Kill Shot

The soldier lunged up the stairwell toward the roof, the security guards hot on his heels. He kicked the door open and ran at top speed for the rope he’d anchored to the air-conditioning unit. Grabbing the figure-eight descenders he’d clipped to the ropes, he flung himself over the edge of the roof. By the time the first of the guards had emerged from the stairwell Bolan was in a near free fall toward the ground below. He plunged down in a barely controlled descent, braking only as he neared the ground. It was hard to judge his progress in the dark, and he’d slowed his descent barely enough to keep from doing serious damage to his body when he landed.

When his feet touched the grass, Bolan pitched himself into a roll, which turned out to be a good move because gunfire from the roof tore up the turf on which he’d just landed. The gunfire tracked him as he sprang up from his roll and ran at top speed for the wall. When he reached the wall, he grabbed the top and powered over the top of it. By this time he’d put enough distance between himself and his pursuers that he only needed to worry about catching a stray bullet, but he also knew a stray bullet could kill him as dead as an aimed bullet could, so he didn’t stop running until he was at his car.

He could hear sirens approaching the VA hospital. Rather than panic, Bolan calmly drove through the residential district in which he’d parked, following a route that he’d prepared in advance, one that led him to Cedar Avenue. He followed it south until it turned into State Highway 77, which in turn led him straight to his motel. When he pulled into the lot, pimps and dealers were doing business in the lot. They sized him up, decided he was more trouble than he was worth and let him pass into the motel unmolested.

CHAPTER FOUR

“So what have you got on Theodore Haynes from Plainfield, Wisconsin?” Bolan asked Kurtzman over his cell phone once he was safely ensconced in his two-bit motel room.

“Army Ranger,” Kurtzman replied, “one tour in Afghanistan, two tours in Iraq, heavily decorated, had his left knee crushed when his Humvee hit an IED and flipped over. He was the only survivor. His three buddies were killed in the blast. He recovered full use of his leg, but not quite to the degree required to remain a Ranger, so he left the military.”

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say he was trained as a sniper.”

“Right first time.”

“Anything else?” Bolan asked.

“Yeah. He’s been officially dead for years. According to every record I could access, he committed suicide soon after washing out of the Rangers.”

“I don’t believe that,” Bolan said. “I sincerely doubt that these killings are the work of some sort of undead zombie.”

“There wasn’t much we could tell from what was left of the bodies you brought in yesterday,” the computer expert said, “but one thing we could tell was that the bodies inside the vehicle had been alive prior to the vehicle crashing, so I don’t think we have to worry about zombies.”

“Where is Haynes buried?” Bolan asked.

“Plainfield, Wisconsin, and I know what you’re thinking. I’m one step ahead of you. Hal is having the body exhumed tomorrow morning.”

“I take it that means that I’m heading to Plainfield tonight,” Bolan posited.

“You take it correctly,” Kurtzman said. “I’ve already called Jack and told him to get the plane ready.”

“You pull any information off that shell casing I sent you yesterday?” Bolan asked.

“Yes and no.”

“Give me the ‘no’ first.”

“We didn’t pull any prints or DNA off the brass,” Kurtzman replied.

“And the ‘yes’?”

“We traced the lot number on the case and found out where it had been shipped. You’re not going to like this.”

“Where did it go?” Bolan asked.

“McNair.” Kurtzman was referring to Fort Lesley J. McNair, located on the confluence of the Potomac River and the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., the third oldest military base in the United States. It was the home base for most of the top Army brass in the D.C. area, including the Army’s chief of staff, who also happened to be the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It was part of a special production run of precision casings designed for sniper and competition use. It looks like we’ve got two possibilities here. One, someone at McNair is stealing supplies and selling them on the black market.”

“And two,” Bolan interjected, “we’ve got a person or persons at the highest level of the military involved in this mess. How much of this is Hal going to share with the President?”

“He hasn’t decided yet,” Kurtzman said. “but before you leave for Wisconsin, you need to know one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The President warned Hal that if there is another wave of killings tomorrow, he plans to declare martial law.”

