Enemies Within

Whatever he expected from that file, though, Bolan came up short. It read:

Declaration of War in the Name of Allah

Today, we former Rangers of the US Army stand united in a state of war against the Great Satan, America. We dedicate our skills and training to destruction of the country that has waged relentless war against Islam since 1953, with its coup restoring the corrupt Shah of Iran.

Additionally, decades of unjustified support for Israel has defied the will of Palestinians and other Muslims who comprise the vast majority of Middle Eastern residents, while bilking US taxpayers to bankroll Tel Aviv, its flagrant theft of native lands from the West Bank and elsewhere, falsely declared the result of “legitimate electoral process.” Without US financing, military support and favoritism in the United Nations, Israeli aggression would long since have ceased to exist, thereby eliminating impetus for freedom fighters waging their guerrilla wars against America, mislabeled “terrorism” by the media.

Accordingly, we hold these truths to be self-evident. The long American crusade against Islam must cease, forthwith. No further action on that front shall be permitted. We, the beneficiaries of elite training, shall use all skills and tools available to bring this resolution into being. As you read this, we have supplied one relatively minor demonstration of our power, to be replicated as required until our plain and common-sense demands are met. America must change its course, and quickly, to avert a holocaust at home beyond the scope of anything authorities at home have thus far faced or can effectively control.

We are the best. Ignore us at your peril from now on.

To victory!

* * *

And that was all. At first, Bolan thought a page had been omitted from the manifesto’s file, but it read smoothly, start to finish, even if it spoke in generalities and uttered only vague demands, impossible to quantify.

Reverse the course of US history connected to the Middle East since 1953, or even farther back, since Israel was created as a Jewish state in 1948? Impossible. Indeed, ridiculous. The juggernaut could not be slowed, much less completely stopped, with strong support for Israeli in the White House, Congress and in nearly every state from coast to coast. Six Rangers couldn’t do it in a hundred lifetimes, and they had to know that.

So...what?

Bolan removed the DVD from his laptop, shut down the computer and retrieved his cell phone from a pocket. He had Jack Grimaldi’s number on speed dial and got an answer on the second ring.

“Big guy. Long time.”

“You heard from Hal?”

“I did.”

“So, how about a little hop?”

Chapter Three

Barclay, Maryland

“Did I read that sign right?” Grimaldi asked. “One hundred twenty people? Can they even call a place that small a town?”

“It’s flexible,” Bolan replied. “I’ve been to smaller ones.”

“I guess this jarhead likes his privacy.”

“He won’t be getting much of it, considering the last couple of days.”

“You think he’d bail on us?”

“The CIA says they’ve got eyes on him, up high. Nothing since the MPs came by, except his normal mornings at a local coffee shop and shopping one time at the Farmer’s Market.”

“Good old country living.”

“If you like that kind of thing.”

“I could get used to it,” Grimaldi said.

Bolan had trouble picturing the flyboy settling down, particularly at the outset of another mission. They were rolling north on Maryland Route 313, from where Grimaldi’s chopper had touched down at a private airstrip outside Goldsboro. The Stony Man pilot was at the wheel of a Ford sedan from Dollar Rent-a-Car, holding the four-door Focus at a solid 80 miles per hour, not a cop in sight. They had the rural home of Walton Tanner Senior spotted on the Ford’s GPS unit, no neighbors nearby and no idea what they’d be walking into when they got there.

Figure it would be a bitter pill for Walton Sr. to ingest, learning his son had left the Rangers to become a terrorist in hiding. He’d have questions that the MPs couldn’t answer on their first pass, and he wouldn’t know anything about the Rangers who’d gone down fighting while his son and five fellow deserters had slipped away to parts unknown. Perhaps he knew more than he’d told the CID first time around, and might be more forthcoming when he saw the Homeland Security ID cards Bolan and Grimaldi had obtained from Stony Man’s documents mill.

Or maybe not. Maybe he didn’t know a thing about his son’s activities or his companions who’d declared war on America.

Still, it was worth a try. In fact, coupled with Tyrone Moseley’s brother in New Jersey and Menendez’s fiancée in Roanoke, it could be the only game in town.

