Ground Zero

by Don Pendleton

  “How long have I got?” Bolan returned. “I have four targets. It’s just past six. I give myself until midday. There are five men out there we need to find, and unless I get something out of any of these four, we’re in the dark and on the clock.”

  “I’ll do it. Don’t ask me how, but I’ll narrow the parameters somehow and get it done.”

  “Your country loves you,” Bolan cracked.

  “Yeah, well, it better give me a commensurate pension when this shit finally fries my synapses,” Kurtzman replied.

  Bolan disconnected and finished his coffee. The four targets lived in two locations, grouped close together. The time traveling between them would be a minimum factor. What would eat into the minutes available to him would be searching their apartments and rooms for any communications equipment or intel of any kind. That could be vital. The thing that nagged at him was whether any of them would actually carry intel. Cells of this kind worked with one man acting as a portal and the rest of the information carried by word of mouth and memory. Any kind of recording was kept to a bare minimum. Maybe a person could get lucky and find a careless cell member who had to note things down because of his memory. If they had been trained, experienced agents or terrorists, that would be a no-no. As they were young men flushed with fanaticism and a bare amount of camp experience, it was a maybe. But a slim one. He would have to hope that one of the four was the contact man for the cell.

  But what if none of them was? There were two cells working together. That was unusual. Keeping them separated was a part of the strategy. It was the size of the mission that tied them together: they needed the manpower.

  So what if the communications link was in the other cell? The four-man cell that he had no ID for as yet? What if these four were taken out of the game but yielded no clues to their compatriots? Where would he stand then, with hours left before the strike?

  These unsettling questions were dismissed as he left the Metro and hit Logan Circle.

  It was time to concentrate on the business at hand.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mummar looked at his watch. It was now two o’clock in the morning, and he had been sitting in the silent darkness of his room for the past hour, wondering what his next move should be.

  It had to have been the man in the black coat. He had looked so out of place in the neighborhood, and there was something about the way that he carried himself that spoke of military or paramilitary training. Mummar would not have recognized it before he had been to any of the training camps. The fools he had met in D.C. had not been like that. Petty hoods and ex-gang members like himself, they had been looser and less controlled in the way they did things, the way they held themselves. But after the training camps, things were very different. Whether they had been through the mill in an army of whatever country of origin or they had been drilled in such camps by men who were ex-army, they had a different way of holding themselves. It was something that Mummar acknowledged that he did not have. He wanted to have that degree of skill and bearing, even though he would have had to work hard to disguise it when in the field. He did not have it, but he sure recognized it, and when he had seen the man a sense of foreboding had lurked at the edge of his consciousness.

  As time crept on and he still had no word from Heider, the foreboding grew stronger. The fool should have been home and should have made contact. Although he tried always to stick to the arrangements, Mummar felt an overwhelming urge to go against the grain and go to Heider’s apartment. Protocol would be broken, but that was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

  Even so, he gave the fool the benefit of the doubt and strung it out until his nerves were too taut to bear. Was he afraid of what he might find? Perhaps that was it. Eventually, even that thought had become too much to stand without knowing the truth. If Heider was there and had forgotten, then Mummar could berate him for the lapse. Better that than the creeping fear that overtook him.

  As the darkness descended, the block became more alive. A lot of the people in the area did their business by night, whether it was illicit or just the kind of low-paid menial night jobs that were available to this socioeconomic grouping. The kind of phrase Rodney wouldn’t know, but Mummar did and had to keep hidden. Especially as those groups were his people, and the rage that built in him when he thought of it fueled his fight.

  His peephole enabled him to see that his own floor was empty before he left his apartment. He wanted to avoid contact, but in truth it was not here but on Heider’s floor that he really wanted to avoid being seen. There should be no link between the two men, even of the most casual sort. To give him credit, Heider had always been strong on that aspect of security. But had he slipped up somewhere else?

  Mummar used the stairwell, wrinkling his nose at the stench. Silently he made his way to Heider’s door. He didn’t realize until he was directly outside that he had been holding his breath. He tried to breathe normally and felt the tension make his gut churn.

  The apartment door was closed, and when he tapped softly there was no reply, no sound from within when he put his ear to the door. But it was more than that. The apartment seemed void behind the closed door. Not just vacated but sucked dry. It made no sense logically, but it was an instinct that confirmed Mummar’s suspicion and made him do something that he would not normally contemplate.

  Checking that the hallway was clear, listening for any signs of approaching life, he nodded shortly to himself and took a small slip of celluloid from his wallet. If this worked, then something was wrong. Heider had locks like he had on his apartment, and if he had not yet arrived, or was inside alone, then they would all be secured. That was their training. If the latch was the only lock on the door, then something was very wrong.

  Sweating from the effort of controlling himself so that he did not make enough noise to alert the neighbors, Mummar swore softly under his breath as the lock clicked back and the door yielded.

  He opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him and scoping the hallway through the peephole to check that it was still clear and that he had not been observed. He was immediately aware of two things.

