Day of Mourning te-62

by Don Pendleton

  "That mountain fortress is a trap for Able Team. If we don't contact them to abort their mission in time, they'll be massacred by the force The Dragon left behind."

  "It seems," said Kurtzman thoughtfully, "as if an awful lot is going wrong for Stony Man all at once."

  "What's the status of Phoenix Force?" asked Bolan, ignoring Kurtzman's comment.

  "On their way home. Their ETA is midnight."

  "Wade. Did you run a clearance check?"

  "April did. Our security officer has a clean bill of health, Striker, clear back to Nam. You want the details?"

  "Later. Now tell me those names and address."

  "Ismet Kemal and Mustafa Izmir," said Kurtzman. "Armenians. Chief enforcers for a terrorist cell operating out of Turkey that calls itself the Justice Commandos of Armenian Genocide. The CIA spotted them disembarking from an Istanbul flight late last night. We got our intel from the usual source, but the Company has it classified top secret.

  "They have Kemal and Izmir under surveillance right now. That's how we know the address. I figured it might be more than coincidence, these boys in town when everything starts going to hell for us, especially since Kemal and Izmir's specialty is commando night raids. They've been linked to several such actions in Europe."

  The Bear rattled off a street address that Bolan committed to memory.

  "It's a start," said Bolan. He saw the runway lights of National Airport coming toward them.

  "Thanks, Bear. Get through to Able Team the instant the communications foul-up is corrected. Gotta go."

  "Roger," Kurtzman replied, and the connection was broken.

  Grimaldi set the Hughes chopper down after control-tower directions to the airport's private landing area. The pilot cut the chopper's engine as soon as they touched ground.

  Bolan climbed from the bubble front and shed the suit jacket and tie he had worn to meet the president.

  He shrugged into a more comfortable jacket that once again concealed the Beretta 93-R.

  "A lone-wolf play, just like it used to be," repeated Grimaldi as he watched Bolan tog for night work. The pilot wore an enthused grin. "Here we go again, is that it?"

  "That's it," acknowledged the Stony warrior.

  Bolan grabbed the briefcase containing his .44 AutoMag and more death.

  * * *

  April rose entered the room just as Aaron Kurtzman broke his connection with Bolan. She sat beside him at the communications console and handed him a cup of freshly made coffee.

  "That was Striker," Kurtzman told her. He sipped the coffee and growled his contentment. "I gave him Izmir and Kemal."

  April ignored her cup.

  "I hope they're not a false lead."

  "They're the only lead we've got," Kurtzman grunted. "Unless you consider Lee Farnsworth."

  He briefed her on Bolan's report that Farnsworth had fingered the men of Able Team for a waiting Dragon in the Hindu Kush on the other side of the world.

  April still didn't touch her coffee.

  "Interagency rivalry? I've heard stories of it in the past."

  "I barely survived two interagency wars," said Kurtzman. "Damn spy business."

  "The damn spy business," said April. "Maybe that's what's been bothering him."

  "You noticed it too, eh?"

  "Of course I did, Aaron."

  "If we're right, this thing could blow up in our faces, just like the plastique that blew out our communications setup."

  "Mack won't risk Stony Man," said April. "He's committed to the new war."

  "He won't risk us," agreed Kurtzman, "but he could reconsider if this is really where he belongs."

  "That is his decision to make."

  "Of course it is. I just don't want to see the man do something that'll burn all the bridges behind him."

  "Like taking on Lee Farnsworth?"

  "Farnsworth and his organization. Interagency feuds are strictly verboten. Farnsworth should never have betrayed Able Team to The Dragon, but if Striker executes Farnsworth or any of his people over this, all of those bridges will be gone and Striker himself will be ordered terminated. It's a tough game and those are the rules."

  "Maybe Farnsworth and his unit aren't involved," said April. "We don't have proof. Only the timing, and that could be coincidental."

  "We do have Izmir and Kemal," added Kurtzman. "I'd give anything to have those creeps be the source of this trouble."

