Ballistic Read online

  The lookout raised a hand to knock, and Bolan warned him, “Any tricks, you’re first to go.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, maybe altering whatever strategy he’d had in mind, the guy knocked twice, then paused. One rap, another pause, then two more taps to finish it. A shadow blocked the door’s peephole, the inside lookout following procedure. He’d see nothing, since Bolan and Maia held their guns behind their backs until the lock clicked and the door swung inward.

  Showtime.

  Maia moved to give the little guy a shove, but he was viper-fast, spinning to make a grab for her SMG’s muzzle. Bolan shot him in the chest from ten feet out and charged the door, shouldered it hard into the lookout standing just behind it, and the watchdog went down in a sprawl. Maia was right behind him as he cleared the threshold, muttering what sounded like a string of curses in her native language.

  Down at Bolan’s feet, the Chinese lookout started reaching for a piece under his jacket, then decided it was probably a bad idea. Bolan relieved him of the weapon, tucked it underneath his belt in back and told the fallen man, “Show us the counting room.”

  Maia repeated it for emphasis.

  The guy got up and moved then, seeing there was no percentage for himself in playing dumb. Their entry had already caused a stir among nearby pachinko players, and the ripples spread from there in nothing flat. Whether the gamblers understood exactly what was happening, or thought themselves caught up in a police raid, Bolan didn’t know or care. Their stampede for the exits served his purpose as he trailed the disarmed guard toward the casino’s bank.

  It was a small room, and the door swung open as they reached it, two more Chinese shooters rolling through to find out what in hell was going on. They saw guns, went for theirs, and Maia zipped them both together with a 6- or 8-round burst across their chests. They dropped together, in a twitching heap, and Bolan’s guide recoiled, croaking a protest that earned him a rap on the skull.

  Inside the counting room, one final Chinese worker bee stood facing them across a table piled with Indonesian rupiah notes and coins. He tried for calm, asking, “Ni xiang ganshenme?”

  “English!” Maia demanded.

  “Certainly. What do you want?”

  “Let’s try your money or your life,” Bolan replied.

  “You’re making a most serious mistake,” their hostage said, bending to reach beneath the table.

  “Easy,” Bolan warned him.

  “Just a satchel. There’s too much for you to carry as it is.”

  “Go on, then,” Bolan said.

  Their prisoner—the club’s accountant, possibly the manager—produced a spacious leather bag and started stuffing it with notes as if he’d done it countless times before. Which, Bolan thought, he likely had. When it was stuffed and latched, nothing but coins remaining on the table, Bolan told him, “One more thing.”

  “And that would be...?”

  “We need a home address for Jin Au-Yo,” Maia replied.

  The captive’s face went blank. “Then kill me now,” he said. “Your guns are nothing next to what he will do if I betray him.”

  Bolan thought about it, index finger on the SIG-Sauer’s trigger, and made up his mind. “Okay,” he said. “Call Jin and brief him on what happened here. Tell him it’s just the start. Until we get the stolen cargo back, he’s going to be living in a world of hurt.”

  The hostage couldn’t help but look relieved. He asked, “Cargo?”

  “Tell him a brave wind’s come to blow his house down,” Bolan said. “And if he doesn’t get it yet, he’ll have a chance to work it out while we’re dismantling everything he’s built. It’s payback time.”

  South China Sea

  THE DUTCH CONTAINER SHIP Eiland Koningin held a steady seven knots as it proceeded southwestward toward Ho Chi Minh City. The ship’s name translated to Island Queen, but she was a frowzy old dame and her age was showing—all forty-five years of it. Her rust-streaked hull needed paint, and her engines could have used an overhaul. Replacement would have been a better option, but she hadn’t sprung a leak yet, so to hell with it.

  The truth be told, Captain Cornelis Pieterszoon liked the old tramp just as she was. Nothing fancy, but faithful. She carried whatever he put in the hold or on deck and delivered it safely, more or less on time. She’d been his first command, and might well be his last.

