Fireburst

RAINING HELLFIRE

A deadly series of lightning strikes confounds experts and pits Mack Bolan against a new kind of terror that comes out of the sky. The death toll spreads as a plane loaded with innocent victims is blown apart, an office building ignites, killing hundreds, and refinery and munitions factories burst into fireballs. Whoever’s responsible leaves no fingerprint. And the strikes continue—unpredictable, undetectable and unstoppable.

Posing as the front man of a rival terrorist organization claiming responsibility for the attacks, Bolan lures the enemy—Iraq’s Republican Guard—out of the shadows. And by coaxing them to put this latest lethal incendiary weapon on the black-market auction block, traitorous old friends and reformed enemies converge…right into the center of Bolan’s crosshairs.

The wall of compressed air painfully crushed his chest

For an unknown length of time, Bolan’s universe was filled with deafening chaos, every hair on his body standing stiff, the fillings in his teeth growing uncomfortably hot.

That was when he realized that the magnetic field of lightning had to be creating eddying currents in anything made of metal.

Quickly Bolan tossed away his guns, throat mike, transceiver, spare ammo and knives. Yanking a grenade out of a pocket, he could feel how warm it was and whipped it as far away as possible. Then he tossed the remaining ones.

But the last grenade’s detonation pounded the Executioner hard, ripping apart his clothing and peppering him with hot shrapnel....

Fireburst

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

When I say that terrorism is war against civilization, I may be met by the objection that terrorists are often idealists pursuing worthy ultimate aims—national or regional independence, and so forth. I do not accept this argument. I cannot agree that a terrorist can ever be an idealist, or that the objects sought can ever justify terrorism. The impact of terrorism, not merely on individual nations, but on humanity as a whole, is intrinsically evil, necessarily evil and wholly evil.

—Benjamin Netanyahu

International Terrorism

Terrorists have no morals or ideals, no sense of what’s right or what’s wrong. Any end justifies the means. One thing has always been crystal clear—someone has to stop them. That’s where I come in.

—Mack Bolan

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Nick Pollotta for his contribution to this work.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

PROLOGUE

New York City, New York

Following a rumble of thunder, lightning flashed across the night sky, illuminating the roiling storm clouds from within like misshapen Japanese lanterns.

“God, I hate the rain,” a passenger on the jetliner growled under his breath, sliding shut the plastic cover to block his view out the window.

“Oh, sir, our aircraft is one of the safest planes in existence!” a pretty flight attendant said with a comforting smile. “We get hit by lightning two or three times every trip, and it doesn’t even damage the paint! I can assure you that there is nothing to fear.”

Completely unconcerned, the slim woman walked away to check on the other passengers.

Twenty miles ahead of the jetliner was John F. Kennedy International Airport, a glowing oasis of incandescent and halogen lights, mixing together into a whitish haze that dominated the night in open defiance of the rumbling storm.

“How’s the traffic?” the pilot asked the navigator, keeping one hand on the yoke while reaching out to tap the glass front of a fuel gauge. The needle quivered, but didn’t change position.

The curved banks of controls surrounded the three members of the cockpit crew in a rainbow of technology, while outside lightning flashed again, much closer, and then farther away.

“We’re in the pipe,” the navigator replied, infinitely adjusting the delicate controls on her radar screen. “There’s nothing in the sky closer than a klick.”

No other airplanes were visible because of the tumultuous summer storm, but the radar showed that the sky was full of flying metal, with an even dozen commercial jetliners steadily circling the busy airport, impatiently waiting for permission to land.

“This must be a slow day for Kennedy,” the copilot said, keeping both hands on the yoke.

She shrugged. “Pretty much so, yeah.”

“Bad for them, good for us,” the pilot said, unclipping a hand mike and thumbing the transmit button. “Hello, Kennedy? This is flight one-nine-four out of Oslo. Do you copy? Over.”

“This is Kennedy Tower, one-nine-four. We hear you five-by-five.” The ceiling speaker crackled. “You’re behind schedule. Should have been here an hour ago. Over.”

“We hit a headwind over the Atlantic,” the pilot replied. “Kennedy, could I please have an ETA?”

“Fifteen minutes until you can have a runway, one-nine-four. Stay on your heading and maintain—”

Suddenly, a blinding light filled the windows, and every instrument on the control boards flickered wildly.

“Say again, Kennedy. We got tickled,” the pilot said with a laugh, as the instrument readings returned to normal once more.

“Any damage?” the navigator asked, glancing up from her screen.

“Nope,” the copilot said, brushing back his thinning hair. “Just a—”

The terrible light filled the windows again, and the controls dimmed. But before they could reboot, another lightning bolt hit the aircraft, then another, and yet another, the force of the last one cracking a side window.

“What the fuck just happened?” the copilot demanded, looking around the flight deck. Nothing seemed to be damaged, but the overhead lights were dim, one of them flickering, and most of the control boards were dark and inert.

