“That was a misinterpretation.”
“Well, we’re going out tonight, me and you.” The lieutenant’s eyes went hard. “So why don’t you illuminate my ignorant black ass?”
Bolan sighed. He had been a soldier, and there was nothing worse than strange, murky individuals suddenly popping up from stateside during an operation. It implied mission creep and goat screws of epic proportions. “I don’t work for the Justice Department. I have a working relationship with the United States government, and when I choose to take action, I liaise with the President through the DOJ.”
“A…working relationship, and when you choose to take action you talk with the Man?” That gave even Dirk pause.
“Yeah.”
“Directly?”
“Sometimes,” Bolan admitted.
“So…you’re a spook?”
“No, though I’ve been spooky.”
“Paramilitary?” Dirk tried.
The man was getting warmer. “I guess you could call me an operator of a sort.”
“You’re—” Dirk’s nose wrinkled in suspicion “—a merc?”
“Naw.” Bolan shook his head. “I don’t get paid.”
“You don’t get paid?” Lieutenant Dirk regarded Bolan like a primatologist who has just encountered a gorilla with wings. “So you’re a…volunteer, spookerator, with a direct line to the President who does this out of love?”
“Close,” Bolan conceded. “And payback. I’m pretty big on payback.”
Dirk suddenly grinned. “Well, hell, that’s all you had to say! Count me in!”
Bolan looked at Lieutenant Dirk long and hard. “You want in all the way?”
The lieutenant cocked his head. “You mean join the all-volunteer spookerator love and payback club? Sorry, man, I appreciate the offer, but I’m Delta all the way.”
“What if I said I might need you on a one-shot deal, and it involves the dead Rangers.”
“I’d ask you to clarify that a little.”
“I think it was an inside job.”
“Inside job?” Dirk’s face became a mask of stone. “That’s some real messed-up shit you’re implying there, Spooky.”
“Problem is, I don’t have any proof. To get it, and get payback, I’m going to have to go inside. I’m going to need someone like you to piggyback my way in, and frankly I don’t mind admitting I’d like to have someone like you on my six.”
“This is getting really goddamn deep and dark.”
“Listen, if we come back from this op tonight alive, and you trust me after, I’d like to buy you a beer and talk about it more.”
“Ooh!” Dirk grinned. “Beer.”
Pandit Valley
“WHERE THE HELL IS Coop?” Dirk hissed. “I told him to keep his civilian ass on my—”
Bolan spoke quietly. “I’m right here.”
“Jesus!” Dirk turned around. “I thought you were arranging satellite feed.”
“I was.”
“Well, don’t sneak up on a brother like that!”
“I didn’t. I’ve been here for five minutes.”
“Man…So what have we got?”
“It’s a series of caves. The local villagers say two years ago there were some earthmoving machines up in the hills. There’s no known mining in the area, and satellite recon shows no new construction. Most likely, what we have is a tunnel complex, probably using the preexisting caves as a template. Thermal-imaging satellites show low-level heat signatures venting from several sources around the cave area, probably cook fires.”
“Great.” Lieutenant Dirk wasn’t pleased. In his experience the only thing worse than urban warfare was tunnel fighting. “We’re going to have to dig them out hole by hole.”
“I’ll have a map of the complex ready in another couple of minutes.”
Dirk brightened. “Someone gave you a map of the place? Why didn’t you say so?”
“No one gave me a map. Someone’s making me one.”
Dirk paused. “Someone’s making you one?”
“Yeah, hold on.” Bolan pressed the mike on his secure line. “How we doing, Strike Eagle?”
Jack Grimaldi, Stony Man Farm’s premier pilot, came back across the line. “Striker, I am over the target area.”
Gadgets Schwarz came across the radio. He was Able Team’s technical whiz, and Bolan had asked him to come up with something that would give them the edge on the dug-in Taliban. Schwarz loved a challenge and as usual had come up aces. “Striker, we are ready to deploy.”
“Deploy when ready, Strike Eagle.”
Dirk cleared his throat. “So, uh, who is deploying?”
Bolan looked upward. “I have a couple of friends of mine up at about twenty thousand feet in an F-15E Strike Eagle.”
“Oh?” Dirk contemplated that. “What are they deploying?”
“UAVs.”
Dirk nodded. U.S. Special Forces were ever increasingly discovering the joys of working with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. “So what are they going to do for us? Fly in the cave and blow everything up?”
“No, we want prisoners and we also want any papers, computer files, cell phones or intelligence we can get our hands on. So it would be best if we went in and took care of business ourselves, by hand.”
Dirk frowned beneath his night-vision goggles. “Okay, so…”
“So the UAVs are carrying ground-penetrating radar units. GPR scans work best in solid rock formations that will resonate to the radar pulses. The good news is that those caves are mostly solid granite. We’re deploying three UAVs. With any luck, within a few minutes we’ll have a three-dimensional map of the complex.”
Dirk stared up at the stars. “Aren’t our little friends going to hear the buzz bombs as they come in?”
“The UAVs are gliders. Once they’re near the target, they fold their wings, deploy steerable chutes and extend padded all-aspect legs. GPR works better in direct contact with the ground, so the legs act as the antennas.”
“You know,
