Patriot Strike

by Don Pendleton

  But he would take what he could get and run with it.

  That was the way a warrior rolled.

  Forest Hills, Dallas

  GEORGE ROTH WAS not accustomed to a sense of panic, and he hated it. The call had come as he was sitting down to breakfast; Simon Coetzee on the line, advising him of a security breach at Lone Star Aerospace Technology. When Roth had asked the nature of that breach, he’d been informed that there was no time for discussion. He must simply pack “a few things for the road” and be prepared to leave his home within the next half hour.

  A few things for the road?

  How could he choose among his favorite suits—the Fioravanti, the Enzo D’Orsi, the Armani? Never mind his shirts and sweaters, what about his Prada shoes, his Berluti footwear? Gott im Himmel, how could he walk off and leave his home?

  Forest Hills, south of White Rock Lake in east Dallas, features many grand homes, and Roth’s estate, on Garland Road, was one of them. Not a palace, of course, only thirty-five rooms. But with the touches he had added since he had bought it, after joining Lone Star Aerospace Technology, it was the very home he’d dreamed of all his life. More perfect still because he lived in it alone. And now to leave it like a thief surprised while looting in the middle of the night...

  Unthinkable. But Coetzee offered him no alternative.

  The move was temporary, he’d been told. And for his own protection, naturally. When could he return? Coetzee had no idea just now, but Roth’s safety was foremost on the Big Man’s mind.

  Lamar Ridgway, that is.

  The nickname evidently sprang from the size of his bankroll, since Ridgway himself was below-average height, at five foot six. Roth managed not to laugh when people used the silly sobriquet in front of him, since Ridgway paid Roth’s very handsome salary and treated him with absolute respect whenever they were drawn together at the plant Roth supervised.

  Until today.

  Being uprooted from his home, his life, was not respectful. Trying to imagine what grave danger could precipitate such action was the cause of Roth’s unprecedented panic.

  He was packing, but it wasn’t easy. His supremely organized and regimented mind refused to function normally under this sudden stress, so different from any challenge in a factory or laboratory where his expertise and education made him the superior of any other person in the room. This situation was unique.

  And he was terrified.

  Roth had barely filled one of his six Balenciaga suitcases, suddenly realizing that he’d packed no toiletries, when he was startled by the doorbell’s chime. A quick glance at his Tag Heuer Aquaracer watch told Roth that only eighteen minutes had elapsed since Coetzee’s warning call. He had been promised half an hour, and he wasn’t ready yet!

  But then he thought, what if it isn’t Coetzee?

  If there was a problem with security, who else might be appearing uninvited at his door?

  From the top drawer of his nightstand, Roth retrieved a Walther PPS—the Polizei-Pistole Schmal, or Police Pistol Slim, in English—loaded with seven rounds of .40 S&W hollow-point ammunition. With its external integrated trigger safety, the compact weapon was ready to fire, and Roth was pleased to feel no tremor in his hand as he left his bedroom, moving swiftly toward the front door of his home.

  He checked the peephole first and recognized the two men standing on his doorstep. Coetzee was not present, but these two were his habitual companions when he visited the Lone Star plant.

  “You’re early. I was given thirty minutes.”

  “Time’s up, Doctor,” one of them replied, eyes taking in the pistol Roth held at his side. “We have a situation.”

  “And that is?”

  “We’ll talk about it in the car, Doctor,” the other said. “No time to waste.”

  “I have a bag.”

  “Which way?” the first one asked.

  Of course these two had never been inside his home before. Roth stood aside, directing them, not showing them his back. He kept the Walther in his hand as they proceeded toward the master bedroom.

  “I still need to collect a few things,” he said.

  “We’ll pick up whatever else you need,” one of them said. “The main thing, Doctor, is to get you out of here while there’s still time.”

  Roth didn’t like the sound of that, didn’t like any of this hasty business, but he had no choice in the matter. Arguing with Simon Coetzee was a waste of time on matters of security. And truth be told, despite the strain of arrogance that Roth acknowledged in himself—which had throughout his life prevented him from making any long-term friends—one thing that he did not possess was courage in the face of danger.

  He would let the professionals take all the risks.

  But he would keep his Walther handy, just in case.

  * * *

  BOLAN APPROACHED FOREST HILLS on Interstate 30, taking off on East Grand Avenue toward White Rock Lake. At the south end of the lake, East Grand turned into Garland Road, facing the water and, within three blocks, the Dallas Arboretum. He could almost smell the money there, hiding behind the tall, stately facades of English Tudor homes erected in the 1920s, when the lake—initially the city’s first reservoir—had been transformed into a park and recreation area.

  But Bolan had not come for relaxation. He was hunting and knew the address of his prey.

  George Roth lived in a two-story house midway between St. Francis Avenue and Whittier, with no view of the lake from his front porch, but he’d still come a long way from the days when Grandpa Herman made the jump from Nazi Germany, courtesy of Operation Paperclip and the wartime Office of Strategic Services. Times change, and the OSS had folded in 1945, reborn two years later as the Central Intelligence Agency. Operation Paperclip meanwhile had morphed into Operation Lusty—for Luftwaffe Secret Technology—later absorbed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

  Magic.

