Fireburst

by Don Pendleton

  “Many Americans and British also do the abomination,” Hassan stated.

  “Wake him,” Armanjani said in a low voice. “And do not be gentle.”

  Nasser stepped forward and delivered several stinging blows across the prisoner’s face. Almost instantly, he awoke.

  “Better,” the major said, with a cruel smile. “Now, tell me what you were after on this vessel, or else death will come only when I no longer find your screams amusing.”

  The naked man breathed hard for a few moments, then laughed contemptuously. Slamming his mouth shut, he ground his teeth hard enough to break off small chips.

  “Stop him!” Hassan yelled, unsure of what else to do.

  Several of the men present reached for the prisoner and tried to force open his mouth, then quickly let go as a white foam fizzed out from his graying lips. Bucking and convulsing, the prisoner shook all over, then went still.

  Reaching up, Hassan checked the man’s throat for a pulse. “Dead,” he reported, wiping his fingers clean on his shirt.

  “Must have been some sort of poison,” Nasser muttered, sniffing at the mouth of the corpse. “Yes, bitter almonds. He used cyanide with some sort of accelerant. This is an old Nazi trick to escape being tortured into divulging important information.”

  “He was a Nazi?” Hassan asked, puzzled. “They still exist?”

  “They do, but this was no German fanatic. Just the opposite, in fact. This smells of the Mossad,” Armanjani said. “Dispose of the Jew, and clean the room before—”

  Suddenly, the chest of the corpse exploded, pieces of flesh and bones smacking into everybody.

  “By the blood of—” Nasser wheezed and coughed. “Wh-what just happened?”

  “I have no idea,” Armanjani growled, going over to a bleeding chunk of flesh.

  “Medic! Medic!” Hassan bellowed, ripping off his shirt.

  Lying on the floor, four soldiers were covered with deep gouges, white pieces of splintered bone sticking out of their bodies and gushing hot life.

  Rushing to their aid, the others did what they could under the circumstances, but each man soon died, the deck awash with their warm blood.

  “Four more of my men,” Armanjani whispered, slowly standing. “Somehow, he got on board, shot three of us, and even when dead, he took out four more. Seven in total!”

  “Sir, I…” Nasser started, then quickly stopped at the raging fury in the face of her commander. She had never seen him this angry.

  Going to a wall phone, the major lifted the receiver. “Give me the control room,” he growled in a barely human voice. “Khandis? Forget Ireland, attack Israel. Hit them hard! Use the very first storm available and start burning down their hospitals, maternity wards, preschools, playgrounds. Slaughter their children!”

  He started to hang up the receiver, then paused to listen intently, his face undergoing a strange change.

  “What do you mean this is the dry season?” Armanjani snarled. “But…all right then! Find me other Jews… No, I don’t know where! Try the United States. This will kill two birds with one stone! Find the Jews, and make the streets of American run red with their blood!”

  Donegal, Ireland

  BOASTING INDIRECT LIGHTING, slide-walks and bizarrely decorated in chrome and steel, as if it were a starship from the next century, the Charing Cross Mall was about as far away from the noble Celtic roots of the proud nation as it was possible to get without appearing to be from another dimension or, worse, British.

  Sickly sweet elevator music played over the PA system, the blanched versions of American gangsta rap and German techno. In perfect counterpoint, parked outside the glass doors of the entrance to the mall, a local radio station had a promotional truck staffed with amazingly busty girls who were passing out free T-shirts while an enormous pair of speakers boomed classic Swedish disco.

  The crowds were bustling with activity, full of aimlessly strolling teens, families hunting for bargains and more than a few military personnel on leave, both soldiers and sailors. Although they wore civilian clothing to try to blend in, their new crew cuts told the truth. Everybody seemed relaxed and was enjoying the atmosphere. The few snatches of conversation were banal and full of the details of ordinary life; work, chores, sex, money and love.

  Sitting at a small Greek café, Bolan and Kirkland were working their way through a stack of lamb souvlaki, while Montenegro was sitting inside a phone booth just finishing her transatlantic call.

  “Did you see that place near the water fountain?” Bolan said.

  “You mean the one selling deep-fried candy bars?” Kirkland said, topping off a glass of beer. “Who would eat one of those crazy things?”

  As a mall security guard strolled into view, both men stopped talking and concentrated on their food.The guard was a young man with old eyes, and heavily armed with a Smith and Wesson .45 pistol, an MP-5 submachine gun and a military stun gun. Northern Ireland had been the victim of many terrorist attacks, many of them the work of its own people, and guards such as this one were commonplace. Nobody paid the man the slightest attention. His presence was the price of peace, and only the criminals complained.

  “Sorry we let you down, Matt,” Kirkland said out of the blue. “I owe you better.”

  “Come again?” Bolan asked.

  “Heather and I, we’re not exactly delivering our A game,” Kirkland stated. “Oh, the raid on the White Tigers delivered a solid lead to Sullivan, but the castle was a total fiasco!”

  “It was just a dead end,” Bolan stated. “Nothing more. Never knew a mission that didn’t take a few wrong turns.”

