Aftershock

“Who gave you such a fine gun, my sweetie?”

“My father,” Abood answered, her eyes narrowed. She struggled, but she was wary of the trio of riflemen watching her intently. She knew how to fight, how to shoot, how to protect herself, but she also knew that pulling a pistol against an armed force of semiofficial vigilantes patrolling the Turkish countryside would be tantamount to suicide. She bided her time.

“Ah,” Makal said. “Did you add the pretty sights and grips, or did he?”

Abood glowered. Makal’s fist squeezed her wrist, and she felt the bones in her forearm start to rub together. He would keep grinding them until her arm was crippled or he’d gotten an answer. “He did. But that’s why I like it so much.”

“It’s worth money, then,” Makal said as he stuffed the handgun behind the buckle of his belt. Abood resisted the urge to warn him against shooting his dick off, partially because the pistol’s safety was on, and pissing him off would only make things worse for her. Makal rubbed a hard, callused hand across her smooth cheek. “As are you, no?”

“My magazine does not make deals with terrorists,” Abood answered.

The caress turned into a hard slap, and Abood sprawled across the hood of the jeep.

“We are the law in this country,” Makal snarled. “We are justice.”

Abood glared. Her ingrained response had landed her in trouble. Makal adjusted his belt and placed his rough hand over the crotch of his pants. “Usually, we’re not as well compensated for our efforts….”

Abood looked at the trio of riflemen watching her. Their weapons were aimed at the ground and wicked smirks danced across their features. One slung his weapon and began to undo his belt.

“That is Etter,” Makal explained. “He’s our warm-up for these things.”

“Warm-up?” Abood repeated, a chill flashing across her skin like lightning.

“Some women are a bit…tight,” Makal continued. “He loosens things up.”

Etter chuckled, sounding like a mentally deranged cartoon character as he opened his trousers. While the Turk wasn’t a big man, only a couple of inches taller than Abood, he was freakishly endowed. Abood gritted her teeth, knowing she’d better think of something before these bastards had their way with her. Unfortunately, the two men who had been destroying her equipment finished and flanked the group.

“We got everything,” one soldier said.

“Almost everything,” the other said with a chuckle as he looked at Abood.

Makal nodded. “Hold her.”

The two newcomers slung their rifles, and Abood acted instantly. She kicked Makal in the stomach, the toe of her boot knocking the Beretta to the road and forcing the Jandarma captain to stumble backward. Etter paused, then lunged forward, one beefy hand grabbing at her blouse, but Abood reacted fluidly. The heel of her palm caught the Turk between his lip and nose and snapped Etter’s head back. Unbalanced, his legs constrained by his half-fallen pants, the Turk flopped to the road.

She snaked her arm free from one of the soldiers who grabbed at her, but the other latched on to the arm that had knocked their partner onto his rear. Abood twisted and punched the goon in the sternum, but even driving the wind out of the Jandarma soldier didn’t relax the rapist’s grip.

“Fuck you!” Abood screamed, letting the clingy Turk get a face full of her loudest yell. It distracted him from her foot snaking around his ankle and she folded her arm abruptly. The point of her elbow struck the man in the breastbone and he fell to one side, dragging her down with him.

“Whore!” the other two would-be rapists growled, and they rushed forward. Abood twisted and pulled her wrestling partner against her, a shield that took the first brutal swings of their rifle stocks.

It wasn’t much, and they were going to make her pay for her resistance, but she was not going to surrender meekly. She was going to go down fighting.

“Drop the rifles!” a voice suddenly shouted.

The gunmen paused. Abood thrashed free, clawing out into the open.

“They’re trying to rape me!” she shouted.

“Nobody move!” the newcomer shouted. Abood’s eyes cleared and she spotted the man. He was tall, well built, wearing a dark, body-conforming outfit that showed off his rippling arms and chest where his torso peeked through a pouch-laden harness. He held an AK-47 in his hands, and his gaze was hard and stern.

Etter scooped up his rifle and triggered it, but holding the weapon one-handed, his initial burst missed. That was all the man in black needed to explode into action. A fiery lance of gunfire stabbed into the half-dressed rapist, heavy-caliber slugs punching through his head and neck. Explosions of gore and the rattle of automatic weapons spurred the remaining riflemen into action, and they went for their own guns. The tall man took three steps, seeming to weave ahead of the Turkish thugs as they tried to bear down on him. The mysterious avenger’s weapon ripped out another stream of slugs and decapitated one of the riflemen.