  Some seven hundred scientists who’d been devoted to Der Führer were “rehabilitated” overnight, their talents turned at first toward America’s Cold War arms race against the Soviet Union, then to exploration of outer space. Today those few Americans who realized the program had existed in the first place knew it chiefly from its fictional portrayal on The X-Files.

  Art incorporating life and grisly death.

  Bolan spotted the street number Granger had given him. There was no car in the driveway, but he couldn’t see beyond the closed doors of the two-car garage. Bolan parked his RAV4 at an angle in the driveway, cutting off escape by way of Garland Road, and walked up to the porch with Granger at his side.

  No answer to the doorbell or his knocking. Trees screened Roth’s front door from any view by neighbors to the north or south. He saw nobody stirring on the arboretum’s thickly wooded grounds across the street. Bolan took a SouthOrd E500XT electric lock pick from his pocket, applied it to the front door’s lock and opened it within seconds.

  Silence greeted them inside Roth’s home. With pistols drawn, Bolan and Granger started checking out the place, beginning on the ground floor, feeling mixed relief and disappointment as they cleared each empty room. Upstairs the process was repeated, nothing but an open closet in the master bedroom seeming out of place, given Roth’s obsessive tidiness. No corpse, no bloodstains, nothing to suggest intrusion by unwanted visitors besides themselves.

  “Looks like he split,” said Granger.

  “Wearing three suits, if the empty hangers count for anything,” Bolan observed.

  “Maybe he sent some to the cleaners?”

  “One way to tell.”

  They doubled back to check out the garage. Using the entry from Roth’s kitchen, Bolan found a silver Ford Explorer parked next to a black Jaguar XKR-S.

  “I doubt he’d walk to work,” said Granger, from the doorway just behind him.
/>   “Doesn’t look like he’d be in the market for a taxi, either,” Bolan said.

  “Carpooling?”

  “I’d bet on evacuation.”

  “Damn it! Now what?”

  “When all else fails,” Bolan replied, “we turn the game around.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Instead of chasing them, let them catch us.”

  “Can’t say I like the sound of that too much.”

  “I’ll break it down,” he told her, “on the way.”

  “To where?”

  “Your place.”

  Preston Hollow, Dallas

  “SO HE’S GOOD NOW?”

  “Safe and sound, sir.”

  “Make damn sure you keep him that way, Simon,” Ridgway ordered.

  “Yes, sir. Not a problem,” Coetzee promised.

  “More than just your job is ridin’ on that egghead.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Ridgway cut the link without another word. He trusted Coetzee, the man he’d picked from fifty-some-odd candidates to head Lone Star’s security when it became apparent that establishing a private army was the way to go. Coetzee came highly recommended and had proven himself in other crisis situations, although none as pressing as the one confronting them today.

  Prowling the study of his thirty-million-dollar home, Ridgway sipped from a tumbler of vintage reserve Jameson whiskey, listed at three hundred dollars per bottle. Its touch of creamy dairy fudge and dark chocolate made Ridgway feel like he was drinking candy with a kick that went straight to his head.

  Only the best for the Big Man, and why the hell not? Hadn’t he clawed his way up from nothing—less than nothing—to stand astride his chosen world? Who else could rival him, much less stand in his way, when he was getting ready to remake that world?

  Ridgway lived in Preston Hollow for the simple reason that he could. It was the most expensive neighborhood in Dallas, past and present home to celebrities including Ross Perot, George W. Bush, Mary Kay Ash, golfer Lee Trevino, British rock star George Michael, plus owners and top-ranking players of the Dallas Cowboys, Mavericks and Stars. Ridgway knew all of them by sight and socialized with none of them.

  Why should he? What good was an ex-president, anyhow?

  Particularly when he had a future president in his hip pocket and a brand-new country to go with him?

  All he had to do was keep the damned thing from unraveling around him as they got down to the wire. Some pissant Texas Ranger figured she could pull the plug on Ridgway’s grand design? She’d better think again and maybe run for cover while her brains were still inside her skull. He just might let her live, if she found someplace nice and far away to hide—maybe the Outer Hebrides or Madagascar—and if she kept her damned mouth shut.

  But, then again, he’d never have a guarantee of that, would he? Unless he put her in the ground.

  Or Simon Coetzee did it for him.

  And this guy who’d blown in out of nowhere, teamed up with the Ranger, leaving four dead men in San Antonio, now two more and a chopper shot to hell outside of Arlington. What kind of crazy shit was that?

  Ridgway would definitely love to meet that guy, find out who he was working for, but something told Ridgway that it wasn’t in the cards. He knew hard-chargers when he saw them, had destroyed some in his time and had hired some others to do their hard-charging for him. There was a world of difference between the real tough guys and those who hung around on street corners, half in the bag by noon and spoiling for a confrontation with some milquetoast SOB they could push around.

  No, Ridgway doubted very much that he would ever have a chance to speak with Texas Ranger Adlene Granger’s new imported sidekick. But he planned to crush the nervy bastard pretty goddamn soon, before he tossed a monkey wrench into the works and ruined everything.

