Devil's Bargain

Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Price wondered. Whichever it was, though, if he was being truthful about the death’s-head ace of spades, then the agency knew about their meeting.

“Alpha is back, and they’re letting their former employers know their heads are on the chopping block. Do you watch the Josh Randall show?”

“I heard about the murders,” Price answered. “I know a former CIA paramilitary operative with more ego than good sense had his head blown off last night.”

“Live and in color, before a national audience. Now, if you watch the replay carefully there’s no mistaking, despite the hokey disguise, the killer was this one,” he said, stabbing a picture, third man in line.

Price looked at the grizzled face, bald dome, eyes hidden by shades, but she was struck by the ridges of bone hung over the sunglasses like some birth defect or grotesque plastic surgery. She looked at the other members of Alpha Deep Six, Geller remarking how the group apparently had no race problems, equal-opportunity brigands, two of them black. Price read their cold, pitiless eyes. She knew the type, men blinded to all but their own animal instincts and passions.

Sociopaths.

“Michael Mitchell was the shooter. He vanished without a trace, dumped two grenades on his way out of the studio to seal his exit. Like the others, he can kill, and is a veritable ghost in the night. Three tours of duty in Vietnam, like Richard Cramnon and Ryan Ramses, they were Special Forces. The stories about their roots are too many, too atrocious to bother repeating. They say you have to be a borderline psychopath to want to have done three tours in Vietnam to begin with. The others—Delta, Marine recon—saw action in Panama, Gulf I. The word is they maybe even had a hand in smuggling out a few top Iraqi officials and some WMD into Syria during Gulf II. All of them, no wife, no kids, no ties. With no past, no roots, no one who cares for them or they care about, they could have futures that would never exist be created to further the interests of certain parties who were reading the future of the world, and decades ago. They were the perfect deniable expendables. They were chosen to become the perfect assassination machines.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to ask how you know all of this?”

Geller snorted, as if she’d asked a stupid question. “You know as well as I do how it works. In our business, information is bought or bartered. If not, you beg, borrow or steal. In Alpha’s case they had more extreme methods. Last night was payback on the Josh Randall show, a grandstand moment for Alpha to announce they’ve risen from the grave. The word I get from my sources is the late Captain Jack got cold feet at the last minute way back when over the real agenda behind the staged deaths of ADS. Either way, you could say he signed his own death warrant, promoting himself all over the cable talk shows, shooting off his mouth about things he had no business revealing for civilian consumption. I’m thinking if Acheron didn’t get him, the CIA or the NSA eventually would have yanked his ticket.”

“Acheron?”

She watched as Geller looked away, focused attention on the bottle, his hand trembling as he filled the glass. There was enough of a flicker in his eyes that told her Geller wished he could kick himself. He’d slipped. Accident, though, or act?

“It’s believed they have chosen handles—from Greek mythology, ancient Hebrew, various playwrights and mystics—all in reference to Hell, the gates of Hell, eternal damnation, beasts from the pit who unleash death and destruction on the earth. It’s gathered that’s their warped idea of dark humor.” He waved a hand. “I know, you want me to get to the point.”

She shrugged, no hurry, not willing to concede she was on any clock. Geller bobbed his head, sucked down another shot, Price watching as some intense, near fanatic fire lit his eyes.

“Bottom line, these men not only helped create the global arms race, they were the global arms race. They were the original shadow merchants of death, the negotiators for the United States military-industrial complex, the real movers and shakers who sold far more than just fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. Allow me to run some numbers by you. Out of the 169 countries on Earth, fifty are presently at war.”

“And you’re telling me Alpha Deep Six is responsible for all these conflicts?”

“The United States is the number-one arms exporter to Third World countries, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to where the rest of the hardware goes. Someone has to do the legwork, make the deals happen with countries with leaders most rational, civilized people find detestable but who are willing to spend the cash. Are you aware 130 billion in weapons and military assistance has been shipped to 125 countries in the past decade alone by the United States, and the numbers are going up every year? America’s yearly arms export sales eclipse the GNP of Russia. It’s easy enough to verify, if you care to.”

“The enemy is us?”