Plainfield, Wisconsin

NORMALLY BOLAN USED FLIGHTS to catch a nap and rest up, but the short hop from Minneapolis to Plainfield aboard the fast little jet barely allowed for a single z, so Bolan sat up front and chatted with Grimaldi, who appreciated the company.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Plainfield,” Grimaldi said.

“Why?” Bolan asked.

“It’s the home of Ed Gein,” Grimaldi replied. Ed Gein had been a notorious murderer and grave robber from Plainfield.

“You a fan of serial killers?” Bolan asked.

“Not a fan, exactly,” Grimaldi said, “but I find the guy fascinating. He cut off his victims’ heads and stole other body parts from local graveyards. What could motivate a man to do something like that?”

“My money’s on a brain disorder,” Bolan offered. “That would give him more of an excuse to do what he did than most of the people we go up against. They’re usually motivated by greed for wealth or power.”

“You do know that he wasn’t a serial killer, technically, right?”

“I have to admit I’m not up to speed on the particulars of Wisconsin’s second most famous cannibal.”

“Gein was only tried and convicted for one murder,” Grimaldi said. “Back then prosecutors exercised a little more common sense than today. They figured since he got life for one killing there wasn’t a lot to be gained by spending the money to try him for the other murders. Can you imagine a time when such logical thought ruled the day?”

Bolan thought it was a rhetorical question and remained silent.

“You know that you poking around here digging up bodies might bring back some bad memories for the old-timers who were alive back when Geins was doing much the same thing,” Grimaldi said.

“I’m not any happier about having to dig up a local war hero than the folks around here will be, but we don’t have a choice. And we don’t have much time.”

The sun had yet to rise over the eastern horizon when Jack Grimaldi brought the Cirrus Vision SF50 jet in for a landing at the Plainfield International Airport, an extremely pretentious name for a facility that consisted of two dirt runways and a steel shed. It wasn’t a fit place to land a jet, even a small jet like the SF50, but a seasoned pilot like Grimaldi had no problems. He brought the little hot-rod jet in as easily as most pilots would bring in a small two-seat Cessna.

Brognola had arranged for a federal agent to meet Bolan at the airport. It wasn’t hard for either party to find the other. The Cirrus wasn’t only the first jet of the day to land in the airport, but it was also the only jet to ever land there. And if the vehicle driven by the federal officer—a gunmetal gray Crown Victoria sedan—wasn’t a dead giveaway, his conservative dark suit was. Besides, he was the only person waiting at the airport. The agent, a somber Nordic-looking fellow named Tracy Anderson, said, “It’ll be another hour or so before we finish exhuming the body. Want to stop for breakfast?”

Bolan accepted the agent’s offer.

“It looks like we’ve got a few options,” Anderson said as they cruised the town’s main drag, along which stood several diners and cafés. “Any of them look promising?”

“Pick that one,” Bolan said, pointing to the diner that had the most big pickup trucks parked out front. A lot of pickups usually meant that the place had the best food, but it also meant that it was a spot where the locals congregated, and Bolan hoped to use this opportunity to learn a bit more about Mr. Haynes.

Rather than taking a booth, Bolan, Grimaldi and the agent sat down at the counter, where the soldier could have better opportunities to interact with the locals. Sure enough the local sitting next to Bolan struck up a conversation before the waitress had even poured them a cup of coffee. “Mighty nice weather we’re having for this time of year,” the man said. The weather was always a safe ice breaker and a favorite topic of conversation in northern states.

“It’s close to perfect,” Bolan replied. “Summer’s come early this year.”

“It’s global warming,” the man said.

“Yep,” Bolan replied.

“My name’s Myron,” the man said, extending his weathered hand. “Myron Haynes.”

“Matt,” the soldier replied, using his undercover name, “Matt Cooper.”

“You in the military?” Haynes asked.

“Was,” Bolan replied. “Now I’m doing some contract work for the Department of Justice.”

“What are you guys doing about those shootings that have been going on the past couple of days?”

“Everything we can,” Bolan replied.

“Well,” Haynes said, “we ain’t had none around here. What are you investigating in these parts?”