“Radar is down!” the navigator announced grimly. “The radio is dead, and ILM is off-line!”

“Maybe we blew a fuse,” the pilot said, flipping switches with both hands. “Oh, Christ, we blew every fuse!”

“What about the backup circuits?”

“Dead! Everything is dead!”

Just then, the entire airplane shook as another bolt of lightning struck.

“Left engine is gone,” the copilot announced in a strained voice. “Not dead. Gone. There’s just a hole in the wing!”

“That’s impossible!” the navigator stated furiously, twisting dials and pressing buttons. “This plane is designed to withstand any conceivable storm!”

The reply of the copilot was lost in the noise of a lightning bolt hitting them again. A spray of sparks erupted from a wall unit, and smoke trickled out from under the floor.

“Kennedy, this is one-nine-four!” the pilot said into the hand mike, but there was only silence from the overhead speaker. Tossing away the mike, he wrapped both arms around the yoke and braced his legs. “Fuck it, we’re going straight in! Kennedy will just have to figure out what happened on their own!”

The copilot tightened his seat belt. “Okay, I’ll tell the—”

This time the flash of the lightning came with the scream of ripping metal as a section of the roof broke off and sailed away in the storm. Instantly, the flight crew was hammered by a howling wind, and every loose item swirled around the compartment before vanishing into the rain.

With a wordless scream, the navigator was torn from her chair, the seat belt dangling loose. Flailing both arms, she was slammed against the ragged edge of the hole before tumbling away.

A split second later, lightning crashed in through the breech, killing both pilots, and drastically widening the hole. Lurching out of control, the aircraft flipped over sideways, the startled passengers screaming in terror. Then the lightning hit the plane several more times in rapid succession, and all of the fuel tanks simultaneously detonated.

The roiling fireball was briefly visible for several miles along the coastline of both New York and New Jersey before fading away.

Minutes passed in rainy silence. Then irregular chunks of burned metal and smoking corpses started to fall across the airport. An engine slammed into the main terminal, punching completely through to crash inside the concourse, killing people standing in line to check their bags. Next, bodies started to plummet from the sky, splattering across the tarmac, shattering windows and smashing into cars in the long-term parking lot.

As a strident siren began to howl from on top of the control tower, a dozen other planes were trying to veer away from the wreckage dropping onto the runways. Not all of them were successful, several crashing into one another in a seemingly endless chain reaction of fire, death and destruction… .

CHAPTER ONE

Colombia

Entering his tent, Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, sat on a canvas cot, eased off his body armor and grabbed a medical kit. His latest strike against Colombia’s leading cartel had resulted in minor injuries. None of his cuts were very bad, but things went septic very fast in the jungle, so even a tiny cut could soon become life threatening. When he was done, Bolan loaded a hypodermic syringe and injected himself with a double dose of strong antibiotics. Better safe than sorry. He had a long journey back to the airplane after he packed up his gear.

The soldier was just starting to make coffee when he heard a soft chime from inside his bedroll. Pulling out a laptop, he flipped up the lid, activated the decoder and established contact with a military satellite in orbit.

“Striker here,” he said.

“Anchor,” came the reply.

Tapping a button to activate the webcam, Bolan saw the screen clear into a view of a middle-aged man hunched over a desk covered with papers.

“Hi, Hal. Something wrong, or were you worried about me?”

“Not sure yet,” Hal Brognola said, running a hand through his hair.

The big Fed was one of the top cops of the nation, a fixture at the Justice Department, and the head of the clandestine Sensitive Operations Group. Almost everything he did was covert, such as his alliance with Bolan, and he reported directly to the President.

“Okay, shoot,” Bolan said, folding his bandaged hands.

Brognola frowned. “What do you know about lightning?”

“I know enough to get out of the rain when there’s thunder.”

“Then hold on to your ass, buddy. Within the past twenty-fours hours a commercial jetliner, a high-speed monorail train and fifteen individual people have been killed by lightning strikes.”

“I’ll assume the number is unusual?” Bolan asked.

“No, lots of people, places and things get zapped by lightning bolts every day. But ever since Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod, the death toll has been kept at a minimum,” Brognola said, reaching past the monitor to get a manila folder. “However, according to the black box from the aircraft, the plane was hit fifty-seven times by lightning in a five-minute period.”

Suddenly alert, Bolan sat up straight. “That’s not possible, Hal.”

“Bet your ass it’s not,” Brognola growled, opening the folder, to spread out some papers. “Yet it did happen. That’s been confirmed. What’s even worse, those fifteen people killed by lightning were all experts in advance electronics, specializing in—”

“Lightning?”

“Close. Tesla coils.”

“Same thing.”

“Near enough,” Brognola admitted.