“Looks like the place,” Grimaldi said. “White clapboard siding on your right, Jeep Wrangler in the carport.”

“Got it.” Bolan scanned the verdant countryside surrounding Tanner’s place, looking for watchers, spotting none so far, although it wouldn’t take much to conceal a man or two amid the smooth alders, dogwoods, red mulberry and blackjack oaks.

Pursuant to their cover, they pulled in and parked. Before they’d cleared the Ford, a slender man with grizzled hair was on the porch to greet them, hands empty, eyes wary as he checked them out.

“More CID?” he asked before they had a chance to speak.

“Homeland Security,” Bolan corrected him, approaching with credentials on display.

“Both of you?” Tanner asked suspiciously.

“Yes, sir,” Grimaldi said, palming his own ID from Stony Man.

“I guess things have ticked up a notch since I had visitors last time.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bolan. “I’m afraid so.”

They’d decided to be candid with him, more or less, running the plan past Brognola while they were airborne and receiving his okay. They would recount the failed arrest attempt, in the hope of jarring something loose from Walton Sr.’s memory this time around. And failing that, if the former Marine had contact with his son he wasn’t copping to, maybe he’d keep the covert channel open, try to talk him backward from the point of no return.

Inside a modest living room, they sat on well-worn furniture, declining Tanner’s offer of coffee or “something stronger,” undefined. Their host went for a double dash of Early Times bourbon and settled on a 1980s vintage couch, saying, “All right. You’d better let me have it straight, then.”

“Six special agents from the CID caught up with him yesterday morning, early,” Bolan answered.

“And the other men he runs with now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where at?”

“North Carolina, on the coast.”

“But they aren’t here to see me now.”

“No, sir. They walked into a trap. They won’t be seeing anyone again.”

“So, it’s murder, then.”

“Murder at least,” Bolan agreed. “And likely treason.”

“Jesus, Lord.”

“It’s bad,” Bolan replied. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ve had naught to do with him since they were out here grilling me,” Tanner replied. “Don’t take my word for it. I gather someone has been covering my phone and watching what I do from time to time.”

“A safe bet,” Bolan said.

“In fact, you ought to know I haven’t seen or spoken to my boy in going on six years.”

“Homeland Security,” Bolan stated, “hopes that something may have slipped your mind.”

“I wish it had,” Tanner replied. “I’m getting on in years and drink a bit. No point denying what’s so obvious. But no, sir. Nothing slips my mind. Not birthdays of the living or the dead, not groceries. Nothing.”

“Okay,” Bolan replied. “We had to ask.”

“Of course you did. And now I’ll ask you one,” Tanner said.

“Feel free. I’ll answer if I can,” Bolan told him.

“Now that you’ve eyeballed me, are you planning on leaving people here to watch me, backing on the taps and drones and whatever your people have eavesdropping on me as it is? Seems like a waste of time. My tax money at work, and all.”

Grimaldi chimed in, saying, “We came alone, sir.”

“Oh?”

“That’s right,” Bolan confirmed, feeling the short hairs bristling on his nape.

“No guys sitting on motorbikes among the trees, black visors on their helmets, covering their faces?”

“No, sir.”

Tanner quaffed his bourbon and reached out for the bottle, asking both of them at once, “So who in hell are those guys parked across the street right now?”

* * *

“Your old man look the same as you remember him?” Tyrone Moseley inquired.

“It’s been five or six years,” Tanner Jr. answered.

“Yeah, but you don’t forget your daddy, though.”

They sat astride a pair of matching Harley-Davidson Street 750s, both fitted with stolen license plates acquired from looting a supply house outside Baltimore. Both bikes were painted black, matching their leathers, helmets and their deeply tinted face shields. Underneath their jackets, they wore sidearms, knives, plus other weapons of offense and defense ready for deployment on a moment’s notice, if they were observed.

“More CID sniffing around, you think?” Moseley inquired.

“You’re full of questions, brother. How in hell would I know?”

“Well, for one thing, they’re coming outside.”

