Firestorm

Hal Brognola sat across the table from him, a laptop positioned before him. The director of the Justice Department’s Sensitive Operations Group snatched the unlit cigar from his mouth. His forehead creased with concern, he rolled the cigar between his index finger and thumb, studied it while Bolan waited for him to speak. The Executioner set his coffee on the table.

“You look old,” Bolan said finally.

Brognola snapped his head up as though he’d suddenly sat on a thumbtack. He glared at Bolan. After a couple of seconds, his dark expression melted and a grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “It’s the company I keep,” he said.

“Speaking of which, it’s five a.m. It’s Sunday. You’re wearing Saturday’s suit and tie. Hell, it may be Friday’s clothes for all I know. You need a shave. And probably a shower, though I’m not going to get close enough to find out.”

“In other words, why’d I drag your ass of bed at this hour?”

“Something like that.”

“Fair enough,” Brognola said.

A folder rested on the table at the big Fed’s right elbow. He pinned it beneath one of his big hands and thrust it at Bolan. The soldier opened it and began to examine its contents. A picture of a woman was held to the left side of the folder by a paper clip. Blond hair framed an oval-shaped face. Her complexion was dusky, her eyes dark, lips full. “She is?”

“Maria Serrano,” Brognola replied. “CIA agent. She holds double majors in forensic accounting and international business. And, from what I understand, she’s one hell of an undercover operative.”

Bolan nodded and leafed through the papers in the folder, skimming them. It contained a few government memos—from the CIA, National Security Agency and the State Department—as well as documents he recognized as presidential daily briefings and classified executive orders signed by the President detailing the kidnapping and murder of several CIA operatives.

Brognola continued, “Six months ago, the NSA picked up some noise from an American company’s operation in Bogotá, Colombia. The various bits of chatter indicated someone in Garrison Industries executive suites was breaking arms embargoes with Iran and China, along with some nonstate groups. Specifically, the company was shipping high-resolution camera components we use in our satellite program. They kept listening but took no immediate action. And, the more they heard, the more concerned they became. Two months ago, they discovered that the company was acting as an intermediary between a Chinese group that produces cylinders and other parts used in centrifuges and a group in Iran.”

“For the country’s nuclear program,” Bolan said. He closed the folder and set it on the tabletop. He’d have plenty of time to look at it later.

“Right,” Brognola said. “As far as the satellite components go, the Iranians say they want satellites to track weather and such. Needless to say, we don’t believe them. And we don’t like the notion of them having aerial-surveillance capabilities. The consensus is that the longer we can keep them blind from space, the better off we are.”

“Sure,” Bolan said.

While he took a sip of coffee, the door leading into the conference room swung open. Bolan cast a glance in that direction and saw Barbara Price enter. Stony Man’s mission controller held several file folders in one arm and a closed laptop in the other.

She flashed Bolan a warm smile, which he returned. The two often spent time together when Bolan was at the Farm. He’d left her room only minutes before the meeting, after he’d received Brognola’s page, to get cleaned up and change clothes.

She leaned against the door, holding it open for Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, the head of the counterterrorism facility’s cyberteam. The computer expert guided his wheelchair into the room and exchanged greetings with the other two men.

On the arm of his wheelchair, he balanced a carafe that Bolan assumed contained coffee. Kurtzman buzzed up to the table, set the carafe on the tabletop and pushed it toward Bolan.

“Top off your cup,” Kurtzman said, nodding at Bolan’s coffee.

For several seconds, the soldier stared at the carafe. Finally he unscrewed the cap and poured some of the steaming liquid into his cup. The coffee’s color looked like dirty motor oil mixed with black shoe polish.

Price moved around the room, distributing folders to everyone. When she finished, Brognola, anxious to continue the briefing, waved her to her seat. In the meantime, the big Fed poured himself some coffee.

“Initially, the NSA wasn’t sure what to make of the deals. Garrison’s people had a history of being approached by unsavory people. Occasionally, it cut deals, but did so at our behest, as a way for us to gather intelligence on various countries and terrorist groups. But it never passed along any cutting-edge technology or items related to nuclear proliferation.”

