MacK Bolan No. 62: Day of Mourning (9 page)

The undulating Blue Ridge terrain was magnified and rendered clear by the infrared binoculars, pitch-darkness turned into dusk hazed with a reddish glow.

Al Miller was splayed flat on a low knoll that interrupted the forest with a superb view of the killing ground.

From a point five hundred meters outside the Farm's perimeter, he slowly panned the acreage with the glasses, reconfirming the patterns of security established by Stony Man after the sabotage of their satellite-communications unit.

Personnel were working desperately down there to repair the unit.

Not that it will matter, thought the misguided merc.

"Not after tonight," he said aloud to himself.

Movement from his right. He dropped the binoculars to let them hang by their strap and whipped the Uzi around as he darted back to the base of a wide-trunked oak.

"Zebra alpha," he hissed into the darkness. Then he soundlessly switched positions in case someone wanted to fire at the sound of his voice.

"Ambrose tango," came a cautious whisper out of the early-morning gloom, and another commando approached Miller's position.

Pete Kagor and the rest of the team wore night-infiltration garb that matched Miller's. They were togged in black, faces camouflaged with black combat cosmetics, toting side arms, Uzis and grenades.

Kagor lay flat beside Miller.

"We're twenty seconds and counting."

"We'll give them five minutes to engage security," Miller said, continuing to view the Farm stretched out in the distance below their position.

"Five minutes? Jeffcoat expects us to follow through
two
minutes after he initiates."

"Jeffcoat is wrong."

"Hold it, Top. Those are good men."

Miller pulled his attention away from the binoculars to eyeball his second-in-command.

"You getting an attack of the conscience, suddenly? Kinda late for that, isn't it?"

"No one said we were going to sacrifice good men."

"It'll be worth it." Miller resumed his infrared pan of the terrain. "Those folks down below are going to respond fast. Faster than we think. Another three minutes will give their security that much additional time to pull extra forces into the fray at the airfield, and that's less warm bodies we'll have to kill on our way in."

"I understand your reasoning, but — "

"Aren't you getting paid enough, soldier?"

"Okay... okay, I'm getting paid enough," Kagor grunted. "But there are other ways — "

"Get to your goddamn post," Miller snarled. "We move in five minutes after Jeff coat's team hits. Or do you want to argue about it?"

"I just don't think it's right."

"Fuck what you think is right," Miller hissed. "Git."

Kagor got.

Al Miller focused the infrared binoculars on the airfield situated two thousand meters inside the north perimeter of this secret base. He could see two hangars, camouflaged from air detection, and a runway. Two aircraft, a prop job and a chopper, sat on the airstrip. There would be more in the hangars.

Any second now.

Miller's attack force was deployed into six-man combat teams, as they had rehearsed for so long at the grounds of the Potomac estate. One team was waiting outside the Farm's north perimeter, not far from the airfield; another team was poised to strike from the southwest corner of the Farm.

The remaining team hid in the dense predawn darkness near Miller's present position.

Each team was equipped with two portable one-man grenade launchers. The teams had rehearsed to close in slowly, then group into two three-man squads with a pointman leading a squad by twenty paces.

These men were combat specialists, intensively trained by Miller for this one hit in all the arts of silent night killing. The grenade launchers would devastate any serious defense encountered by Miller's commando unit.

He intended tonight's action by this crew to be a standard hit-and-git night attack.

Jeffcoat's team would engage Stony Man forces at the air base.

Kagor's crew would hit from the southwest. Miller's own team would strike from this easterly position they now held. There would be casualties on Miller's side, he knew, but they would spread out around the Farm's command center, that innocent-appearing farmhouse in the middle of the acreage.

The Stony Man Phoenix project would be canceled forever.

And Al Miller would be a rich man.

They would all be rich men.

Those who survived.

Miller had learned his infiltration technique as a Green Beret in Vietnam. Covert actions in that war made it an easy step to work for the CIA when the war was over; the connections had already been made, and the Company knew Miller to be a ruthless specialist in the many arts of violent death.

Miller considered himself a success because he kept morals out of his professional work. His only morality was a big paycheck, and he had a healthy Swiss bank account full of hefty retainers as a specialist and adviser in such places as North Africa, El Salvador and Ireland.

On occasion he had played both sides against each other, collecting two paychecks. That had taken a bit of fancy footwork. But it was nothing like tonight.

Miller glanced at the luminous hands of his wrist-watch.

One more minute.

Then... attack.

He focused the infrared binoculars one last time on the farmhouse.

Except for a few men working on the damaged satellite system, there was no movement. Lighted windows were well draped.

Miller knew most of the activity was underground. That subterranean section would be the most vital part of this hit... and the most difficult. But once their security force was dealt with, the house could be taken with the firepower his teams would rain down upon it.

He shifted the binoculars to make a final check uprange, where he could make out the nondescript guardhouse at the main entrance to the Farm, near the northeast corner of the sprawling property.

The guardhouse did not look fortified, although Miller knew it was. It didn't even look like a guardhouse, but it was manned by a team of crack troops, all heavily armed.

He could see nothing had changed since the last time he checked the guardhouse several minutes earlier. Security had been beefed up around the farmhouse and perimeter since the soft-probe sabotage, but Miller saw nothing that his team could not handle.

And Miller would be a rich man.

Tonight would pay off better than the last two overseas missions Miller had undertaken. And the fact that it was an internal squabble within his country's intel network did not mean a damn thing to Miller.

He had moved through this maze of spy shenanigans at home and abroad long and hard enough to know that this sort of thing happened now and then.

Besides, it was as good a way as any of weeding out those not strong enough to survive this kind of work.

Hell, if tonight's action meant a life of ease in some pleasure-spa with naked babes, good booze and gourmet food, why not?