“Shit! We need to haul ass out of here.”

“Won’t be quiet.”

“Screw quiet,” Tanner snarled. “These 750s can outrun that Focus on the best day it ever had.”

“Or we could take ’em out.”

“That, too. Let’s try to lose them first, if we can swing it.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

They kicked their Harley-Davidsons to life as one, plowed through a screen of trees that should have hidden them but obviously hadn’t managed it, accelerating with a double roar like dirty thunder as they hit the pavement, rolling south on 313 and angling for the cutoff that would take them into Centreville. More traffic there, with forty-three hundred inhabitants plus summer visitors, and they could break from there to Grasonville or Chestertown, even split up if necessary to make sure that one of them escaped.

Tanner’s rearview mirror showed him the Focus with two passengers in close pursuit, gaining a bit before he cranked up his 750 and Moseley did likewise. His preference was evasion without contact, but he’d do whatever he considered necessary to escape, even if that included collateral damage among stray civilians.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, before their small team reached its goal.

A quarter mile from Centreville, they started running into traffic, dodging in and out among old farm trucks and minivans that had seen better days. Tanner eased back, let Moseley pull ahead of him to pass a vintage Dodge Ram pickup, while he retrieved an M-33 fragmentation grenade from under his leathers, dropped its pin into his bike’s slipstream and tossed the metal egg into the Dodge’s open bed before he powered out of there, leaving the startled sixty-something driver in his wake.

Tanner was grinning as he counted down the six-second delay fuse, waiting for the storm to break.

* * *

“Grenade!” Grimaldi snapped, already easing back his pressure on the Ford’s accelerator.

“Saw it,” Bolan said, bracing himself for the explosion that was sure to come in four...three...two...

The blast’s impact was physical, even inside their car. It must have scared a good year off the pickup driver’s life, then he was back to business, swerving left, then right, trying to get his ride under control while smoke poured from its open bed, the sides bowed out over its rear fenders, its tailgate flapping in the breeze. Something had happened to the rear axle, as well, but Bolan thought the real danger was fire now, with the pickup’s gas tank likely holed by shrapnel and inviting any spark to set its fumes alight.

“And there it goes,” Grimaldi said.

The Dodge Ram’s driver gave it up, swerved toward the highway’s grassy shoulder on his right, and bailed as soon as he slowed down enough to make it practical.

“Pretty spry for an old guy,” the Stony Man pilot commented.

“Concentrate on the youngsters,” Bolan replied.

“Bikers. Ten-four.”

The Dodge Ram detonated when they were a half block past it, following the Harley-Davidsons toward Centreville. The bikes were making tracks, topping the 90 mph mark without missing a beat. Bolan reached underneath his jacket, drew the black Berretta M-9 pistol from its shoulder rig, and thumbed its ambidextrous external safety lever from the Safe to Fire position with a red dot showing on each side.

“You want to take them off the road?” Grimaldi asked.

“Find out if we can catch them, first.”

“Good point,” the pilot granted as he trod the Ford’s accelerator to the floor.

* * *

“Still coming,” Moseley called to Tanner. “They’re not stopping for collaterals.”

“Not yet,” Tanner replied. “Maybe they need some more.”

“Say where and when, Captain.”

“We’re coming to the city limits now. I want to split up, left and right, when we’re in town, and make them choose.”

“Whichever one of us they pick should stand and fight?”

“Avoid that if possible,” Tanner replied. “Clutter the streets with more collateral, then regroup on the north side and head back to meet the others. There’s a seafood place they call the Bay Shore Steam Pot on East Water Street. Whoever gets there first, wait ten minutes, no longer, then get out and warn the rest.”

“Sounds good,” Moseley said. “You just tell me when and where to turn.”

“Block and a half, up on your right. I’ll take the left, same time. And don’t be shy about the locals.”

“Never have been, never will, Captain.”

The cross streets, each with different names, came rushing at them and they swerved apart without a backward glance.

* * *

“And there they go,” Grimaldi said. “Which one you want to chase?”

“I doubt it matters,” Bolan answered. “Left’s as good as anything.”