  "It's happening so fast," noted April. "First, the sabotage, then Konzaki and Able Team and now Farnsworth. It could be that there isn't a thread connecting it together."

  Kurtzman got up and walked over to a window. He stood looking out at the night. His right hand rested on the butt of the holstered pistol April had brought him.

  "I'm just glad we're carrying our own side arms tonight," he growled. "It's going to be a night for everyone to cover his own ass. I can feel it out there. I just hope to God Striker is aware of what he's up against. Washington is a goddamn snake pit. The only things Bolan can trust tonight are the guns he's carrying."

  "He knows," said April.

  The door opened.

  The nurse who had been attending Konzaki stepped in.

  April knew right away.

  "Konzaki..."

  The nurse shook her head.

  "I'm sorry. There was nothing we could do. He never regained consciousness."

  Kurtzman remained looking out the window. He did not turn.

  "Why?" he said into the night.

  * * *

  Brognola and the president were alone in the Oval Office. The Man himself had mixed the drinks, but the atmosphere was not congenial.

  "I assure you, Hal," said the president, "I had no idea what Farnsworth was up to. I am purposely not briefed on the details of his operation, just like with Stony Man."

  "I only hope Kurtzman restores our communications in time to alert Able Team to abort their hit on The Dragon," said Hal. "Those are good men, sir. We can't afford to lose them."

  "I appreciate what you're saying," said the Man. "But I hope you'll pardon me for pointing out that you probably feel right now exactly what Farnsworth felt when a Stony Man operation caused the deaths of several of his men. Those were good men too."

  Hal finished his drink, wishing more than ever for a cigar.

  "A damn can of worms," he acknowledged. "And I've got a hunch it's all going down right now."

  "Tonight?"

  "Yes, sir. The colonel makes a damn good case for thinking there could be an attack on the Farm tonight."

  "Farnsworth? You can't be serious."

  "We don't know for certain who's behind it. Colonel Phoenix is working that angle. And our intel informed us that Armenians could be involved, with or without the CFB. Or there could be factors we don't even know about yet."

  "Armenians?" said the president. "No, don't tell me. If my political opponents ever got hold of this kind of thing, I'd be roasted alive. What about Colonel Phoenix? The man concerns me."

  "In what way, sir?"

  "He's the only guy who ever told me to go to hell in this office," said the president with a chuckle, "but I don't mind that. In fact, I like him for it. I know of his work during the Vietnam War and his own Mafia campaigns, and I have a sketchy idea of what he's accomplished for Stony Man.

  "His ideas of right and wrong have thus far happily coincided with our ideas of right and wrong."

  "Bolan will not move against Farnsworth or the CFB unless he has positive proof," Hal assured the president. "The only indication we have of any possible involvement by Farnsworth in our trouble at Stony Man is the timing of it and his campaign tonight to put us out of business.''

  "But let us imagine the worst," suggested the president. "Suppose Colonel Phoenix does find out that Farnsworth and his unit are involved. I can't have him declaring war on Farnsworth and his unit and wiping them out. Colonel Phoenix has always gone by 'an eye for an eye,' and won't that be the way he'll see it if he does find proof of wrongdoing b
y Farnsworth?"

  "I, uh, suppose it could be," hedged Hal. "But one thing you can count on with Mack Bolan is the totally unexpected."

  "That's what I'm afraid of," the Man replied. "We're expecting the colonel to be a team man tonight. But when he stomped out of here a while ago, he did not look like someone about to play by the rules."

  "The guy's a survivor," said Hal. "Rules only work sometimes."

  "He'd better be a survivor if he breaks my rules," growled the president. "I do not want the man liquidating other American agents, no matter what the circumstances."

  "That's putting the guy in one hell of a squeeze, isn't it, sir?"

  "He's not the only one. I like and admire the guy, but I won't have any choice, Hal, if push comes to shove. Colonel Phoenix will be liquidated before he can make waves that will endanger our national security and this administration. I suggest you make contact with him to apprise him of this fact."