  Pieterszoon thought that he could have done worse. Many had, and he’d listened to eulogies spoken over empty caskets, representing merchant seamen swallowed by the deep. After a lifetime on the sea, the captain sometimes found himself surmising that it was the best way for a man to go. God knew that there were damned few left ashore to mourn him when his own time came. Why make a fuss about it with a pantomime of simulated grief?

  Not that he planned to go down with his ship on this run. It was all routine, delivering a load of Filipino farm machinery to Vietnam, where he would find another cargo waiting for him, bound for Babar in the South Moluccas. Round and round it went, with layovers when Pieterszoon couldn’t resist the urge to stretch his legs onshore. Never for long, though. The Pacific Ocean was his one true love.

  The helmsman, Louis Kuyper, called out from his post, “Captain, we have a ship to port, at ten o’clock. She’ll cross our bow soon.”

  “Speed?” Pieterszoon asked.

  “About twelve knots, sir.”

  “She won’t cause any problems for us, then,” the captain said. “Maintain our present course and speed.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  They hadn’t seen another ship so far this day. The Island Queen traveled by routes that saw light traffic at the worst of times. It minimized distractions, making work a leisurely affair for Pieterszoon, if not for all his crewmen. Working in the engine room would always be a noisy, dirty job, but someone had to do it. At the rates he could afford to pay, those “someones” were Malaysians, Filipinos and sometimes a Timorese.

  Pieterszoon found his old binoculars and scanned the blue horizon, searching for the other ship. After a moment’s effort he discovered it, focused the glasses, tried to read its name.

  Chinese. No luck.

  He was about to lower the binoculars when a brilliant flash of light erupted on the other freighter’s deck, lancing his eyes. Pieterszoon tried to make out what it was—some kind of flash-fire or explosion?—and was stunned to find the light hurtling in his direction on a clear collision course.

  “My God!” he blurted out, before the fireball filled his lenses and the Island Queen rocked underneath him, as if rammed amidships by a whale.

  The explosion that immediately followed impact hurled Cornelis Pieterszoon skyward, a straw man wreathed in flames that bit into his flesh ferociously. He may have screamed—it was impossible to tell for certain, deafened as he was—before he hit the ocean’s surface with a sizzling hiss and sank.

  He tried to swim, couldn’t coordinate the movement of his arms and legs no matter how he strained to make his body function. Somewhere close at hand, he felt rather than heard the suction of his dying vessel as it sank.

  Another empty casket, the captain thought, as he closed his eyes.

  Jakarta

  THE SAT PHONE’S TRILLING SOUND surprised Bolan as he was driving west along Jalan Pramuka, past an elevated highway cloverleaf with treetops down below. He snagged it from the map pocket beside his seat, left-handed, keyed Transmit and told the caller, “Go ahead.”

  “Bad news,” Brognola said, from half a world away.

  “I’m listening.”

  “The merchandise has been transferred.”

  “You’re sure of that?” Bolan asked.

  “Sure as sure can be,” Brognola said. “They’ve used one.”

  “What? Already?” Bolan felt a tight fist close around his heart.

  “No ques
tion. There’s confirmation of the incident, and there’s a video online. The Sword of Allah’s claiming credit.”

  “Okay, fill me in,” Bolan said tersely.

  “First, the good news, if you want to call it that,” the Justice man said. “The target wasn’t military, and it wasn’t ours. They hit a Dutch container ship, the Island Queen, in the South China Sea. She’s down, apparently with all hands. Which, in this case, means approximately forty sailors. They were traveling between the Philippines and Vietnam, a normal cargo run. We likely wouldn’t know that anything had happened, but the bastards posted it themselves. Not wasting any time.”

  “What else?” Bolan asked.

