MacK Bolan No. 62: Day of Mourning (3 page)

Andrzej Konzaki was in a coma.

The Stony Man armorer lay struggling for life in the emergency sick bay of Stony Man Farm. Mack Bolan and April Rose stood next to an armed man in uniform on the other side of an observation window in the hospital facility.

Konzaki was enshrouded in an oxygen tent. Tubes ran to him from two bottles.

A nurse beside the bed monitored a cardiograph machine that registered a very weak pulse.

The tough-looking man in uniform who stood next to Bolan was Captain Wade. He was in charge of the security force that patrolled the perimeter of Stony Man Farm.

"He was reported missing at 1400 hours, sir," Wade reported. "We instituted a search immediately."

All Farm personnel made voice contact with one of Kurtzman's central computers every two hours. A security precaution.

"Was he missing before or after the explosion?" asked Bolan.

"Before, sir."

April spoke up.

"Why do you think Konzaki wasn't killed, Mack?"

"Being in a wheelchair probably saved Konzaki's life," growled Bolan. "At least, so far."

Wade picked up the thought.

"The angle of the blow. Sure. Whoever slugged him wasn't used to chopping down at that angle. The blow that meant to kill Mr. Konzaki caught him at the wrong angle."

April's lovely features were taut with an inner rage she could not conceal.

"A man in a wheelchair — "

"Do you have anything else to report, Captain?" Bolan asked Wade.

"No, sir, I'm afraid not. No signs of penetration anywhere along the perimeter. The ground is soft this time of year. But there were no signs of footprints where Mr. Konzaki was attacked."

Bolan had heard enough. He could do no good for Konzaki standing there.

"Captain Wade, return to your men. April, let's see what Kurtzman has for us."

It was twenty minutes after Grimaldi had set them down on the Stony Man airstrip in the F-14 Tomcat jet that had flown them to Washington from Miami.

At this moment, the pilot was at the airstrip's camouflaged hangar, ensuring that the jet would be ready if needed on short notice.

The brain center of the Farm was a sprawling collection of rustic buildings set amid a dense forest of hardwood and conifer and the occasional grassy meadow like the one that surrounded the ordinary-looking "farm buildings."

In fact, the buildings and the underground facility beneath them housed the brightly lit, modern headquarters of the Executioner's Phoenix world.

The Blue Ridge terrain was dominated on the far horizon by Stony Man Mountain, one of the highest peaks in the region.

The weather was unseasonably warm, but the mountain was wreathed in low-hanging clouds that gave the spring day a grim, foreboding look.

Bolan felt the same way inside.

He had known Andrzej Konzaki only by the man's work in the Stony Man program. In that regard, Bolan ranked the Farm's armorer at the absolute top, and he now regretted not having gotten to know Konzaki better.

Konzaki was officially with the Special Weapons Development branch of the CIA, unofficially attached to Stony Man shortly after the inception of the Phoenix program. Konzaki, legless since Vietnam, was one of the most innovative armorers in the world, a master weaponsmith. His CIA profile read: "trust him."

Konzaki had never let Bolan down.

And now the guy lay in a coma with a less than fifty-fifty chance of pulling through. With the identity of his assailant locked up inside where it would stay forever if a good man named Konzaki died.

Aaron Kurtzman was waiting for Bolan and April at the polished conference table in the briefing room, down the corridor from where Andrzej Konzaki lay.

"All of our computer-satellite linkups are totaled," grumbled The Bear. "Someone got inside the terminal housing at the back of this building. My guess is they used some form of plastique."

"How long to repair?" asked Bolan.

"The necessary component replacements are on their way," Kurtzman reported, "but it's still taking time, too much damn time, because Stony Man Farm supposedly does not exist. For that same reason we can't go through any of the standard channels."

Bolan stood up and began to pace about the briefing room as he put the thing together aloud. An urge for action had him restless.

"Wade's men didn't find any signs of penetration. That could mean there was no penetration."

April frowned.

"An inside job? That's... almost unthinkable, Mack. Everyone at the Farm has been screened so thoroughly."

"Determine the key people in this area and screen them again," said Bolan. "Start with Captain Wade."

"As you say," agreed April.

"What about the saboteur?" asked Kurtzman thoughtfully. "Whether the damage was done by a man or woman inside the Farm or by infiltration, we still don't have any point to start from."

