Thunder Down Under

by Don Pendleton

  It was the intensity of his stare that attracted Bolan’s attention, but he was careful not to watch the young man too closely lest he spook him. As he waited for his lunch basket to be brought out, he observed the man in the reflection of the chrome napkin holder and saw him drop one hand to the right pocket of his jacket and pat something inside.

  Bolan looked around—the area was crowded today, with throngs of people moving along the narrow aisles to do their shopping or have lunch. He glanced casually at the young man once more then took out his smartphone and sent a quick text.

  His lunch arrived and he paid for it. He then took it and a glass of water over to the empty chair on the other side of the young man’s table. “Hey,” he said with a smile. “Mind if I sit here?”

  The man didn’t look up for a moment, then his head slowly swiveled to regard Bolan. For a moment the Executioner thought he might draw right then and there, and he was ready to move if the guy did. But he just gave a half-hearted shrug. “Free country.”

  “That it is, that it is.” Bolan sat and picked up half of his alligator-sausage po-boy. “Have you tried this place yet? It’s fantastic.”

  The young man looked around, as if trying to see if they were drawing any attention. “Not really in the mood to talk.”

  “Hey, I understand. If I keep talking, I won’t be able to eat my lunch.” Bolan fell silent for a couple of minutes, chewing as he observed the guy sitting across from him. He had put both hands on the table again and now picked up the plastic cup and took a quick drink. His movements were quick, furtive—and his right hand never strayed far from his jacket pocket.

  Bolan was familiar with the type, having encountered several variants during his long career. The majority often wound up in the military and then, if that didn’t address their need—which it often did—they usually entered private military contracting to continue doing what they thought they needed to do to pacify themselves.

  He thought this man hadn’t gotten as far, for whatever reason. That didn’t make him any less capable of sowing violence here, and Bolan would have to make sure to handle him carefully.

  At this range, there were at least a dozen ways he could incapacitate the man, from rendering him immobile on one end of the spectrum to leaving him a corpse on the other end. But he hoped none of that would be necessary.

  Bolan finished the first half of his sandwich and then nudged the plastic basket holding the other half toward the man. “Whew, getting full. Sure you don’t want any?”

  “Hey, man, what’re you trying to do?” The man’s voice got louder toward the end of the sentence and he bowed his head and tried to look inconspicuous. “What do you want with me? Why are you doing this?”

  Time to lay the cards on the table. “Because I think you’re getting ready to make a terrible mistake and I don’t want you to,” Bolan replied.

  The young man’s head came up at that and he stared at Bolan, his right hand edging toward that pocket. “What? You a cop?”

  “Not at all.” Bolan raised his left hand slightly off the table in a calming gesture—but also ready to grab the guy’s hand if necessary. “Just a concerned citizen who doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt today.”

  A chattering family brushed by—a father and mother with three children all under twelve years old—on their way to the Mennonite bakery at the west end of the market. Bolan watched him watch them, ready to spring if he tried anything. But the man’s hand was still outside his pocket. Everyone was still safe...for now.

  “You say you’re not a cop. What are you, private security? Military?”

  “I was in the military, a while ago,” Bolan replied. He pointed at the jacket. “You?”

  The man looked away. “Couldn’t...couldn’t pass the physical.” He glared down at his jacket. “This is from a goddamn thrift store.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, I probably couldn’t pass it either now.” That was a bald-faced lie; even today, Bolan could run any recruit into the ground if he had to—and just about any fully trained soldier, too. But this wasn’t about bragging rights. This was about making some kind of connection, no matter how small.

  “Story of my life,” the man said. “Didn’t finish high school, figured why would I need it, I’m going into the Army. Only they didn’t want me, either. Now I’m just fucked.”

  “So, go back to school. Get your GED, go to tech school. You seem able, you seem smart—except regarding what you came here to do, that is.”

  “Oh yeah? What do you know? You don’t know anything about me!” The man’s voice rose again and he clamped down on his emotions with an effort.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. That was unnecessary,” Bolan said, both hands up now.

  “I’ve been looking for a job for eighteen months!” the man seethed, lowering his head again. “No one wants to hire me, not even as a busboy. I’m broke, been living on the streets for the past two weeks. I don’t know anyone here and I have no family. I’m...just...”

  “Alone,” Bolan finished. “I get it. You feel like no one in the world cares about you, no one knows you exist. That if you were to die tomorrow, and disappear from this earth, no one would notice, no one would care, right?”

  “Yeah...yeah,” he agreed, lifting his head to spear Bolan with his gaze. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  “And if you have to feel that way every day, then by God you’re going to make these people all around notice you, one way or the other, right?”

  “Damn straight! For once they’ll have to notice me! They won’t be able to look away, to speed up as they walk past me! They won’t have a choice anymore!”

  The man was hunched over the table now, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed into his jacket. Bolan noticed a couple of bystanders looking as if they wanted to help, but he waved them off with a small shake of his head.

  He sat there silently, waiting until the man’s quiet cries had died down. “What’s your name?”