Someone had to do it.

Sure, things would be hot for Al in and around D.C. — things would be hot for him everywhere — after tonight.

But enough bucks could buy a new face, a new identity, anything... and Miller was being paid more than enough for all that.

Miller thought about John Phoenix.

Was Phoenix here at Stony Man Farm at this moment? Not according to Miller's contact inside the Farm.

Miller knew all about Grover Jones — or whatever the hell Muslim name that jive dude called himself, thought Miller — and he knew Phoenix had evaded the ambush Jones had so sloppily arranged. If Phoenix hadn't killed that uppity bastard, I would've.

So where was Phoenix right now?

Miller brushed aside the concern.

The merc topkick replaced the glasses in the leather case strapped around his neck. He gripped the Uzi in preparation for action at the sounds of Jeffcoat's attack at the airstrip.

Sprawled on the knoll overlooking the dark Farm, ready for action, Al Miller experienced a sensual anticipation that was almost sexual.

He would kill people tonight. He would pull the trigger of the Uzi and listen to screams of fear and pleading dissolve as bullets shredded flesh and sprayed brains. Somehow the thought of death weirdly excited him for the woman at the house in Potomac. The bitch. Tied to a chair, waiting to take what he wanted before he quit that house and his country forever.

Where is Phoenix?

It didn't matter. Not one goddamn.

Phoenix was already too late to save Stony Man Farm.

Where is Mack Bolan?

It meant a lot to April Rose.

The mission controller of Stony Man Farm sat at the shortwave console of the command center, checking the load and action of her .44 Magnum for at least the tenth time since Bolan had kissed her at the airstrip before Grimaldi airlifted him off into the night.

April felt the same old concern gnawing her as it always did when her man was in the fire.

The fact that the fight was so close to home gave the concern a coolness that nibbled at the base of her spine.

She had relayed Mack's last message to the men of Phoenix Force, who were now in the com-room.

Yakov Katzenelenbogen and his team hustled out into the night to make last-minute checks and adjustments of the defense perimeter of the Farm.

Mack's initial assessment of the computer sabotage had been correct, as usual.

Stony Man Farm was about to be attacked.

That was something else that made a difference. So many times April sat and waited at this very console, giving Bolan intel support and coordinating the various Stony Man units. Most of the time April was out of action. But not tonight.

Not tonight.

She holstered the .44 and swiveled in her chair to face the array of hi-tech electronics just as Katz and David McCarter returned.

Both Phoenix Force members had procured M-16s to supplement their holstered side arms.

"Manning and Ohara are beefing up security around the airfield," Yakov told April. "Encizo is covering Kurtzman and his men."

"Any news from Bear?"

"A matter of minutes," McCarter reported.

Yakov set down his rifle and leaned against a nearby wall. He shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit it.

"That might be too long if Striker is correct about the hit coming down anytime. The hours right before dawn; the best time for a hit."

McCarter straddled a chair backward.

"Too bad the patrols we sent out didn't find anything."

"We couldn't afford to send them too far," Yakov reminded the Briton.

McCarter's face was taut with the anticipation of violence. "I hate like bloody hell having to sit here waiting for them to hit us. It should bleedin' well be the other way around."

"That's the way Mack has always felt," April agreed.

A strong attack is the best defense. Seek out the enemy and hit him first. Hit him when he isn't ready for you. Hit him hard. Hit him again and again. And be as merciless to him as he is to his victims.

Bolan and Jack Grimaldi, who should have landed at the Stony Man airstrip by now, were late.

They were late.

Where is Mack Bolan?

April Rose had no idea.

She had a funny thought.
I'd rather be right here than anywhere else in the world tonight, except for by his side.

April had never felt the restless searching that supposedly guides everyone through their twenties, probably due to the same pragmatic nature that guided her to graduate summa cum laude from U of C at Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering and a master's in solid-state physics by the time she was twenty-two.

Her search had been for a satisfying role through which to channel her knowledge and skills that she hoped, in however small a way, would contribute toward resolving some of the ills of humanity on this mixed-up planet.

She had not been interested in pursuing the high-fashion modeling career that had paid her way through college, though some of the offers seemed like the moon and the stars.

She had found her niche when she accepted an appointment with the U.S. Justice Department's Sensitive Operations Group that led directly to her association with Mack Bolan and her present position code-named Stony Man Two.

At twenty-nine years of age, April Rose was exactly where she wanted to be in her life.

Even tonight.

Especially tonight.

She found her first gray hair two days ago, and it hardly came as a surprise. But the more she put into the Stony Man operation, the more rewarding her life became.

Especially with a good man named Bolan who somehow seemed to give April everything she needed in every department of their relationship without ever crowding or wanting more than she could give.

April respected that more than anything else about her man, and she treated him the same way even though it hurt her more than she cared to admit each time her warrior left on another mission.

April had come a long way since childhood days as a sunshine kid in Modesto. Mom was gone two years now. April always managed to make it home to share Christmas and a week every summer with her father, a retired biology teacher. But beyond that her life revolved around the good souls and everything that mattered so much here at the nerve center of Mack's terrorist wars.

April Rose would go the distance for Mack Bolan.

Where is he?
she wondered.

Perhaps he's wrong about the attack scheduled for tonight.

But she didn't think so.

The door to the communications room opened and Captain Wade strolled in. The security officer ignored Katz and McCarter. He stopped to face April at the console.

"Yes, Captain?"

"I've learned that my file has been subjected to a security scan at your request, Miss Rose."

She reacted coolly to the officer towering above her.

"That was routine."

"Routine, shit," growled Wade. "It was done under orders from Colonel Phoenix, wasn't it? That man didn't trust me worth a damn when he eyeballed me awhile ago. I resent that."