Rogue Force

by Don Pendleton

  When the thermite detonated, smoking embers hot enough on impact to melt holes in tempered steel, arced skyward, streaming vapor trails. Before the roiling smoke from the initial blast had cleared, Katz saw the human torches up and running, weapons instantly forgotten as the white-hot coals devoured uniforms and naked flesh beneath.

  Five times he locked the Colt Commander onto target, five times ripping off precision bursts that flattened human forms on impact. Five up, five down… and the Israeli knew there should have been at least one more. He double-checked, already sure, regardless of the drifting smoke and blackened flesh.

  The seaplane's pilot hadn't been among them.

  It was possible that he was still behind the barricade, killed instantly when the thermite can had exploded. Katzenelenbogen had to know for certain, and he broke from cover now, unmindful of the automatic fire that still played up and down the battle line.

  Katz hit a combat crouch beside the smoking barricade, his rifle gripped in one hand, the prosthetic claw outstretched to steady him against the tumbled logs. A stench of burning flesh assailed his nostrils and made his stomach churn, but he couldn't seek cleaner air until he knew.

  The Phoenix warrior made his move, hurdling the barricade with an agility surprising for a man his size and age. He held the Colt Commander ready to respond if any of the terrorists should still be capable of offering resistance, but there wouldn't be any opposition from the solitary man who shared his foxhole. From appearances, the thermite bomb had detonated almost in the dead man's lap; a dozen of the white-hot coals still smoldered in his clothing and flesh, but one that had struck him squarely on the nose had been enough. The center of his face was now a gaping wound, his nose and upper lip devoured by searing heat, together with a major portion of his cheeks. The guy's own mother wouldn't know him, but she would have known the smoking corpse had never been a blonde.

  And he wasn't the seaplane's pilot.

  The bastard had already slipped away before Katz had lobbed the thermite in. There was no other explanation, and he realized it must have been ridiculously easy in the firing and confusion. All he had to do was belly-down and worm his way through the encircling undergrowth. If he had been wise enough to keep his head and ass down on the way, there was no reason any of the Phoenix gunners should have noticed him.

  Until he reached the plane.

  If he escaped, Katz realized, their most persuasive piece of evidence against the Sandinistas would be lost. They could spend hours picking over corpses or examining Kalashnikovs and other arms that were a dime a dozen on the Third World market. But with the American in hand…

  The Israeli heard the seaplane's motor cough and die. Again. He knew somehow that it would catch and hold the third time, that his quarry would be lost forever if he didn't move right now.

  The Phoenix warrior was already on his feet and running, unmindful of the fact that he was now behind hostile lines with scattered firing still in progress. One of his men could pick him off as easily as any of the terrorists, but Katzenelenbogen had no time to waste. His quarry was escaping, and he wouldn't let that happen while he lived.

  * * *

  From his position at the far end of the firing line, Calvin James was ready to cut off a terrorist retreat in the direction of the western shore. Not that the motherfuckers seemed intent on retreating at the moment; rather, their diminished ranks had been pulling back into a tight perimeter that almost cleared his line of fire.

  Almost.

  The Phoenix warrior's M-16 was fitted with an M-203 40 mm launcher, mounted underneath the rifle's barrel. With single-shot capacity and an effective range of some three hundred and fifty yards, the launcher let James drop explosive charges through the foliage from above, without the need for pinpoint accuracy. And it would bring the shrinking cadre well within his field of fire.

  James fed a high-explosive can into the launcher, primed to blow on impact, cranked the muzzle skyward and squeezed off, already counting down the seconds until detonation. Sudden thunder ripped a patch of ferns and bracken from the earth and propelled the whole mess twenty feet into the air, a ministorm cloud raining mulch and sod. The hostile gunfire faltered momentarily, then cautiously resumed.

  He had been too far left, and James corrected slightly, marking the position of the first explosion as he fed a fragmentation round into the launcher's smoking breech. No change in elevation; if the first round had come in a dozen paces to the right, it would have detonated squarely in their laps. Calvin braced himself to take the recoil, sighted, squeezed.