“All right, going with the idea that these weren’t simply outrageous coincidences, what are we talking about, artificial lightning bolts from some sort of machine hidden inside the storm clouds?”

“Could be. Unless somebody has discovered a way to invoke a lightning strike, and then we’re all in for a shitstorm of trouble.”

“You got that right,” Bolan replied, rubbing his unshaved chin. “What does a lightning bolt generate, a billion volts or so?”

“Right.”

“Any of the people hit happen to survive?” Bolan asked.

“No way in hell. After the second strike, they were greasy smoke. The third lightning bolt made holes in the ground over a yard deep. Add the rain, and it’ll take weeks to identify most of the remains. The FBI forensic lab was able to scrape some residue off nearby lampposts and store windows to try to run a match on the DNA, but no joy yet.”

“Which means there must have been some eyewitnesses.”

“Check. We managed to identify a few of the people killed. One was Professor Albert Goldman, the foremost expert in lightning storms in the world, another was Dr. David Thomas, an electrical engineer who had designed a radical new antilightning safeguard that would, he hoped, harness the power to channel into the power grid of a major city, and another was Dr. Kathleen Summer. She is…sorry, she was the woman who invented the Tesla antitank trap for the Pentagon ten years ago.”

With each name, a picture scrolled across the bottom of the screen, along with a shot of the person’s charred remains. Bolan snorted. Charred? They were damn near vaporized.

“Hal, how many people get killed by lightning in the U.S. in an average year?”

“About ninety.”

“So fifteen are burned in a single day?” Bolan shook his head. “Good call, Hal. Clearly, somebody has found a way to control lightning strikes, and they’ve already removed most of the leading scientists in the field to forestall any attempts to analyze their equipment.”

“Unfortunately, that was my guess, too.” Brognola sighed, the picture distorted for a moment with a burst of static. “We won’t know what these people want until they attack again.”

“Were any of these scientists connected to one another? Went to the same school, had the same bookie, were they all heading toward a summit conference on weather—anything like that?”

“Nope, I checked, and then double-checked everything,” Brognola stated, pushing the folder aside. “They had absolutely nothing in common aside from their field of expertise. Maybe when we identify the rest of the victims, some sort of pattern will emerge. But until then—”

“We’re in the dark until these people start making demands,” Bolan added. “And by then it may be too late to track them down.”

“Agreed. All we can do is stay sharp, and be ready to move the instant something is learned.”

“Okay, if I’m going to be chasing clouds, then I’ll need some help on this,” Bolan said. “Any chance of getting Able Team or Phoenix Force?” The two teams were the other field operatives of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, Virginia.

“Sorry, they’re both out of contact at the moment.”

“Okay,” Bolan stated. “If the Stony Man teams are unavailable, I have some people I can call in.”

“Expect trouble?”

“Just prepared for it. You know me.”

Brognola chuckled. “Yeah, I do. All right, stay in touch, and watch your ass.”

Turning off the laptop, Bolan grabbed his gear and loaded it into the speedboat. He started the outboard motor and headed out. He had a long way to travel, and speed was of the essence.

In the distance, thunder softly rumbled.

He only hoped it wasn’t already too late.

CHAPTER TWO

Bern, Switzerland

A thick blanket of glistening snow covered the jagged mountains surrounding the valley, puffy white clouds drifting lazily along the granite tors and snowcapped peaks.

Joyful singing could be heard coming from both the church and the synagogue. A frozen lake reflected the majestic Alps, the image slightly distorted by the laughing people skating arm in arm. Numerous people in snowmobiles scooted along the gentle hills, and a deadly serious snowball fight was raging out of control at the elementary school.

The town of Bern was a combination of the old and the very old. A stone tower attached to city hall boasted a gigantic clock with human-size figures that came out and performed a robotic dance every hour on the hour. There was an artesian well in the town square where people still drew water, even though they had modern plumbing, and there was the jingle of bells as teams of horses pulled colorful sleighs along the snowy streets.

Every wooden building was decorated with ornate carvings, every brick structure painted with highly stylized hex symbols of good luck and prosperity. The satellite dishes were concealed in the nearby woods, the cables laid under the ground so that they wouldn’t mar the appearance of a classic Swiss village, and the fully functional Second World War antiaircraft cannons were well-hidden inside concrete bunkers designed to resemble stone cottages. As with just about everything else in the mountainous country, nothing was precisely what it seemed to be at first glance.

Just down the block from the town square was a crowd of people in heavy parkas and gloves. Standing politely behind the bright yellow “danger” tape, they talked in hushed whispers and took endless pictures with their cell phones.

On the other side of the barrier, gray smoke rose from the mounds of hot ashes and burned timbers that used to be a small bookstore. The firefighters had gone home hours earlier, and the chief constable of the village had trundled back to the station to write a report on the incident.