Geller ignored the remark, working on his smoke with renewed fury. “I always believed you were something of the altruistic sort, a lady of principle. I admired that in you when we worked together, but I always admire the virtue in others I know I can never possess.”

“Careful, Max. Whatever you’ve heard about flattery does not apply here.”

“Sure, sorry.” He took a moment with his smoke. “You want to know how much of an upside-down world we live in? Just look at what the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund say about loans they are practically forced by the United States to make to African dictators, what the international community has called ‘the crocodile rulers.’ Broken down to basics the price of one helicopter equals twelve thousand school-teachers in Africa, a one-million-dollar modern tank the equivalent of a thousand classrooms for thirty thousand children. In terms of comparing the gross discrepancy between arms to food, the numbers are beyond astronomical. In a perfect world I suppose there wouldn’t be this immoral madness, but it’s a madness that is man-made. I’m telling you this nation is involved in the deliberate worldwide proliferation of arms. You see, what the voting public does not know is that the military-industrial complex of this country—or rather a shadow group that have knighted themselves the inheritors of the Earth—is seeking to create wars, unleash whole campaigns of genocide, perhaps even drive the human race into World War III. Three reasons. One, the military contractors need to keep the plants running, or, simply put, there would be a lot of people out of work, likewise some heavy brass at the Pentagon. Two, since Vietnam, there are certain circles within the intelligence and military communities who saw the creation of future conflicts around the globe as a means to justify their existence, gain personal glory in history, albeit a shadow note.”

“And they would get rich in the process.”

“Obscenely rich. Three, by 2020 it’s believed by our top scientists there will be fifteen to eighteen billion mouths on this planet to feed. Simply stated, these powers want the strong—themselves—to survive, whatever masses crawl out of the rubble and the ashes of a holocaust to serve them. They believe if something isn’t done to contain the swelling numbers on this planet, there’ll be mass starvation, natural resources depleted, nations swept up in anarchy with the collapse of the global economy. Plague, famine, pestilence, death, they’re seeking to accelerate what they see as the natural process of evolution to weed out the weak before they devour the strong.”

“The lions eating the lambs.”

“Precisely. That’s why Alpha Deep Six was created in the first place.”

“To bring on Armageddon.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

Price had listened with a neutral expression, suspected there was a lot more Geller wished to tell her, but wouldn’t. He was dangling bait, but why? She knew no institution was above corruption, and she could accept what the man said about the military-industrial conspiracy, up to a point. True, there were bad seeds in the U.S. military and intelligence communities, but she knew the rot wasn’t endemic. Still, she knew enough about the grim realities of the world to be wary once the genie of power and greed was let out of the bottle.

“You want one example of what Alpha Deep Six has done?” Geller said. “Right before Gulf I the former Iraqi regime nearly got its hands on krytons, or nuclear weapon triggers, along with ‘skull furnaces,’ which are used to melt plutonium for nuclear bomb cores. ADS arranged the deal with the Iraqis, but again, someone got nervous at DOD, probably saw far worse than just their careers circling the bowl. Before the ship sailed out of the Delaware River it was boarded and seized. A cover-up ensued, generated by the same people who don’t want anyone to know 1.5 billion in dual-use technology was sold and delivered to Baghdad right up to the eve of Gulf I. Alpha Deep Six created that regime, kept it in power, I kid you not. You want maraging steel for making centrifuges? Alpha delivered tons of it among weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, fuel rods, light water reactors, the whole sorcerer nuke package to the Pakistanis, thus insuring their nuclear weapons program. Same thing with the North Koreans. Likewise they have kept the Khartoum government flourishing in guns and money, fomenting the unrest on the Horn of Africa, were even in the process of helping Khartoum go nuclear before their purported end. Further, they were involved in training and arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan, and they were instrumental in creating both the Taliban and al-Qaeda during that ten-year conflict.”

“Busy boys.”

“This isn’t funny, Barbara. Do you hear me laughing?”

“And you have proof of all this?”

