Patriot Strike

by Don Pendleton

  North Terminal, Miami International Airport, Florida

  BOLAN AND GRANGER opted for a commercial flight from Houston, down to Maracaibo, taking off at eight o’clock for an eleven-hour flight, with a stopover in Miami.

  With more than an hour to kill in Miami, Bolan and Granger tried the Cuban fare in the surprisingly pleasant food court on Concourse D.

  While they ate, they laid out basic plans for Maracaibo.

  “Once we see your guy about the gear, then what?” asked Granger.

  “Kill some time,” Bolan replied. “We land a little after seven in the morning, and I want to make the run at Ridgway’s home-away-from-home well after nightfall.”

  “Driving eighty miles from Maracaibo shouldn’t take that long. We do the tourist thing?”

  “Or just lie low. Commit the satellite photos to memory before we scout the place.”

  “What’s the story on La Villa del Rosario?” she asked, referring to the town nearest to Ridgway’s rural digs.

  “It dates back to the early eighteenth century,” Bolan said. “Mostly agricultural. They have about one hundred twenty thousand people spread over three parishes. The landscape that they haven’t cultivated runs to jungle. Ridgway has his compound in the middle of it.”

  “So a night hike in the jungle. Snakes and crocodiles and jaguars. Gotta love it.”

  “Don’t forget piranhas and electric eels.”

  “There’ll be no skinny-dipping,” Granger promised. “Are we sure Ridgway’s at home?”

  “He was spotted at the Maracaibo airport,” Bolan said. “His people had a limo waiting.”

  “Even on the run, he goes in style.”

  “He can afford to. Two-thirds of his money lives offshore.”

  “And what’s the status on security?”

  “Nothing official,” Bolan said, “according to the embassy. That doesn’t mean he won’t have troops on speed dial.”

  “Coming in from where?” asked Granger.

  “It would have to be from Maracaibo.”

  “Giving us approximately...what? A clear half-hour on the ground?”

  “About that, if they chopper in,” Bolan replied. “Driving, it’s closer to an hour, once they scramble.”

  “Split the difference, say forty minutes tops?”

  “That’s longer than I’d like.”

  “Let’s hope your dealer has some special gear.”

  “Let’s hope,” Bolan agreed, and washed the last bite of his sandwich down with cold cerveza.

  Until they were on the ground in Maracaibo, hoping was the best he could do.

  Chapter 15

  Maracaibo

  The contact Hal had recommended was a wiry little guy named Julio who smiled more than a normal weapons dealer should. He knew his business though and kept impressive inventory in the basement of his pawn shop, in the Barrio La Vega district. It was always risky, dealing with a total stranger in a foreign land, but Julio had dealt with Able Team and likely had a fair idea of what would happen to him if he sold out his new customers.

  Bolan arrived with nothing but a wad of cash and the Honda CR-V he’d rented at the airport. It was last year’s model, but he’d noted that it still looked newer than most cars on the road. He hoped the military gear on hand was better, and the dealer didn’t disappoint him.

  For his lead weapon, he chose a Steyr AUG, widely regarded as one of the world’s most reliable assault rifles. Granger had trained on American models and went for an M4 carbine instead, both rifles chambered for 5.56 mm NATO rounds. For sidearms, they agreed on matching Beretta 92s, their muzzles threaded for suppressors that were added to the shopping list. Spare magazines and ammo, two good-size survival knives and web gear for the lot completed Bolan’s list—until he spotted a Hawk MM-1 grenade launcher with a twelve-round rotating drum chambered in 40 mm. Adding ammunition for the big gun—HE, buckshot and incendiary—brought the total for his purchase to an even fifteen grand and left him satisfied.

  “Ready for anything,” said Granger, as they lugged their gear out to the car in OD duffel bags.

  “Better to have it and not need it,” Bolan said.

  “Yeah, I hear you.” In the SUV, she asked, “Do you figure Ridgway thinks he’s ditched us?”