Suddenly, there was the roar of an engine, and a shiny Harley-Davidson motorcycle charged across the new bridge spanning the frozen lake. Revving the twin-V88 engine to maximum, the driver banked low around a corner, both wheels slipping in the ice under the snow in spite of the winter spikes. Cursing vehemently, the driver fought for control of the bike, and managed to right the Harley before jouncing over a frosty granite curb. For a split second, man and machine were airborne, then they came down hard, skittering along the slippery sidewalk until coming to a ragged halt at the danger tape.

Many people in the crowd frowned at the rude arrival of the outsider, but said nothing, merely moving aside to give the stranger a better view of the wreckage. Sitting on the purring motorcycle, the driver did nothing for several minutes but stare at the gaping black hole in the ground only a few yards away.

Turning off the Harley, the man kicked down the stand and walked to the edge of the pit, still trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

“Impossible,” he muttered, lifting his visor. “This is impossible!”

Just then, cries of surprise rose from the skaters on the lake as a BMW snowmobile rocketed across the frozen expanse. Narrowly missing the scattering villagers, the big machine zoomed straight up the bank onto the snowy street and across the village green.

At breakneck speed, the driver dodged the well and several children and slammed through a snowman, reducing it back into its basic component. Blinded by the explosion of flakes, the driver zigzagged down the street, nearly clipping several parked cars and another snowman before crashing into the granite cornerstone of the local bank. Stone chips went flying, the fender crumpled, and the engine sputtered into silence. However, the driver managed to stay in the seat just long enough to ride out the recoil before hopping off and yanking open a rear compartment to haul out a bulky toolbox.

The driver was clearly a woman, and wearing the incongruous outfit of a ball gown and a thick puffy winter jacket. Satin slippers jutted from a pocket, and she was wearing heavy black snow boots.

“Damn it, Della, it took you long enough to get here,” the driver of the motorcycle said, removing his helmet.

“Shut up, Zander. I live farther away than you do,” Della Gotterstein countered, striding toward what remained of the bookstore. “How bad is the damage?”

“Total,” Zander Meyers stated.

She scowled. “Bah, that is not possible.”

“See for yourself!” Meyers said, making a sweeping gesture.

Pushing her way through the rapidly thinning crowd, Gotterstein halted at the danger tape to stare down into the charred hole.

“Good God,” she whispered, setting down the toolbox to remove her own helmet. A wealth of golden hair cascaded to her trim waist.

“Told you,” Meyers said, running a hand over his thick hair, the expensive toupee shifting ever so slightly.

“How in the… I mean…what could…” She glanced around at the surrounding building, then swallowed hard. “Is this an echo?”

Meyers frowned at that. Echo was code for a terrorist attack. “To be honest, I have no goddamn idea.”

Displeased, Gotterstein pursed her lips at the blasphemy, but held her tongue. The man was an electronic genius, and that was all that mattered at the moment. His ridiculous belief in evolution was his own private affair.

As the last of the crowd politely departed, Meyers and Gotterstein ducked under the tape to walk carefully into the smoky crater. Only stacks of ash remained from the thousands of burned books, but there were also several puddles of congealed plastic, as well as a lot of melted wiring, and what might have been fried circuit boards. They were in such poor condition it was hard to tell.

“What do you think?” Meyers asked hopefully.

“Are you expecting a miracle?” Gotterstein retorted angrily, kicking over a bookcase. Underneath was a smashed keyboard. “Neither of us can repair this. There’s nothing left of the bank’s mainframe. It does not exist anymore!”

“Sadly, I concur.” Meyers sighed as a light snow began to fall. The flakes vanished with a hiss as they landed on the broken timbers and smashed bricks.

“Billions of euros lost,” Gotterstein said, glancing at the sky. “Are you sure this was not an echo?”

“According to the preliminary report from the fire department, this was caused by lightning,” Meyers said, turning up his collar.

“Bah, impossible!” the woman scoffed. “The Swiss banking consortium had us install every safeguard known to modern science. No amount of lightning could have done this!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! It would take hundreds of bolts to smash through all of our shielding, antistatic defenses and Faraday cages!”

“So maybe there were hundreds of bolts.”

“Are you insane?”

“Then how do you explain it?”

“I…I cannot.”

“Let’s check the garage,” Meyers said, starting back toward the street.

The snowy town seemed deserted as the man and woman crossed the street to an old barn. The side door was painted to resemble wood, but up close it was clearly welded steel. Unlocking the door, they stepped inside and waited. After a few moments, the ceiling lights automatically flickered into life.

Proceeding along a bare concrete tunnel, they passed several massive cannon emplacements and ammunition bunkers. The air of the disguised fortress was stale, and the dust on the floor showed that no one had been inside the building for years.

At the end of the tunnel, they each inserted a special key into a pair of slots and turned them in unison. There was a low hum, and the wall broke apart to reveal a computer workstation.