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  Bolan knew that he had been lucky to get Ahmad for this op in Syria. The man not only spoke fluent Arabic, with his Hezbollah links he had been able to obtain direct intel on where the sarin had been stored. And he had continued to prove that his conversion to Christianity through Father O’Melton was sincere, and not just some ploy that Hezbollah had come up with.

  The Executioner frowned more deeply. Unless, of course, Ahmad’s actions were all part of a larger “master plan” beyond the scope of Bolan’s current thinking. He had watched the man mow down his former Hezbollah brothers with his M-16, and under most conditions, that would have been proof enough of the man’s loyalties. But Bolan had to remind himself that Hezbollah, like other radical terrorist organizations, used suicide bombers on a regular basis.

  What if Ahmad had killed his comrades in what was just another form of “suicide” sacrifice to further the jihad? What if he was masquerading as a Christian in order to set up some bigger strike against the Western world, and the men he’d killed had allowed him to take their lives so they could go straight to paradise?

  It was not yet the time to take his eyes completely off Ahmad. And Bolan had begun wondering if that time would ever come.

  The sound of the overhead blades changed, and Bolan looked back out the chopper door to see the lights of the huge aircraft carrier below. Two choppers were still in the air and ready to land before them. They would have to wait, and the Executioner’s mind went back to the next phase of the mission.

  The former Iraqi dictator had farmed his chemical weapons out to Syria—that was a fact. But CIA, NSA and Stony Man Farm intel had all come up with the knowledge that the Iraqi butcher had also developed biological and possibly at least one short-range nuke. So where were these WMDs? Also in Syria? That was possible, but Bolan’s gut told him that the dictator would never have trusted any of the surrounding countries with all the “aces up his sleeve.” During the period in which the U.S. was obviously planning to invade Iraq, the dictator would have firmly believed he could hide out until the Americans went home again, then be restored to his throne. He’d have had no idea that he’d be caught, tried by the World Court, and end his life dangling from the end of a rope.

  So he likely would have been skeptical of giving any other Arabic countries too many of his secret WMDs. He would not have wanted the balance of power in the Middle East to change when he returned to lead Iraq once more.

  The first of the two stealth helicopters set down on the aircraft carrier as the moon came back out to add illumination to the ship’s lights. So where, Bolan wondered, had the bioweapons and nuke gone? Afghanistan? Not likely—U.S. troops were already in control there and likely to intercept any smuggling attempts. Pakistan? Equally unlikely, but for different reasons. Pakistan had been playing both sides against the middle since their neighbor had been invaded after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Could these nightmarish weapons have gone to Yemen? That was a distinct possibility. The small nation just below Saudi Arabia on the map had been known to harbor terrorists.

  And then there was Iran. Even though Iraq and Iran had fought a long and bitter war back in the twentieth century, they might well have merged together in their joint hatred of America.

  After all, Bolan thought as the second helicopter landed below his, there was an old saying that fit this situation perfectly: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  But how was he to know which country or countries had taken on the remaining WMDs? And even if he could ID the nations in league with the fallen dictator, how was he to start? In Syria, he’d had a former Hezbollah man for a snitch.

  In these other Arabic countries, he had no one.

  As the last chopper ahead of them landed on the aircraft carrier, the satellite phone in his breast pocket began to vibrate. Pulling it out, he glanced at the small screen and saw the letters SMF. It was Stony Man Farm calling. Most likely Barbara Price.

  “Striker,” Bolan said as he punched the button with his thumb. “What’s up, Barb?”

  “I just got a call from Grimaldi,” she said. “He tells me the mission went well and that all the drums are on board the aircraft carrier.”

  “They will be as soon as we land this last chopper,” Bolan said. He paused a moment, then added, “How did Jack know that?”

  “Because he’s waiting for you on the ship below, in one of the Learjets,” Price said. “All fueled up and ready to go.”

  “You obviously know something I don’t,” Bolan said. “Go where?”