"We narrow it to categories," said Bolan. "Someone has tried to sabotage our operation. Is our enemy domestic or foreign? How did they learn about us? Bear, I want you to backtrack over every possible security leak point you can think of in the program."

"Roger."

"I ordered Wade to double his security force as soon as Konzaki was reported missing," said April.

"Good work," said Bolan. "Now triple it. And I'll want to review the defense with you and Wade after it's been revised."

"Defense?" echoed Kurtzman. "Sounds as if you expect an attack."

"That sabotage was a soft probe to test our reflexes," said Bolan. "And I'd say everyone here reflexed right on the money."

"That means," added April, "that if someone is planning to attack the Farm, they'll hit us with a sizable force." She stood, tall, lush-bodied.

"When they hit, we damn well better be ready for them," she said. "I'd better get on it."

There had to be time for that one brief brush of lips against his cheek. Her nearness always tantalized Bolan.

Then she was gone.

Dear April. So damn efficient.

"What's the status on Able Team?" Bolan asked Kurtzman. "Yakov told me they were homed in on the European end of that terrorist deal I just squashed."

"Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz are poised to strike at the headquarters of a man they've identified only as 'The Dragon.' The Dragon runs his show from a mountain fortress in the Hindu Kush, almost inaccessible except by helicopter."

"The Himalayas," Bolan commented. "Fourteen-thousand-foot mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. A smugglers' route for thousands of years."

"The Dragon is the biggest broker we've been able to identify," said Kurtzman. "If we stop him, we could practically dry up the flow of arms to all the terrorist groups. And maybe give us the next link in the chain to who pulls the big strings.''

Sure. Bolan knew well. Anyone who thought that the various terrorist groups functioned solely on empty rhetoric simply did not know the truth. Activities such as kidnapping, extortion and robbery netted millions of dollars per year for those unknowns who bathed in the blood of innocent victims.

And now the men of Mack Bolan's Able Team were halfway around the world, ready to make one of the biggest hits of all in this new war against terrorism. Dry up their arms supply.

Able Team was a three-man unit: Carl Lyons, a former LAPD cop who'd been a Bolan ally since the early days of the Executioner's former Mafia war, Rosario "Pol" Blancanales and Hermann "Gadgets" Schwarz, two more combat specialists who had shared the hellground experience with Mack Bolan as part of the Executioner's Able Penetration Team in that long-ago war.

Three exceptional fighting men.

Yeah.

Three men.

Against who the hell knew what?

The Dragon was a new one to Bolan.

He voiced a thought that had been with him since his arrival at the Farm.

"Where's Hal?"

A phone at Kurtzman's elbow buzzed.

Kurtzman picked up the receiver, listened, then extended the phone to Bolan. "You want him, you got him. Mr. Liaison himself."

Bolan took the receiver.

"Hal?"

"Welcome home, Striker."

"Where are you, Hal? You should be here."

"Would you believe the White House?" said Brognola.

"And what's cooking at the Man's place?"

"We're waiting on Colonel John Phoenix."

"We?"

"The president, Striker. And a guy named Lee Farnsworth."

"And what are we waiting on Colonel Phoenix for?" asked Bolan.

There was a pause, as if Brognola did not want to reply.

"Farnsworth wants the president to disband the Stony Man operation."

"What?"

"You know who Farnsworth is?"

"CFB."

"Right. The Central Foreign Bureau. He says we've stepped on CFB's toes with one of our operations. Got two of their men killed. He claims it's happened before."

"Hal, is my presence there absolutely necessary? The blackout tonight could've been a probe for something else."

"You cannot stand up the Man, Striker."

"The president's a man of good judgment," said Bolan.

"But Farnsworth has his ear, and he's making a strong case against us," insisted Hal. "I hate to remind you, old buddy, but you are a team player, remember? Your one-man-war days are over."

"I wonder, Hal. I'm starting to get an itch."

"Dammit, we are talking about the goddamn president, Striker."

"You're right, Hal. He is the boss. I don't like it, but I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

April met him near the helicopter takeoff pad.

The clouds over the mountains were moving in.

A warm breeze played with loose tendrils of her shoulder-length hair and its warm gold highlights. Movie-star hair.

The concerned look in April's eyes was that of a lover who cares about her man.

Bolan noticed one difference about the lady since he had last seen her in the briefing room awhile ago.