“I hate to ask you this,” Bolan said, “but are you related to Theodore Haynes?”

The man got quiet. Then he said, “Everyone around here is pretty much related to everyone else. Our family trees are more like family wreaths. Teddy was my cousin’s boy. Damned shame what happened to him.”

“Yeah,” Bolan said, “it sure was.”

“Not that we didn’t expect the boy to come to a bad end. He was in trouble from the time he was ten years old. Earlier than that, even. He stole his parents’ car when he was twelve. When he went in the army, we thought that might turn him around. And it seemed to. He’d done good in there, made sergeant, but when he come out, he was worse than ever. He got into the drugs real bad. I think that’s what made him go and kill himself.”

“What kind of drugs?” Bolan asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Drugs is drugs, I suppose. I imagine he was doing meth—everyone around here was doing meth, it seems like. And I know he had a problem with prescription pain pills ever since he got out of the VA hospital. He got caught robbing the drugstore in town once, but they let him go because he was a war hero. If they’d locked him up then, he might be alive today.” The man paused for a response, and Bolan gave a slight nod of his head, which passed for conversation in rural areas, and the man continued, “Then again, maybe he’d be just as dead in prison. He was messed up with those damned Slaves.”

“Slaves?” Bolan asked.

“Satan’s Slaves,” Haynes replied. The Satan’s Slaves were a mid-sized motorcycle club, located primarily in the upper Midwest, and they currently controlled Minneapolis. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul had been the territory of the Hellions, one of the biggest outlaw motorcycle clubs in the world, but the Hellions had imploded following a series of arrests that had decimated the club. Since nature abhored a vacuum, the Slaves had filled that vacuum and now controlled the area, at least temporarily, until the Hellions could regroup and regain control. The Slaves had a reputation for over-the-top violence, as if they were trying to overcompensate for being a second-tier club by living out an extreme example of the motorcycle gang stereotype. They were also much more political than most motorcycle clubs; they harbored extremist political views and were associated with a number of white supremacist organizations.

“Those guys are bad news,” Bolan said. If given the choice, the soldier would have taken the Hellions over the Slaves any day. He had run up against members of the Hellions before, and they were definitely no angels, but the Hellions were a motorcycle club in which some of the members happened to be criminals, whereas the Slaves were an outright criminal organization. Maybe even more than criminal—the Slaves were known to be active in a number of hardcore white supremacist organizations, and Bolan had heard rumors that the club had been involved in terrorist activities against minority groups. The Hellions weren’t exactly civil rights activists themselves, but in general they tolerated their neighbors. They tended to police their territory, especially in the neighborhoods around their clubhouses, which tended to be located in the seediest parts of the cities in which the Hellions operated, but they were equal opportunity haters. If someone caused trouble on Hellion turf, that person usually ended up enduring a beating whether he was black, white or any other hue found in the natural world.

“You’re telling me,” Haynes said. “You know what I think? I don’t think Teddy killed himself.”

“Oh?” Bolan said. Haynes definitely had the soldier’s interest by this point.

“Hell, no,” Haynes said. “I saw him the night he died. We had a few beers down at the tavern. He was in a good mood. Then some of those damned Slaves rode up and he left with them. Next thing you know, they found him in his trailer house with his head blown off. He was holding his own shotgun and it sure as hell looked like he’d shot himself, but that could have been anyone in Teddy’s bed without his head.”

Normally, Bolan would have dismissed such talk as the desperate grasping of a bereaved relative, but in this case he happened to know that Haynes’ suspicions were correct. He thought about this while he took the last bite of his hash browns, but his thoughts were interrupted by the ring of Agent Anderson’s cell phone.

“We’ll be right there,” Bolan heard Anderson say.

BOLAN CONTEMPLATED WHAT he’d learned on the ride to the cemetery. After they’d overseen the loading of the remains into the van that would transport them to the federal crime lab in Minneapolis, Anderson returned Bolan and Grimaldi to the airport. As soon as the plane was airborne, Bolan called Kurtzman to debrief.

“What have you learned about the supposed Haynes suicide?” Bolan asked.

