Homeland Terror

Inside a nondescript panel truck with tinted windows, Mack Bolan watched the activity taking place around the loading docks. Earlier, the Stony Man warrior had roamed the aisles inside the hall without spotting anything suspicious. Now, hours later, the crowds had dispersed along with most of the vendors, but he was still on the lookout.

The surveillance mission was a consequence of Bolan’s visit to the Wildest Dreams fantasy camp. As Bolan had feared, those who’d fled the camp in the BMW had eluded capture, and neither Louie Paxton nor Xavier Manuel had claimed to know who had been driving the vehicle. Since Marcus Yarborough was missing, along with the woman Bolan had seen with Mitch Brower, he suspected they’d ridden off together in the sports car.

Bolan had been on the lookout for Yarborough inside the exhibition hall, but he’d been even more intent on finding the missing AT-4 rocket launcher. According to evidence found in the fantasy camp’s administrative office, the launcher had been sold to a Viriginia-based militia called the American Freedom Movement. The AFM was already under investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and one of BATF’s informants had confirmed the launcher transaction. He’d also claimed the militia outfit had been dragging its feet on a deal to purchase the remaining weapons Jason Cummings and Mitch Brower had stored at their Sykesville facility. According to the informant, if Brower and Cummings didn’t drop their asking price, the AFM had already concocted a backup plan: to bolster its arsenal instead by stealing wares from the Capitol Partners Gun Show. The militia had already been linked to several similar thefts over the past two years. While casing the exhibit booths, Bolan had seen enough collective firepower to sustain a small army. He wanted to make sure the AFM didn’t wind up being that army.

Bolan wasn’t alone inside the panel truck. His longtime colleague Jack Grimaldi sat up front behind the steering wheel, his ball cap pushed back on his head. True, the wiry-haired pilot was more at home in an aircraft cockpit, but when the occasion demanded it, Grimaldi had proved he could handle ground vehicles with as much finesse as the most seasoned wheelman.

Crouched beside Bolan in the rear of the truck was John “Cowboy” Kissinger, a master weaponsmith familiar with nearly every handgun and rifle that had been on display at the exhibition. Kissinger had designed a few handguns of his own, including the multifunction palm gun Bolan had concealed in his boot during his short-lived assignment at the fantasy camp.

“My money says they’ll try a hijack instead of bringing their own truck,” Kissinger speculated aloud, blowing on his hands to keep them warm. The men had been on stakeout for nearly three hours, during which time the sun had gone down and the temperature outside the truck had dropped more than twenty degrees. Although Bolan seemed unfazed by the extended wait, Kissinger’s anticipation was almost palpable. He was like a coiled spring.

“No bet,” Grimaldi responded, cracking his knuckles to pass the time. “They pull a heist, they get what they’re looking for without having to waste time moving stuff from one truck to another. And judging from the intel we’ve got on these guys, their MO is ‘hit and run’ all the way.”

“We’re all on the same page, then,” Bolan said. He had out his Beretta 92-FS, safety thumbed off, firing selector set for 3-round bursts. Kissinger and Grimaldi were armed with standard-issue Colt Government Model 1911A automatic pistols. Also in the truck was a pair of M-16 A-2 assault rifles, one equipped with an M-203 grenade launcher. The hope was they could nab the would-be hijackers without having to resort to heavy artillery.

The Stony Man crew watched as two trucks—one a converted postal carrier, the other a twenty-foot bed rental—groaned their way out of the parking lot through the light snow and headed down the access road leading to MacArthur Boulevard and the Georgetown Reservoir. That left two semis, both backed up to the loading dock at the rear of the exhibition hall. Four uniformed rent-a-cops stood by watching as vendors wheeled dollies stacked with crated weapons to the dock. There, co-workers helped move the stock into the trucks. The whole operation had a look of practiced efficiency. Nothing seemed amiss.

“Could be we’re on a wild-goose chase,” Grimaldi ventured. “I mean, all we’re going on is a tip from some scumbag informant. Who’s to say he didn’t pull this whole thing out of a hat—”

“Hold it,” Bolan interrupted, signaling Grimaldi to be quiet. He cracked open the window closest to him, letting a cold draft whisper into the truck. Soon Grimaldi and Kissinger could hear it, too: the faint, high-pitched drone of single-cylinder engines. There were at least two of them, approaching from different directions.

