Patriot Strike

by Don Pendleton

  And if they doubted that...well, he might have to vaporize Manhattan, possibly Los Angeles, or maybe Washington itself.

  Who’d really miss that rotten, lazy Congress, anyway?

  His first shot might result in war, but Ridgway did not flinch from that idea. He knew damn well that Washington wasn’t about to nuke Fort Worth or Dallas, whereas he had no compunction whatsoever about razing hives of miserable left-wing rot from sea to shining sea. Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami—all fair game.

  He’d fooled those vultures from the lamestream media with stories of his shuttle project and its single mighty booster rocket. That was all for show, a front, while George Roth and his team were building latter-day equivalents of the V-2. They had a dozen prepped for launching, each nose cone a knock-out punch for one of modern America’s teeming urban cesspools. Given any reasonable choice at all, Ridgway preferred to hold those rockets in reserve.

  But if his New Texas Republic was attacked, all bets were off. Welcome to Hell on Earth.

  Of course, he had his own survival bunker ready, if it came to that.

  Texas would definitely rise again.

  San Angelo, Texas

  THE TOWN WAS large enough for strangers passing through to go unnoticed on the street, the Goodfellow Air Force Base outside the city limits guaranteeing a steady supply of new faces. No one glanced twice at a somewhat dusty SUV with Texas plates, a normal-looking man and woman on their way to somewhere else.

  Bolan and Granger stopped for dinner—supper, in these parts—at an old-fashioned drive-in on North Chadbourne Street. The place had carhops dressed like cowgirls, more or less, if anyone had ever busted broncos in faux leather miniskirts. Bolan took his chances on the house special, a half-pound cheeseburger with fries, while Granger had the pulled-pork barbecue. Milkshakes to wash it down and stand in for dessert.

  They took their time over the food and let dusk settle in. Their plans, hashed out on the drive from Waco, could be modified according to the circumstances they encountered once they started scouting Waylon Crockett’s compound. There was time to spare for their approach, reconnaissance and entry, taking one step to minimize collateral damage.

  Some of that would depend on Crockett and his goons. In all the agonizing over Waco, back in ’93, some people ignored the fact that twenty-odd members of the doomsday cult were shot by their fellow believers at point-blank range, with one three-year-old child stabbed to death. The ATF and FBI had taken major hits for their handling of that siege, and rightly so, but the story was never a one-sided tragedy.

  Bolan planned to do better, but couldn’t control the reaction of Crockett’s armed guards. One nervous sentry with an automatic weapon could wreak bloody havoc in the compound before he was taken down. The same went for a cautious soldier, even one who marked his shots and made them count but couldn’t stop a bullet passing through a target, flying on to cause more damage at a distance.

  Caution was the key, but combat is notorious for spoiling best-laid plans.

  When they were done with their meal, Bolan drove up North Chadbourne to the West Houston Harte Expressway, taking off westbound on Arden Road. He stuck with that until he reached South Burma—the road, not the country—then turned north and slowed on his approach to Crockett’s compound, looking for a place to stash the RAV4 while they hiked the last mile in. It was full dark now, and Bolan killed his headlights as he nosed the SUV into a roadside stand of trees, concealed from passing motorists unless they stopped specifically to make a search.

  They changed clothes in the shadows, one on either side of the Toyota, Bolan slipping into his skinsuit, while Granger settled for a pair of black jeans and a turtleneck to match, with a wool watch cap to confine her hair. In place of camouflage cosmetics, they used shoe polish from Granger’s flat to darken hands and faces.

  Heading out, Bolan wore both Glocks, plus the Springfield XD with its silencer and twelve rounds still remaining in the magazine. He took the Colt AR-15, while Granger carried the Benelli twelve-gauge loaded with eight rounds of double-O buckshot and spare shells in her pockets.

  The last mile was a long, slow walk under a waning crescent moon, but as they neared the target, there were lights to guide them. Crockett’s people didn’t draw attention to the compound, but they kept a pair of pole-mounted security lights burning through the night, and several buildings still showed lit windows as Bolan and Granger drew near. The pole lights let him spot patrolling sentries on the camp’s perimeter and map the layout in his mind, comparing it to photos he had called up on his laptop.

  It was a town of sorts, all right, complete with water tower, generators, public showers and latrines, a motor pool, a dining hall and chapel, barracks for single men and smallish bungalows for families. The buildings Bolan could not readily identify were likely workshops, storage, possibly an arsenal. Some of the property was under cultivation, raising vegetables, and there were chicken coops at the south end.

  Someone’s idea of Eden in the desert, possibly.

  About to come undone.

  Chapter 10

  Waylon Crockett was starting to feel like a mushroom: people were keeping him in the dark and feeding him bullshit. And that had to stop.

  Oh, sure, he understood the Big Man’s attitude. His boys had screwed the pooch in San Antonio, all right, but so what? Ridgway, himself, was losing people right and left and he was still no closer to the Texas Ranger or her man of mystery. How was it Crockett’s fault that Simon Coetzee and his so-called special forces couldn’t pin down the couple?