“There was no autopsy,” Kurtzman stated. “The death certificate was signed by a general practitioner at the local clinic, a fellow named Lee Klancher who was eighty-eight years old at the time. A year later he was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer’s disease, so the odds are good that he didn’t do the most thorough examination.”

“We can be certain of one thing,” Bolan said. “That headless corpse we pulled out of the ground just now wasn’t Theodore Haynes.”

“I think we’re one hundred percent on that one,” Kurtzman replied. “But that begs the question, who was it?”

“My guess is someone that the Satan’s Slaves wanted to eliminate,” Bolan stated, “or at least found expendable.”

“The Slaves are involved in this?”

“I think so. At least, they’re the only lead I have right now. See what you can find out about them.”

Washington, D.C.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK I should do, Hal?” the President asked.

“I think declaring martial law would be a mistake, sir,” Brognola told the man.

“I believe you’re right. Once we go down that road, nothing will ever be the same. But my national security adviser and the Joint Chiefs of Staff don’t believe we have any other option. People are screaming for us to do something. They’re afraid to leave their houses. People aren’t going to work. Food, fuel and medicine aren’t being delivered. The economy has nearly shut down.”

“We’re doing everything we can to solve this situation, sir.”

“Please, Hal, tell me that you’re close to finding the shooters.”

“I wish I could, sir, but I can’t lie to you.”

“Then I’m going to have to declare martial law.”

“Sir,” Brognola said, “once you’ve turned the United States into a police state, it will never again be a beacon of freedom. I know this is supposed to be a temporary state of affairs, but what guarantee do you have that bringing the military in will stop the shootings? You’re risking turning these terrorist attacks into something resembling an insurgency. I think recent history has shown us how long an insurgency can drag on.”

“My instincts tell me you’re right, Hal. But what do we do? If I don’t go along with the Joint Chiefs, I’m risking a low-grade insurgency in my own administration. They’re adamant about declaring martial law.”

“Well, sir, far be it from me to tell you what to do, but you are their boss. You are the commander in chief.”

The President pondered Brognola’s comments and said, “If I give you three more days, do you think you can wrap this thing up?”

“We’ll give it everything we’ve got.”

“Fair enough,” the man said. “We’ll meet in three days. I pray to God that the purpose of that meeting will be for you to debrief me on the capture of the terrorists. In the meantime, please keep me informed every step of the way.”

“Yes, sir.”

Minneapolis, Minnesota

BOLAN DOWNSHIFTED THE black Mustang as he approached the Slaves’ north Minneapolis clubhouse, located in an industrial area along the west bank of the Mississippi River. The twin tailpipes barked with authority as the 412-horsepower V-8 picked up revs on the downshift. The soldier hadn’t wanted such a flashy car, but he needed something fast. The only cars the Farm had been able to line up that met his performance criteria were this Mustang, a red Corvette and a yellow Porsche 911 Turbo. Of the bunch, the Mustang was the slowest, but it was also the least conspicuous. At least it was black, and it had something resembling a backseat so the soldier could keep his war bag within easy reach.

It was almost noon and there was hardly another vehicle on the road. As expected, there’d been another wave of shootings up and down the eastern seaboard at noon eastern time, but this day’s kill rate was down somewhat. People weren’t moving around much, especially at the stroke of noon. Still, the body count was climbing. Most of the victims had been officers from various law-enforcement agencies, since they were pretty much the only people out at noon, but a few stray civilians had also been killed. Some were people who simply refused to succumb to the fear of the terrorists that was paralyzing the country, but several had been killed in their own homes, shot through windows and doorways. This new development was worrisome; taking out a target inside a building required much more skill than simply shooting someone out in the open and indicated that the skill level of the opponents Bolan faced was of the highest order.

It looked like Teddy Haynes wasn’t the only terrorist with military sniper training. It seemed inconceivable that military veterans could be behind this, but that appeared to be the case, and judging from the access needed to scrub the identities of the shooters this clean, there had to be military involvement at an extremely high level.

As hard as that fact was for the soldier to swallow, he found it even more unlikely that some sort of paramilitary operation could involve a group of people such as Satan’s Slaves. Bolan slowed even more as he rolled past the Slaves’ clubhouse.