“Easier turn, at least,” Grimaldi said, putting a crooked smile on Bolan’s face by signaling his turn. Catching the look, the flyboy said, “Hey, I obey the law. Mostly.”

As if on cue, an ancient Chevy station wagon blew up on the right-hand side road, trailing smoke, expelling four towheaded children from its tailgate, while their parents leaped for daylight up front. The biker who had fed them a grenade soon vanished in a pall of smoke, with Bolan leaning into Jack Grimaldi’s sharp, tire-squealing turn.

It couldn’t be too long before their chase started attracting lawmen, most particularly if their quarry kept scattering grenades in their wake. Another one went off just then, under the front end of a newish Kia SUV just pulling out from its curb space outside a burger joint. Both airbags inflated instantly, obscuring Bolan’s vision of the driver, while another frag grenade took out a family sedan just signaling its turn into the parking lot of a dry cleaner’s.

“Damn!” Grimaldi swore. “How many of those eggs you think he’s carrying?”

“Too many for a confrontation in the heart of town,” Bolan replied. “Smart money also says he’ll have at least one gun, either a decent pistol or an automatic subgun.”

“You want to call it, then?”

Bolan hated to pull the plug, but he didn’t intend to spark a further bloodbath in the streets of Centreville. On top of that, he heard a siren’s distant wail, either the local cops—with twelve men on the force full-time, as he recalled—or a Queen Anne’s County deputy out on routine highway patrol. He didn’t want the law drawn into this with no idea of what they’d wind up facing, so he made the only call that suited him.

“I’m calling it,” he told Grimaldi. “Let’s get out of here before SWAT hears a rumble and starts gearing up.”

“At least we didn’t pick up any shrapnel,” the pilot said.

“Small favors,” Bolan replied as Grimaldi swung down an alley and began reversing their direction back toward 313.

“I’m thinking Hal won’t like it.”

“Not one little bit,” Bolan agreed.

“You think he’ll pull us off?”

“Doubt it,” Bolan replied after considering. “Right now, we’re all he’s got.”

“I wish that didn’t carry so much weight.”

“Comes with the big bucks.”

“Yeah. I’m still waiting for those,” Grimaldi said with a grin.

“You and me both.”

When they’d cleared Centreville and started back toward Goldsboro, where the chopper waited for them on the ground, Bolan began rehearsing what he’d say to Brognola. He’d never polished up bad news before, and wouldn’t start today, but at least he still had other leads, besides the father who had not seen Walton Tanner Junior in so long most people would consider them estranged.

Another of the AWOL Rangers, Tyrone Moseley, had a brother in Newark, New Jersey, chasing a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Moseley’s file had sketched sufficient background on the kid to mark him as a “normal” student, but he was an African American whose hackles might rise at confrontation with two white government agents looking for his brother, handing back their cards without revealing much of anything.

Life in a city of a quarter million people, some still brooding over riots forty years ago and nursing grudges that might never heal. Some would be militants, the bulk of them just ordinary people conscious of the fact that they’d been wronged repeatedly for years on end, while no one in authority extended an apology, much less making them whole for loved ones killed or maimed along the way.

That wasn’t Bolan’s problem, and he couldn’t solve it if it was. His more immediate concern was to find out if one young man bent on making a new life for himself had been in contact with his elder brother. And what—if anything—had passed between them when they’d spoken, and whether Tyron had been crass enough to drag the kid into his mess.

Bolan hoped not, but as he’d learned to his private sorrow, families were complicated, nursing secrets rarely spoken to outsiders, if at all. He would reach out, learn what Jesse Moseley had to say, if anything, and hope for any clue that put him on the AWOL Rangers’ trail.

Failing that, he’d have to play the rest of it by ear.

Nothing unique in that approach for Bolan, since he’d struck out on his own against the Mafia so long ago, and carried on from there into a world gone mad with terror, tyrants and the endless clash of hostile creeds. He soldiered on, because that’s what a soldier did, until the Universe allowed no choice but to lay down his or her weapons and surrender in the end.

He and Grimaldi had a job to do, and there could be no turning back.

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