“Nothing in writing. If you don’t trust my word, I can send you to sources who can back me up, men so high up in the intelligence and military communities they’re the next closest thing to talking to God. They’ll also tell you that Alpha Deep Six is responsible for creating and landing the Red Crescent in this country, that they trained, funded and armed them for what could be the biggest catastrophe to ever hit American soil. One from which this country may never recover.”

She stiffened, braced to grab her Browning as he suddenly reached into his briefcase. She stayed on edge, even as Geller produced a CD-ROM.

“It’s all here,” he said, placing the disk on the table.

“All what?”

“Dates, places, times, people, the entire alphabet, the who’s who on Alpha Deep Six and the shadow world that created them. There are decoded messages, intercepts about who they know, what they’ve done and what they are doing. Red Crescent is their creation, their vision of the gates of Hell unleashed. Do you know anything about them?”

“Only what I’ve heard on CNN,” she lied.

“Well, here are a few facts you won’t get from the media. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, a few other marquee terror groups were, so to speak, read the tea leaves by ADS in the late eighties, but it took until the early nineties until they became believers in the ADS infidels and their vision of the future. Osama and his top lieutenants knew that if the United States declared all-out war against them, they would go down hard, disfigured, dismantled, captured or killed. They knew their money would be the first target. Thus Alpha mapped out a contingency plan to keep their jihad afloat, but it was only a small part to their own big event.

“Before our government froze the first million, the major terror orgs were cleaning out their banks, transferring every asset they could get their hands on into ready cash. They began buying up diamonds from West Africa, precious gemstones from India, Myanmar, Indonesia. They invested heavily in narcotics, aligning themselves with the South American drug cartels, but most of their investing went with heroin to the east. Financially, able to remain solvent with gemstones and dope, if all else fails, they are far from bankrupt. And they would have no problem getting funds, from what we’ve learned, if the well began to dry. Every radical sheikh, imam and mullah from Algeria to Indonesia gave the Red Crescent their blessing during what we know was the Grand Islamic Council just before the outbreak of Gulf II.

“As for Alpha, they personally recruited RC operatives, before and after their ‘demise.’ After Afghanistan and Gulf II we know there was a huge influx into RC of al-Qaeda and Taliban and the former Iraqi regime’s fedayeen who were willing to come under the new umbrella, even if it was hung over them by infidels. The Red Crescent received help principally from Jordan, Syria and Turkey. But, when Syria fell onto the radar screen for helping Iraq, our supposed allies, the Turks and Jordanians held out their hands—for a price. Now, from various methods of surveillance and intercepts of chatter between Red Crescent operatives and other terror orgs, we believe but cannot verify that somewhere in the neighborhood of one to two billion dollars—hard currency, jewels, diamonds, narcotics—is stashed in underground armed fortresses they call the Bank of Islam. We believe Alpha Deep Six marshaled a small army of fanatics to invade and wreak death and destruction on this country’s ground-transportation networks for payback, and to take all intelligence eyes off their violent resurrection, and vanishing act two.”

Price watched Geller nod at the disk. The list of questions she could put to him was too long, an instinctive fear mounting, warning her to get out of here. He pushed the disk across the coffee table.

“Take it.”

Price picked up the subtle note of insistence. If she took the disk, it might confirm whatever suspicions he had that she was still actively involved in covert work. If she didn’t, the Farm and its warriors might lose out on invaluable intelligence.

“I told you, Max, I’m retired.”

“Really? Is that why I had to go through about six cutouts from every intelligence and law-enforcement agency we know of? Then you finally get back to me, using about four different back channels not even the almighty NSA know exist?”

“Say I take it. What is it you expect me to do with the information?”

“It would appear you still have friends and sources in very high places. Pass it on. You still believe in freedom, truth and justice, don’t you?”

Clever, she thought, how he’d boxed her in. She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. She picked up the disk.

“The password,” Geller said, “is ‘Resurrection.’”

ACTION, IN BOLAN’S experience, cured fear. From the warrior perspective it most certainly excised the cancer of evil. The hesitant or the paralyzed in the face of mortal danger sometimes died from the strangehold of fear. But the warrior, he knew, acted on fear, used it to motivate, propel him to new heights—in this case—to violence of action. The enormity of the task before the nation might be so daunting, funded and planned for nobody knew how long by unknown financiers—the lurking notion in his mind they had inside help from homegrown traitors—with fanatics prepared to commit suicide if only to unleash mass murder, the Executioner knew only one answer would wipe out the evil ready to consume the country, slaughter countless innocents.