  “If we’re lucky,” Bolan answered, turning back toward Via al Aeropuerto and the highway leading westward out of town. “He won’t let down his guard, though.”

  “This will be my first time fighting in a jungle,” Granger said. “The training leans toward deserts now. Some mountains. No great emphasis on hunting in the tropics.”

  “The terrain may differ, but it’s all a jungle,” Bolan said. “Concrete or sand, sirocco or monsoon. You get on with the job.”

  As if in answer to his observation, rain began to pelt the Honda’s windshield, blowing back in streaks that seemed to flow uphill, defying gravity, as Bolan took them past the airport, where they’d landed not so long ago, and picked up speed on Highway 6, westbound toward La Villa del Rosario.

  “Hey,” Granger said, a few miles later, “if anything goes wrong—”

  “Don’t say it,” Bolan interrupted her. “Bad luck.”

  He didn’t buy that for a second, but he’d seen how negativity could work on soldiers until doubt became a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure—of death.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I get a little morbid sometimes.”

  “Leave that for the other side,” Bolan advised. “We want them worried, even knowing that it doesn’t help.”

  “How do you turn it off?” she asked.

  “With lots of practice.” Though, in fact, the worry gene had seemingly been left out of his makeup. He’d known fear in battle, and uncertainty, but he’d never wasted time or energy obsessing over what would happen if he lost a fight. Nobody lived forever. Understanding that before starting, making peace with it, made all the difference in the world.

  Not that he planned on dying in the fight that lay ahead of him.

  Like worry, he would leave that to the other side.

  Rancho Refugio, Venezuela

  RIDGWAY HAD NAMED his hacienda as the refuge he intended it to be, from daily life in Dallas and the world of high finance. He’d never consciously intended it to be a literal refuge or home in exile, but it came in handy, either way, now that the law would soon be snapping at his heels.

  And, more than likely, someone else.

  It wasn’t if they were coming, Ridgway knew, but rather when. With thirty men on-site, plus living outside the city and protected by the jungle, he believed Simon could deal with troublesome intruders. An official delegation to arrest him would require some notice to the government, and even if his extradition was approved in Caracas, Ridgway had bribed enough policemen and bureaucrats to guarantee fair warning. He could be out of there before the FBI showed up to snatch him, calling it rendition or whatever the new label was these days.

  And if they surprised him somehow, Simon had a few tricks up his sleeve, as well.

  The news from Texas was still dominating U.S. television networks, but they’d backed off from a nonstop live feed to hourly updates. Ridgway saw that he had been upgraded to a “person of interest,” with MSNBC first to report the discovery of nuclear materials at Lone Star Aerospace. Several newscasters were calling for a full investigation in the Senate, while a couple of the good ol’ boys Ridgway had bankrolled were objecting.

  None of it meant anything, now that his plan had fallen through. He had to look ahead, start thinking of tomorrow and the days beyond. Plotting his next move in the game where personal survival was his first priority, revenge a solid second.

  Or he could simply let it go and use his fortune to effect a disappearance. Maybe fake his own death—how hard could it be? He’d slip into
retirement with his untaxed billions, living out his golden years in quiet luxury. The hue and cry would end if Ridgway gave them a convincing corpse, and he could watch the sideshow of their inquiries as an anonymous observer, from a distance.

  As for the bastards who had gone outside the rules to spoil his game in Houston, they would have to die. He’d never know a moment’s peace as long as they were hunting him. Which meant that, if they failed to track him down, he’d have to hunt them.

  Something to do. Call it a hobby, better than the canned hunts he was used to, where he paid some asshole for the chance to shoot a Bengal tiger or water buffalo on what they liked to call a “game preserve.”

  A real hunt was where the prey not only had a chance to live but would be shooting back.

  Sipping the day’s first glass of Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve, Ridgway discovered he was actually looking forward to that hunt.