  The whole secession thing was Crockett’s brainchild to begin with. Just ask the folks who knew him. He’d been preaching it for years before the idea started catching on with lazy pricks who thought signing online petitions was the end of it. A gesture, they would say. Call it symbolic. But the true-blue patriots were those who’d stockpiled guns and ammunition, dreaming of The Day, working around the clock to make it real.

  Now it was coming, and the Big Man seemed to think that he could leave Crockett out of the loop.

  One hell of a mistake.

  Crockett took another swig of beer and said, “I’m callin’ him.”

  Kent Luttrell replied, “Who, Coetzee?”

  “Screw him. I mean Ridgway.”

  “I dunno, man.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “Chances are you’ll piss him off.”

  “He’s pissin’ me off! This whole thing’s supposed to be our show, goddamn it! Mr. Big thinks he can just forget about us now. I’m here to tell you that he’s wrong.”

  “I hear you,” said Luttrell. “But things are tight right now. We’ve got the deadline moved ahead, this business with the Ranger and her boyfriend—”

  “Not our fault!” said Crockett, interrupting him. “Has Coetzee managed any better with ’em?”

  “No, but—”

  “No! So why am I the goat? Our people dropped the ball, okay. Now his have dropped it twice. That oughta tell ’em somethin’.”

  “You know the way it works, though. Money talks.”

  “I’ll tell you somethin’, Kent, and you can take it to the friggin’ bank. If anybody tries to cut us out of this deal—our own deal—we might just have to secede from them. See how they like it then.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Kent said, and took a long pull on his beer.

  “I wanna think about this some,” Crockett decided. “Figure out exactly what to say before I call ’im.”

  “Good idea,” Luttrell said, nodding.

  “Let the old man have an ultimatum, so he knows we’re serious.”

  “I’m with you, Waylon. You know that.”

  “Remind him whose idea this was. Who oughta be in charge.”

  Crockett finished his beer, tried to remember if it wa
s his third or fourth but couldn’t work it out. Decided one more wouldn’t hurt and reached into the cooler on the floor beside his chair.

  “We shoulda gone after the Ranger and that other prick ourselves,” he told Luttrell. “Just you and me.”

  “Woulda been sweet,” Luttrell agreed.

  “I’d love to get another crack at ’em,” Crockett said. “Show Coetzee and Ridgway both what we can do.”

  “Too late for that, I guess,” Luttrell replied.

  “You never know.” Crockett opened his beer and tossed its cap onto the table with his empty bottles. “They’re still runnin’ loose, the last I heard. Coetzee ain’t bagged ’em yet.”

  “But with tomorrow—”

  “It’s a big day,” Crockett granted. “But it’s just another day. I guess the Ranger and her pal might skedaddle out of Texas, but suppose they don’t? It’s open season then, I say. And if the rest of ’em don’t like it, they can go to hell.”

  “I’d better go ’n’ take a turn around the compound,” said Luttrell.

  “You do that. And when you get back, we’ll draw us up a plan.”

  * * *

  THE COMPOUND’S FENCE was serious—chain-link with spikes and razor wire on top—but it was not electrified. Neither, on inspection, did it seem to have any alarms or sensors rigged to warn the compound’s occupants of an incursion in progress. Just steel posts and wire, with roving patrols through the night.

  Bolan had come prepared for that, with wire cutters and black twist ties. He’d scouted the perimeter with Granger, watching the patrols at work, getting their timing down. Two teams in Jeep Wranglers made the long circuit, driving in opposite directions, so that they passed one another every hour or so. Bolan had been expecting more security and was relieved to find that Crockett’s team was negligent.

  Bolan cut a flap in the chain-link, held it open for Granger to pass through, then used a couple twist ties to secure the wire behind him. It would pass a cursory drive-by inspection and would serve them as an exit when time came for them to leave.

  And with an extra passenger, if they could pull it off.

  The property sprawled over twenty-odd square miles, a rough quadrilateral with twenty-nine miles of fence for the Jeeps to patrol. Much of the land inside was cultivated, with corn on the side where Bolan and Granger had entered, the shoulder-high stalks offering cover as they hiked between the breached fence and the central compound. Sentries in the field would have been useful for security, but they met none as they advanced.

  Strike two for Crockett and the NTR.

  Bolan had wrestled with the notion that the lax security could be a trap designed to suck them in, but he’d seen nothing to support that during his reconnaissance. A fair bit of the compound proper had been visible as they had passed by the south end of the property, careful to stay clear of the only gate, and they had watched what seemed to be a small town rolling up its sidewalks for the night—minus the sidewalks. Stripped of all the guns and paranoia, it was basically a farming commune, early to bed and early to rise.

  This wasn’t Walden Pond, however. If you took away the crazies, there would be no settlement. The families fenced in here would have been living in the midst of civilized society, sending their kids to public school, thinking about their next paycheck or how to spend the weekend, rather than rebelling against Washington.

  How many of them were convinced that they could pull it off?

  It didn’t matter in the long run. Bolan only needed one of them to take a ride with him and spill the compound’s secrets. Waylon Crockett would be best and, failing that, his second in command. Beyond them it was guesswork, and the probe could prove to be a futile exercise.