Identify and strike down the enemy, lightning fast and hard. No mercy, no hesitation, no exceptions.

To the credit of the man on the other end of the sat phone, Bolan knew Hal Brognola was more than up to the grim job, bloody as it would prove, lives in the balance, perhaps an entire nation on the verge of collapsing into anarchy. After all, he and the big Fed had known each other since mile one of what was the genesis of the Executioner. Those days were light-years distant now, when Brognola once hunted a young soldier during his war against the Mafia, but they were of like mind, immutable in principle and commitment when it came to solving the problem of dealing with the enemies of national security.

No sooner was Bolan in the air, the Black Hawk soaring now over I-64 at top speed, than he had raised Brognola at his Justice Department office. A quick sitrep, Bolan printing out the grid map of the blocks surrounding the Greyhound terminal in Richmond, and Brognola filled him in.

“They what?” Bolan said, forced to nearly shout above the rotor wash pounding through the fuselage.

There had been a few minutes’ lag time between them, during which Brognola had contacted the FBI SAC in Richmond. Bolan now feared the problems had just begun to compound, as he listened to Brognola.

“The order came straight from the Office of Homeland Security, who received their orders from the President and who just passed it on to this office. Before your intro to this butcher—Moctaw—and believe me, the President will hear about this, and I will move mountains to find out who this son of a bitch is—it was already believed the bastards intended to pack lockers with plastic explosives before they boarded their respective buses. Every terminal from Miami to Maine, New York to Los Angeles, is being locked down by local and federal authorities. Buses are being emptied of passengers, luggage searched, same thing with all trains, national and local rail service. It’s a logistical nightmare, I’m sure you can imagine, but we tackle the major cities first, take it from there—and hope.”

Bolan didn’t like it, FBI agents already inside the Richmond terminal, forcing open lockers, their presence alerting the Red Crescent operatives there the game was over for them. But the soldier knew he couldn’t be everywhere at once. The threat was so grave, so public now, no telling how far and wide or how many operatives were out there, human resources stretched so thin as it stood….

“The descriptions you passed on, Striker, match up. They’re being watched as we speak.”

“Pull those agents back, Hal, discreetly. Don’t let them approach those three. If that happens…”

“Understood. The bastards might panic and just go ahead and light up whatever they have. I’ve alerted Special Agent Wilkinson you will be landing shortly and that you are in charge.”

Bolan moved into the cockpit hatchway. The interstate in both directions was gridlocked, he found, a vast parking lot east to west, the state police having erected checkpoints, roadblocks, staggered every other exit. With national alert, all civilians were ordered to stay home, get off all buses and trains at the next stop if they were traveling, but Bolan wondered if it was too little too late.

The skyline of Richmond looming ahead, Bolan spotted the Black Hawks soaring above the city, ready to report to him any suspicious vehicles, specifically buses that might have pulled out of the terminal before the FBI descended.

“There’s a stadium, directly across from the terminal,” Bolan told the flight crew, both of which were Farm blacksuits. “Set it down in the lot.”

When they copied, Bolan went and opened one of three war bags. He opted against going in loaded to the gills, even though once he was spotted by the terrorists, they would know he wasn’t any late-arriving passenger.

The Executioner decided to march right through the front door, mark the position of Red Crescent operatives from agents inside. He hoped to do it quickly, with as little mess as possible. There would be panic, chaos, of course, but a hard charge into the terminal, wielding the HK MP-5, could prove disastrous. One clean quick head shot each, then, with the Beretta would have to do it.

Bolan stood by the door gunner. Roughly two hundred feet below lay the interstate, groups of civilians standing outside their cars. Arguments appeared to break out in pockets, stranded motorists flailing their arms. It didn’t take a mind reader, he knew, to imagine those thoughts swarming with panic and terror. Then, recalling the omen of ASAC James, he looked at the smattering of eighteen-wheelers, spotted a U-Haul, several cabs.

