Fireburst

by Don Pendleton

  “But sir,” Nasser stated, “that could take all night!”

  “Then take all night!” Armanjani bellowed, rattling the intercom. “Take however long is necessary! But I want results by dawn. Am I understood?”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Khandis said. “We shall give it our all!”

  “Good. Are the White Tigers taken care of?”

  “Burned off the face of the Earth, sir,” Nasser said.

  “Excellent!” Armanjani chuckled. “Lieutenant, hire some local people to make sure there were no survivors, then help the doctor find a suitable target for the demonstration.”

  “Already done,” Khandis said. “There are heavy clouds over Léon, France.”

  “The city of Léon! Is…is such a thing possible?” Armanjani asked hesitantly.

  “Yes, sir,” the doctor boasted proudly. “The target will be leveled immediately after the announcement of the auction.”

  “Very well. Then I will leave everything in your capable hands.”

  “Yes, sir!” the doctor replied.

  “Let me know when the details are confirmed,” Armanjani stated gruffly.

  White Tiger Base, Sri Lanka

  THE JUNGLE WAS STILL, all of the animal life chased away by the lightning strikes. Not even a breeze was stirring among the trees, as if the very air itself had been frightened into submission by the display of nature unchained. The only sounds were the crackling of the numerous small fires and the gentle murmur of the river.

  Crawling over to the BMW, Bolan found the bike lying on its side, the chassis dimpled from the rain of shrapnel. However, the motorcycle was undamaged, just dirty and badly scratched.

  Settling in for a long wait, Bolan open a canteen and poured some water into a palm to wet his hair back down. The secondary effects of that many lightning bolts were pronounced. His compass was dead, the needle spinning randomly. The GPS was dead, as was the Starlite scope on the Black Arrow. The glass lenses still worked, of course, but the electronics were frazzled. Only the transceiver was still operational. It was shielded from electromagnetic fields to prevent the device from triggering proximity detectors.

  Bolan heard the mechanical thunder of a powerful engine, and an old Russian M-3 half-track appeared on the dirt road along the crest. Starting down the slope, the M-3 crushed a path through the tall grass and the bamboo and stopped on a low hill overlooking the former campsite of the White Tigers.

  The driver and commander stayed inside the enclosed cupola, while six men climbed out of the back. Each was dressed in loose camouflage uniforms, the kind that could be purchased at most shopping malls, and each was armed with a wide assortment of pistols and submachine guns.

  “Spread out,” a bald man commanded, working the arming bolt on his weapon. “I want a fifty-meter sweep of the whole area! Check under every bush.”

  Staying motionless in the stand of trees, Bolan noted that the men showed some skill at what they were doing, but not much order. They could be mercenaries, perhaps hired by the people behind the lightning strikes to make sure this had been a clean sweep and all of the White Tigers were dead.

  Listening to the men converse, Bolan was intrigued by their thick accents. They were clearly not from Sri Lanka, but from the India mainland just across Adam’s Bridge, a string of sand bars and shoals that loosely connected the island nation to the mainland. Local legend said that was where Adam and Eve crossed over from the Garden of Eden after they got kicked out. Nice story, but theology was not his main concern at the moment. Staying alive was.

  Many years ago, there had been a ferry service connecting the two nations, but a cyclone destroyed the Sri Lankan port, and it was never rebuilt for a combination of reasons. Bolan could only assume that the mercenaries had some private way across the watery border. Some kind of old LARC cargo vessel would be the logical answer. These guys didn’t look wealthy enough to own a hovercraft that could support the massive weight of a Soviet M3.

  With a finger on the trigger of the Black Arrow, Bolan kept as still as possible as the mercenaries walked around the fused landscape, warily turning over bodies, checking inside hollow logs, and even probing the shallow depths of a muddy creek. Then two of them dived into the river to check for bodies. They seemed surprised by all the damage, and avoided the fused craters in the ground as if they were radioactive.

  Just then, a man growled something in a foreign language. There was a long jagged scar across his throat where it looked like somebody had tried to remove his head with an ax and failed.

  “Speak English!” the bald man snarled. “These scum don’t speak of a word of it.”

  “Very well,” the man rumbled. “The area is clear, sir. If there were any survivors, I’ll eat my own gun.”

  “They’re all dead!” the bald man shouted at the M3 half-track.

  “Find a head!” an amplified voice ordered from the cupola.

  As there were so many of them scattered about, the grisly object was easily located. A mercenary tried to lift up the head by the hair, but the cooked scalp slipped right off the bone, and another had to be found. This time it was cradled in both hands, the unhappy man twitching his nose in an effort to not inhale the fumes coming off the cooked flesh.

  “Damn, it does smell like pork,” another man noted, covering his mouth with a hand.

  “Shut up, fool. Ramel! Get me their website,” the bald man snapped, holding out a hand.

  A barrel-chested man passed over a satellite phone, and the bald man looked at something on the tiny screen, then back at the head. Frowning slightly, he did this several times before grinning.