“Back up,” Bolan said. “These guys have sold weapons to our enemies before? And did so with government consent?”

Brognola nodded.

“Most Garrison employees have no idea that this goes on. But, yes, they do exactly that. They have a few agents who essentially work as hard as they can to hook up with the bad guys. Word gets around, usually through some cutouts. Pretty soon, the bad guys come to them. They fork over bribes, ask for stuff they’re banned from having. The Garrison people nod their heads, and go along with the gag.”

“And feed whatever information they collect back into the intelligence network,” Bolan said.

Brognola nodded. “The Garrison agents almost never hand over anything of consequence, at least not on a global scale. The thinking has been that it’s better to hand these jerks a couple of RPGs and know they have them than allow them to buy weapons from some freelancer in South Africa, Libya or Iraq. And, historically, the Company—I mean the CIA, not Garrison—always kept close tabs on the weapons. That’s why these particular transactions set off alarm bells. But we’ll cover that in a minute.”

“What’s the breakdown on what they sell?” Bolan asked.

“They have a network of soldiers, intelligence people and support personnel they contract out, mostly to our government. We’ve used their people for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia. The majority are top-knotch soldiers, not rogues. They do on-the-ground fighting, security and training so that we don’t tie up too many people in overseas operations.”

“What about their weapons design and development operations?” Bolan asked. “I assume most of their R&D work also is for the United States.”

Price leaned forward on the table. “Mostly,” she said. “About seventy-five percent of it is for us and another twenty-four-and-a-half percent is performed for our allies.”

The Executioner set his coffee on the table. “Which leaves a half percent unaccounted for. Give me that list.”

Brognola sighed. “It’s the countries that keep us up at night—North Korea, Iran, Syria. And some bad elements in allied countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have also been known to tap Garrison for equipment.”

Price continued, “The intelligence community tried to build in safeguards to minimize any blowback against us or our allies. Sometimes the buyers ended up dead from natural causes.” She gestured quotation marks with her fingers to highlight the last two words. “Or thieves stole the weapons. But the thieves actually were on the CIA’s payroll. Or we sent in proxies to buy back the weapons. It wasn’t a perfect system. It’s not unreasonable to assume that some weapons fell into the wrong hands, that someone, somewhere slaughtered innocents with those weapons. But the operation did generate good intelligence for us. I guess the National Security adviser considered any mistakes a fair trade in exchange for the benefits.”

“A fair trade, maybe,” Bolan said, “but not an equal one.”

“Intelligence gathering isn’t always neat and clean, Mack,” Price stated. “I know that from my own experiences with the NSA. It’s as much an art as it is a science. Perhaps more art than science. It’s as imperfect as hell. You know that.”

Bolan acknowledged her words with a nod.

“And Garrison’s been doing this for how long?” Bolan asked.

“About twenty years,” Brognola said.

“And we’ve known about it how long?”

“About twenty years,” the big Fed stated.

Bolan searched his old friend’s face and waited for the punch line.

“I’ll bite,” Bolan replied. “So it’s twenty years later and suddenly we learn that someone within the organization has gone rogue, and we have an emergency. Are we just concerned about the satellite parts and the tubes?”

Brognola shook his head. “It seems that some of these creeps have begun moving up the Garrison food chain. They’re getting their items more quickly. They get to meet with select members of the senior management team. We’re worried that the Iranian and Chinese transactions are only the tip of the iceberg. So was the CIA, which is why they sent a team of agents down there to investigate.

“And it gets even more complex. Garrison doesn’t just play these cloak-and-dagger games out of a sense of patriotism. They’re sort of enmeshed in the intelligence community.”

“Enmeshed with or part of the intelligence community?” Bolan asked.

“Give the boy a cigar,” Kurtzman said.

“The whole damn operation was planned and sanctioned by the National Security Council,” Brognola said. “Using money from a slush fund, the council bought a small research-and-development firm a couple of decades ago and grew it into what it is today. Unfortunately, it seems to be taking on a life of its own, which has everyone from the White House on down worried.”

The big Fed set down his cigar long enough to take a swig of coffee. His face puckered in distaste, and he shot Kurtzman a dirty look. The computer genius just shrugged and studied at the contents of his coffee mug.