And he wondered.

One crisis, one terrorist at a time, he told himself.

“Striker?”

Bolan caught the grim note ratchet up in Brognola’s voice.

“Nail these bastards, Striker.”

“Count on it.”

“Get back to me when it’s done there.”

Not “if,” he thought, but “when.” There was no other option, no margin for a half victory, the soldier aware that if one rolling bomb was right then on the highway…

The thought was echoed by Brognola.

“If only one of them is out there, Hal,” the Executioner vowed, “then I’ll make damn sure he is on a highway to Hell.”

BEYOND GRATEFUL for fresh air, Price felt relief as she slipped away from Geller, no dramatic goodbyes or promises to get in touch. So why did that bother her? On the way out the door, she expected the man to press her for some callback, update him on whatever progress he believed she might deliver.

Nothing.

She wondered if she was being unduly paranoid, scanning the bowels of the garage, an itch going down her spine, her heart racing. It was empty of human or vehicular traffic, no sound anywhere—too quiet, too still—her surveillance working down the gauntlet of parked vehicles as she hastened her strides. She spotted her GMC, backed in against the wall, and she was anxious to get in and drive off. She wanted to play back the entire meeting with Geller, hash over all the questions he left hanging, but the nagging instinct was back, stronger than ever, warning her to get out of the garage.

She reached her vehicle, hesitated, looking over her shoulder. Keying open the door, she heard a thud, scoured the garage, unable to determine where the sound originated, but aware someone had just stepped out of a vehicle. Was that a shadow at the far end? she wondered, opening her door. Two shadows, easing in her direction, trying to move, swift and silent?

Hopping in, she shut the door, slipped the key into the ignition. Staring down the garage, she saw the dancing silhouettes, but no bodies. It was almost, she determined, as if they were using cars for concealment. And the shadows were indeed, she saw, advancing her way.

She was about to twist the key when she spotted it out of the corner of her eye.

Price froze at the sight of the signature card on the shotgun seat, then she glimpsed the shadow rise up in the rearview mirror, the weapon aimed at the back of her head.

Silently she cursed Geller, heard the ghoul chuckle as she threw her shoulder into the door.

CHAPTER THREE

“All passengers inside the terminal are asked to remain seated or standing where you are. Those passengers at boarding gates are asked to step back to the center of the terminal. Passengers are asked to leave or place all bags on the ground. This includes purses, or any item that can be carried.”

And Qasi Alzhad saw the dream vanishing before his eyes, felt the slow fuse of anger sizzle toward simmering wrath. Silently he cursed the sudden injustice of it all, the seat trembling beneath him from fury, ears ringing, sweat breaking out beneath the bill of his cap. Glancing at the other two in the row of seats ahead and to his right, he found them, eyes wide and darting around the terminal, cornered animals perhaps, but still dangerous enough, he knew, despite the falling net. Contingency plan locked in place, though, the three of them were ready to martyr themselves, even if they couldn’t fulfill their final role in the big event. So it was written during their correspondence by hand-delivered mail.

So it was spoken by God.

It was easy enough, he thought, to read between the lines of the voice issuing commands over the loudspeaker, telling passengers to remain calm, exit buses, leave carry-ons behind, apologies once again for the delays. Something had indeed gone terribly wrong, the glory of jihad about to be derailed, he feared, and when they were so close. The logical conclusion was that one of the cells had been captured, talked, betrayed the operation.

It was a gross miscalculation, he now discovered, killing time in the terminal, waiting for the others to arrive before he packed the locker with what the letter—delivered two days ago by courier to his motel room near Richmond’s airport—called divine retribution. Two of them stood at the ticket-information counter, he saw, huddled with Greyhound employees, three more breaking open lockers with small drills, working with methodical grim purpose. No FBI stenciled on the backs of windbreakers, but he noted bulges beneath their shoulders betraying concealed side arms, earpieces the glaring tip-off the building was about to come under siege by American law enforcement. Yes, perhaps they were surrounded, outgunned, he thought, but before the infidels began searching baggage and they were staring down weapons, he would take decisive action.