  “Tehran,” Price said. “Kurtzman and his team have been monitoring the chatter on the internet. We’ve been able to decipher and translate a lot of it.” The beautiful honey-blonde mission controller paused for a second and drew in a breath. “At least enough to know that Iraq’s biological warfare supply and research laboratories were transferred to Iran.”

  Bolan didn’t answer for a moment as his mind took in the new intel. Finally, he said, “We have anybody on the ground there?” he asked.

  “There’s a former CIA informant who might know something.”

  “The operative words in that sentence are former and might, Barb,” he murmured. “Why is the guy former?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” she said. “Kurtzman hacked into the Company’s files, but they didn’t say anything about why the man was terminated.”

  “Great,” Bolan answered. He turned away from where Ahmad still sat, and lowered his voice so the former Hezbollah man couldn’t hear him. “Just what I needed. Another snitch I’m not sure I can trust.”

  “Well,” Price said, “he’s all we’ve got at the moment. Kurtzman and the rest of the gang will keep on listening and hacking away. In the meantime, you want to go in or not?”

  “Of course I want to go in,” Bolan stated. “It’s like you said. If it’s all we’ve got, it’s all we’ve got.”

  “Affirmative, then,” Price replied. “I’ll advise Hal, and he’ll brief you once you’re on the plane with Grimaldi. In the meantime, good luck.”

  7

  They were going in cold, with no immediate contact to guide them.

  In undercover circles, that was considered the best way to get burned.

  And probably killed.

  Bolan’s boots hit the ground in the small clearing among the trees a little harder than he’d expected, and he rolled onto his left shoulder, spreading the impact throughout his body, before popping back up onto his feet. He glanced upward just in time to see Ahmad land similarly, then his eyes moved on to Father O’Melton.

  The former Army Ranger hadn’t been quite so lucky. His parachute had snagged in the scrubby limbs of a leafless tree, and he presently swung back and forth ten feet above the ground.

  Since the man was in no immediate danger, Bolan hauled his chute in, folded it and moved back out of sight into the trees. He scraped a shallow hole in the dirt with an entrenching tool and dropped the parachute into it. He was about to cover it with a large boulder when Ahmad appeared.

  Laying the former Hezbollah man’s canopy on top of his own, Bolan left the boulder where it was and turned back to O’Melton, who was still swinging in the air, muttering unintelligible words that Bolan doubted he had learned in the seminary. But as he watched, the commando-turned-priest pulled a slim black object from his pocket. A second later, a loud click echoed through the still clearing and Bolan saw the distinctive blade of a Columbia River Knife and Tool Hissatsu folding knife in his hand.

  The Hissatsu was a unique blade, in Bolan’s estimation. Strong, wickedly sharp, and the most fast and powerful of the many folders currently sporting assisted openings, which worked much like switchblades. But they got around the law by not utilizing either a push button or latch opener. Instead, the knife wielder began opening it by pushing out on the disc near the top of the blade. When the steel was roughly t
hirty percent exposed, the spring kicked in and snapped it the rest of the way out.

  A moment later the Hissatsu had severed the shoulder straps of both the parachute and the priest’s large backpack, and he’d dropped to the ground, landing on his feet in a squatting position.

  The Hissatsu, Bolan knew, had come from one of the storage lockers mounted in the rear of Grimaldi’s Learjet. All aircraft flying out of Stony Man Farm were kept packed with gear that might be needed during an operation. In addition to O’Melton adding the assisted-opening folder to his personal arsenal, all three men had replenished their ammunition supplies during the flight.

  Bolan left the trees and walked up to O’Melton as he disengaged the top lock and closed the blade again. Like Bolan and Ahmad, he was outfitted in a blacksuit, and he clipped the Hissatsu back into the zippered pocket he’d retrieved it from.

  “Nice job,” Bolan said. “Only a couple of problems as I see it.”

  “And they are...?” O’Melton let the sentence drift in the air.