“A little cold to be out on a motorcycle,” Kissinger murmured, reaching for the Colt tucked in his web holster.

“Not to mention the snow,” Grimaldi said.

The Stony Man trio wasn’t alone in suspecting the heist was about to go down. A walkie-talkie on the seat next to Grimaldi suddenly squawked to life. It was Mort Kiley, point man for a BATF field team positioned just around the corner inside an unmarked utility van. Kiley had originally intended to have his crew take the point position, but Bolan had pulled rank, using doctored credentials identifying him and his colleagues as special agents with the Justice Department. Kiley and his four-man BATF crew were playing backup.

“Got ourselves a party crasher,” Kiley’s voice crackled over the two-way’s minispeaker. “Guy on a dirt bike approaching at…Wait, he’s slowing down.”

As Bolan and the others listened, they suddenly heard—both over the walkie-talkie and out on the street behind them—the sounds of gunshots and breaking glass. Kiley shouted something unintelligible before being silenced by yet another round of gunfire.

“Not good.” Grimaldi cranked the panel truck’s engine to life.

“Go check it out,” Bolan told him as he threw open his door. “We’ll handle things here.”

The Executioner slipped out of the truck and hit the asphalt running. He’d exchanged the boots he’d worn at the fantasy camp for lightweight hiking shoes. The crepe soles muffled his steps. Kissinger was right behind him, the Colt pistol freed from his holster and held out before him, ready to fire.

Grimaldi, meanwhile, swung the truck around and fishtailed past the men, raising a fantail of road slush in his wake. By then, Bolan and Kissinger had crossed the street. The Executioner took cover behind a mailbox anchored to the sidewalk near a row of parked cars. Kissinger split off and raced toward a large sign propped on stanchions rising up through a planter box situated near the parking lot entrance.

From his position, Bolan could see most of the lot, as well as the road. In the distance a thick stand of elm trees separated the industrial park from a nearby housing development. It sounded to him as if one of the motorcycles was approaching from the direction of the trees. Those gathered behind the exhibition hall had heard the commotion, as well. The rent-a-cops and several of the vendors had drawn their guns and were looking out into the night, tracking the sound. Bolan and Kissinger both did their best to conceal themselves, not wanting to be mistaken for hijackers.

Moments later, a mud-encrusted Husqvarna 250 Motocross emerged from between the elm trees, lights off, knobbed tires churning up snow and dirt as it raced up a footpath leading to the street. The rider was dressed head-to-toe in black leather, wearing goggles and a stocking cap, but no helmet. He had both hands on the handlebar controls, but visible in a shoulder holster was an Uzi Eagle autopistol. Once he reached the street, he cut across both lanes, clearly bound for the parking lot.

Before Bolan could fix him in his sights, however, the biker suddenly veered to his right and yanked on his handlebars. Goosing the bike’s throttle, he brought up the front wheel and bounded cleanly over the curb. Bolan tracked the biker and was about to cut loose with his Beretta when someone fired at him from behind, creasing the mailbox just inches from his face.

Holding his fire, the Executioner instinctively dropped to the snow-covered sidewalk.

“Sniper on the roof!” Kissinger called out.

Bolan barely heard the warning; he was too busy scrambling clear of the mailbox. He took cover behind a pickup truck parked on the street. From his new position, he could see the biker clear the sidewalk and power through the sparse shrubbery that ringed the parking lot. By the time Bolan got off a shot, the biker had entered the lot and was speeding toward the loading dock.

When one of the vendors raised his gun, the biker slammed on his brakes, throwing the Husky into a sidelong skid. Once he’d laid the bike down, the rider jumped clear, avoiding the gunshot fired his way. The motorcycle’s momentum, meanwhile, sent it clattering across the asphalt.

The vendor let out a howl as the bike knocked his legs out from under him. His gun flew from his hand as he fell, sprawling, to one side. Before the vendor could react, the biker bounded to his feet, unleathered his Uzi and fired into the vendor’s face.

Kissinger caught only a glimpse of the execution; his view was obstructed by the signposts and shrubs in the planter. By the time he changed positions, the leather-clad intruder had already disappeared between the two semis. Worse yet, Kissinger had placed himself in view of the rooftop sniper. When a 7.62 mm rifle round tore through the shrubs, the Stony Man weaponsmith quickly drew back and dropped behind the planter. More gunfire soon came chattering his way, not from the roof but rather from the rear of the exhibition hall.