April wore a .44 Magnum with a six-inch barrel in a fast-draw holster on her shapely right hip. She was also carrying a spare gun-holster rig.

The lady handled weapons like a carpenter handled a saw.

But still beautiful, yeah.

No one ever said that tough and competent could not be synonymous with feminine, thought Bolan, and the woman who gave him her heart was damn well proof of that.

Bolan gestured to the spare rig and weapon that she carried over her shoulder.

"For Aaron," she explained. "It looks like he and I might be doing more than sitting on the sidelines this time."

The president could wait.

Bolan grabbed April Rose with one arm and pulled her to him.

She came willingly, pressing herself against the big man with a kiss that was all passion, all love and fire.

"God speed you back to me, Colonel Thunder," she whispered fiercely in his ear when they were close.

Another kiss.

Then it was time to move out.

Bolan boarded the chopper. But the urge to remain at Stony Man Farm pulled at him stronger than ever.

Someone had breached Stony Man Farm's security.

And there was Konzaki.

Bolan sensed that the lives of all his Stony Man allies were already on the line.

But Hal was right.

You do not turn down a request from the Man.

Bolan was airlifted from Stony Man Farm knowing that there would be no room for miscalculation or fumbling on this coming night that was about to cloak the nation's capital.

It was a jungle out there, Washington, D.C., or no.

And the Executioner was back in town.

The familiar low skyline of D.C. was bathed in dusk as Grimaldi piloted the bubble-front Hughes helicopter with Mack Bolan aboard.

No city in America is more drenched in history and legend than Washington.

Bolan knew this city, and he knew something of its history.

This land had been a blazed hellground. The British captured and sacked the city in 1814. It wasn't until the twentieth century that Washington was transformed from an unkempt village into the city of today: a hellground of another kind.

Wonderland on the Potomac, Hal called it.

With the reality of the ghetto only a stone's throw from the power brokers who steered the course of the nation, the city was a study in contrasts. The Washington Monument obelisk, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial, shrines to the visionaries of equality, were set against some of the worst poverty Bolan had ever seen.

Bolan wore a two-piece suit of subdued blue and a sky-blue shirt and red tie for his meeting with the president.

On his left shoulder, under the suit jacket, the Beretta 93-R pistol nestled in a concealed shoulder speed rig.

Bolan's Beretta had been modified with a new sound suppressor and a flash-hider for night firing. The gun was designed for fast killing. Konzaki had devised a forehand grip that folded down to provide controlled two-handed firing. The 93-R saw action on nearly every Bolan mission.

Another debt to Konzaki.

He also toted a black leather briefcase that contained additional items he liked to have close at hand, including Big Thunder, the impressive stainless-steel .44 AutoMag.

The chopper began descending.

"Coming in," called Grimaldi above the steady throbbing of the rotor.

If Grimaldi felt exhausted, as he had to be, he wasn't showing it. Bolan at least had caught some shut-eye on the flight to Stony Man from down south.

The eighteen acres of White House grounds were a maze of lengthening shadows on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Grimaldi touched down smoothly on a grassy area in back of the executive mansion.

The White House.

More living history.

The British had razed it in 1814 and when the present three-story structure of simple, stately design was rebuilt, the scorched Virginia freestone of the home of every president since Adams had been painted over a stark white, and it had been the White House ever since.

Bolan dropped from the chopper's door before the chopper even settled. The Executioner left his briefcase with the pilot.

History is being made right now, thought Bolan as he hustled at a slow jog from beneath the whirling blades of the helicopter. The Phoenix program spanned more than one administration, but combat specialist John Phoenix had never been called to this house.

Grimaldi cut the chopper's engine and waited.

Bolan approached three husky guys clad almost identically in conservative suits. They met him near an entrance to the building. Bolan made two of these White House staffers as armed Secret Service agents.

"This way, Colonel, please," said the third man.

They escorted Bolan into a hallway of sedate oak paneling and thick red carpet.

Hal Brognola and another man, whom Bolan recognized as Farnsworth, the CFB chief, stood waiting a few paces to the side of the closed heavy oak door of the Oval Office, the president's inner sanctum.

The two Secret Service agents fell back. The other staffer strode to the door of the president's office, knocked politely, then opened the door and stuck his head inside.