  “Yeah, this is one of them,” he stated with a chuckle. “The idiots actually posted pictures of themselves in dramatic poses.”

  “Were they insane?” a tall man asked, the accent so thick that it took Bolan a few moments to understand what had been said.

  “No, not insane,” the bald man said, dropping the head then kicking it toward the river. “Just total amateurs.” Splashing into the water, the head sank from sight.

  “Easy money.” A burly man laughed, resting his MP-5 on a broad shoulder. “Every assignment should be like this!”

  “Where would be the fun in that?” a thin man asked, his head moving like a pendulum as he steadily glanced back and forth at the wreckage. “They certainly have a lot of expensive weaponry.”

  “There is some nice stuff around here,” a hairy man said, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “Sir, mind if we check the bodies for anything valuable?”

  “Why not?” the bald man said with a laugh.

  Scowling darkly, Bolan moved away from the BMW. If anybody started to walk his way, he would lead them away from the motorcycle, then circle back and ride for his life.

  “None of that! Everybody back in the truck!” the unseen commander ordered. “Pival, leave the repeater, and set the timer for ten minutes! I want to be far away from here before radioing back what we found!”

  “You don’t trust them?” the bald man asked, looking up at the clear sky.

  A panel slid back in the cupola, and an old man glared out. “Do you?”

  “People who claim that they can control lightning?” The bald man sneered. “Not under any circumstances!”

  Using his monocular, Bolan watched from the shadows as the mercs set up a repeater radio in the middle of the decimated campsite.

  “And…it’s live!” the bald man shouted, as he set a timer and stepped away quickly. “
We have five minutes and counting. Move it.”

  Hustling a lot faster than they had before, the mercs scrambled back into the half-track, and it roared up the road heading north.

  Waiting a minute to give them some distance, Bolan then climbed onto the BMW and kicked the big engine alive. It sputtered at first, then surged with power, and Bolan streaked away from the campsite, plowing straight through the leaves, vines and bushes to climb the hill and jounce onto the road.

  Maintaining a low speed, Bolan had only gone a few miles when lightning flashed from behind. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw the campsite erupt into fire as another lightning bolt arched down from the clear sky, the boom of its arrival sounding like artillery. Glancing at his watch, Bolan saw that a little over five minutes had passed. Right on schedule. If nothing else, their unknown enemy was punctual, and that could be used against them.

  Catching the rumble of the Soviet half-track, Bolan lowered his speed even more. There really was no problem following the vehicle as a half-track left highly distinctive marks on the ground. Several times the mercs stopped to make sure they weren’t being followed, but there was no way he could have lost them if this had been the middle of the night during a monsoon.

  As with most jungle roads, this one had been built along the lines of least resistance, curving around natural formations and always trying to stay level. That facilitated Bolan’s progress enormously, and he was easily able to stay just out of sight across several bridges, and through a bird sanctuary, until finally reaching the northern coast of Mannar Island.

  The road abruptly stopped in the middle of what might be called a town, but was barely more than a settlement. The existing buildings were few and far between, a ramshackle collection of plywood huts, tar-paper shacks and a couple of rusty prefab huts.

  Just past the end of the road, the remnant of the destroyed dockyard was now only a ragged outline of broken masonry near the beach. But clustered on either side were crude homemade docks, little more than splintery planks chained to boulders. Dozens of fishing nets hung off tall bamboo poles to dry in the sun, and the ocean was dotted with a wide assortment of boats, ships and rafts trawling the shallow waters for whatever came their way.

  Parked alongside the main road was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle flying the Sri Lankan flag. Several uniformed soldiers were lounging against the APC, assault rifles slung across their chests.

  Angling off the road, the mercenaries in the M-3 did not even pause as they rolled toward the APC. The Sri Lankan soldiers casually nodded in greeting as the half-track passed, and one of the mercenaries in the rear tossed out a small package. Sauntering over, a lieutenant recovered the package and tucked it out of sight inside his shirt.

  Parking behind some bushes, Bolan watched as the mercenaries continued to the shoreline. Sure enough a battered old U.S. Navy LARC was resting on the beach, the rear ramp down and waiting for them. Resembling a flat-bottom boat with wheels, the LARC had a tiny pilothouse full of armed men, and a Finnish 20 mm cannon mounted on the port gunwale. Although it looked about as seaworthy as a toilet seat, Bolan knew that the tough little LARC had more than enough brute horsepower to speedily haul the Soviet half-track across the strait to India. The U.S. Navy crest had been scraped off long ago, and nothing new had replaced it. The LARC also didn’t have a name painted across the bow, or even running lights.

  The vehicles trundled up the ramp, the mercs parking it in the middle of the LARC, and the armed crew started chaining it into place for the brief sea voyage home.

  Realizing that this was the end of directly following them, Bolan swung off the road and drove his bike around the tiny fishing village, desperately searching for some alternate method of pursuit. If necessary, he would steal a boat, but the local people looked as though they were living on the ragged edge, and his theft might mean disaster for an entire family. Come on, he thought, there had to be some other way…yes!