“You’ve got the wrong guy!” Kissinger shouted.

His warning went unheeded. More rounds hammered at the planter and the sign stanchions, seeking him out.

Bolan, meanwhile, switched to firing single rounds, hoping to conserve ammo as he traded shots with the rooftop sniper. He plinked a shot off the condenser unit his foe was crouched behind, then ducked when a return round shattered the pickup’s windshield. Bolan scrambled to the rear of the truck and dropped the Beretta’s foregrip so he could grasp it with both hands and improve his aim. Up on the roof, the sniper swung around and was ready to fire when Bolan beat him to the trigger. Nailed in the chest, the sniper dropped his rifle and staggered clear of the condenser unit, then teetered lifelessly over the edge of the roof.

The Executioner tracked the man’s fall, then shifted his focus to the activity around the loading dock. Given all the gunfire, Bolan assumed the biker had been cornered and was making a last stand. It quickly became clear, however, that he’d gotten it wrong. Instead of going after the biker, the rental cops—all four of them—had turned their guns on the surviving vendors. Taken by surprise, the vendors were easy targets and fell quickly.

“Inside job,” Bolan murmured, incredulous. Raising his voice, he cried out to Kissinger, “The guards are in on it!”

AS SOON AS Jack Grimaldi steered his panel truck around the corner, he saw that he was too late to come to the aid of Mort Kiley or his BATF cohorts.

Another biker, astride a second Husqvarna, had just put a bullet into the head of a federal agent lying on the road next to the ambushed BATF utility van. Kiley had never made it out of the vehicle; he was slumped on the back floor, his left forearm dangling from the half-opened side door. The driver was slumped behind the steering wheel at an unnatural angle, his blood streaking the window beside him, clearly another victim of the biker’s surprise attack.

“Bastard!” Grimaldi growled, flooring the accelerator. He flashed on his high beams and bore down on the biker, gambling that the other man was out of ammunition.

The gamble paid off.

The biker, helmetless and dressed like his counterpart in black leather, instinctively raised his gun at the approaching truck. He had a clear shot at Grimaldi but pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. He cast the useless gun aside and put his bike in gear.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Grimaldi seethed, focusing on the biker’s hands as he drew closer. When he saw the gunman turn his handlebars to the right, Grimaldi countered, jerking his steering wheel to the left. The biker lurched forward, hoping to veer around the oncoming truck. Grimaldi anticipated the maneuver and swerved into the assailant’s path. His fender clipped the bike’s front wheel squarely and sent the rider vaulting headfirst over the handlebars. The assailant caromed off the truck’s grillework and fell limply to the ground.

Grimaldi slammed on his brakes. The truck brodied across the snow-slicked street and came to a stop mere inches from the slain BATF agent lying on the road. Yanking his Colt from his web holster, the Stony Man operative bounded out into the street and took aim at the biker, who was slowly struggling to his feet.

“Freeze!” he ordered.

The biker was crouched over, his back turned to Grimaldi. He stayed put, but Grimaldi could see his right hand drifting toward the loose vest he wore over his leather jacket.

“Hands out where I can see them!” Grimaldi barked.

The biker stretched his left arm outward and began to slowly turn. He let his right arm drop for a moment, then suddenly reached inside his vest. He was pulling a backup pistol from the waistband of his riding pants when Grimaldi fired.

The biker let out a cry and staggered backward, but managed to stay on his feet despite having taken a close-range shot to the chest. When he turned to Grimaldi, gun raised, the Stony Man pilot figured the guy was wearing body armor, so he aimed higher, putting his next shot through the assailant’s forehead. The biker dropped his gun and sagged to his knees, then collapsed.

Grimaldi slowly moved closer, Colt trained on the biker. The other man was in his early thirties, clean-shaved, with short blond hair. The killshot hadn’t completely disfigured him, and when Grimaldi took off the man’s visor he recognized him from a series of mug shots he and his colleagues had been shown a few hours ago back at BATF’s Georgetown field office. The guy’s name was Byrnes. Grimaldi couldn’t remember his first name, but he knew the guy had two other brothers, linked, like him, to the American Freedom Movement.