  “You know how the Sword of Allah operates. They have demands, all nonnegotiable. End all American support for Israel, stat. Withdraw all military forces from Afghanistan, Iraq and any other Muslim area immediately. Close Guantanamo today, with passage for the prisoners to any nation of their choosing. Oh, and hand the Sword one hundred billion dollars’ worth of gold and diamonds, details of delivery to follow.”

  “That’s billion, with a b.”

  “You heard me right.”

  “Or else...what?” Bolan asked, fairly certain that he knew the answer.

  “Or they launch the other one. No details of the target, but Beijing calls the Brave Wind a ‘carrier killer.’ That’s got the Pentagon spooked, but the Man’s cabinet has some other ideas. What if they hit a supertanker in a major harbor, for example? Or who says they can’t aim it inland, see what it does to a nuclear power plant.”

  Bolan considered the latter possibility. The Hsiung Feng III was designated antiship, but it was still a guided missile, meaning that it possessed an inertial navigation system using a computer, motion and rotation sensors, plus terminal active radar homing. If it could strike a moving ship at sea, nothing prevented it from taking out a stationary target ashore, within the limits of its striking range. In his briefing, Brognola had placed that range between eighty and one hundred miles.

  “Still there?” the big Fed asked.

  “I’m here,” Bolan replied. And he was spotting nuclear reactors on a mental map from memory. Five in the Carolinas he was sure of, two each in Maryland and New Jersey, five more in Pennsylvania, six in New York, two apiece in Connecticut and Massachusetts, one each in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Twenty-seven prime targets on the eastern seaboard alone, and a hit on any one of them could give America a taste of the same hell Japan had suffered after a tsunami shattered the Fukushima nuke plant in 2011.

  “So, how’s it coming?” Brognola inquired, his voice intruding on apocalyptic visions.

  “We’ve confirmed that the heist was commissioned by the Flying Ax Triad. We’re still looking for their shot-caller here, a guy called Jin Au-Yo. Now you’ve identified the end user. Maybe this Jin can tell us how to find the Sword.”

  “A sword and an ax,” Brognola said, “ready to chop us up. Jesus.”

  “We won’t let it come to that,” Bolan replied, projecting confidence he wasn’t certain of.

  “Let’s hope not,” said the man from Justice. “While you’re hunting there, a naval presence has been authorized, for what it’s worth. Fresh targets, if you ask me. No one did.”

  “I’m signing off now,” Bolan said. “Places to go, people to see.”

  “Good luck,” Brognola offered, and the line went dead.

  Pondok Indah, South Jakarta

  “REPEAT THAT,” Jin Au-Yo commanded.

  Standing at attention in the space before his desk, the trembling manager of Web World, Li Huating, told Jin, “The white man said a brave wind comes to blow your house down, sir.”

  “Those were his exact words? A ‘brave wind’?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much money did he take?” Jin asked.

  Li swallowed hard, then said, “Four hundred and forty-three million rupiah, sir. That is—”

  “Three hundred and thirty-two thousand renminbi,” Jin interrupted, making the conversion automatically. “Or fifty-two thousand U.S. dollars.”

  “Correct, sir. I can only apologize for my failure and—”

  “Enough! You were not meant to be a soldier. Had you fought, you would be dead now, rather than providing a description of the thieves.”

  “Yes, sir. The man was an American. I’m certain of it. He was six feet tall, approximately. As to weight, I estimate two hundred pounds. Dark hair. His face was unremarkable.”

  “But you would recognize him,” Jin replied, not asking.

  “Absolutely.”

  “And the woman?” Jin pressed on.

  “Chinese, but not Chinese-American. She must be six or seven inches shorter than the man, and slender. But aggressive, sir. She had a machine gun, while the American used a pistol only.”

  “And did she use the weapon?” Jin inquired.

  Li hesitated, finally replied, “I can’t be sure, sir. The shootings...I did not observe them personally. Bao and Shen both left the office when the noise began in the casino. I remained to put the money in the safe.”

  “But failed,” Jin said.

  “It’s true, sir. They were too swift for me.”

