’t been lying about that.

  Bolan thought at first about keying his communications transmitter and advising Shoup he was about to make entry, but then he thought better of it. The smarter thing to do would be to create a little stir. He could then see how Shoup and his men reacted to the situation. If they came charging in to his rescue, he’d know they were legit. If they turned tail and ran, well...he’d deal with them when the time came.

  Bolan crouched and moved in closer to the perimeter, his senses attuned to the hum of the generator. The progress seemed agonizingly slow, but his patience paid off because he eventually located the generator. At first he found the camouflage tarp and then he realized that it covered a hard surface. They had obviously covered the generator well with a wooden plate vented to prevent a buildup of fumes. Bolan could barely detect the smell of spent diesel. A generator of that size would probably run an hour or two before it needed to be refueled, so he’d have to work quickly. Someone might come to check the fuel level at any moment.

  The soldier reached to his combat harness and withdrew an incendiary grenade. He didn’t want to make a lot of noise, but he also needed to make sure they wouldn’t be able to use the generator again. With luck, he’d be able to place the grenade as low as possible in the generator well, and the covering and generator would mask most of the sound of the blast. At least it sounded good in theory.

  Bolan yanked the pin and dropped the grenade through an open slat in the makeshift cover. He then crashed through some nearby brush until he made sure he was well clear of any flashback.

  Contrary to lore, incendiary grenades of that military grade did not explode, per se, but rather ignited and began to burn until they reached a peak temperature of approximately two thousand degrees in a matter of seconds. The internal thermite mixture, a combination of phosphoric chemicals and molten metal, would burn through practically any surface in no time. In this case, the fumes of diesel not being flammable, the fuel would merely burn. Contained within the pressure of a tank in the generator, however, coupled with the covered area that had only slats to leak oxygen, would provide the catalyst needed to generate an actual blast.

  The explosion didn’t provide as much damage as it did a distraction, which is exactly what Bolan sought. The mix of noise and heat would provide the pandemonium necessary to get him inside the camp to see if there really was a mission to be accomplished—Shoup would use to his advantage if he was really on the up-and-up—such as the rescue of one or two of these mysterious agents that had been allegedly working this case the entire time. Conversely, if it was all a setup, Bolan had already formulated a proper response for that, too.

  The thunder of a half-dozen boots and the swish of branches worked to signal Bolan it was time to move. The warrior pushed into the camp and found exactly what he’d expected to find: an open bivouac site of maybe a fifty-yard radius with a few small outbuildings ranged around it. Emerging from those openings were the silhouettes of men with varying styles of small arms, probably sourced off the black market. These were mercenaries, perhaps drug-runners or even terrorists, but they weren’t terribly organized. If nothing else, however, Bolan knew they weren’t friendly to the U.S. or his mission here.

  Bolan whipped his M-4 into action and triggered a trio of short bursts. The 5.56 mm NATO rounds found their marks, the first a target who had just leveled his own weapon in Bolan’s direction. The bullets perforated his gut before the enemy gunner could get off a single shot and he crumpled to the damp, muddy ground. Another enemy gunman caught a round in the throat, followed immediately by a second that tore away part of his chin and cracked bone. The last one to fall under the Executioner’s marksmanship was driven back until he connected with a tree before the impact pitched him onto his face.

  Bolan dived for cover even as a new group of a half-dozen gunners burst from the largest of the several outbuildings and opened up with sustained fire on the position he’d occupied a mere heartbeat earlier. Varying degrees of intersecting autofire burned the air and the acrid stench of fresh cordite permeated Bolan’s nostrils. The battle had been joined and so far, he couldn’t tell if he was getting any support from Shoup or the other combat controllers. What he did know was that there seemed to be a lot of fire coming from the camp, and none of the enemy numbers seemed to be dwindling.

  The Executioner unclipped a grenade from his combat harness, this one an M-67 fragger. Bolan yanked the pin and tossed the bomb into the group firing on his position, and then crawled through the dense foliage to find cover behind a tree trunk. While the M-67 had an average fifteen-foot kill radius, it could send shrapnel a significant distance. In this terrain, however, seeking solid cover was the best option and Bolan knew it. Unfortunately for his enemies, they didn’t, and having not seen Bolan actually toss the grenade due to the dark, most of them caught the blast full-on. Three were killed instantly, two mortally wounded, and the survivor thrown far enough by the initial blast that it knocked the fight and sense out of him.

  Bolan scrambled to his feet, located his next two targets and raised the M-4 to his shoulder. One of the most advanced of the dependable Colts, the ACC-M— Advanced Colt Carbine-Monolithic—featured a true free-floating barrel due to the single-component architecture of the upper receiver. Combined with the burst mode, it provided a very high first-hit probability—a consummate death-bringer in Mack Bolan’s hands.