Grimaldi glanced back at the BATF surveillance vehicle, then once again eyed the slain biker. The man was beyond being interrogated, but Grimaldi still found himself asking the foremost question on his mind in the wake of the ambush.

“No way you just stumbled across them,” he thought aloud. “You knew they were on stakeout. Who tipped you off?”

WALLACE “DUBBY” BYRNES, youngest of the three brothers who had followed their late father’s footsteps into the ranks of the American Freedom Movement, had banged up his knee when he’d skid-dropped his Husqvarna in the parking lot, but he ignored the pain as he clambered into the cab of the nearest of the two semis backed up to the loading dock. The keys were in the ignition, and he let out a joyous whoop as he started the engine.

“Hot damn!” he hollered triumphantly.

He’d done it! He’d helped steal a semi filled with enough guns and ammunition to handle a year’s worth of AFM recruits. Not only that—he’d been the one who’d taken it upon himself a few weeks ago to start dating a BATF dispatcher, figuring it would help determine the extent to which the Feds were on their trail. His brother Harlan and all the others back at the compound had thought he was nuts and mocked him for coming up with such a hare-brained scheme. This afternoon, though, that scheme had paid off when the dispatcher—who had no idea Dubby was with the AFM—had mentioned something about a pending militia bust in Georgetown. Dubby had convinced his brother they should hop on their bikes and rush over to check on things. Now here they were, riding to the rescue, and they’d done it!

Dubby couldn’t wait to see the look on his brothers’ faces when he told them the news. There’d be no more calling him Squirt. Not after this. From now on, they’d call him Dubby like everyone else.

The twenty-three-year-old biker’s euphoria was a bit premature. He may have taken over the wheel of the Mack truck, but there was still the matter of escaping from the parking lot and making it all the way back to the AFM’s mountain compound without getting caught. Dubby got his first reality check when the driver’s-side window shattered while he wrestled with the truck’s gearshift. The bullet whizzed past his face and lodged in the cab ceiling, but not before he’d been struck by a few shards of glass. Blood began to seep from gashes in his neck and cheek.

Neither wound was severe enough to take Dubby out of the fight, and he swore as he grabbed for the Uzi Eagle he’d used earlier to gun down the truck’s owner. He knocked loose the remaining glass in the window frame with the Eagle’s squat polymer butt, then shouted out into the night, “All right, who’s asking for it?”

JOHN KISSINGER COULD SEE that he’d missed the biker attempting to steal the Mack truck. The biker was leaning out of the line of fire, and Cowboy didn’t want to waste any more ammunition, so he turned his attention to the other truck. Bolan had neutralized the first guard trying to get inside the vehicle, but a second guard had yanked the body aside and climbed behind the wheel. Now the semi was pulling away from the loading dock, headed Kissinger’s way.

Kissinger propped his gun hand on the planter to steady his aim as he squinted past the glare of the headlights, keeping the driver in his sights. Once the truck had reached the exit, Kissinger pulled the trigger.

The windshield spiderwebbed as the round punched through the glass, striking the driver in the upper chest. The dead man’s foot slid off the accelerator, and the truck slowed to a stop halfway into the street, blocking the only exit from the lot.

“Whaddya know, something went right for a change,” Kissinger muttered.

The disabled truck blocked his view of the gunfight taking place between Bolan and the other guards, so Kissinger backtracked along the planter to his original position, hoping the biker would realized he’d been hemmed in and bail from the other truck. Before he could confirm whether or not the ploy had worked, Kissinger was distracted by the metallic plink of something bounding off the asphalt on the other side of the planter. Kissinger had been in enough firefights to know the sound.

Grenade.

Kissinger had no time to react before the projectile detonated. Half the planter disintegrated, as did a good portion of the stanchions holding up the massive sign he had taken cover beneath. With a cracking sound nearly as loud as that made by the grenade, the weakened posts collapsed under the weight of the sign.

Kissinger tried to roll clear as the marquee plummeted toward him, but the bottom edge caught him on the right arm and shoulder, knocking the gun from his hand. The next thing he knew, the Stony Man armorer was pinned to the ground. The air had been knocked from his lungs and a stabbing pain coursed through him. A blur of light crowded his field of vision, then Kissinger’s world was plunged into sudden darkness.

