both knew it. The homegrown paramilitary militias had died down over the past few years as government activity against terror cells escalated. This was not the atmosphere a paranoid, super-secret paramilitary group could thrive in. When they were ignored, they flourished in backwoods and the mountains where no one had cared if they blew up old cars with RPGs or shot cutouts of their particular bogeyman. With air travelers having to take off their shoes to check for explosives and everyone jumpy over the slightest thing amiss, the paramilitaries had come under such governmental scrutiny that they could almost be written off.
But not the PMCs. The government used them for security in Iraq and other hot spots around the world. That was fine. What wasnât fine were the PMCs employed by fat cats as bodyguards and even by dictators as personal armies. Most of the PMCs contained mercenaries honed to a keen edge in a dozen different armies worldwide. The various Special Forces branches of the United States supplied their share, but so did the Russian Spetsnaz, the British SAS and all the other European countries with their super-secret, always denied special ops forces. Kurtzman didnât even want to think about the disaffected mercenaries operating out of South Africa, Europe and elsewhere. Too many men and women around the world sold themselves to the highest bidder.
âThe last two strikes accounted for well over fifty million dollars in gold,â Price said. âThat much gold weighs close to two tons. The M.O.s match whatâs going down in Idaho. I hope Striker can get on their asses in a hurry. Weâve got to stop them before they bankrupt the country.â
Kurtzman felt a shiver travel up and down his spine. Forest fires were set to divert authorities. The PMC strike team had moved into mines with smelters on-site and killed anyone who had not been evacuated. Then the gold had simply vanished. Tons of it. Gone. Like so much golden smoke.
He touched a screen to get a news ticker scrolling slowly along the bottom and smiled without humor. âGold just hit nine hundred dollars an ounce today, and itâs still going up. Theyâre making money even after they steal the bullion. Youâve got to wonder how they transport that much.â
âThe question I canât get a handle on is why they need so much,â Price said.
Kurtzman felt a little colder. Greed was one thing, but this transcended mere avarice. Whoever was responsible for the thefts was amassing enough cold, hard currency to fund a revolution. A big one.
He opened communication with Bolan to get an update.
âStriker, itâs Bear. Report.â
âTWO BODIES,â Bolan told Kurtzman. âBoth murdered.â He lightly prodded the manâs head with his feet and saw how the spinal cord had been almost severed with a savage slash. The charred corpse revealed little else. The female with him was harder to evaluate, but Bolan wasted no time figuring it out. She was dead and probably by the same hand. He thought she had been knifed in the belly and then the point driven upward into her heart. Bowels, lungs and heart were cinders, but her head remained firmly affixed to her spine. A murder-suicide was out of the question, since there wasnât a knife anywhere to be seen.
Kill the man, then the woman. That was how the solitary killer had moved. Professional. Very professional.
âWhat do you see at the edge of the forest?â
Bolanâs stride lengthened as he went to the worst of the burned area along the meadow. The fire had ravaged the terrain and had moved a mile farther east, where it still roared uphill with voracious intensity. It took only a couple minutes for him to find what remained of one detonator cap and the radio unit that had set off the explosive. He rubbed his fingers over the ground but came up with only soot. Any of the grainy PETN likely used would be completely oxidized.
âHe knew what he was doing,â Bolan said.
âLatest intel says there is an African PMC on the prowl. Weâre pinging the CIA and FBI for info on them now to get a better identification.â
âThatâs a mighty big continent.â
Kurtzman did not respond, and Bolan hadnât expected him to. He ended the call and pulled out his map and oriented himself, then set off running downhill in the direction of the Lucky Nugget Mine, reaching the tall cyclone fence around the property in under a half hour. He took slow, deep breaths and calmed his pounding heart. Having been at altitude in the Rockies for the prior week helped, but the thin Idaho air still took its toll on him.
As he rested, hands on knees, he looked around the mine site. From the dozen signs painted with huge red letters, this property was owned by Lassiter Industries, a multinational conglomerate owning not only gold mines but copper, silver, manganese and every other metal known to man. Rested, he tossed a broken branch against the fence to see if he might get a shock or trigger an alarm. Seeing no response, and hearing only the miles-distant crackle of a forest being destroyed by fire, he scaled the fence, deftly avoiding the barbed wire strands on top, then dropped lightly to the ground inside.
He reached a well-traveled road and saw a couple abandoned trucks. Of the large crew required to work a mine this size, he saw nothing.
Some equipment had been properly shut down, but most had been hastily abandoned. He knew what had happened. Sirens warned of the forest fire. The miners had to evacuate the mine or risk being trapped a half mile underground if the fire swept this way. Those aboveground would work frantically to get the miners to the surface, then they would all jump into trucks and evacuate. The sheriffâs department would be sending constant warnings the entire while. The scream of sirens as the firefighters came in would goad the miners into leaving.
Some might even be volunteer firefighters and join the effort. However it happened, they were all absent from the mine.
But the security staff would remain. Not of their own choosing, but orders would keep them here until the flames came close enough to singe their eyebrows. Bolan jogged to the main gate, which gaped wide. He peered into the glass-windowed guard booth and saw a man slumped on the floor. There was no reason to check his vital signs. The huge hole in the back of the manâs head showed where a single shot had taken him out.
Bolan turned from the guard booth and went immediately to the main office building. The double doors were closed. He tugged at one and it came open easily. The panic bar had not properly locked when the last employee had evacuated.
Halfway down the corridor was the sprawled body of a uniformed woman. She had been shot in the back of the head just like the other guard. Bolan moved from room to room. He found three more murdered security guards. Only one had tried to get his weapon free before six shots had punctured his chest. Examining the entry angles of the wounds convinced Bolan that at least three shooters had sighted in on the poor son of a bitch. From what he could tell, the same caliber weapons had ended the manâs life. The killers probably used identical model pistols. That would go with the military precision shown in this attack.
Bolan searched the building from top to bottom. Whoever had killed the guards had not looted the offices. Computers remained on desks. No drawers had been pulled out and searched. Obviously valuable display ingots remained in glass cases in the hallways. Since he found no one alive in the rest of the building to give him eyewitness information, he exited to search other parts of the sprawling mine complex.
Like a compass needle finding magnetic north, he was drawn to a large shed nearby. Heavy steel doors that had once been held closed by intricate locks stood open. Reaching down, he drew his Desert Eagle and let the muzzle precede him into the well-lit