  Bolan dashed from his position to another cluster of thick foliage wrapped against tangled, gnarled tree trunks. The jungle environment was one of the least hospitable but one that the Executioner had become quite accustomed to. He’d operated in a combat role on most every terrain, traveled to every continent, and fought in nearly every type of environment. From the urban jungle to the icy plains of the Arctic, Bolan had perfected his deadly skills and these foes were learning that lesson hard.

  Bolan still couldn’t see any support from Shoup’s unit and, given his current predicament, felt quite certain he was alone on this one. He couldn’t understand why they had abandoned him, though. Surely Shoup’s entire unit wasn’t bad. If he’d chosen to retreat when the fireworks started rather than provide covering fire and support, somebody in the unit would have questioned him. Still, the Executioner wouldn’t worry about that right at the moment. This situation demanded his full attention and he planned to keep fighting until the fight was done.

  Three more hardmen came up on his left an
d Bolan thought they were trying to flank him. Quickly he realized they were part of the team that had gone to investigate the fire in the generator pit and were now returning to assist their comrades. They didn’t see him until they were practically on top of him, at which point it proved much too late.

  Bolan flicked the selector switch to full-auto and swept the muzzle across their ranks, cutting down the three enemy gunners with firm resolve. In one respect, it truly proved to be like shooting fish in a barrel since he couldn’t miss at that distance. But somewhere in the heat of the moment—the sounds of violence and bloodshed that always accompanied a close-quarters battle scenario—Bolan felt something prick the back of his neck and then something hard strike him in the side.

  Vision blurred...sounds became muffled.

  Bolan had experienced the sensation a few times before and knew it for what it was immediately. He’d been drugged with a heavy dose of Thorazine or some sort of derivative. And even as that thought passed through his mind and he cursed himself for letting his guard down, his eyelids fluttered and the world around him went black.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bolan’s subconscious yielded to the steely consciousness of his mind, clearing the blanket of darkness like the parting of a murky veil. He sucked in precious oxygen as the black-red haze that brimmed his eyes gave way to a dim light. His tongue felt thick and dry in his mouth, and his head felt as if a little man on the inside were beating at his brains with a claw hammer. They were all the classic symptoms of post-tranquilization with a sedative, so Bolan didn’t let it concern him.

  The Executioner had been doped before.

  More frustrating, however, was that by attempting to circumvent the trap he thought Shoup had been setting for him, he’d managed to allow his enemies to capture him. At least he had the GPS micro-transmitter he’d swallowed, which gave Grimaldi a pinpoint location on his position. It didn’t tell the Stony Man pilot that Bolan was in trouble, but at least he knew where to find him. No matter, since Grimaldi had instructions to come calling if Bolan failed to make the rendezvous at either the primary or alternate pickup point.

  Rough hands grabbed the Executioner by his arms and sat him upright. Bolan had thought at first, through his drug-fueled haze, that he’d been confined, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Light blasted his eyes in the next moment and he raised his hand to shield them. As his environment became clearer, he realized that he was seated in an old wooden chair at a table and that he’d been lying across the seats of two of them. That’s probably why the ribs on his right side felt stiff and sore.

  “Who are you?” a voice demanded.

  “You first.”

  “Don’t give me any lip, friend, or I’ll just have you taken out and your throat cut.” The speaker followed that with a weighty silence and then continued. “Now, who the hell are you? And while you’re at it, tell me who sent you.”

  Bolan couldn’t see his enemy due to glare, but he forced a smile despite it. “You don’t need me to tell you that. Supposedly you have all the intelligence already. You’re the traitor in the DIA.”

  “I’m not with the DIA,” the man said, snorting. “I’m not with any U.S. military organization, actually.”

  “But you’re an American.”

  “Perhaps I am, perhaps I’m not. And so what if I am?”

  “So,” Bolan said, turning the conversation to his advantage, “tell me what you know about the operation in Colorado.”

  The man produced a snort of derision followed by a scoffing laugh. “That wasn’t me. In fact, that was a military insider.”

  Shoup. Bolan didn’t even have to ask a name to know who was behind it. The guy had set up this whole operation, probably a pretext to cover his ass if anyone official from the DIA or CID came sniffing around. If too many bodies started to disappear around Shoup back in the States, he’d have a lot of explaining to do. But if an officer died here on a mission, or the occasional straitlaced enlisted man died there, who would question it? Covert operations performed by military personnel were typically the most secret, since the press didn’t have prying eyes in every combat sector.