Brognola continued, “Most of Garrison’s money comes from black budgets. Or it uses its proceeds to pay for operations. Traditionally, most of what it made, it sold back to us or other allied governments. So the few politicians who knew about it, ignored it. The thinking behind it is that it allows us to have more control over the weapons we make and buy and it’s a source that, at least ostensibly, has our best interests at heart.”

“Plus it helps folks sidestep congressional scrutiny when budget time comes,” Bolan said.

Brognola gave the soldier a weary smile. “We’ve both seen too much of Washington, haven’t we? Fortunately, most of what they sell to the bad guys is crap. And they sell them precious little of that.”

He lifted his coffee cup about three-quarters of the way toward his mouth, paused and set it back on the table. Instead, he pulled out a roll of antacid pills and popped a couple into his mouth.

“This wasn’t part of a sting operation,” the man from Justice stated. “We already ran all the necessary traps to make sure that that wasn’t the case. No one knew anything about these particular deals.”

“And you believe that?” Bolan asked.

Brognola shrugged. “My gut says they’re telling the truth. What we’re looking at here, in my opinion, is an operation that’s gone out of control. We can debate all day whether it was a good idea to begin with. But the reality is that it’s out of control and we need to pull the plug on the whole damn thing, fast.”

“Explain,” Bolan said.

Brognola tapped a key on his laptop. An image appeared on a wall screen. The image depicted a limousine, the door held open and a young Asian man in a dark business suit stepping from the vehicle. A pair of hardmen flanked him. Bolan could tell from the angle of the photo that it had been shot from above.

Brognola let the soldier study the image for several seconds. With another keystroke, a close-up shot of the man in the middle filled the screen. A whitish scar ran from below the man’s shirt collar and up the left side of his neck, disappearing beneath his hairline. His black hair was long and pulled back into a tight ponytail.

“Name’s Chiun,” Brognola said. “He’s triad. He’s a boss in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. There are several Chinese gangs operating down there, but his group is the biggest. Runs all the usual stuff—prostitutes, protection, counterfeiting, drugs. Launders money for Hezbollah. Does the same thing in Hong Kong and Malaysia.”

Bolan sipped his coffee. Ignoring the awful taste in his mouth, he studied the photo and committed it to memory.

“He’s a real piece of work,” Brognola said, “but he’s smart and ambitious. He started out as an enforcer for the gang, now he runs it. Spilled lots of blood along the way to get to where he is. Other gangsters, illegal immigrants, police officers—doesn’t matter to him. Everyone’s just a speed bump while he races to the top. When he was an enforcer, that wild streak served him well. Sure, it pissed off a hell of a lot of people back in China, but it also got him where he wanted to go. At least for the moment.”

“How does he fit in with all of this?” Bolan asked.

Price took over, “He’s in tight with Chinese intelligence. Rumor has it that his ties with the government helped him get where he is. Three days before he took over his gang, the government stepped in and snapped up most of the leaders.”

“Giving him a clear path,” Bolan said.

“Exactly,” Price stated. “And he seems all-too willing to repay them for the help. A couple of our intelligence reports indicate that he and his people pull off work for the Chinese all the time. We know of several dissidents killed by his thugs. The victims had no ties to him, but had made enemies in the government.” She snapped her fingers. “Suddenly they end up shot on a street corner or stabbed in alley by one of his people. Chiun’s gang also has smuggled weapons for the Chinese and carried out some small-scale industrial espionage on their behalf, primarily through his own network.

Brognola flashed another picture on the screen. This one showed another Asian man, his gray hair combed back from his forehead. He had a wide face with thick lips turned down in a deep scowl. Bolan saw that the decorated collar of a military tunic encircled the man’s thick neck.

“Colonel Chi Pu Deng,” Price said. “He came up through the People’s Liberation Army, but has focused exclusively on espionage for at least fifteen years. According to some very good sources—one of them a friend of Hal’s who operates in Hong Kong—Deng and his surrogates have maintained regular contact with Chiun and his gang for years. There’s more information on him in the packet I gave you.” Price indicated a folder that sat on the table in front of Bolan. “But the consensus of people paid to know these things is that Deng is the middleman. He pays Chiun for weapons and information and takes those things back to his government.”