Abood didn’t know who he was, but this man was quick and skillful. Still, he was outnumbered, and she saw her Beretta lying in the gravel. She lunged for the pistol and almost got it when Makal’s weight slammed into her, a big hand clawing at her forearm. Abood turned and showed her own claws, fingers raking across the Turk’s left eye. Blood squirted over her fingers as she dug in, and the Jandarma commander’s fetid breath washed over her, accompanied by a wail of pain. Abood punched hard, tagging him in the nose. Cartilage collapsed under the impact, and Makal squirmed to one side, rolling into a roadside ditch.

Abood vaulted forward and grabbed her handgun.

“Get out of the way!” the man shouted as Abood swung toward the Turkish captain, but Abood triggered two shots. Makal twitched as a 9 mm hollowpoint round ripped through his arm. The fireplug-headed goon raced into the woods.

Abood whirled and the tall man lowered his rifle.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

Abood brushed her mouth. One corner was swollen and tender to the touch, but the blood flow had stopped. “It’ll be awhile before I play the saxophone again….”

The man regarded her. Though his skin was tanned a deep, rich brown by exposure to the sun, he was most decidedly not a Semitic man. Too tall, too classically Anglo. Abood couldn’t exactly place him by look, and thought if he wore sunglasses to conceal those cold, ice-blue eyes, he could have fit in anywhere from a Marrakech market to a Hong Kong casino.

“It was a joke,” Abood said, her words slurred slightly as right side of her mouth reacted numbly to her words.

“They didn’t do any permanent damage?” he said.

“No. I’ll be okay,” Abood answered. She looked down and saw blood spattered across her torn blouse. “Most of this blood isn’t mine.”

He extended a hand to her. “Name’s Brandon Stone,” Mack Bolan said, using a cover identity.

“Catherine Abood, Newsworld magazine,” she introduced herself. “Everyone calls me Cat.”

A hint of recognition showed in Bolan’s face. “You did an article on a white slavery ring operating in Lebanon last year,” Bolan said.

“Yup. Would I know of your work anywhere, Mr.—”

“Colonel,” Bolan corrected.

“Colonel Stone?” Abood asked.

Bolan shook his head. “Nothing I could confirm or deny.”

Abood nodded. “One of those kinds of guys.”

“Afraid so,” Bolan replied. “We’d better get out of here.”

Abood nodded, and she stepped over to the Jandarma soldier who lay stunned beside her Jeep. She picked up his rifle and grabbed a couple of magazines, stuffing them into the voluminous pockets of her vest. She stuffed her Beretta back into its holster after reloading it. “They took out my equipment.”

Bolan looked around. “What did you witness?”

“They skinned a teenaged boy and lit his hair on fire,” Abood answered softly. She was disgusted at how easily she could repeat the events. “They saw me and chased me down.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t just kill you,” Bolan stated as he headed toward one of the jeeps. “Who were they? Kongra-Gel?”

“Jandarma,” Abood answered.

Bolan stopped and frowned, his hard eyes suddenly troubled. His gaze refocused. “They’re official in this province?”

“Official enough that the government never prosecutes them for excessive force if there’s not enough evidence,” Abood said.

“Like photographs taken by a foreign journalist,” Bolan suggested.

“Right,” Abood replied. “After that, it would be my word against theirs…if I survived.”

“The government wouldn’t have believed your accusations without photographic evidence,” Bolan stated. “I know these types of groups.”

“Intimately?” Abood asked, slightly nervous.

“We’ve butted heads more than a couple times,” Bolan said.

“Yeah,” Abood agreed with a sigh. “You look like a tough customer, but you are definitely not one of these scumbags.”

Abood chewed over his words for a moment. “You’re from New England too. Lost most of the accent, but I can still hear it.”

“Massachusetts,” Bolan replied. “New Hampshire?”

Abood nodded. “Yup.”

“We’ll have old-home week on the way out of here,” Bolan told her. “Right now, I want to get you to safety.”

“I can handle myself,” Abood said, defiant.

“I’m sure you can,” the Executioner answered, no condescension in his tone. “But you were in over your head. Get in the jeep.”

“Who’ve you been butting heads with over here?” Abood asked, climbing into the shotgun seat.