  Bolan started to open his mouth but his words were cut off by the contact of something hard and unyielding to the side of his head. The punch felt like it had some sort of reinforcement behind it, perhaps a leather glove with metal or plastic shivs in finger pads. Bolan couldn’t tell where the punch had originated, but he knew his assailant hadn’t put everything behind it. They wanted him to talk and they were going to make him talk by employing whatever methods they had perfected. Bolan had been at this game for a long time. It had never ceased to amaze him exactly what kind of terrible things might be conjured by humans to be perpetrated against their own kind.

  Bolan tasted the salty hint of blood and it felt as if his lip may have caught on a tooth. He spit the offensive matter away and shook his head. “I’ve been through a lot worse than that. I’m not going to tell you anything, no matter how hard you beat me.”

  “That was only a sample of what you’d get,” the voice said. “You could avoid anything worse if you were just more forthcoming.”

  Throughout the conversation Bolan had been using a tried-and-true method of stalling while he thought about what sort of cover story he could tell. He saw no reason to resist, since it would most likely be just as this guy had said and buy him nothing more than beatings and worse. He couldn’t move forward with the mission if he let them perform unknown torture on him, weakening his mind and body. Better to find something with which to divert their attention; keep them occupied checking out his story. Yeah, the more complicated and convoluted his tale, the longer he could stall them until he figured a way out of his predicament.

  “Okay,” he said, spitting more blood. “Okay, I don’t see any reason to hide the truth. The fact is, I’m actually with the NSA and I’m working undercover as an officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, Pentagon division.”

  “But you’re not military.”

  Bolan shook his head. “Ex-military. I was attached to the unit that attacked you.”

  “Why?”

  “They were on a mission to find undercover agents who allegedly knew the identity of whoever was behind the operation in Colorado.”

  “Stop there a minute. Why would that tiny operation in Colorado draw any interest from the NSA?”

  Bolan did his best to produce a mocking laugh. “Really? Are you that stupid?”

  “Careful, pal! I’m anything but stupid.”

  “Then why the stupid questions? That operation in Colorado was intercepting encrypted transmissions containing orders that were eyes-only for NORAD’s covert military operations. That all boils down to signals intelligence, so it would be of interest to the NSA above any other agency.”

  “So why the pretext?” the interrogator interjected. “Why not just come right out and say you’re NSA? Why have you posed as part of the DIA?”

  “It was a better way to get cooperation, for one,” Bolan replied. “Second, we didn’t know if anyone in the DIA could be trusted on the local levels. This seems to go pretty high up.”

  “So none of this explains why you are here.” The man’s face moved into the light now.

  Bolan searched his memory but couldn’t place the face. Beady eyes held Bolan’s icy stare with resolute skepticism. The guy had cropped, brown hair and a dark complexion. He also looked to be as tall as Bolan, perhaps taller, and easily outweighed the Executioner by seventy pounds or so.

  “And why you brought an entire party of military special operators. We saw your plane as soon as it hit Guatemalan airspace, and we knew your flying below radar could only mean a low-altitude jump. That has the makings of a military operation, so don’t bother denying it.”

  “None of this was my idea,” Bolan said. “The head of the group led me
around by the nose.”

  The man folded his arms and smirked. “You don’t look like you just fell of the turnip truck, uh...wait. You still haven’t given me a name.” The guy looked at some unseen force and nodded; the same unseen force punched Bolan again. This time, however, the blow was toward the back of the head and not as hard as the last.

  “Why did you do that?” Bolan asked.

  “Because you’re not answering my questions.”

  “I thought we had a dialog going here.”

  “You’re telling me half-truths. Or maybe you’re not telling me the truth at all. Maybe you’re just stalling. In any case, we’re going to check out your story to the last letter. And in the meantime you’re going to answer my questions directly or, as I said, we will subject you to some very nasty motivations. Now let’s begin again. What...is...your...name?”

  “Stone. Colonel Brandon Stone is my cover name. Matt Cooper is my real name. I’m an analyst with NSA, a covert field operator sent on a mission to infiltrate whatever group may have been responsible for intercepting the intelligence signals at NORAD.”

  The man looked at the subject behind Bolan and delivered a curt nod. Bolan braced himself for another blow but it never came. Instead he heard the shuffle of feet as someone left the room. That was the other thing he’d noted. The walls around them appeared to be concrete and the place had a damp, musty smell that made Bolan’s nose itch. Obviously they’d transported him from the campsite. But to where?

  “We’ll look into your story. But if you’re lying to me, I’m going to find out.” The guy rose and folded his arms, his giant shadow dwarfing Bolan in the single harsh light. “And if I find out you lied to us, my return won’t signal anything pleasant in your future.”

  “That’s a drag,” Bolan challenged. “Since up to now it’s been a peach of an experience.”