  A different sort of blast this time, without the heavy baritone of high explosives. More a crack, if anything, and then the sound of countless razors slicing through the undergrowth, some of them smacking into tree trunks, others whining off stones. And many of them ripping into human flesh.

  His enemies were screaming now… or some of them, at any rate. The hostile fire had faltered for an instant once again, and when it resumed, the ranks of operative gunners had been noticeably thinned. Their fire was still cohesive, still a threat, but they were being whittled down.

  He worked another high-explosive round into the breech, squeezed off, already feeding in another when the smoky thunderclap erupted fifty yards away. For just a heartbeat, James was certain that he saw a human body airborne, tumbling like something from a circus acrobatics show… except that bits and pieces of this acrobat were gone, and he was trailing ugly crimson streamers as he somersaulted through the air.

  Another frag round up the chute, another swarm of angry hornets overhead, and Calvin reckoned there could be no more than half a dozen gunners still responding from the hostile camp. He heard his comrades easing off their triggers at the same time, picking targets more methodically, with single rounds and three-round bursts.

  He heard the seaplane's engine stutter into life and knew instinctively that something was about to go disastrously wrong. Katz had been interested in the pilot, more than anyone, and the Israeli would be pissed if the flier should somehow manage to escape the net. The engine was already revving, and there might be nothing James could do, but it was worth a try. And anything beat sitting on his ass while Katzenelenbogen's pigeon flew the coop.

  He slammed a fresh mag home into the M-16's receiver, then cranked a buckshot round into the launcher's breech. The young black warrior was up and sprinting before the plane began its freedom run. James cleared the undergrowth and hit the rocky beach in double time, maintaining a rough collision course with the accelerating plane, continuing beyond the water's edge until he felt the slimy stones beneath his boots, lake water lapping at his groin.

  The pilot saw him coming, tried to veer away and out of range, but it was too late. He was already hauling backward on the joystick, struggling for altitude, his pontoons skating on the surface, finally breaking contact. Calvin James was staring at the guy in profile as the plane flashed by him, and he gave the bastard everything he had. He heard the buckshot charge strike home amidships, watched a line of holes march down the fuselage as thirty tumblers raked the target, emptying the rifle's magazine in 2.5 seconds.

  And for just a heartbeat, James was certain it had been too late. The craft was airborne, banking, drawing out of range. He couldn't bring the bastard back now; there was just no way. The Phoenix warrior cursed beneath his breath and resigned himself to watch the pigeon fly, when suddenly a plume of smoke erupted from the seaplane's undercarriage, reeking with the smell of oil.

  "All right!" he shouted at the jungle, shaking one dark fist in the direction of the smoking aircraft.

  There was still a chance the guy could pull it off of course. The seaplane's damage might not be critical; he might fly for miles before he lost it, if the thing came down at all. He might be safe across the border into Nicaragua by the time he had to land, and that would be the end of any hope of proving a connection with the terrorists.

  But he would not.

  As Calvin watched, dumbstruck, the seaplane canted sharply
to the left, already losing altitude as it approached the north shore of the lake. It would be difficult for him to miss the tree line now, James saw. Unless he pulled up sharply, he was bound to lose it soon.

  Instead of pulling up, the plane dipped even lower, seemingly resigned to answering gravity's demands. One wing tip grazed the surface of the water, and a graceful glide was instantly transformed into a crazy, screaming cartwheel, ending in the trees with an explosion that produced a rolling ball of oily flame. From where he stood, the Phoenix warrior could see trees and undergrowth in flames, ignited by the spill of burning gasoline and oil.

  "Goddamn it!"

  He had stopped the guy, all right, but he had stopped him too damned hard. He would catch hell from Katz when the gruff Israeli saw this mess. If Katz's pigeon hadn't died on impact, he was frying now, and they would need a dustpan for him by the time an extrication team could make its way along the lakeshore to the crash site.