  “It doesn’t matter—nothing matters!” he replied.

  “Yes, it does,” Bolan said. “Right here, right now, you matter. You have the power to make the choice that determines what happens here in the next few minutes. Either you leave that gun in your pocket, eat the rest of the sandwich in front of you and start living the rest of your life, or you pull the gun out and start shooting these people around you who don’t know you and never will. They’ve never done anything to hurt you, but you will impact their lives in ways they will never understand, but spend the rest of their lives trying to—at least those who survive will. But in the end, you won’t be remembered in the way you want—you’ll just end up as another statistic in a year filled with them, then pushed off the television and the front page as someone else does something that makes everyone forget about you all over again—forever.”

  The man’s eyes had grown wide as Bolan talked. But his hand had stayed on the table. The Executioner leaned forward a bit, pinning him with the full weight of his ice-blue stare.

  “But I don’t think you want to do that. I think you were sitting here, psyching yourself up in an attempt to go through with it. But deep down, I don’t think you truly want to do this.” He pushed the basket a bit farther across the table. “Go on, eat.”

  The man looked down at the sandwich, then up at him again, and said something under his breath.

  “I didn’t quite catch that,” Bolan replied.

  “My name’s Bob,” the young man replied. With a shuddering sigh, he reached for the sandwich and dug in with huge bites, wolfing it down like he was starving.

  Only when both of his hands were occupied did Bolan signal to the pair of uniformed Philadelphia police officers who had arrived a minute ago and were standing as inconspicuously as they could at the end of the aisle.

  “Bob,” he said, removing a card from his jacket pocket, “you’re going to have to go wi
th these officers now.”

  Bob looked up with a start at the police. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Listen to me.” Bolan held his gaze again. “You have to surrender your weapon and go with them. When you get the chance—” he held out the card “—call this number on the back. Don’t call a lawyer, don’t call anyone else, just call this number, and the person who answers will take care of things for you. It’s going to be all right.”

  “O-okay.” Bob nodded, a smear of po-boy sauce hanging on the corner of his mouth.

  “Sir, I’m going to ask you to stand up and put your hands on the table,” one of the officers instructed him.

  Bob looked at Bolan, who nodded. “Go ahead. Things will work out, I promise.”

  “Sir, we’ll need you to stick around for a few minutes to get a statement,” the second cop said to him.

  “Unfortunately, Officers, I have an appointment that requires my attention,” Bolan said as he handed them a similar card. “But if you contact the people at this number, they will be sure to straighten this all out.”

  “But we need your name at least,” the cop protested.

  “No, you don’t,” the soldier said over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “I’m just a concerned citizen who happened to be in the right place at the right time, that’s all.”

  Chapter Four

  Twenty-three hours later, Mack Bolan stepped off the Airbus A380 and into the terminal at Melbourne International Airport. He was dressed in navy chinos, a lightweight, tan sport coat and a short-sleeved, button-down shirt. A small carry-on was slung over his shoulder. He claimed his bag at the carousel, cleared customs and headed to the exit area.

  As he approached the main doors, he saw an attractive young woman with red hair and a smattering of freckles across her face. She wore slacks and a white, short-sleeved blouse, and held a sign that read Cooper.

  Bolan walked toward her. “Hello, I’m Matt Cooper.”

  She smiled brightly at him. “Hello, Mr. Cooper. On behalf of Wallcorloo National, welcome to Australia. My name is Cindra Tate. I’ll be your escort and assistant during your stay here. We have a car waiting to take you into the city, where we’ll set you up at your hotel, and then there is a dinner this evening with Mr. Martin and his wife.”

  “That all sounds great. Please, lead the way.”

  He motioned her to walk ahead of him.

  “I trust your flight was uneventful?” she asked as she fell into step beside him.

  “Long, but it got here,” he said with a grin. “As my assistant, will you be joining us for dinner tonight?”

  “I appreciate the thought, however I will be busy coordinating aspects of your trip to the Amadeus facility tomorrow.”

  They were out of the airport and at a pickup section that was currently empty. Tate took out her cell phone and a sleek, white Mercedes-Benz sedan pulled up a few seconds later. Brent Dever, the uniformed driver, got out to open the door and stow Bolan’s luggage in the trunk.

  He waited until they were both inside and pulling away before speaking again. “Yes...about that.”

  “Yes, Mr. Cooper?” Tate asked.

  “Please, call me Matt. If you don’t mind my asking, you’ve been with the company for how long?”

  “All right...Matt. And please call me Cindra.” She cocked her head to regard him. “I’ve been with WN for eighteen months now, why?”

  “I’m just curious as to why Mr. Martin would be so eager to have a foreign environmental engineer come in and inspect his facilities. From what I’ve seen in your local press, he doesn’t seem to be too keen on anyone trying to tell him what to do. I’d like to hear your insight, if you don’t mind.”