  There was a sickly sweet smell that he knew immediately was spilled blood, and beneath the sole of his shoe the thin rug was slick with something that shouldn’t be there.

  He looked down and saw the dark stain on the rug, and the ragged trail that led back into the main room of the apartment. He knew what he would find before he was even in the room. Heider was in the center of the floor, his jacket and pockets turned out and an idiot expression on his face. His clothes were stained and soaked with his blood. There was nothing dignified in death. Mummar tried to tell himself that as a martyr for the cause Heider would get his reward in the place he had gone to. Heider was dead. Had there been anything in the apartment that had connected them in any way? Was there anything that could connect Heider to the rest of his cell, or to Mummar’s? He steeled himself and looked away from the body, scanning the room around him before beginning to search the remaining rooms. The apartment showed every sign of having been thoroughly turned over with no regard for concealing the fact. The man in the black coat had no need to cover his tracks or else did not have time. Unless, of course, he wanted his presence to be known as a warning. All of these things raced through Mummar’s mind as he conducted his search in the wake of the intruder.

  The flooring and some of the boards had been torn up in every room. The mattress and chair cushions had been sliced with a razor-sharp knife—the cuts were clean enough to tell him that—and if there had been anything incriminating, it had been removed. Mummar was doubtful. They had been careful to keep these things to a minimum, and only he had any communications equipment.

  His vision blurred for a moment. Had he been stupid? Had the man in the coat been keeping surveillance, waiting for someone to make a move? He felt so paranoid that he could barely brea
the without feeling as though he was giving himself away.

  Mummar needed to think. He needed to get the smell of death out of his nostrils and gather himself. He left Heider on the floor and left the apartment in the same mess that the man in the coat had left it. Let someone else clean up. With the same caution that he had exercised on arriving, he made his way back to his apartment.

  Part of the tension and nausea in his gut was due to the fact that this man in black had taken out Heider with ease, and he had been within a few hundred yards of Mummar as he did it. Sitting, breathing deeply to try to calm himself, Mummar became Rodney for a few moments.

  If this man knew of him, then he would have come for him at the same time. No doubt. So he was panicking because it was on top of him, but he was safe for now because he was still alive. He was the only link now between the two cells. If he wasn’t known to the enemy, then he had to assume that the rest of Heider’s cell would be. Maybe they would be okay, and would be waiting for their leader’s call. Let them. Mummar was the man with the information, and he knew he could do the job with his own cell of four. There were no other links between the two.

  Okay. It was time to get out of town. He had to contact his men and mobilize them. The hell of it was that Heider and his cell had been the men with the contacts and the access to arms and explosives. He would have to get his men to the target location and try to pick up the network there, using them instead. It made things tight, but it could be done.

  Mummar went to the bedroom, went back and checked his locks again then returned to where he kept the communications equipment. He could take the smartphone, but he could not risk carrying anything else. He sent a message relaying the situation, requesting contacts in the target area. He then took the tablet and the laptop and destroyed them. The hard drives for each he extracted and slipped into a small plastic bag. He would dispose of them elsewhere. They had been wiped, but it would still be possible to retrieve some information. Dispose of them elsewhere and it became harder. He also wrapped the smartphone in a bag.

  He had a war chest hidden behind a vent in his kitchen. He took it out and packed a small duffel bag. He wouldn’t need much. Truth was, he would soon be dead. Mummar didn’t fear death; as a martyr he had become accustomed to the idea. But death before this, at the hands of an enemy, held the same fear that it had always held. It was a paradox he ignored as he left his apartment for the last time.

  His task now was to round up the other three cell members and hire a car that they could use to get to the target area by the allocated time.

  Like the other members of Heider’s cell, the three in Mummar’s all lived close to each other. There was risk in this, but it did allow them to mingle in a way that did not immediately seem suspicious and in an environment where they did not stand out. After all, Mummar had often thought, a man like himself was just another dude around here. In the areas that were middle class or being cleared for the new Washington, he would have been immediately noticeable.

  Hide in plain sight. Except it was no longer time to hide: something that the target area and indeed the world would soon know.

  * * *

  BOLAN STOOD OUTSIDE the old apartment buildings on Logan Circle and checked his phone. He had addresses for Soffitt and Mohan. Which one should he visit first? Which one would have communications equipment? Capturing that would be invaluable. The line to the arms dealer had been eradicated. Hopefully, Stony Man would get him some leads on the other cell. More likely he would get it from any intel he could pick up here.

  Mohan was nearer. It was still early. Chances were he would catch Mohan and Soffitt before they went to work. If they had jobs. It would be better for their cover if they did, but the ability to hang around a Mount Pleasant grocery store at an hour when they may have been gainfully employed meant they either worked shifts—which could be tricky—or else they had other sources of income. Their social security records showed little to give any indication other than they weren’t drawing welfare.