  "He well knows the chances he's taking, sir," said Hal. "The personal consequences of his actions have never stopped Mack Bolan from doing what he had to do and they won't stop him tonight."

  8

  Bolan had already clashed with Armenian terrorist groups once before in his new war.

  They wage an ongoing war of their own against the modern Turkish government for the twenty-year holocaust at the turn of the century during which millions of Armenians had been reportedly slaughtered by the Turks.

  Denounced by all international Armenian communities, the terrorists had been gunning down diplomats and blowing up Turkish businesses and political concerns for decades. One week earlier a bomb had exploded at a Turkish airline counter at Orly Airport in Paris, killing six people and maiming a dozen other tourists. Only two of the victims were Turks. The Justice Commandos of Armenian Genocide had bragged of responsibility for the slaughter.

  Lately, more and more of this terrorist activity had taken place on American soil.

  Now came Kemal and Izmir.

  * * *

  The address was a secondhand furniture store on the fringe of the ghetto, not far from the White House.

  The store was on a side street, the entrance three steps below sidewalk level, sandwiched in at mid-block by a squat line of dark business fronts.

  At the far end of the block, a single streetlamp cast a dull glow that extended only halfway down the street.

  Bolan stood in deep shadow up the street from the store. He surveyed the neighborhood, attuning his combat senses to this probe.

  The night was warm, the city sounds muted by the breeze that now carried the smell of rain with it.

  The street was lined with parked vehicles.

  Bolan spotted the pinpoint glow of a cigarette from a sedan parked at the opposite end of the block from the streetlamp.

  Company men.

  He backtracked away from the sedan, toward the dim streetlamp, and the man, or men, in the car did not see him. Or they did not care.

  He rounded the corner building and moved past his parked rental car to the mouth of the alley running behind the shop.

  The half moon was blanketed out by the low-hanging thunderheads, making the night blacker than usual in the confines of the alley.

  The nightscorcher palmed the Beretta as he jogged down the alley to the rear of the address he wanted. He soundlessly negotiated a ten-foot wooden fence.

  Bolan dropped to a crouch at the base of the fence and scanned the area behind the shop.

  He saw the outline of a sentry against the lighted back window of the house.

  Bolan came in at the man with a slashing chop that connected the butt of the Beretta with the base of the man's skull. The guy's knees buckled as he collapsed with a soft moan. Bolan caught him before he touched ground and dragged him off into deeper shadows away from the enclosed porch and back door of the shop. He left the sentry propped against the building.

  The night warrior returned to the porch and the door, the top half of which was lighted window, unshaded.

  Bolan moved in at a low crouch. He pressed himself against the door and risked a look inside from a corner of the window.

  A conference between three men was in the process of breaking up at the far end of a corridor that ended at the front door of the house.

  The men grouped around the door were swarthy, stocky.

  Armenians.

  Two of the men, wearing jackets, were checking their weapons.

  Ismet Kemal and Mustafa Izmir toted short, compact Ingram Model 10 submachine guns, the "room brooms" of urban terrorist action.

  The two men holstered their weapons in specially designed slings under their jackets, then grimly shook hands with the third man who held the door open for them and saw them into the night in a wordless parting.

  The Armenian closed the door after the men and turned to walk back further into the house. Bolan figured that he could only be the Washington contact for the Istanbul hit team.

  The man half turned toward Bolan when the Executioner sent a kick at the back door that broke the wood panel inward.

  The surprised Armenian reacted with a curse as he grabbed for holstered hardware. But he was too slow. One whispered chug from the Beretta punched out the swarthy guy's left eye and made him dead meat. The corpse was still tumbling to the floor when Bolan withdrew to the backyard. Not pausing in his steady jog, he squeezed another 9mm slug from the Beretta as he moved past the unconscious sentry. He would never regain consciousness.

  Bolan scaled the wood fence again without slowing and was on the move the instant he landed in the alley.

