Patriot Play

by Don Pendleton

  “Could be a covert black ops specialist,” Carson said. “I’ll call around. In the meantime, Brent, you keep trying to contact the Brethren. Before you do, go and fetch Miss Valens back here. Maybe she’s had time to think about her future.”

  Brent left the room.

  Pushing slowly to his feet, Stahl crossed the room to the small bar in the corner. He splashed more whiskey into his tumbler.

  “Bill, we need to assess how all this might affect our plans.”

  “First off, we do not let it stall us. Too much has been worked out. If we lose speed now, the whole thing could fall apart.”

  “Just remember the Brethren is important to what we’re doing.”

  “I haven’t forgotten that. The Brethren still figures. We have enough evidence to link them to those bombings. They have no idea we have them dancing to our tune. And the President hasn’t done a great job of outing them, or even setting his various agencies on them. We’re close enough to our timetable to start the ball rolling. You get your media affiliates to broadcast the material we have prepared. Make moves on the Hill to work on the political side. Let the American public see that what we have to offer, plus our ability to actually put it into action, and we have the basis for our move. We push and push damned hard.”

  “I guess you’re right. It never was going to be an easy option.”

  “Hell, Eric, pour me some of that whiskey, then we’ll see what that young woman has to tell us.”

  The lights went out.

  “What the hell is going on?” Carson demanded.

  In the semidarkness Eric Stahl felt a tight sensation in his chest. The whiskey tumbler slipped from his fingers. It thudded against the carpet.

  “It’s him,” he rasped. “Belasko. He’s found us, Bill.”

  “It could just be a power out,” Carson said. Even so, he crossed the room and pulled open a drawer in his desk, taking out the Glock pistol he kept there. He checked the magazine, replaced it and worked the slide to feed in the first bullet. “You have a gun, Eric?”

  “No.”

  “Christ, you make the damn things but you don’t carry one?”

  “You think I need one for a power out?”

  “Eric, I said it could be. It’s also conceivable that son of a bitch is here. Always prepare for what could happen.”

  “I expect the Army taught you that?”

  “It did come into my basic training, but I’d already been told by my daddy. Always kept him one step ahead of the local sheriff. He might not have been much, but Daddy learned early how to cover his ass.”

  “I feel safer already.”

  Carson chuckled. “Now where the hell is Brent and that bitch?”

  The door crashed open, a dark shape filling the frame. Carson moved quickly away from the oblong of faint light that was showing. He raised the Glock and fired, his two shots causing a brief flare of illumination. The figure in the doorway grunted, turning sideways and falling into the room so his face could be seen.

  Carson realized he had shot Harry Brent.

  BRENT WENT DOWN HARD and Mack Bolan moved with him, his body dropping to a crouch, Beretta probing ahead. He had pinpointed the muzzle-flashes and adjusted his return fire accordingly. He triggered the 93-R, felt it recoil as it spit the triburst, and heard the target grunt. The shadowed figure stumbled back, fell against an object that crashed to the floor, the hit man following it to the carpet.

  Eric Stahl heard the exchange of shots, flinching at the loud reports. He knew Carson had been hit, saw the dark outline of the man fall to the floor. Then he felt something strike the side of his shoe. Faint light coming through one of the windows revealed the outline of Carson’s gun. Stahl dropped to his knees and scooped the weapon from the floor, his finger curling against the trigger.

  Carson had been surprised Stahl didn’t carry a gun. Stahl had never seen the need. He always paid others to handle those kinds of matters for him, but not carrying a gun did not mean he was unable to use one. Over the years he had handled countless weapons at his plant’s firing range during test firings. He raised the Glock, aimed and fired as the crouching man in the doorway began to straighten. He saw the figure waver and pull back from the opening. Stahl kept pulling the trigger, sending a stream of slugs at the door frame and wall until the slide locked back. He rose to his feet, unsure what was happening, wondering where the shooter had gone.

  Had his shot been fatal? Or just a wounding one?

  Without warning, the house lights came back on. Stahl lowered his eyes against the sudden brightness. His gaze passed over the bloodied form of Harry Brent sprawled just inside the door. Across the room he saw Bill Carson’s body beside the desk, his face splashed with blood from the bullet hits in his chest and throat.

  He picked up a slight sound just beyond the open doorway and panic made him realize he was holding an empty pistol. He recalled where Carson had gotten it from. The desk drawer was still open. Stahl knew that Carson would have extra magazines there, too. He had been too good a soldier not to be prepared, as he had quoted himself. Stahl broke his stance and moved quickly behind the desk, releasing the Glock’s empty magazine even as he saw the two extra clips lying in the drawer.

  Do it, Eric, he thought. Save yourself and it isn’t over.

  He snatched up one of the magazines and rammed it into the butt receiver.