  “No more apologies,” Jin ordered. “They’re a waste of time. I have an artist on the way who sketches suspects for the Indonesian National Police. You will remain here and assist him in preparing pictures of the bandits. When they are of photographic quality, then you may leave.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I mean that you will leave Jakarta. Leave this country. Go directly back to Hong Kong and begin your search for new employment there. The Flying Ax has no more need of you.”

  Stricken, the ex-casino manager asked Jin, “What will I do, sir?”

  “I’ve told you what to do, Li,” Jin replied. “Beyond that, what becomes of you holds no more interest for me. If you’re wise, you will not let me see your face again.”

  “I understand, sir. It shall be as you say.”

  As Li was turning toward the office door, slump-shouldered, Jin spoke to his back. “Before you go, show courtesy and thank me for your worthless life.”

  Li faced him, swallowed hard and said, “I am in your debt for sparing me, sir.”

  “Better,” Jin acknowledged. “Now remove yourself, before I change my mind.”

  Alone once more, Jin focused on the bandits Li had just described to him. The woman, he surmised, could only be the spy who had escaped from Khoo Kay Sundaram the previous night. A Chinese agent, almost certainly a member of the Ministry of State Security. Why would an American extract her from a Malay pirate’s den, much less proceed to travel with her, stalking Jin Au-Yo?

  The missiles.

  Washington would shake hands with the Devil if it meant averting a disaster that would threaten the careers of those in power. Jin himself had no interest in politics beyond supporting candidates who helped his triad thrive, but he was well versed in the mind-set of professional campaigners, those who lived for nothing but pursuing votes along the road to wealth and power. They weren’t so different from Jin, though he would trust the lowest criminal in Beijing’s Tangjialing slum before he put his faith in any politician.

  No matter how or why the American and the Chinese agent had joined forces, Jin was bound to stop them in Jakarta.

  And he meant to stop them dead.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Pluit, North Jakarta

  Bolan drove north on Jalan Pluit Barat Raya, then cut to the west across a bridge spanning the Cengkareng Drain, a broad canal designed for flood control that spilled into the Java Sea at the capital’s waterfront. Maia had told him that eighty percent of Pluit’s residents were immigrant Chinese whose influence had modified the neighborhood’s longtime profile as a district wh
ere anything goes. Sailors’ dives and tattoo parlors still proliferated along the waterfront, along with relatively low-rent ladies of the evening, but residential streets took over a few blocks inland from the wharfs.

  Not all the houses sheltered families, though.

  The one Maia had marked for Bolan was supposed to be a drug house, where pure China white heroin imported from Thailand was cut and packaged for sale on the streets. She’d given him the address, on Jalan Niaga, and he found the east-west street on his first try. The house in question showed no outward signs of being occupied by narco-traffickers. Why would it? They weren’t cooking drugs inside, simply diluting and repackaging a finished product to increase the profit margin.

  Free enterprise at work.

  But they were going out of business this morning. The Executioner was bringing an eviction notice they couldn’t ignore.

  He thought of asking Maia whether she was sure about the address, but she’d nailed the Web World operation and he saw no reason to believe she’d be mistaken this time. If it turned out she was wrong, they’d exit with apologies and leave a bundle of the triad’s money to assuage riled nerves.

  He parked the Toyota Fortuner a half block west of their target and checked his Pindad SS2. Full magazine, stock folded, 40 mm high-explosive round loaded and ready to fly from the under-barrel launcher. Maia flicked off her submachine gun’s safety and nodded to confirm her readiness.

  A drizzling rain explained the coats they wore to hide their long guns as they crossed the street. The modest home’s front windows all had drapes drawn tightly across them, shielding anyone inside from daylight or a neighbor’s prying eyes. Bolan advanced directly to the front door, following a concrete pathway to the porch. No yards or gardens here, the houses lined up side by side and back to back. Whatever happened in the next few moments would alert adjacent families, if anyone was home.