Brognola's permanently five-o'clock-shadowed face wore a tight glower that only barely brightened when he saw Bolan.

Stony Man's gruff White House liaison greeted Bolan with a firm handshake.

"Colonel Phoenix, thanks for getting here so fast." Hal introduced the man standing beside him. "This is Lee Farnsworth, Central Foreign Bureau."

Farnsworth was a strapping, blond-haired man in his early forties who had the physical, conditioning of a man twenty years younger. Sharp eyes that had seen it all were set in a serious, granite face.

Bolan considered what he knew about the guy and the operation he headed.

The CFB was the Defense Department's special unit for intelligence-gathering and covert operations. It was set up to supplement the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon intended the unit to operate around the world.

Bolan knew that the agency had been formed in 1980 during the planning of the raid to free the American hostages in Iran when the Pentagon was dissatisfied with the intelligence data it was getting from the CIA.

Much like the Phoenix operation, the CFB conducted clandestine operations without "presidential finding," the legal authorization required by Congress. Bolan also knew that the Senate and House Intelligence committees had not been advised of the unit's existence, as required by law.

The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is the Pentagon's regular intelligence unit, were unaware of the CFB's activities.

The bureau had deployed personnel around the world using false identification to collect intelligence.

Bolan respected Lee Farnsworth and what his agency had accomplished. He knew of at least one coup stage-managed by the CFB in which the U.S. had gained a new ally where one was badly needed.

If Farnsworth's estimation of Phoenix was mutual, he did nothing to show it. He glanced away as if Bolan was not there.

The White House staffer stepped into the hallway from the Oval Office and approached the waiting three.

"The president will see you now, gentlemen."

The two Secret Service men intercepted them at the office door. One of the Feds held a metal-detector device that beeped when he fanned Bolan with it.

"We check all our weapons or the meeting's off," clipped Farnsworth.

"Strict security regulation to protect the Man," Brognola said to Bolan. "Lee and I have already turned ours over."

Bolan didn't like it, but he handed over the Beretta. Then he, Farnsworth and Brognola stepped into the president's tomb of an office where heavy drapes were drawn against the day's last light.

The door closed behind them, leaving them in private with the man who strode forward to greet them.

Bolan had never met any of the presidents he had served under as Colonel John Phoenix. A good soldier must remain apolitical, was Bolan's philosophy.

The president shook hands with each man in turn. Up close, the chief executive showed a strain not discernible in the media pictures Bolan had seen. The president looked tired and edgy.

"You have my word, gentlemen, that this meeting is strictly off the record, any record," the Man told them. "This meeting has never taken place. I'm in Louisville, and you are not here. Please be seated. Let us attend to this business as expediently as possible."

The four men seated themselves in a loose circle of wing chairs just off from the president's desk.

"Mr. President," began Lee Farnsworth, "Stony Man has screwed up a mission that the CFB spent over a year setting up. It's happened before, too."

"Let's have specifics," growled Brognola. "What mission of yours have we supposedly screwed up?"

"The Dragon," said Farnsworth.

The president glanced at Hal and Bolan.

"Is this true, gentlemen? I'm familiar with The Dragon file. Has Stony Man become involved?"

Hal looked itchy to light one of his cigars, but it was widely known that the president was a reformed smoker.

"We do have a three-man combat unit called Able Team that is working The Dragon angle," Hal admitted.

"The Atlantic thing," put in Farnsworth. "That was another angle of it."

"So it came together from different sides," gruffed Brognola. "If Able Team get their hands on The Dragon, it saves CFB the work."

"The Dragon is not the top man in his corner of the world," groused the CFB boss. "He has a partner. You didn't know that because it was our men who developed the intel. The Dragon runs the enforcement arm of the organization. The partner carries the list of names of backers and associates around in his or her head. This partner will sacrifice The Dragon if he has to. It's important to our mission that The Dragon's partner not have any idea that we have a mole inside his organization."

"Get back to Able Team," said Brognola.

"If Able Team had been allowed to hit The Dragon's fortress, the CFB would have risked the operation and the life of the contact we have inside."

"You're speaking of Able Team in the past tense," said Bolan, with a sinking feeling.

"Our man next to The Dragon blew the whistle," Farnsworth said smugly. "The Dragon has been alerted. He's already lit out from that fort of his."

"At least you alerted Able Team," said Hal, but the words came out a question.