  Out the corner of his eye he caught movement by the door and had to look.

  Clair Valens was rising to her feet from where she had been bending over the man Stahl knew as Belasko. There was a spreading bloody patch on Belasko’s left shoulder. A flash of excitement surged within Stahl. He had hit the man. He registered the slide on the Glock snap back. All he had to do now was to finish the bastard—and then the damned Valens woman.

  His gaze moved back to Valens as he sensed something in her rising hand. It was the Beretta, its muzzle tracking in on him. The fleeting image of the muzzle vanished as Valens pulled the trigger and kept pulling it until the 3-round bursts exhausted the magazine.

  The 9 mm slugs tore into Stahl’s body, driving him away from the desk and into the corner of the room. He hung there until the weight of his own body pulled him to the floor, leaving a bloody smear on the wall behind him. His front was sodden red. The Glock fell from limp fingers. Stahl drew several shuddering breaths, expelling air that vaporized as swiftly as his thoughts of his America.

  CLAIR VALENS leaned over Bolan and helped him to his feet. His wound was bleeding heavily. He leaned against the wall, watching as Valens located a fresh magazine from his jacket and reloaded the Beretta.

  “Made a mess of your nice leather jacket,” she commented.

  “I’ll claim it on expenses.”

  Bolan let her help him across the room to one of the armchairs. “Valens, you were close to the wire here.”

  “Yeah? But I was right about Stahl and his partner.” She stared at him. “And didn’t you come to get me out of trouble?”

  He touched her bruised cheek. “Again,” he said.

  “Belasko, this is no way for us to keep meeting.”

  “Tell me about it. And it’s Cooper now. Not Belasko.”

  “Really? We need to talk about this multiple personality of yours.” She frowned. “Do you have a real name in there somewhere?” Bolan simply nodded. “I know, you’re not going to tell me.”

  Bolan took out his cell phone and hit the speed dial number for Stony Man, and waited for Brognola to answer.

  “Tell the Man it’s finished. The main players have been neutralized. Tell him the general is fully retired and won’t be drawing his pension. I’ll leave you to suggest he needs to sharpen up things at his end.”

  Bolan heard Brognola relating the rest of the update, but he was starting to lose interest. It was a combination of the blood he was losing and his body giving in to the demands for a shutdown. He needed to rest, something he had been denying himself during mission time. The last thing he heard was Brognola telling hi
m a federal task force was on its way to the Carson residence and would be on site shortly.

  Valens took the phone from Bolan’s hand and shut it down.

  “Hey, soldier, time to take five. What the hell, take ten. In fact, we should both go for broke and have the rest of the damn day off.”

  Bolan decided that was not a bad idea. He heard her say something about going to fetch a towel to stop the bleeding. He didn’t notice when she left him.

  The room fell into shadows around Bolan. He let the exhaustion roll over him and he drifted into a sleep that was once visited by ghosts. Bolan recognized children, victims of the Brethren’s bombs, drifting in and out of his conscious.

  Only this time the troubled expressions on their faces seemed to have faded, and though he was unable to see clearly he was sure there might have been the traces of gentle smiles there instead.

  EPILOGUE

  The Brethren was disbanded. Federal teams were able to coordinate operations, aided by the data found on Seeger’s computer system. That data listed Brethren sites and personnel across the country. Arrests followed, including a number of people in local law and government positions.

  The President, undoubtedly shaken by the revelations concerning military involvement in the affair, took steps to remove those involved. Behind the scenes there was a series of swift retaliatory moves. The White House was the scene of a spate of arrivals and departures, and the President’s desk held a stack of letters of resignation, both military and civilian.

  The President expressed his gratitude to certain individuals. Senator Vernon Randolph thanked the President for the offer to become a member of the White House staff and declined it in the same breath. He was, he revealed, about to retire from active politics, giving his advanced age as the reason. He later admitted to Bolan that a cushy job at the White House would probably kill him from boredom within six months.

  Clair Valens, having to endure a severe dressing down from her superiors, did not lose her agency position. Although the fact was kept from her, a call from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, explaining her actions within a covert operation, went a long way to convince her department heads that she was too valuable to lose.

  For Mack Bolan closure of a kind came from knowing that his efforts had at least provided some kind of justice for the innocent victims of the bombings. The ones who had died, not for a cause but simply because in the eyes of Seeger and the Brethren they were expendable losses. Bolan, as ever, refused to stand by and let that go unpunished. His ability to prolong his war against evil, in whatever form, would go on. His fight had to continue.

  He had already gone that extra mile.

  He would keep on going for as many extra miles as were needed.

  That was his choice.

  That was his destiny.

  First edition March 2008

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1427-3

  PATRIOT PLAY

  Copyright © 2008 by Worldwide Library.

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