“What else do we know about him?” Bolan asked. “If he’s working that close to a gang, he must be skimming money off the top. Or getting some other benefit.”

Price shook her head.

“Surprisingly enough,” she said, “he’s clean, at least from China’s perspective. Consensus is that he’s a patriot and incorruptible. That’s earned him more than a few enemies within his own government, as you can imagine.”

“Sure,” Bolan said.

“To take it a step further,” Brognola chimed in, “we think that’s one of the reasons he sticks so close to Chiun. There are more than a few guys on the take who’d just as soon see this Boy Scout taken out of the mix. But no one has the guts to do it, because they know he’s Chiun’s meal ticket. Or one of them, at least. And he’d be damned mad if someone took the colonel out.”

“Are they that close?” Bolan asked.

“Their only bond is money,” Price replied. “Apparently Chiun thinks Deng is a sentimental idiot. Deng thinks Chiun’s greedy and unpatriotic. But neither of them wants to pull the brakes on the gravy train. That’s why they tolerate each other. It’s an uneasy alliance, to put it mildly.”

“And up here is Albert Bly,” Brognola announced.

Bolan turned and saw a photo of a Caucasian man clad in a tuxedo. He was shaking hands with another similarly clad man whom Bolan recognized as a U.S. congressman. Bly balanced a champagne glass in his other hand as the two mugged for the camera.

“This is from the New York Times society page,” Brognola said. “Up until about two years ago, Bly was a very public face for Garrison. He was all over the news shows. Had audiences with congressmen from both parties. Then the company hit some rocky financial times. The board of directors named him chairman, kicked him upstairs and he disappeared from the public eye, seemingly overnight. We think there’s more to it. We’re still digging around to see what we can find out, but there are a couple of theories.”

“Like?”

“His corporate jet has filed a lot of flight plans to the Dominican Republic and Thailand, if that tells you anything,” Kurtzman said.

“It tells me plenty,” Bolan said. The soldier knew that both countries had booming sex tourism trades, an industry he’d confronted more than once. “Seems a guy in his position was courting disaster by going to those places.”

“No doubt,” Brognola said. “And, if either Chiun or Deng know this, it’d be an effective lever to force him to cooperate.”

“If they had to push him that hard,” Bolan replied. “Money alone can be a hell of a motivator.”

“It could be any combination of things,” Brognola agreed.

“So what’s the request?” Bolan asked.

“We need someone to find Serrano,” Brognola said. “We have to know what she learned, what her team learned. It had to be big for Bly to risk snatching and killing those agents.”

“ If he was the one who took those agents,” Bolan said. “Do we know that yet?”

“There’s a chance that someone else did it, but I’d be surprised. This was a very coordinated snatch-and-grab operation. It’s not something Chiun would’ve pulled,” Price stated.

“Why is this our gig?” Bolan asked. “I mean why won’t the CIA go in and pull her out?”

“Two reasons,” Brognola said. “First, all these operatives are nonofficial cover. That means that our government can’t officially acknowledge any relationship between them and the agents. We aren’t worried so much about the kidnappers themselves, since they’re probably nonstate actors. But, what we can do is send in a Justice Department agent to look for an American kidnapped in another country. And there’s another reason, which more specifically has to do with you.”

“And that would be?”

“The President doesn’t like how this went down, and neither do I. Bly has a lot of contacts in the intelligence world. Not just in the United States, but intelligence agencies in Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan. Name it. He knows people. We want to handle it because we operate outside normal channels. You’ll have a handful of vetted contacts when you hit the ground, but all the interfacing with other government agencies will happen through us.”

“Did you just say ‘interface’?” Bolan asked.

“Will you take the job?” Brognola asked, ignoring the gibe.

“Of course,” the Executioner said.

“Grab your gear then,” Brognola said. “Jack’s already warming up the plane.”

2

What the hell was happening? Were they going to kill her? What did they know? The thoughts raced through Maria Serrano’s mind as she regained consciousness and found herself seated in a wooden chair, hands bound behind her back.