  It was over in the trees behind him, the reports of automatic fire already fading on a breeze that etched the lake with jagged ripples. Calvin James sloshed back to shore and sat down on a log at lakeside, thoroughly disgusted with himself.

  They had neutralized the terrorists, but in the absence of persuasive evidence to mark the corpses as a Sandinista strike force, they were back at the beginning. If Managua chose to send another team of killers in next week, next month, the bastards would be innocent until someone collected evidence to prove them guilty.

  Someone like Phoenix Force.

  Dejected, even though there had been no immediate alternatives, James knew that he had blown it. Katzenelenbogen was approaching, storm clouds in his face, and Calvin braced himself to ride it out.

  But Katz's anger was the least of it. The worst was coming back to do it all again because the evidence they needed had gone up in smoke and flames. The worst of it was knowing that their enemies were still alive and well despite the loss of valued pawns.

  And, sure, the worst of it was knowing that each time you lost a little bit you lost it all.

  5

  The tall man stood alone, surveying the seemingly endless parade of headstones that stretched away from him in all directions. There were crosses, for the most part, punctuated here and there with Stars of David, all in pristine white, which pointedly belied their age. Some of the markers were made colorful by small bouquets of flowers, which would be removed before they had a chance to wilt. These graves were timeless, an eternal monument to human self-sacrifice.

  Mack Bolan spent another moment in communion with the valiant dead of Arlington, Virginia. Buried here were countless men and women who had seen their duty and performed it under fire. From personal experience, he realized that few of them had cherished any thought of being heroes, and the unself-conscious nature of their sacrifice had made them all the more heroic. They had given up their lives for friends and allies who had depended on them, for the country that had nurtured them in freedom. And if freedom had been something less than perfect for a few of these heroic dead, if they had been reviled by fools at home because of race or creed, it mattered little in the end. These heroes had been large and wise enough to see the dream, sometimes obscured by sad reality, and they had pledged their lives to the preservation of that dream.

  Bolan felt no apprehension in the presence of the dead. They held no terrors for him, cast no lurking shadows in his heart. He understood their motives, by and large, believed that they had done their duty as they had understood it, living up to values that had been instilled from infancy. And if a few of them had acted out of other motivations, seeking private gain perhaps, or searching out the killing grounds for darker reasons of their own, it mattered little in the last analysis. They had been gathered here because they had stood their ground and paid the price. And they were heroes.

  Damn right.

  For all his battlefield experience in Vietnam, the soldier knew that he would never rest among the peaceful dead of Arlington. His path had veered away from theirs, and Bolan had pursued his destiny to other hellgrounds, earning designation as an outlaw and a renegade. His private, everlasting war had violated the majority of civil laws in the United States and several foreign nations; when he finally met his end, the Executioner would die a hunted man.

  But there was duty to be honored, all the same. As the respected dead of Arlington had seen their duty, followed it through hellfire and beyond, so Bolan recognized his obligation to the Universe… and to himself. He could no more forsake the everlasting war than he could voluntarily refuse to breathe. One course of action doomed the flesh; the other would irrevocably damn his soul.

  He came to visit with the dead from time to time, as duty might allow, but on this afternoon he'd come to see the living. Bolan ambled past the rows of headstones, killing time until the scheduled rendezvous, unnoticed by the ever-present tourists and assorted mourners paying their respects. How many of the markers were inscribed with names that he would recognize on sight? Too many, sure. He meant to visit the memorial for casualties of Vietnam, if time and opportunity should ever coincide… but not today. For this one afternoon, the Executioner had seen enough of ghosts.

  His contact was already waiting when he reached the Unknown Soldier's tomb. The honor guard ignored him as he sidled up to Hal Brognola, noting that the man from Justice seemed to be immersed in private memories.

  "You're looking well," Brognola said when he became aware of Bolan's presence at his side.

  "Must be the Geritol."

  "I guess. It's been a while since we were here."