"Stony Man has stepped on our toes often enough to need a lesson," growled Farnsworth. "Your men of Able Team are the lesson." He turned to the president. "Sir, we lost two men in Morocco last year because Stony Man operated in the area without CFB clearance. It happened the year before that to an agent in El Salvador."

Bolan felt his fury rising. He slowly got to his feet and felt the eyes of the others following him.

"Are you telling me that you've left our men in those mountains to be slaughtered?"

Bolan hardly recognized his own voice.

"This happens because the CFB and Stony Man are two completely different types of operations trying to do the same job in the same territory," rasped Farnsworth.

The president frowned.

"Dammit, Lee, sometimes you go too damn far."

"My operatives are trained in the art of espionage," Farnsworth insisted. "Their training is rooted in accomplishing a mission without making waves. That's the spy business. These Stony Man, uh, 'combat specialists,' tramp through our well-setup operations like goddamn bulls through a china shop. I submit, Mr. President, that the Stony Man project is crippling us from within. The Phoenix unit should be disbanded."

"Deal me out if you want to," said Bolan softly. "That suits this soldier just fine."

Brognola stood to face Bolan.

"Striker, don't — "

"Please, Colonel, you must understand," said the president in a reasonable tone to Bolan. "I share with my predecessors the view that Stony Man is vital to our national security. Don't you gentlemen feel there is some way for both your units to coexist?"

Bolan turned to the president.

"What does General Crawford say about this?"

Perhaps the driving force in the development of Stony Man, and one of the main reasons Bolan had decided to take on the proffered government-sanctioned job at the end of his Mafia wars, was now-retired Brigadier General James Crawford. He had been Mack Bolan's commanding officer in Vietnam and had been invaluable in making the Phoenix dream a reality.

"As you know, General Crawford oversaw the creation of Stony Man and the CFB," said the president. "Like myself, the general hopes a compromise can be worked out."

Bolan faced the president head-on.

"It will have to wait, sir. I'm needed in the field tonight. You've been briefed on what happened at Stony Man?"

"I have."

"Then you'll understand why I can't spend the night sitting here talking policy. Will that be all, sir?"

A good-natured glint came into the president's eye.

"Yes, Colonel. Thank you for coming. We'll be in touch."

Bolan was in the outer hallway again, slipping on his retrieved shoulder rig, when Hal Brognola caught up with him.

The burly Fed wore a mixed expression of awe and frustration.

"You are the damndest guy," was all Hal could muster.

Bolan stalked outside into the night. Brognola kept pace with him.

"What was that business on the phone about an itch?" asked Hal. "And telling the president to deal you out if he wants to? I think we had better have a serious talk, Striker."

"We will, Hal. But not tonight."

"There you go with 'not tonight' again, just like you told the Man. I want an explanation. I know about the communications blackout at Stony Man Farm. But what makes you so damn sure there's going to be an attack on the Farm
tonight?"

"I'm not sure, Hal. I'm not going to Stony Man."

Brognola blinked.

"You're not? Where the blazes are you going?"

Bolan glanced at the city of lights beyond the perimeter of the floodlit White House grounds.

"I'm going out there," Bolan told him. "Konzaki is in a coma, hanging on to life by a thread. Three good men are on the other side of the world and need to be alerted and told that they're walking into a trap."

"You think The Dragon has the place wired?"

Bolan nodded, his face a grim mask.

"With enough firepower to kill Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales before they know what hit them. And it's about to happen at any minute now, but we can't get word to them because someone sabotaged Stony Man communications. I am going to find who did this to us, Hal. They are not going to get another chance."

"But where will you start? You don't have any leads."

Grimaldi, waiting in the chopper, saw Bolan coming and revved up the engine in preparation for take off.

Bolan raised his voice for Hal to hear.

"I've already started. I'm going to shake this damn town to its roots. I'll get the answers. And it's happening tonight."

Bolan jogged beneath the whirling blades and climbed into the Hughes.

Brognola watched as Grimaldi smoothly lifted them off. The blinking red lights of the chopper grew smaller and smaller as the Hughes receded into the night sky.

Then Brognola gave in to his urge and reached into a pocket for a cigar.

He paused before lighting it, still looking into the dark sky long after the chopper disappeared.

"You are the damndest guy," he said again to no one.

Brognola pocketed the unlit cigar and walked back into the White House.