“Sorry, I don’t have time for interviews,” Bolan stated as he started up the vehicle and tromped on the gas.

“It’s not an interview. I just want to know what’s gotten you spooked.”

Bolan sighed as he performed a hairpin turn. “Kongra-Gel.”

“The bombing in Van,” Abood said. “I was investigating that when I ran afoul of the storm troopers back there.”

Bolan looked in the side mirror.

Abood looked over her shoulder and saw what had caught the big man’s attention. “Shit.”

“Yeah. The one you winged just waved down some buddies,” Bolan said as he looked at the trucks in the distance. He gunned the engine, squeezing more speed out of the vehicle.

“No wonder you were in a hurry,” Abood said, settling down in her seat.

“Hang on tight. This is going to get a little bumpy,” Mack Bolan told the reporter as he swerved around a bend in the road.

3

Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute

“Sir, I believe we’re heading toward a major disaster. We have to let the media know,” Vigo Pepis said to Kan Bursa, the director of the observatory.

“Nothing is clear on the graph, though,” Bursa answered, concern coloring his features. “And none of the other seismologists have been able to confirm on their readings.”

“I know. The background tremors caused by the bombing and the collapse of the buildings in the area have masked any readings in the city,” Pepis explained. “But just take a look at what I’ve recorded. Outlying sensor reports seem weaker, meaning that the epicenter is going to be right beneath Van itself.”

“There’s nothing to reinforce that fact,” Bursa replied.

“That’s because of Lake Van,” Pepis explained. “Sensors can’t pick up anything because we couldn’t place the ground sensors in a conventional perimeter. With the closest western land more than one hundred miles away, we’re not going to get properly effective readings.”

“How about the data we’re receiving from NASA?” Bursa asked.

“The satellite placed in orbit over Turkey is currently being worked on by their shuttle,” Pepis stated. “It’ll be another eighteen hours before we have a current observation of thermal patterns. However, there was a lava buildup on the infrared scans of the area before the scope went down.”

Bursa chewed his lower lip. “I’ll put out a warning, but Van is already under martial law. The military, police and Jandarma are on the hunt for the bastards who attacked the relief workers.”

“Then we have an infrastructure already in place,” Pepis said. “That’s good.”

“They’re hunting for terrorists,” Bursa explained. “If something does hit, they’re going to be spread doubly thin.”

“You don’t think that the Kongras would strike in the aftermath of an earthquake, do you?” Pepis asked.

“They might not,” Bursa said. “Usually, when we’ve had big earthquakes in the past, we’ve been able to rely on a general ceasefire to keep everyone in line.”

“But they already hit the medical supply warehouse,” Pepis stated.

“And relief workers,” Bursa added. “I’ll talk to the minister of defense and the minister of the interior, but right now, the earth isn’t the only threat we have to deal with. I’m sorry, Vigo.”

Pepis took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He nodded in quiet acceptance.

“How bad do you think it will be?” Bursa asked.

“Huge,” Pepis answered softly. “At least a 7.0.”

“You think it’ll be worse.”

Pepis nodded, almost spasmodically.

“I don’t have to remind anyone in the ministry of the interior that a 7.2 earthquake killed thousands of people a few years back,” Bursa grumbled, watching his best seismologist’s reaction.

“I’m praying it’s not going to be that bad,” Pepis said. “But sometimes your prayers don’t get answered.”

Bursa looked at the map of Van. “Bombings, civil war…and now an earthquake. If that city ever needed heroes, it needs them now.”

THE EXECUTIONER’S BATTLE instincts were on alert. He saw the Jandarma jeeps racing to keep up with his vehicle, and even though they were loaded down with armed riflemen, they kept a decent pace with the much lighter jeep he was steering. Something else kept him on edge, though. Bolan didn’t believe in psychic phenomena, but he had enough experiences with subconsciously detected threat cues to realize that there were senses many people possessed that provided them with early warnings.

Bolan had survived years of war against Animal Man simply because he’d managed to make his subconscious observations a part of his conscious thought. A bulge here, scuffed dirt there, the whisper of a foot across blades of grass or even the whiff of drying blood on a blade were all noticed by his intuitive bubble of early warnings. It wasn’t a sixth sense per se, but his mind processing all the data brought before it by his other five senses.