  “First,” Bolan said, “your chute is waving in the breeze like a formal announcement that we’re here. Second, we can’t walk around Tehran in these blacksuits. You’re going to need the clothes that are still hanging up there in your backpack.”

  “Then it looks like Shinny City,” the priest said. Without further words, he wrapped his thighs around the trunk of the tree, shinnied up to the first limb, then climbed up two more to where his chute and oversize backpack hung.

  The CRKT Hissatsu reappeared and the chute and pack fell to the ground.

  The priest descended to the lowest limb, then jumped the rest of the way. Tucking his own chute on top of Bolan’s and Ahmad’s, he helped the Executioner roll the boulder over to cover the evidence of their arrival.

  A moment later, all three men were changing into lightweight business suits, transferring their armaments as they did so.

  “Are you sure we should not wear traditional Muslim dress?” Ahmad said as he thrust a 9 mm Tokarav pistol into the holster on his belt before donning his coat.

  “It might work for you,” Bolan said. “But for Father O’Melton and myself it would not be so easy. Our faces would give us away in a split second.”

  Ahmad shook his head. “Actually, it is not unusual to see some Iranians with fair skin and blue eyes.”

  Bolan sat on the ground, pulling off his jump boots and trading them for rubber-soled hiking shoes. As he laced them up, he said, “Not unusual, no. But not the norm, either. So we need to play the odds. We don’t want to stand out any more than we have to.” Leaving the top button of his light white cotton shirt undone, he transferred the Desert Eagle to his belt holster and slid on the shoulder rig for the Beretta 93-R. Extra magazines for the Beretta hung under his left arm, and those holding more .44 Magnums went into the caddie on his belt just behind the big Eagle. Clipping the Spyderco Navaja into his waistband, he stood up and donned his jacket.

  The North American Arms .22 Magnum Pug minigun went into the hip pocket of his pants, held in place by a pocket holster that also carried an extra five rounds of the hollowpoint ammo.

  From the corner of his eye, Bolan had watched Father O’Melton change into his own off-white business suit. He still wore the blackened S&W Scandium .357 revolver in the same shoulder holster he’d had on when Bolan first met him. His .45 he had simply stuck into his belt amid a series of .38/.357 speed loaders and .45 magazines held in place by ballistic nylon pouches.

  All three men pulled briefcases from their extra-large backpacks, then used the same entrenching tool to dig another hole to secrete the packs next to their chutes. Inside the packs, in addition to other equipment they might or might not need, were the traditional robes and headdresses of Islamic mujahideen that Ahmad had inquired about. Bolan wanted them handy just in case they did prove useful down the line.

  No one knew what curves a mission such as this might throw at you.

  The Executioner only knew that the curves would come.

  Dropping the folding shovel on top of the pile, he rolled another stone over the hole to cover it. Then he walked around the area, scuffing his feet to obliterate any tracks.

  Finally, he knelt and unlatched the briefcase he’d pulled from his backpack. Opening the lid, he lifted out a Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun. Checking to make sure a round was chambered from the 30-round stick magazine, he looked up at Ahmad and O’Melton. “We’re locked and loaded,” he said. “You ready?”

  The priest had been checking his own weapon. “I’m good,” he said. Turning to his new convert, he asked, “You ready, Zaid?”

  Ahmad had pulled the bolt on his MP-5 all the way back, causing the chambered 9 mm round in the barrel to pop out. “Whoops,” he said softly, then disengaged the magazine and started to replace the round at the top.

  Bolan reached out and grabbed the weapon from the former Hezbollah terrorist’s hand. “You never do that,” he said.

  “Do what?” Ahmad’s eyebrows drew together in mild confusion.

  “Put a round that’s already been cycled back into the magazine.” Bolan tugged the MP-5’s bolt back again and ejected the new round. “When it goes into the chamber, a round gets ‘nicked.’ And that nick—if it gets hung up on the loading ramp or the ejector—can cause a jam.” He took the round and tossed it into the trees. “You’ve got twenty-nine left,” he said. “Go with that to be safe. Besides, you’ve got extra 30-round mags in your briefcase.”