  The men who’d founded Texas in the first place weren’t afraid of General Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Alamo, or later, when they’d kicked his ragged ass at San Jacinto. Ridgway, born of sturdy Texas stock himself, had yet to meet an adversary whom he couldn’t buy, beat down, burn out or otherwise eliminate.

  This was his game. He made the rules.

  As for the rest of what had once been a united country standing tall and proud, the pompous asses who imagined they were in control would never know what hit them.

  Chapter 7

  Johnson County, Texas

  Rolling south from Dallas on I-35, Bolan asked Granger, “How long have you lived in Waco?”

  “Coming up on eighteen months,” she said. “Company F covers thirty-eight counties, from Hill down to Atascosa, and across to Calhoun on the Gulf.”

  “How many Rangers in the company?”

  “Twenty-five, including one major and three lieutenants.” She shifted gears and asked, “You want to tell me what we’re doing now? The last I heard, you thought Lone Star or Crockett’s boys would have my place staked out.”

  “I’m betting on it,” Bolan said.

  “So...what? We walk into the trap?”

  “I’d prefer to turn it around,” he replied. “Ideally pick up one of them and have a little heart-to-heart about whatever Ridgway and the NTR have planned.”

  “Okay. Let’s say we bag one and he won’t talk. Then what?”

  Bolan met the Ranger’s gaze and told her, “I’m not taking any prisoners.”

  She lapsed back into silence while he pushed the RAV4 on toward Waco, eighty-odd miles south of Dallas, in McLennan County. A midsized city of some 125,000 inhabitants, nearly leveled by a catastrophic tornado in 1953, still edgy about the tragic ATF/FBI siege forty years later. Granger’s home, she’d told him, was a five-room apartment downtown, a short walk from Dr Pepper Museum on South Fifth Street.

  Not the best place for a firefight, granted, but he hoped they could avoid one. And if not...well, he had managed worse, in vastly larger and more crowded cities nationwide. Around the world, in fact.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Granger inquired, as they entered Hill County from the north. “You have a plan, right?”

  “More or less,” Bolan agreed.

  “Not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “How’s this—whoever has your place staked out, assuming that it is staked out, they won’t know me by sight. Whether they’re with Lone Star or Crockett’s gang, no one who’s seen me so far has had time to carry tales.”

  “Agreed.”

  Six dead and counting on the other side.

  “Even if they’ve been told to take you down on sight,” he said, “they’ll have to wonder who I am, if I show up and let myself inside.”

  “Alone?” she asked.

  “As far as they can see.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m guessing that they’ll want to pick me up and have a chat. At least see who I am, find out if I can tell them where to find you.”

  “So they follow you inside?”

  “Ideally,” Bolan said.

  “And where am I, while this is going on?”

  “Close by. Ready to close the trap.”

  “In my apartment.”

  “Either that, or on the street.”

  “That’s not much of a choice.”

  “Plan B is going after Crockett and his people at their compound, which will have to wait for nightfall.”

  “And plan C?” she asked.

  “Ridgway.”

  “No. We should have a better grip on what they’re planning first, before we tackle either one of those.”

  He nodded. “Your place then?”

  “You sure know how to charm a girl.”

  Hill County had a population roughly one-third the size of Waco’s, with one-quarter of its people residing at the count
y seat of Hillsboro. Most of its 960 square miles were given over to sparse desert growth, some trees standing guard over I-35 as it carried them southward. The landscape made Bolan think of outlaws, rattlesnakes and Western movies he’d enjoyed in childhood, where the good guys always won.

  Not like the real world he inhabited.

  In that world, bad guys often prospered and enjoyed their wealth with no real threat of punishment for their crimes. Government collusion often smoothed the way, and even when convictions were obtained—or when the Executioner stepped in to settle matters out of court—no victory for the good guys was ever permanent. Remove one predator, or a hundred, and there were always more to fill the void, eager for their promotion to the big time.

  “You think we’ll have to trash my place?” Granger inquired.

  “It could become a crime scene.”

  “Marvelous.”

  “In which case, what becomes of your bereavement leave?”

  “Good question,” she replied, sounding glum. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  Preston Hollow, Dallas

  MALCOLM BARNHART LOVED the smell of money. Not the grubby scent of currency that passed from hand to hand, but rather the rarefied atmosphere of affluence and power that surrounded people with money to burn. An odd expression, when he thought about it, since the last thing he would ever do with cash was set it on fire.

  Spend it, certainly, with circumspection, to avoid a conflict with the tax man. Bank it in the Caymans, the Bahamas, Switzerland, wherever fortunes were secure from prying eyes and auditors. Use it to get exactly what he wanted—which was more of everything.

  Particularly influence.

  Barnhart had grown up in the murky world of Texas politics, watching his father run for governor time and again, never progressing any further than the state House of Representatives, where he’d filled a seat from Bastrop County for a single two-year term. It had been Barnhart’s lifelong dream to pick up where his old man had left off, go all the way to Austin, maybe even on to Washington someday.

  But until recently he’d never thought that he might be president.