  “But we learned nothing at the castle,” Kirkland insisted, “and now the terrorists have pictures of you and Heather. I’d call that a disaster, not a setback!”

  “Could have been worse.”

  “How?”

  “Nobody died.”

  “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Okay, everybody is safe,” Montenegro announced, walking over to the table.

  “No lightning strikes yet?” Bolan asked, watching a mall security guard stroll past.

  She smiled. “The sky is clear! So far, anyway.”

  “Good to hear,” Kirkland said with a nod.

  She smiled. “Damn straight.” Sitting down, Montenegro grabbed a souvlaki and started eating with gusto. “Good lamb.”

  “I’ve had better in Syria,” Kirkland said, trying to generate some enthusiasm. “But honestly, not by much. Irish women really know how to cook!”

  “And not just in the kitchen,” she boasted with a wink.

  Both men laughed, but Montenegro could tell their hearts weren’t in it. Clearly, she had interrupted something going on between the two of them, and just as obviously they didn’t want to talk about it.

  However, she could guess that it had to do with their failure to learn anything of value at the castle. Montenegro was pretty angry about that herself, but the martial arts taught self-control, and she would never let them see her mounting frustration. So much work, so many lives, and they still knew nothing about their enemy, not even a name!

  “By the way, Matt,” she continued, “there was a message for you with my receptionist, Sherry.”

  That caught his attention. “For me by name?”

  “No, for Roger Dupree,” she said, sprinkling salt on the French fries. “Your friend Hal said to call.”

  “Be right back,” Bolan said, quickly rising and going to the nea
rest pay phone.

  A few minutes later, he returned.

  “Has there been a new attack?” Kirkland asked in a low voice.

  “Several,” Bolan replied. “But more importantly, a group calling itself Zeus was going to hold an auction for the lightning weapon at Port Royal in Jamaica.”

  “Was?”

  “They just canceled.”

  Montenegro frowned. “Think we scared them off by hitting the castle?”

  Kirkland snorted. “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Agreed. That’s not how I read these people,” Bolan answered slowly, laying aside the rest of the souvlaki. “Something went wrong on their end, something big, and now Zeus, or whatever their real name is, is regrouping before continuing the attacks.”

  “Whatever the reason behind it, this buys us some time,” Montenegro said thoughtfully, adding sugar to a foam cup of steaming tea. Coffee was available on the menu, but from experience she knew that what the people in the British Isles called coffee was vastly different from what was served in America.

  “Okay, what’s our next move?” Kirkland asked, cleaning his hands on a napkin.

  “We need access to a top-notch hacker,” Montenegro answered. “Try and find out if anybody has ever done research into trying to control the weather.”

  “Every nation has given that a shot,” Kirkland replied gruffly.

  “True. But only one country had some small degree of success,” Bolan said unexpectedly. “I’ve come across this type of thing before. There were several promising papers on the subject published by a Dr. Kazim Khandis from Iraq.”

  “Great!” Montenegro grinned. “Let’s find the guy!”

  “We can’t. He’s dead.”

  “Damn. When?”

  “Killed during the Iraqi War.”

  “Interesting,” Kirkland said, giving the word extra syllables. “What’s the status of his lab and home?”

  Bolan grinned. “Both of those were also destroyed…on the same day.”

  “Any chance those were right next to each other?”

  “Opposite ends of town. Miles apart.”

  “So he’s alive,” Montenegro stated.

  “Most likely, yes. Some of his staff and lab assistants escaped alive,” Bolan added. “Unfortunately, they were on board the 747 that went down in the first attack.”

  “So the opening volley was to clean house? Smart.”

  “Ruthless is a better word.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Kirkland demanded, leaning forward to rest both arms on the table. “Hal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “With my life,” Bolan said with conviction. “Now, here’s the real kicker. According to the Mossad, it’s believed that Dr. Khandis was the technical adviser for something called Ophiuchus.”

  “Come again?”

  Bolan pronounced the odd word slowly. “It’s Hellenic Greek for ‘serpent bearer.’ The sign was removed from the zodiac in the Middle Ages because of the overt sexual symbolism of a naked man holding a large snake.”

  “Wow, I had no idea there was a sign in the zodiac named after me,” Kirkland said smugly, hitching up his gun belt.

  “Wow, there’s an astrological sign called asshole?” Montenegro asked in feigned surprise.

  Extending a finger, and cocking back his thumb, Kirkland took careful aim, then shot her in her rear.

  “Back on topic, Saddam Hussein didn’t take a crap without an armed escort,” Montenegro said, trying not to smile as she sipped the tea. “Who was the military liaison for Dr. Khandis?”

  “Some lieutenant,” Bolan said with a shrug. “But the officer in charge of security for the weather lab was Major Zafar Armanjani.”

  “The scourge of Baghdad?” Kirkland asked in surprise. “Holy crap. He was one of the head honchos of the Republican Guard! How do we find this guy?”

  “According to the CIA,” Bolan replied, “the major often did wetwork for other Arab nations without the knowledge, or permission, of Saddam Hussein. He used the alias Amir Bull.”