WHEN HE SAW that his colleague was in trouble, Bolan broke from cover and started toward the fallen sign, only to be driven back by gunfire from the two rogue guards still prowling the loading dock area. The Executioner crouched behind a late-model Lexus illuminated by a nearby streetlight. Bolan shot the light out, emptying the last round in his Beretta. He fished a spare 10-round clip from his pocket and quickly swapped magazines, then peered over the hood of the Lexus. He fired at one of the guards and sent him sprawling across the body of a vendor who already lay dead on the loading dock next to an overturned crateful of MAT 40 subguns.

The remaining guard had fled to the rear of the second semi, which was trying to squeeze past the first truck, stalled at the parking lot exit. The engine rumbled as Byrnes drove forward, and seconds later Bolan heard a screech of metal on metal as Byrnes brushed against the other truck. Undeterred, the militiaman drove on, taking out another section of the planter as he forged a new path to the street. From where he was standing, Bolan couldn’t see if Kissinger had been in the truck’s path.

Dubby Byrnes turned sharply once he reached the street, then gave the semi more gas. When he spotted Bolan, he veered the truck toward the Lexus. Bolan had no time to fire. He dived headlong to his right, landing hard on the sidewalk just as Byrnes’s semi clipped the front end of the Lexus and sent it caroming backward into the Volkswagen Passat parked behind it. Bolan’s instincts had just saved him from being crushed between the two vehicles. Still, he’d scraped his right elbow landing on the sidewalk, and the entire arm throbbed as he scrambled back to his feet.

Much as he wanted to check on Kissinger, Bolan knew that trying to stop the truck was his top priority. Dropping the Beretta’s foregrip, he clutched the pistol with both hands and circled the crumpled Lexus. He was immediately spotted by the security guard who’d climbed up into the back of the fleeing truck. The guard fished through the shipping crate nearest to him and came up with an M-68 frag grenade similar to the one that had taken Kissinger out of the battle earlier. He slipped his thumb through the release pin and was about to heave the projectile when Bolan stitched him across the chest with a 3-round volley of 9 mm Parabellum bullets. The guard dropped the grenade and keeled over backward, his heart shredded. Bolan wasn’t sure if the pin had been pulled on the grenade, but he once again went with his instincts and dived back behind the Lexus.

Once the grenade detonated, shrapnel ripped through the truck’s cargo much the same way Bolan’s M-61 had stirred things up back at the storage shed in Sykesville. The chain-reaction blasts were equally devastating. The truck’s walls turned into razor-sharp shards, and flaming chunks flew out in all directions, pelting everything within a fifty-yard radius. A flash fire quickly consumed the crated weapons and ammunition, triggering still more explosions. The Lexus Bolan was crouched behind rocked in place for a moment, then came to a rest. By the time he rose to his feet to survey the damage, the truck had been turned into a rolling inferno.

DUBBY BYRNES WAS THROWN forward by the first blasts, breaking ribs on the steering wheel before he smashed into the windshield, cracking the glass along with his skull. By the time he’d rebounded back into the driver’s seat, shrapnel had ripped through the backrest and pierced his leather jacket, nicking his spine and puncturing his right lung. Miraculously, he was still conscious, but the spinal trauma had left him paralyzed from the waist down, and when flames surged through the cab, he was unable to escape. His shrill scream was abruptly silenced when the fire roared up into the engine compartment and made contact with the fuel line. A final explosion—every bit as loud and powerful as that made by the grenade—obliterated the cab, putting Byrnes out of his misery.

THE STREET HAD FALLEN SILENT, but the din from the chain-reaction blasts still reverberated through Bolan’s skull. Half-deaf, he cautiously approached the ravaged truck. Flames still licked at the charred shell, sending thick clouds of smoke up into the night. An eerie haze filled the street, almost like a fog, mingling with the light snowfall. Bolan knew the driver could not have survived the explosion.

As the Executioner turned to make his way back to Kissinger, another vehicle slowly rolled into view through the haze, passing the ruined semi. Bolan raised his pistol but held his fire. It was Grimaldi in the panel truck.

Bolan slowly slid his gun back into his web holster and waved to get Grimaldi’s attention. The panel truck picked up speed, then slowed to a stop alongside him.

“The grenade launcher’s still in back here,” the Stony Man pilot called out to Bolan as he leaned across the front seat and threw open the passenger door. “How the hell did you turn that truck into toast?”