  The Executioner didn't respond. Brognola was referring to a different sort of visit when the two of them had kept a life-or-death appointment with the renegade abductors of Hal's wife and children. Life-or-death could cut both ways, and their assailants had drawn the death card in a brief encounter that would never be inscribed in any tour guide of Arlington. It had been bloody work, and while it had turned out well enough for Hal and family, the man from Wonderland had changed somehow. A close examination might reveal new lines around his eyes and mouth, perhaps a few more graying hairs around his temples. He hadn't precisely aged, although that might be part of it, and none of them were getting any younger; rather, it appeared to Bolan that Brognola might have glimpsed his own mortality, the ultimate fragility of those he loved. The gruff Fed might not have seen his death, but he had come close enough to see its shadow, and that could be enough.

  "I'm glad you could make it," Brognola said at last, emerging from his reverie.

  Bolan waved a callused hand in dismissal.

  "You have some time on hand?" Brognola asked.

  "Depends."

  "Okay." The man from Justice hesitated, then finally got it out. "I've got a little situation on my hands."

  "I'm listening."

  "Let's walk," Brognola said, sticking an unlit cigar between his teeth. "The doctor says I ought to give these up," he said, spitting out the shreds of the fine Havana leaf. "But I say what the hell. Nobody lives forever."

  A faint alarm was chiming in the back of Bolan's mind. "But you've stopped smoking. Are you okay?"

  "Mmm? Me? Oh, hell, it's not like that. I think it's being here, if you can figure that one. I don't like this place the way I used to."

  "Understandable."

  "I guess. About this situation…"

  Bolan waited while his old friend hesitated, letting Hal get to it on his own. When he resumed, Brognola's voice and eyes were miles away.

  "Have you been following the Nicaraguan situation?"

  "Off and on."

  "Okay. You know about the Contras, then, and all the flak in Congress over our continuing support. Some think it's Armageddon, others are afraid it's Vietnam revisited — or, anyway, the Bay of Pigs. Appropriations votes go up and down like fevers in the middle of a typhoid epidemic."

  "So?"

  "We've done some business with the Contra forces out of Stony Man," Hal told him. "Tagged a couple of their heavy h
itters when they stepped outside Ortegaland, that kind of thing. You follow?"

  Hal was nervous now, and Bolan didn't press him.

  "Yes."

  "Ten days ago your pals on Able Team went into Nicaragua to effect retrieval of a hostage. For the record, that's retrieval as in nab or neutralize."

  The soldier understood that well enough. His first assignment out of Stony Man had been a similar retrieval, with a backup plan to execute the captive if it came to that.

  "Go on."

  "They found the mark, all right, but it was too damned late. Tough break, okay? The pisser was that an American was running the interrogation. Strike that. Not just an American — a goddamned soldier, Special Forces, out on furlough from his duty station in Honduras."

  Bolan felt the short hairs on his neck begin to rise. A set of jagged fingernails were scraping painfully across a mental chalkboard, setting Bolan's teeth on edge and raising the alarm.

  "That's double-checked?"

  "No room for error. Ironman brought the bastard's dog tags out."

  "There's more." And it wasn't a question.

  Brognola nodded. "Tuesday afternoon Phoenix Force surprised a group of terrorists in Costa Rica. We were looking at them as suspected Sandinistas. Phoenix was assigned to confirm or deny."

  Both men were conscious of the fact that Phoenix could accomplish neither prior to termination of the enemy. It was a given not worth mentioning.

  "What happened?"

  "Well, they bagged their men, all right, but not before the targets made connections with a Yankee pilot. Last name Baker, if you can believe the stencil on his uniform. As luck would have it, Mr. Baker and his plane went up in smoke before the boys could get a closer look. No hope of any positive ID under the circumstances."

  "But?"

  "Okay. His name and general description match another Special Forces trooper, also stationed in Honduras. He's been listed AWOL for the past two days, a no-show on a two-day pass. We've got a hunch they might as well stop waiting for him."