  Ahmad nodded. Bolan stood up and walked to the edge of the trees. They had jumped from Grimaldi’s Learjet using a HALO—High Altitude Low Opening—technique, and landed just where they’d wanted to—in the middle of a clearing atop a small hill just outside Tehran. They were halfway between the capital city and the village of Rey. And from where he stood, Bolan could see both communities below.

  “I never did quite catch on to what we’re supposed to do next,” O’Melton said.

  Bolan paused a moment. Compared to their strike in Syria, they were truly going in blind. The only advantage they had was that just before they’d jumped, word had come down from Stony Man Farm that Kurtzman had located, and established contact with, the one-time CIA informant.

  Details weren’t yet available, but it appeared the man in question had severed ties with the CIA rather than the other way around. It seemed that he believed he’d been double-crossed by his handlers, and left hanging out to dry in the last operation he’d assisted them with.

  The Executioner also learned that at first contact with Kurtzman, the informant wanted no part of the mission Bolan was currently conducting.

  Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, however, was not only a computer genius, but also a master of diplomacy. During the time Bolan and his sidekicks had been on the aircraft carrier, and then on the jet headed toward Iran, the wheelchair-bound man had convinced the ex-informant that he would not be working with the CIA. And the offer of an even million dollars for his help hadn’t hurt Kurtzman’s argument, either. Particularly when five hundred thousand dollars had suddenly appeared in a Cayman Island bank account assigned to the Iranian, with a promise to pay the other half million upon completion of the mission.

  “We’ve got to get down this hill to the road,” Bolan said as soon as all three men had changed and were ready to move. “We’ll be picked up by a guy named Ali Mohammed.”

  “We will look strange, coming out of this forest wearing these clothes and carrying briefcases,” Ahmad said.

  “Yeah,” Bolan agreed, “we will. But not as strange as leaving these woods wearing blacksuits and carrying assault weapons.” He paused a moment, then added, “I don’t know a better way to get this thing started. If you do, I’m willing to listen to it.”

  It had been a rhetorical question. And Bolan got no response.

  “Okay then, let’s get this part over with as fast
as we can,” Bolan said. He led the way out from the clearing, through the scrubby trees and down the hill. He did feel a little on the conspicuous side. While much of the current Iranian population dressed in robes, turbans and other traditional clothing, many others had returned to the Western dress that had become typical during the reign of the Shah. Even the Iranian president was most often seen wearing a business suit with an open collar.

  Bolan and the other two had patterned their attire after him.

  As soon as they reached the roadside, Bolan felt better about their appearance. Kurtzman had arranged for Ali Mohammed to leave an old Dodge Ram van on the shoulder, with steam shooting up out of the open hood from the radiator. In a few seconds they went from wrongly dressed men in the woods to what looked like a trio of businessmen or salesmen whose vehicle had broken down along the road leading into Tehran.

  “When’s this guy supposed to show up?” O’Melton asked as Bolan lifted the hood of the Dodge.

  “Any time now,” he replied. He was tempted to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves to make it look as if he was trying to fix the problem with the engine. But doing so would have revealed his weapons, and he didn’t like the idea of taking them off and hiding them in his discarded coat or under the car.

  Five minutes went by. Then ten. And as they waited, several automobiles zipped past without a pause. O’Melton and he were obviously foreigners, and the Iranian government didn’t encourage helping infidels in any way.

  Finally, Bolan realized that they had been there long enough that continuing to wear his coat had become conspicuous. Anyone who had broken down along the road would be trying to fix their vehicle. At least one of them needed to look as if he was trying to figure out what the problem was. So after a quick glance up and down the road to make sure there were no prying eyes, Bolan shrugged out of his jacket and shoulder rig, then slid the Desert Eagle holster and other equipment off his belt before rebuckling it. Wrapping the pistols and extra magazines in his jacket, he laid them carefully on the ground, just under the Dodge’s front bumper. He had just finished rolling up his sleeves when another car passed by.