  So Crockett or Luttrell. Two targets. Otherwise, empty-handed withdrawal and a wasted trip.

  Between surveillance photos and his recon on the spot, Bolan had singled out two bungalows as likely quarters for the men in charge. He thought the larger of them would be Crockett’s, chosen as both status symbol and command post. The other, probably Luttrell’s abode, would be their secondary target if the first one came up empty.

  And if neither one was occupied tonight...then what?

  Some scouting, if he thought that they could pull it off, before they scuttled back to exit through the flap he’d cut in Crockett’s fence. With any luck they wouldn’t have to fire a shot, but if it came to fighting, Bolan was prepared.

  And Granger?

  She was steady when it counted, but he sensed that she was apprehensive about cutting loose where families might be at risk. That wasn’t cowardice, just common decency. But if it hit the fan, she’d have to do whatever was required of her, to see the mission through.

  A soft probe, sure, unless something went wrong and it turned hard.

  They’d reached the far side of the cornfield, fifty yards out from the larger of the bungalows. Fifty yards of open ground, with nothing but the cool night to conceal them as they moved in for the pickup.

  Starting now.

  * * *

  HEADING TOWARD the bungalow that Cooper had marked as Waylon Crockett’s likely living quarters, Adlene Granger was reminded of a bad recurring dream. She understood from reading up on such things that a variation of the same dream troubled many people: walking through some public place and suddenly discovering you were naked or, at best, dressed in some kind of skimpy underwear. Psychologists agreed that naked dreams related to a sense of shame or being unprepared for something, such as class assignments or a task at work.

  The difference in this case was that Granger was awake, and while she wasn’t nude, she was exposed, crossing the stretch of open ground between the tree line and their target. And this time, if she was discovered, she would not just be embarrassed. She’d be dead.

  They caught a break with sentries, who apparently were only sent to cover the perimeter, instead of prowling through the settlement itself. Crockett had no guards on his bungalow—assuming it was his—and they reached it without incident, spending a moment in the prefab building’s shadow, waiting to make sure no alarm was raised.

  The bungalow was quiet, no lights showing through its windows. Granger followed Cooper as he crept to the building’s southwest corner, peered around it toward the other nearby structures, then advanced to the front door. There was a porch light, but it hadn’t been turned on. Cooper mounted two low wooden steps to reach the door and tried the knob.

  It turned under his hand.

  He turned to frown at Granger, slipped his rifle back onto its shoulder sling, and pulled the silenced pistol he had taken from Otto Franks. This was the moment where security alarms could ruin everything and put them in the middle of a swarming hornets’ nest.

  The door swung inward silently on well-oiled hinges. Cooper went in, and Granger followed, stepping quickly to one side. He closed the door behind her and produced a small flashlight, playing its narrow beam around the bungalow’s front room. It was a combination living room and kitchenette. Ahead of them, two open doorways led to small bedrooms.

  Both empty.

  Where was Crockett?

  “There’s no bathroom,” Granger whispered. “Maybe he went to the latrine?”

  “Maybe,” Cooper said.

  “You want to wait for him?”

  “Too risky,” Cooper replied. “For all we know, he’s shacked up or away on business. We could still be standing here at sunrise.”

  “So Luttrell?”

  “If we can find him.”

  The bungalow had two front windows. Cooper and Granger checked them both for random passersby before they slipped outside and started toward the next one, which they’d pegged as likely housing Crockett’s second in command. That one had lights burning in its front room, which should mean it was occupied, but Granger knew they couldn’t verify that till th
ey’d had a look inside.

  Cooper took the lead again, while she brought up the rear, scanning the settlement by wan moonlight filtered through scudding clouds. She held the shotgun ready, just in case, but knew that if she had to use it, they were toast.

  As they approached the second bungalow, Granger heard male voices and discovered that the nearest window on her side was open, with a screen in place to keep insects outside. Closing in was doubly risky now, since anyone inside, beyond the screen, could hear them if their feet scuffed on the dirt and gravel.

  Step by cautious step, they reached the window, crouched beneath it, listening. The conversation wasn’t quite an argument, but it was heating up.

  “I don’t like moving up the schedule,” one voice said.

  “He didn’t have much choice,” the other one replied. “This trouble—”

  “Ain’t our fault!”

  “Did I say that?”

  “He’s sayin’ it. Or thinkin’ it, at least. You know he is.”

  “He gets in moods like everybody else.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Now, Waylon—”

  “Tell me, when do I get in a goddamn mood?”

  “How ’bout right now?”

  “The hell you say? I got good reason to be pissed. It ain’t some mood that just come over me from nowhere.”

  “No, but—”

  “I was countin’ on the month he gave us to get ready, Kent.”

  “We’re ready as we need to be. After tomorrow there’ll be plenty of time.”

  “Uh-huh. Unless there ain’t.”

  Identities confirmed, Cooper was in motion, circling toward the bungalow’s front door. Granger trailed him, hoping it wouldn’t prove to be the last thing she ever did.