  In fact he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  * * *

  AFTER THE DRIVE from Maracaibo, and a meal in La Villa de Rosario, Bolan and Granger moved on to a scouting expedition at Ridgway’s hacienda. The estate was remote enough that residents could raise hell without anyone alerting the authorities, but from the dish antennas on the roof of the main house, Bolan could tell they were in constant contact with the outside world. Not just TV and internet, but likely hot lines back to Maracaibo, maybe even Caracas.

  They could summon help, but would they?

  Bolan wouldn’t know until the crunch came, and without that certain knowledge, he was sticking to the schedule he had planned with Granger. In and out in half an hour, give or take.

  A lifetime, once the shooting started.

  * * *

  UNFAMILIAR AS SHE was with jungle trekking, Granger was surprised how long it took for sundown to arrive and then how suddenly night fell over the landscape. To her eyes and mind, it seemed as though the shadows lengthened slightly, then somebody hit a switch to douse the sun. Crouched next to Cooper in the midst of sounds and smells she didn’t recognize, the Ranger waited for their signal to jump off.

  And when it came, it nearly made her jump, regardless.

  Just a simple nudge, and Cooper whispering against her ear, “It’s time.”

  Cooper moved out first, starting the creep toward Ridgway’s hacienda. Their surveillance had confirmed what satellite photography suggested: there was no fence circling the oil man’s jungle hideaway. Since she knew money was not an issue, Granger guessed it had been too much trouble to install one, clearing brush and cutting trees along the way. The forest formed a wall of sorts around Ridgway’s remote estate, but Cooper seemed to have no trouble penetrating it.

  She followed him as closely as she could, given the darkness underneath those looming trees that blocked out moonlight from above. Compared to Cooper, Granger felt like an ungainly amateur, convinced she must be making noise enough to wake the dead as they advanced. He didn’t turn to shush her though, which helped a little with her flagging confidence.

  Her M4 carbine was a tricked-out model, with a vertical fore grip, an Aimpoint CompM3 red-dot sight and a hundred-round ammo drum to get her started. If she needed more than that once battle had been joined, she had a dozen thirty-rounders in a bandolier across her chest. It felt like overkill, but there was Cooper with the MM-1, besides his Steyr AUG, so who was she to say?

  And after the firefight and what followed back at Lone Star Aerospace, she realized it was better to have too much hardware than to come up short and die as a result.

  You could die anyway, a nagging voice in her head reminded her, but she ignored it. She had a job to finish here. The fact that no one had assigned her to it, and she wasn’t getting paid a penny for her time, made no damn difference at all.

  This was for Jerod and for her. To stop Ridgway’s insanity from ever raising up its ugly head again.

  * * *

  RIDGWAY COULD SMELL carnitas cooking in the kitchen, Rosalita whipping up a feast fit for a king. It pissed him off to think he could have been a president by now, but what would be the fun of gambling if he knew each hand of cards was guaranteed to be a winner?

  Sipping whiskey while he waited for supper, Ridgway thought he knew where he’d gone wrong. Trusting a German with the rocketry, for starters, even knowing that he was a third-generation goose stepper at heart. A damned crackpot, no matter how good he might be on the tech side. Then there’d been Walraven, fired by the NNSA for some kind of malfeasance. Who knew where he might have told tales out of school or to whom?

  Things to consider before next—

  The house shook suddenly, as if someone had dropped a boulder on the roof. The mighty thump of an explosion startled Ridgway, made him bolt out of his easy chair and drop his half-full whiskey glass. He made a beeline for the exit from his study, but before he reached the door a second blast sent tremors rippling through his tropical dream house, pale dust falling from the ceiling overhead.

  “Not yet!” he said to no one in the empty den. Diverting from the exit, Ridgway opened up a built-in cabinet and grabbed a vintage Colt M1911 autoloader from its hook, checking the pistol’s load before he tucked it under his belt. He backed that up with a Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun, its extended magazine loaded with eight rounds of double-O buck.

  Maybe his eyes weren’t great, but with the twelve-gauge, he could still drop anything that he could see within, say, thirty yards. He’d let his soldiers do the brunt of the fighting obviously, but if anyone got past them, Ridgway would be ready for the no-good bastards.