  Floating just off the beach was a small fishing boat with three men clustered around a torn net hanging from the broken rig. No catch meant no pay. Perfect.

  Driving directly over, Bolan parked the bike and sharply whistled. Curious, the fishermen approached, then paused at the sight of the huge Black Arrow strapped across his back.

  “English?” Bolan asked, killing the engine.

  “Little. Captain,” a man gruffly replied, stabbing himself in the chest with a thumb. “Who you?”

  Without bothering to answer, Bolan hauled out his emergency cash and fanned the collection of bills. The eyes of the crew went wide, and one man actually wiped the drool off his unshaven face with a sleeve.

  “Me, my bike, follow them,” Bolan said, pointing with his free hand.

  “No. Many guns,” the captain said, waving a hand in dismissal.

  “No fight, only follow,” Bolan said, pulling out the last of his cash. “Nothing more. Just follow.”

  Turning around, the captain held a fast conversation with his crew. Glancing down the beach, Bolan saw the LARC preparing to leave.

  “All?” the captain asked, rubbing two fingers together.

  Bolan nodded agreement.

  “Deal.” The captain sighed, clearly unhappy about the matter. “But follow. No fight!”

  “No fight,” Bolan agreed, dividing the stack and passing over half of the money. “All money after land.”

  It took all four of the men to hoist the BMW onto the trawler. But the crew seemed to have done this sort of job before, and the Sri Lankan boat stayed far away from the Indian LARC, constantly dipping below the horizon in an effort to stay of sight. The 20 mm cannon wasn’t much, but it could easily have blown the trawler into flotsam with a single shell.

  The strait was only thirty-odd miles, and soon Bolan was back on dry land again, absolutely broke, but now on Panban Island, India, and still in hot pursuit.

  Driving into the grassy hills, Bolan studied the Soviet half-track through his monocular. Several miles down the road was a large Indian military outpost, a fortified base surrounded by real pillboxes, heliports full of armed helicopters, and landing strips holding neat rows of strike fighters.

  The roadway went right past the huge base, concrete K-rails funneling the four lanes into one, and that was blocked with a brick guard kiosk, a thick wooden rail and a squat monolith of steel that rose from the middle of the pavement.

  Bolan was impressed. He had seen those before many times. Any car, truck or even armored personnel carrier that tried to ram past that low lump of steel would stop dead in its tracks as if slamming into the side of a mountain. That squat monolith was actually fifty feet long, and reinforced by countless yards of ferro-concrete. It was very similar to the monolith used to block the front driveway of the White House. Only an army tank would have a chance to get by, and there were enough concrete tank traps lining the berms to slow down even an Abrams M-1 battle tank. The Indian military really knew its business. Nobody was getting past this point without being inspected.

  So exactly how did the mercs do it on a regular basis? Bolan wondered.

  As expected, the answer was simple. As if they had done this a thousand times before, the mercs sent the half-track off the side of the road, and down into a muddy creek that flowed along a culvert. Without slowing, the half-track disappeared inside a huge storm drain.

  Muttering a curse, Bolan kicked the BMW into life and raced after them. This was unexpected! If Kirkland and Montenegro got away from the Sri Lankan military and came after
him, Bolan hoped that they noticed the culvert. If not, they would never find one another again without using the radios. And after what Bolan had seen happen to the merc radio, he would be extremely hesitant to broadcast his location to anybody, even with a heavily coded signal.

  Knowing that even the purr of the BMW would be clearly heard inside the confines of a tunnel, Bolan was forced to let the half-track get almost completely out of sight before he dared to drive into the drain.

  Unable to use his headlight, Bolan had to lower his speed again, and squinted into the darkness ahead, trying to stay alert for any sudden turns. Expectedly, he slammed into an open drain, and almost cracked a rib when the motorcycle toppled over, the sideview mirror exploding into shards of plastic and glass.

  As the BMW skidded along the tunnel, Bolan saw the concrete wall flowing past his unprotected head only an inch away. With a deafening screech, the handlebar sent out a bright spray of sparks, and only the body armor saved his right arm from being ground into mincemeat.

  When the bike finally stopped moving, Bolan stiffly crawled out from under it and used the Black Arrow to lever the machine back onto its wheels. Then he waited for an attack. But the half-track didn’t return. He could only assume they hadn’t heard his accident over their own engine.

  Or else they’re laying a trap for me at the exit, Bolan thought grimly, checking over the Black Arrow for any damage done by using it as a prybar. However, the resilient weapon was unscathed.

  Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the Desert Eagle. The holster on his hip had been ripped open, and the safety on the big-bore pistol was badly bent. Bolan tried several times, but he couldn’t get it to move. With no choice, he tucked it into his belt. The pistol was dead until he could gain access to a machine shop. What was worse, the transceiver had busted open along his sideways journey. Half the circuits were missing, and the rest looked like a rainbow of spaghetti. With no way to repair the radio, Bolan placed it prominently in sight on a small mound of debris for Kirkland and Montenegro to find if they came this way. Hope for the best, but always plan for failure. That was the key to staying alive in combat.