  Mohan lived on the second floor of his town house. It was pink and stood out. Because of that Bolan felt conspicuous as he entered the building. It was simpler than he could have hoped: a lucky piece of timing, head down, and he was inside past someone coming out before they could even cast a second glance in his direction.

  The second floor had several apartments leading off the hallway. Mohan was at the far end, with a view that looked out onto the streets rather than the rear of the building. It was run-down, but in a bohemian way rather than having been crushed by poverty. These were mostly middle-class people enjoying the feeling of slumming it. Mohan had to have been conspicuous here, which would mean anyone visiting would be equally visible.

  It was quiet inside, people either already gone or still asleep. Hopefully Mohan was one of them. If he had the same security as Heider, then it would be difficult to effect entry without detection.

  Bolan walked up to the door and rang the bell, following that up by hammering on the door with his fist. Looking over his shoulder, he could see that the noise had not brought out any curious bystanders. He heard a man approach on the other side of the door.

  “UPS delivery for a Mr. Mohan,” he said loudly. He jammed his eye up to the peephole so that he could see a little through to the other side. It was indistinct, but he could see Mohan in blurry outline that became a shadow as the man pushed his eye to the lens.

  Bolan slipped his Glock 23 from its armpit sling and fired a rapid burst through the wood door. It was a pine door, flimsier than might have been expected from the security-conscious fundamentalists. It splintered under the onslaught. Above the chatter of the bursts, Bolan could hear Mohan splutter and scream as the slugs bit through the wood and carried on into his chest as he stood unsuspecting on the other side of the door.

  The locks stayed in place and anchored one side of the door. Two hard kicks with his combat boot split the frame on the hinged side and hit it wide. Mohan was on the floor, gurgling and drowning in his own blood. He was semiconscious, and there was no way Bolan could get anything from questioning him. Not that he had time anyway. Another tap finished the terrorist with a mercy he shouldn’t have shown. Bolan moved through to the main room, holstering the Glock and taking out his knife. He sliced through the furniture, tore up carpets and moved on to the bedroom, slitting open the mattress and pillows. He pulled the bed frame out and tore up the carpet searching for loose boards.

  Finding nothing and noting the distant sirens that were growing louder, he moved to the bathroom and kitchen. No false tiles in the former, but a vent in the latter that hid a stash of high-denomination bank notes. The cell’s war chest, obviously. He left the money in place and routed the cupboards, scattering kitchenware and foodstuffs as he emptied them with a minimum of effort and delay.

  Stepping back, he could hear the sirens were in the near distance. Would Soffitt be curious and see where they were going? Would he be on edge enough to get—in this case justifiably—paranoid?

  More to the point, empty-handed, how would Bolan make an exit?

  From the kitchen there was a fire escape that led up to the roof along the rear of the building. Taking a quick recon to see if anyone had been curious enough to poke their heads out, and to note if the wailing sirens had cut off the back of the building as of yet, he climbed out and went up toward the roof. Down was pointless. He would walk straight into the approaching black-and-whites.

  Soffitt was half a block away. If he could get up on the roof, he could cross three or four houses and come down around the back of the circling cops before they had a chance to realize the route he had taken.

  Bolan didn’t look back. If they were behind him at some point, he’d soon know about it. He ascended to the floor beneath the roof and clambered onto the rail of the fire escape, reaching up to the coping under the gutter and taking a firm hold. He pulled himself up, kicking at the bri
ck to get purchase and push up. He felt his shoulder and biceps strain as he took his full weight and hauled himself upward, hoping that the old mortar and brick wouldn’t give way under him.

  Breathing a little harder, he flattened himself to the tiles as he was able to scramble onto the roof itself. He felt some of them slip beneath him, but he didn’t falter or hesitate as he propelled himself up the angle of the roof, moving across toward the adjoining building as he did so.

  The house next to this had a flat roof and was a three-yard drop down. He made the leap, and was glad to be on a level footing as he ran at a crouch toward the next building, which had a two-yard rise toward another gabled roof. He cursed that this could have been easier but took a running jump. His fingers clutched at the incline and his toes found purchase in the brickwork. Protesting muscles ached as he hauled himself up again. The roof here was slate once more and had an incline more shallow than the first roof, so it was easier to get across. There was a walled gutter that he dropped down to that afforded a little cover.

  When he reached the end, there were two more flat-roofed apartment buildings before the row ended, and he dropped onto the first of these before taking a look back and then down. No one had appeared on the roof or the fire escape yet. Moreover, down below, the police were only just decamping into the street that ran along the back of the row.

  Bolan dropped off the roof and onto the fire escape of the end building, descending quickly with one eye on the police vehicles that had pulled up a few town houses away. If he was swift enough, he could get into the main drag and vanish in the crowd. By the time at least one of the locals had looked back, he was headed toward the crowd that was gathering out front. His breathing was now easy. He looked like nothing more than the passer-by he had become.

  The soldier crossed to the opposite sidewalk and walked past the crowds and police line, casting the briefest of glances. No one paid him any attention.