The Slaves had taken over the building the Hellions had used as their clubhouse when they’d controlled this territory. It was an old garage that had once served as the headquarters for a taxicab company. Bolan had studied the layout of the place from photos and blueprints that Kurtzman had sent him and knew that getting in would be no easy task. The layout had been designed to keep the taxicabs and employees safe in what was one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the entire Midwest. Several years earlier the city had earned the nickname “Murderapolis,” and it had earned that moniker because of killings that had, for the most part, occurred within twenty blocks of the clubhouse. The taxi company’s headquarters had been a virtual fort, with razor-wire fences, thick brick walls and entrances that were well-controlled and easily defensible.

Bolan didn’t expect any activity outside the clubhouse since it was almost noon and the city seemed virtually deserted, but when he drove past the clubhouse he saw a group of five men beating another man senseless in the vacant lot adjacent to the Slave’s property. The men doing the beating all wore Slave cuts—the sleeveless denim jackets on which club members displayed their colors or club patches.

So much for inconspicuous, Bolan thought. He flicked off the traction-control switch, downshifted again and pushed the accelerator to the floor. The rear tires broke loose in a cloud of smoke, and he power slid the Mustang onto a concrete slab that had to have been the driveway of whatever structure had once occupied the vacant lot. Before the car came to a complete stop, Bolan threw open the driver’s door and bolted toward the group of men, crossing the thirty-foot distance in several long strides. The five assailants had barely had time to look up from their victim before Bolan was on top of them.

The Executioner snap-kicked the man closest to him in the head, which jerked back at an impossible angle. His neck broken, the man toppled to the ground. Two of the other men stopped beating the victim and brought the broken pool cues they’d been using as clubs to bear on Bolan. Before the wooden sticks could contact the soldier’s skull, he reached up and grabbed them both, one in each hand. Bolan flipped the cue in his right hand around so that he was holding the fat end of the club and speared its original owner through the eye with the jagged broken end. The soldier felt the bone in the eye socket give way and the cue penetrate the man’s brain pan. Two down, three to go.

By this time, the remaining assailants had turned their attention from the man on the ground and attacked Bolan. With the pool cue in his left hand Bolan whacked the man closest to him across the temple, and the man went down, but this left Bolan vulnerable to the other two attackers. One of them, a burly giant with a long red beard and even longer hair, tackled him, knocking him flat on his back, while the other one smashed a cinder-block-size fist into the soldier’s face. Bolan brought a knee up into the groin of the man who’d tackled him but was unable to avoid another blow from that oversized fist. This time the soldier saw stars. He knew he had to end this fight soon, or his attackers would end it for him.

But ending the fight would be a challenge. Bolan’s knee to the groin had slowed his attacker, but the man was tough and it hadn’t taken the fight out of him. Bolan kicked the man in the jaw, driving him up and away. The other attacker tried to drive his fist into Bolan’s face one more time, but the soldier managed to twist to the side and avoid the blow. As he did this, he reached down and pulled a custom-made eight-inch bowie knife from a sheath in his boot and in one sweeping motion he brought the knife around in an arc and drove it through the man’s ribs, just below his armpit. He pulled out the blade and a geyser of blood erupted in its wake. Bolan had severed the man’s aorta as well as both his pulmonary arteries; he’d bleed out in a matter of seconds.

Knife in hand, the Executioner turned to face the final assailant, but the man standing over Bolan held something in his hand that trumped the soldier’s bowie knife: a Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan revolver. Judging from the diameter of the bore in the barrel staring down at Bolan’s face, the revolver was chambered for a .454 Casull cartridge.

The man pulled back the hammer and aimed the sights of the stubby revolver on a spot that looked to be directly between Bolan’s eyes. Just as he seemed about to pull the trigger, the soldier detected movement behind the man. An instant later a steel pipe swung through the air and caught the Slave on his temple. Bolan heard the crunch of breaking bone and saw the man’s eyes roll up in his head. He collapsed, revealing the bloody figure of the beating victim.