Something was nagging at him, and even as he twisted the jeep around another bend, his mind sought what made him uneasy.

Bolan’s soft probe, only an hour ago, had been interrupted because the sentry who had raised the alarm had been on his way to see why the guard dogs in their kennels were on edge and barking. Bolan had slipped into the training camp and made an effort to avoid the dogs, staying upwind of them and keeping out of their finely honed sense of smell. When he moved, he moved with the crescendo of background noise and walking feet so as not to tip off the guard dogs’ acute hearing.

So what had set the animals off?

Bolan heard Abood gasp and he yanked on the hand brake, spinning the jeep into a 180-degree turn. Another group of vehicles was racing along the hillside, and Bolan recognized them. They were from the motor pool at the Kongra-Gel camp, and they were joining the merry chase. All this took a heartbeat. The soldier released his handbrake and the jeep raced toward the onrushing Jandarma hunters.

“Who’s that?” Abood asked quickly.

“Kongra-Gel,” Bolan answered abruptly. “They’re after me.”

Abood shook her head and gripped her confiscated AK-47. “You make friends everywhere you go?”

“Yeah. Some of them don’t even try to kill me,” Bolan said. He glanced at the side mirror and caught sight of the Kongra-Gel hunters pushing their vehicles off their road and racing down the scrub-clotted slope to get even with their quarry.

Rifle fire opened up, spraying between the two parties of hunters as they recognized each other. Bolan glanced back as the Kongra-Gel cadre tore past the turning Jandarma pursuit team, their AKs spraying the slowed vehicles. The Turkish security force drivers struggled to keep them in the chase and the crews of their jeeps opened fire on the Kongra-Gel terrorists.

Bolan swerved and plunged his own vehicle off the road, knobby tires slipping on crushed bushes and loose shale, but he steered into the direction of any drift. In a few seconds, Bolan swung his jeep onto a lower road, hooked a hard right and tore down the snaking path through the forest. Automatic fire chattered, but it was wide of the target. Trying to get accuracy out of a moving vehicle, hitting another moving vehicle, was beyond the marksmanship skills of most untrained gunners.

The cut down the side of the hill had bought the Executioner and Abood a ten-second lead, keeping them ahead of the mayhem, but the jeep felt sluggish. Bolan scanned both side mirrors and saw that the right rear tire was at an odd angle. The vehicular gymnastics and off-road racing had twisted the axle and bled some speed. The tough little jeep would keep rolling, but it kept Bolan from reaching top speed, and that would be enough to allow the heavier pursuit vehicles to catch up.

“I wrecked the suspension,” Bolan announced. “We’re not going to be able to outrace the Jandarmas or the Kongras.”

Abood twisted in her seat and looked back down the road. “I caught a glimpse of a front bumper.”

Bolan tromped the gas, but the accelerator wasn’t giving him more speed. “I’m going to have to slow them down.”

Abood looped the sling of her rifle around her shoulders and extended its folding stock. She pressed it tightly and got a good cheek weld. “Just keep driving.”

Bolan nodded and hit a straightaway on the road. As the enemy rounded the bend, Abood cut loose with her rifle. Brass rained in the Executioner’s hair and one hot casing landed between his skintight top and his battle harness. It was hot, searing his skin, but the fabric of his blacksuit would prevent any permanent damage. A swift glance in the side mirror told him that the lead jeep had turned violently to avoid the stream of automatic fire.

“Thanks for keeping the jeep steady,” Abood said. “I still didn’t take them out.”

“Slowed them down,” Bolan told her. “Good shooting.”

“My dad’s a gun writer,” Abood explained as she reloaded her rifle. “He even let me play with some of the law-enforcement-only toys he got to review.”

Bolan nodded. “Keep up the good work.”

The soldier swung around another curve and hit the brakes. Abood glanced back and Bolan grabbed his rifle. She saw the headlights of a large truck racing toward them on the road.

“Abandon ship,” he ordered. “Don’t know who they are, but they just cut us off.”

Bolan and Abood raced away from the jeep and into the trees. A couple of jeeps rounded the curve too quickly and rear-ended their abandoned vehicle, smashing it between their fenders. The truck slammed into the other end of the jeep and threw the other two aside.