  He trotted to the alley entrance and made it behind the wheel of his rental car. The Ford in which he had seen the pinpoint glow of a cigarette was just gaining the intersection up the block at a moderate, almost lazy speed.

  The vehicle, driven by either Kemal or Izmir, would be somewhere ahead.

  Bolan gunned his own vehicle to life and punched on the headlights as soon as the Ford was out of sight.

  Bolan's rental Mustang pulled onto the street a half block behind the unmarked CIA car.

  It was a parade through the night streets of Washington. Company men in the Ford were following the Armenians, and Bolan was tracking the CIA agents.

  The three cars connected with Rhode Island Avenue and tracked northeast out of the lower-income neighborhoods through the stretch of commercial zoning that began to give way to more sleepy suburbs just over the Maryland line.

  Bolan played the moderate evening traffic with all the finesse at his command, keeping the Agency car in sight but staying far enough away not to arouse suspicion.

  They had just passed the Mount Rainier turnoff when Bolan realized that the group had picked up another member: a custom-designed van was doing its best to hold back from Bolan's Mustang. But the highly polished chrome work of the flashy vehicle stood out like a beacon as it drove under the street-lamps.

  A new twist in an already tangled night.

  In Brentwood, the group led off Rhode Island Avenue into a quiet neighborhood of winding streets lined and shadowed by white oaks, with one— and two-story residences interspersed with some office buildings.

  Bolan knew where they were heading.

  When he saw the Ford with the CIA men glide to a stop at the curb, not more than one block from where the Interstate Loan Association had its offices, he knew there had been too much coincidence this night.

  Mack Bolan's former Mafia war had brought him blitzing to this area when he targeted the Gus Riappi family and rained hellfire upon it.

  At that time the Interstate Loan Association had been a money-laundry operation for the family that Bolan had somehow not had time to take out completely. Riappi still ran a weakened but functioning operation in the D.C. environs.

  Mafia.

  He would make time for dealing with this old enemy that appeared to be a link in the chain of events that occurred tonight.

  He wheeled the Mustang off the track, cutting onto a side street that intersecte
d the block where the CIA car had pulled over. When he was out of their range of vision, he coasted to the curb and killed the headlights and engine. He paused behind the steering wheel a moment more.

  In his rearview mirror Bolan saw the customized van turn off the parade route and slide into deep shadows in the block behind him, facing in the opposite direction.

  It occurred to Bolan that he had still not caught glimpse of the car carrying Izmir and Kemal since the trek began.

  Now, the parade was over.

  The players were in place.

  The low ceiling of thunderheads rumbled ominously as if impatient for this action to begin.

  Bolan strapped Big Thunder low on his right hip, unleathered his Beretta and went EVA into the night.

  Into the killing ground.

  * * *

  When the Toyota he was tailing turned into a parking lot, CIA agent Bob Gridell steered his unmarked Ford Granada to the curb and doused the lights and engine.

  The Toyota driven by Mustafa Izmir was out of sight somewhere on the blacktop on the far side of a low brick office building.

  For a moment Gridell found himself wishing that he was across the river in suburban Arlington with his family.

  Tonight was his second pull of duty after coming off a two-week vacation with Margie and the kids.

  At forty-six, Gridell thought he was getting too old for this kind of work. Then he blocked those thoughts and checked the action of his pistol, a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.

  He holstered the gun and reached for the under-dash mike of the car's two-way radio. He glanced sideways at his partner.

  Robbins was also doing a last-minute check, his own piece a .45-caliber automatic.

  "It's going down," Gridell told the younger man. "Our marks will hit that building on the corner, I'll lay you any odds."

  "Bad odds," grunted Robbins. "You haven't been wrong yet. We'll have to take that building from both ends."

  Robbins got out of the car. He closed the door soundlessly and stood scanning the terrain.

  Gridell contacted their control and reported their position and what was going down.

  "Do you require backup?" asked control.

  "Not at this point," said Gridell. "Keep a unit standing by. This might not be the biggie. Don't want to spook these boys before we know what they're up to."