  They could face the big dog then, and see what happened.

  But he was frightened now, goddamn it, which he found infuriating for a man of his age and accomplishments, the fortune he’d accumulated from his own hard work and that of others. Who were these pissants to make him cringe and tremble?

  No, by God! If this was meant to be his final day on earth, the least that he could do was stand up to his enemies and take it like a man. Teach them that they were in a fight with someone who had never quit or cut and run away.

  Well...not unless you counted running out of Houston with his tail between his legs.

  Snarling, he jacked a round into the shotgun’s chamber, started for the door again—

  And was immediately toppled to all fours by yet another blast shaking his house. This one seemed to be right on top of Ridgway, raining plaster dust all over him. Outside he heard the Spanish barrel tiles cascading from his roof and shattering on impact with the patio. The place was coming down around him, and the only thing he could think of now was getting out.

  Before it was too late.

  * * *

  BOLAN FIRED ANOTHER round from the Hawk MM-1, the HE penetrating a kitchen window on the south side of the ranch house, where it detonated with a crack of smoky thunder. Almost instantly a secondary blast sent bright flames leaping up the walls inside, probably a propane tank that fueled the stove. Before he passed the shattered window, smoke was pouring out of it and he heard men shouting in the house, English and Spanish mixing as they prepared to fight the fire.

  Good luck with that.

  He moved on, Granger covering his back with short bursts from her M4 carbine. Floodlights had already blazed to life, turning the hacienda’s grounds as bright as noon, but Bolan had his next attack spotted. He lined up the round from his 40 mm launcher. When it struck the shed that housed the generator, sparks flew, then the gasoline reserve went up in flames. Suddenly the property went midnight-dark again.

  Night favored the intruders, although some of Ridgway’s men had flashlights mounted on their automatic weapons, pale beams lancing through the darkness, seeking targets. Bolan dodged them, switching to his Steyr AUG and firing three-round bursts at shadow-figures flitting here and there across his path. In the confusion, he was able to proceed another thirty yar
ds before he started drawing hostile fire, but even then most of the hasty shots went high and wide.

  It seemed to Bolan that a few of Ridgway’s men, at least, were running now, instead of settling in to fight. Seeing the house in flames had evidently changed some minds about the wisdom of continuing a battle in the dark with unknown enemies. Bolan guessed that most of those retreating were the local help, and that was fine. Each shooter who bugged out was one less Bolan had to kill, one less who might get lucky killing him.

  Behind him, unexpectedly, a cry of pain from Granger came together with the echo of a pistol shot. Bolan turned back to look for her and found her on the ground, a man kneeling beside her with an autoloader pressed against her head. Firelight on half his face identified the new arrival on the scene as Simon Coetzee, Ridgway’s security chief.

  “We’ve been a long time getting here,” the South African said.

  “You should have stuck around in Houston,” Bolan replied.

  “The boss thought otherwise. You know how that goes.”

  “Running didn’t help him.”

  “No. But now you’re done.”

  “Think so?”

  “I’ve read about this one,” said Coetzee, leaning on the pistol until Granger gasped. “A little lady playing soldier. Should’ve pissed off when I killed the brother, shouldn’t she? Now look at her. After tonight, there’ll be no Grangers left at all.”

  “And one less Coetzee,” Bolan answered, sighting down the barrel of his auto rifle.

  “Maybe. Thing is, I believe I’m fast enough for both of you.”

  “Prove it.”

  Coetzee smiled at him and never saw it coming, Granger whipping out the knife she’d picked in Maracaibo, reaching up and back to drive its nine-inch blade into his thigh. He bellowed, tottered backward, might have killed her even then, but Bolan’s three-round burst of 5.56 mm manglers ripped through Coetzee’s face and sheared off half his skull before the signal from his brain could reach his trigger finger.

  Granger rolled away from him, came up on hands and knees, clutching her side as Bolan reached her. “I’m all right,” she said. “Get after Ridgway. Finish this!”