Jandarma gunmen clambered out of the back of the transport truck, and Bolan cursed as he saw a contingent racing into the woods after them while the others rushed to deal with the Kongra-Gel pursuit team. The road erupted with automatic fire between the warring parties, the Jandarma thugs charged through the grove of trees.

“Keep running,” Bolan said to Abood.

Bolan stopped and dropped to one knee. He fired two bursts, catching the two frontmost pursuers in the chest, stitching them with heavy-caliber slugs. As the paramilitary Turks dropped to the ground, as if they’d struck an invisible wall, their partners scattered and took cover behind tree trunks.

Abood reached the cover of a tree and braced herself across an exposed root, one-and-a-half feet high. She pointed her rifle and ripped off a short blast of autofire at a goon behind cover. Bolan wasn’t certain if she made a hit, but that wasn’t his concern as he caught up with her. “Keep moving.”

Abood nodded and got up as the Executioner paused at the trunk, flicked the selector switch to semiauto and put the front sight on the head of an adventurous Jandarma rifleman who had broken cover. Bolan stroked the trigger and the AK-47 punched a bullet through the gunner’s upper chest. The Executioner noted how far off the sights were from the results of his shot, and took the break in the Jandarma pursuit to continue after Abood.

After two more minutes of running, Bolan and Abood cut southwest toward Van, passing a stream and disappearing into the forest on the other side of the water. After five minutes, Bolan stopped so that Abood could catch her breath. The pair rested behind a copse of bushes.

Bolan breathed slowly and evenly to recover his breath while Abood gulped down air.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Just not in as good shape as I’d like,” Abood answered. “Then again, I’m not usually running for my life with fifty pounds of rifle and ammunition.”

“Sorry about that,” Bolan replied.

The woman shrugged. “You’re the reason I’m still alive to bitch about it, Stone.”

The soldier smiled. “Glad you could keep it all in perspective.”

“It’s a talent,” Abood answered. “So what’s the plan?”

Bolan pulled a laminated map from a pocket of his blacksuit. “Judging by how far we’ve come and the direction we’ve taken, Van should be a forty-five-minute walk.” He pointed. “That way.”

“You’re going to need clothes,” Abood mentioned. “Unless you don’t mind sticking out like a NATO Dense Pack.”

“I’ve got a stash in a roadside ditch, about a forty-minute walk from here,” Bolan said.

“Always prepared?” Abood asked.

Bolan nodded. “A friend of mine once referred to me as the original hard-core Boy Scout.”

Abood sighed and rolled her eyes. “Just goes to show. I joined the Girl Scouts, but they would never give me a merit badge for marksmanship.”

Bolan chuckled. “It’s a bit late for that now. Come on, before the Jandarma expands its search for us.”

“And what about the Kongra-Gel?” Abood asked. “I take it you have unfinished business here.”

“Very observant,” Bolan replied. “Once I drop you off somewhere safe, I’ll get back to what I was doing. Don’t worry about me.”

“Don’t worry about me, either. This is about the missing drugs, right?” Abood asked. “Listen. I know people. My dad associated with a lot of folks, SEALs, federal cops, all kinds of folks who go into dark places. I don’t know what organization you’re with, but I do have a feeling that you’re more than just some spook busting Turkish Commies.”

Bolan remained silent.

“First, you broke cover and started a fight with the Jandarma to protect me, someone you don’t know. Second, you expressed some concern when it looked like you could have killed official people, but once you remembered what the Jandarma was, you didn’t let it bother you. Third, your plans include making sure I’m safe and secure before you continue your mission,” Abood said. “You’re not some macho man. You actually care about what you’re doing, and there’s a lot of lines you’re not willing to cross to get it done.”

Bolan shrugged. “Or I just could be a sucker for a pretty face.”

Abood smiled. “I’ve been on the same case. If you promise to bring me along to cover the story…”

“There’s no story,” Bolan explained. “Not with me.”

“Then I’m not going to tell you what I know,” Abood said defiantly.

“I can live with that,” Bolan answered, and he started walking.

Abood jogged to catch up with him. “You can live with that?”

“I have my own ways to get information,” Bolan explained.

“Even if the drugs are going to be shipped out to Erzurum tonight?” Abood asked.

Bolan paused. “I know I’m up against a deadline. I also know I’m not going to risk you underfoot, no matter how good a shot you are.”

Abood grumbled. “And if those drugs end up on the black market, or destroyed, how many thousands are going to suffer?”