  “Never heard of him,” Montenegro said slowly.

  “Unfortunately, I have,” Kirkland stated. “After the war, Amir Bull became famous as a turkey doctor for Swampfox.”

  Bolan scowled. Turkey doctor was slang for an expert at torture. He had met several such people over the years. Whenever possible, he left them in a great many small pieces.

  “Major Armanjani was a TD for Barrington’s Bad Boys,” Montenegro said. “If he’s in control of this weapon, God help us all.”

  Bolan fully agreed. Edgar Barrington was a self-made billionaire, and the sole-owner of Swampfox, a company that hired out as security to guard convoys, recover kidnapped business executives and such. During the recent troubles in the Middle East, Swampfox was hired by politicians to help protect museums and food convoys. In reality, they stole everything not nailed down and killed anybody who got in their way, even U.S. soldiers.

  “Swampfox,” Bolan said in a tone normally reserved for describing something recently stepped in. “They give mercenaries a bad name.”

  “Any chance we can confirm that Armanjani is at their home base in Alabama?” Kirkland asked hopefully. “Hack their laptops or piggyback their cell phones?”

  “No way. Barrington is a technophobe. His organization doesn’t even have laptops, much less a supercomputer,” Bolan replied. “Everything is on paper, or locked in steel cabinets.”

  “Then we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  “Kick down the door and slap some people around until they talk?”

  “Exactly.”

  Kirkland shrugged. “I have no problem with that.”

  “Same here. Hopefully, it’s the dry season.”

  “Better check the weather service to see if there are any storms in the area,” Montenegro added sagely.

  “Not yet,” Bolan said, putting a tip on the table. “But trust me, one is on the way.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Southern Indian Ocean

  Glancing up from where he stood feeding documents into a shredder, Major Armanjani frowned. “What did you just say?”

  “The entire South Korean fleet has moved to surround the American carrier we damaged,” Khandis reported, glancing at a scrolling monitor on the console.

  The major scowled. “Surely, you mean the North Korean fleet?”

  “No, sir.” Dr. Khandis sighed, pointing at the monitor. “It is the South. Plus, an entire wing of Chinese jetfighters have arrived to join the British helicopters and a French submarine to escort the Esteem into international waters, just in case the North Koreans do something stupid.”

  “Incredible,” Armanjani muttered, turning on the shredder. The papers vanished into a spray of confetti that sprinkled into a burn unit and flashed into ash.

  Bitter rivals helping each other. The major had never imagined that such international cooperation was possible, and certainly not between bitter rivals like America and China! Perhaps there really was something about the ocean that bound sailors together into a sort of brotherhood. Oh, he had heard stories about such things happening before and had simply not put any credence into the tall tales. Clearly, he was wrong.

  Unfortunately, that put a serious crimp in his plans. By now, North Korea should have sunk the Esteem, and America should have retaliated with their long-range bombers. But that plan was now moot. The ruth
less dictator of North Korea was insane, but not stupid. No nation in the world wished to face a united America and China.

  “Are there any storms in the area?” Hassan asked, feeding blank sheets of linen paper into a chattering printer. The documents tumbled from the bottom covered in Cyrillic and bearing the logo of the Russian Central Military Command.

  “Nothing. Visibility is unlimited,” Khandis reported crisply, his hands flowing across the controls of the console. “Our satellites show no clouds near the Korean peninsula.”

  “What about fog, forest fires or earthquakes?” Nasser demanded, hanging some Russian uniforms in the closet. “Is there anything we can use to invoke a lightning strike and attack the rescue vessels to try to trick them into fighting with each other?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then ignore the ship,” Armanjani said with a shrug, turning off the shredder machine. “This one small failure does not change our plans.”

  “As you say, sir,” Hassan muttered, stuffing the documents into manila folders bearing the seal of the Kremlin. As a soldier, he disliked subterfuge, but grudgingly admitted it had some small use in battle.

  It was now painfully obvious to the sergeant that the announcement of the White Tigers had obviously been a fake to lure Ophiuchus out of hiding.

  Stuffing the folders into a file cabinet, Hassan scowled. Unfortunately, the trick worked, and there was now a very strong possibility that somebody had piggybacked their video signal from the castle in Ireland and an armada of enemy vessels was now rapidly converging on their present location. The Scimitar was very powerful, even more powerful than a nuclear bomb as there was no radioactive fallout, but right now, speed and misdirection were their best defenses.

  Muttering a prayer, Hassan locked the cabinet, then twisted the key to snap it off in the lock. Once Ophiuchus was securely installed at its second base, he thought, the foolish West would pay dearly for its foul transgressions.

  Crumpling a Russian newspaper into the wastebasket, Armanjani tried not to smirk. All across the Red Rose, the rest of the crew was destroying every trace of the group’s presence, and then replacing it with hard evidence that Russia was behind all of the lightning strikes. There was even a smattering of trace DNA scattered about the huge vessel. The tissue scraps, hair and blood had been forcibly gathered from assorted drunks, prostitutes and small children, on his last trip to Moscow.