  Tate’s gaze flickered toward the driver before she replied. “Mr. Martin has been...frustrated with the lack of response by the local and national levels of government regarding his concerns about his company’s security. I believe he is hoping that bringing attention to this problem to the international community may provoke the reaction he’s looking for.”

  “I see.”

  Her answer matched the verbal analysis he’d gotten from Barbara Price and Aaron Kurtzman—the head of the cyber team at Stony Man—on Martin’s reason for bringing in an outsider, as well as detailed files on Martin’s and his company’s history, interactions with both the government and other companies, and their reputation on the world stage. Given that WN seemed to be just what it claimed—an energy company with an ambitious owner—Bolan wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find, but he was ready for anything.

  He leaned back in the plush leather seat. “Well, I hope I can live up to his expectations.”

  “You came very highly recommended, Mr.—Matt,” Tate said. “Mr. Martin has no doubt that you’re exactly the man we need.”

  “I appreciate that, Cindra,” Bolan replied. “Tell me something. Do you believe the AFN is behind these incidents?”

  “I’d prefer not to speculate on that,” she replied. “At this time, I don’t have enough information to make an accurate judgment.”

  Bolan raised an eyebrow. “You’re not just a meet-and-greeter, are you?”

  If anything, her smile got even wider. “I went to Sydney University to study pre-law and am currently working toward my doctorate in environmental law at Melbourne.”

  “Environmental law? Wouldn’t that normally put you and your employer on opposite sides?”

  “Possibly, but there’s no reason that industry cannot exist, if not in harmony with the environment, then without despoiling it,” she replied. “That is the entire purpose of the Amadeus facility. From the beginning, it was designed to extract what we want with minimal impact on the environment.”

  “That sounds ideal—so why would the AFN want to damage it?”

  “There are those in our land who want to prevent all development of the interior, saying it infringes on the rights and lands of the native population. Unfortunately they seem to be willing to resort to destructive measures to ensure such development doesn’t come to pass, even if it’s done correctly and benefits many people.”

  “Even so, the measures Mr. Martin is accusing them of taking seem rather harsh, given their public position.”

  “Public positions and private actions can often be very different, Matt. You should know that, being from America and all.”

  Bolan wasn’t sure if the woman was kidding, or if she was serious. Deciding not to engage on that particular statement, he said, “They told me there was security footage of the incident with the two officers. Is there any chance I could get a look at it?”

  A faint furrow appeared on her brow. “Whatever for? It’s not like their deaths would impact what you’re here to do, would it?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Bolan replied. “Often it’s not just how these perpetrators cause the damage they inflict, but the methods they use to gain access and how they deal with intruders as they carry out their plans. If you’re worried I’m squeamish, don’t be—I’ve seen some pretty bad things in various places around the world.”

  She regarded him for a moment and then reached for a slim leather attaché case near her feet and opened it. “Mr. Martin said you should be given access to anything that you feel would help with your investigation, so...” She took out a tablet, swiped it on and handed it to him.

  “You don’t agree?” Bolan asked, putting on a pair of stylish, gray-rimmed glasses as he scanned the various folders. Spotting one titled “Amadeus Incident,” with a date that matched the day the murders had happened, he opened it. Inside were more files and a video file.

  “You come well recommended, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I would trust you right off the bat,” she replied. “But, ultimately, that decision isn’t mine to make.”

  “Don’t worry—I promise not to do anything that will lessen your faith in me,”
Bolan said with a grin as he activated the video.

  The twelve minutes of color drone footage was sharp and clear. Bolan adjusted his glasses for a better view then quickly scanned through the early minutes, stopping right where the first MP officer had been shot. Because the camera was pointed down, he couldn’t get a precise fix on where the shot had come from, but it had obviously originated from the direction the two officers were walking. It looked to be a cold-blooded ambush.

  Bolan watched the second man report in then take off running back the way he’d come. The drone didn’t move, just kept dispassionately recording the patch of ground and the dead body underneath it for a good four minutes. At one point, three figures dressed in black from head to toe ran through the area, but the drone didn’t follow them. Another thirty seconds passed before it started moving again, heading back to the SUV. It landed with a thump on the dusty ground, rose into the air and was tossed into the back of the vehicle.

  The camera was still recording. Bolan could see part of the SUV’s ceiling, as well as through the rear passenger window. He heard the door to the back cargo area close, another door open and scuffling noises coming from the front. Next he heard glass shatter from what sounded like the front of the vehicle, followed by some gasps before the door opened.

  A dark, blurred figure appeared in the frame. “We shall not rest until the entire land is free from you devils!” a hard voice shouted. That was followed by a single gunshot. He heard the sound of someone approaching the cargo area, then the footage stopped.

  “So, you don’t have anything from them breaching the perimeter, or internal security footage?”

  Tate shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Our internal security personnel believes they used a jammer to scramble our wireless system.” She looked chagrined as she said that. “We’re taking steps to resolve this issue.”

  “And they didn’t set off any internal alarms, either?” Bolan asked as he opened the evaluation report of the incident, which included autopsy records of the two dead MPOs.