Think, she told herself. Don’t panic. Use your brains. Use your training, not your emotions. She took a deep breath and looked around the room. She was positioned in the center of the cramped cell. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling and beamed down meager white light that the dark brick walls seemed to absorb. She still wore the blouse and pants she’d had on when she had been captured. Her shoes, belt and watch were gone. She had no way of knowing how long she’d been unconscious.

Her mind still was fuzzy from whatever drug they’d used on her. But she could vaguely recall being brought here by a pair of hulking men, one of whom spoke in heavily accented English.

On the other side of the door a bolt slammed back, then the door swung inward without a sound. A tall man filled the doorway and stared down at her.

Even with his face partially obscured by shadow, she recognized Albert Bly in an instant. He walked slowly to her, reaching into his pocket. Her muscles tensed involuntarily until his hand came back into view holding a white card laminated in plastic. He studied it for several seconds.

“Gina Lopez,” he said.

“Yes. That’s right,” Serrano said.

“What brings you to Bogotá, Gina?”

“Business,” she said.

“Business? Of what sort?”

“I’m not at liberty—”

“Of what sort, Gina?” The volume of his voice didn’t change, but she detected a hint of menace, cold, quiet, unspoken. A seething rage that was, at once invisible but seemed to fill the whole room.

“What business?” he repeated.

“I’m an auditor.”

He waited for more.

“I work for the government. The U.S. government.”

“Of course you do.”

Her mouth went dry, her throat tightened. Something in his tone left her feeling suddenly exposed, as though he knew everything about her, about her classified status. She swallowed hard.

“I work for the Government Accountability Office,” she said. “We investigate things for Congress. I’m not a criminal investigator. This was a fact-finding mission.”

“And what facts did you find?” Bly asked.

“Who are you?” she asked, feigning confusion.

“I think you know,” he said.

“Why are you holding me here?”

He didn’t respond.

She knew that playing the indignant bureaucrat wouldn’t move Bly, but it fit in with her cover.

“I mean it,” she said. “I’m an employee of the U.S. government. If this is some half-assed kidnapping plot, you might as well let me go. You won’t get a dime from me. We—”

Bly’s hand snaked out in a blur. His flattened palm struck her right cheek. The force jerked her head hard to the left. Flecks of spittle flew from between her parted lips. A moment later hot needles of pain jabbed her skin where she’d been struck.

Her muscles tensed and she strained at her bonds. Maria Serrano, a Central Intelligence Agency agent, didn’t put up with that shit. The rare man stupid enough to strike out at her found himself on his knees, sucking for air. Or begging for his life.

Gina Lopez, on the other hand—

She forced a tear from her right eye, trying to put together the right combination of fear and confusion, minus the righteous rage that smoldered inside her. “Why’d you do that?” she asked, her voice small.

“I’m a reasonable man. I’m not stupid,” Bly said.

She ground her teeth and nodded vigorously. A gesture of appeasement, not understanding. The coppery taste of blood seeped between her teeth and onto her tongue. As the physical shock of the blow wore off, she realized she’d bitten the edge of her tongue. He’d drawn blood. Bad mistake!

Bly’s face remained inscrutable. Pale blue eyes remained riveted on her. If smacking a woman made him feel bad or got him off, she realized, he gave no outward sign.

“Please continue,” he said.

“We’re here to investigate Garrison Industries,” she continued. “It’s part of a larger study.”

Bly leaned forward. His hand reached toward her face, this time slowly, deliberately as though to brush a stray lock of hair from her vision. Reflexively, she began to jerk back. Before she completed the move, his palm hammered against the damaged cheek. She yelped in pain and surprise.

She spit a gob of blood and saliva to the floor. She turned to face him, staring at him through the veil formed by her mussed hair. She found his face emotionless, unreadable, like the rattlesnakes she’d seen as a child growing up in New Mexico.

“Will you—will you please stop hitting me?” she asked.

“Ms. Serrano,” he said, “we both know you’re with the CIA. Let’s please cut the shit. In case you haven’t figured this out yet, I have no compunctions against inflicting pain if things don’t go my way. It doesn’t have to be like this. But it certainly will, if you don’t cooperate.”