as the independent salesmen of recreational pharmaceuticals. Several of the pimps had some of their female employees along as company, so there was a lot of dyed hair and bare skin on display, but everybody was cool. The Blue Moon was neutral territory, the Switzerland of the Maryland underworld.
A scrawny Latino boy, who seemed far too young to be working at that hour, came over with a steaming mug of coffee, and got Bolan started just as a couple of state troopers entered by the front door. They sauntered past the soldier, joking with the fat guy behind the counter, and ordered some meat loaf sandwiches to go.
The cops departed just as Lucinda returned with his chili, along with a basket of sourdough rolls that Bolan hadn’t ordered, but deeply appreciated. He thanked her, and she accidentally-on-purpose bumped him with her bare thigh a few times before realizing that Bolan was simply being nice and not making a pass. Lucinda grudgingly accepted the rejection and walked away.
Not his type, Bolan noted, using a napkin to clean the spoon. However, even if he had been interested, he still would have done nothing. There were certain people in the world that a wise man only treated with respect: the very old, the very young, and anybody who would be left alone with your food for a significant length of time.
As expected, the chili was delicious, rich and meaty. Taking his time, Bolan ate slowly, keeping a close watch on the clock hanging slightly askew on the badly painted wall. The ten-minute mark had come and gone, and he was getting ready to go hunt for his friend when Hal Brognola strolled in through the front door.
Instead of his usual three-piece suit, the stocky Fed was wearing a loose vest, a red flannel shirt, denims and work boots to try to blend into the neighborhood. More important, his hair was mussed, and there were scratches on his cheek.
To Bolan, the man looked haggard, as if he was chronically short on sleep. But that was an occupational hazard in D.C.
Slung over Brognola’s shoulder was a laptop that probably cost more than what most people in the diner made in a month. As he went past the other customers, some of the pimps viewed the device with marked interest. Then they saw the Justice man glance back, and quickly returned to their meals.
“Sorry I’m late,” Brognola said, taking the opposite chair at the table. “I ran into an old friend.”
“And he had just found your lost wallet.” Bolan didn’t phrase it as a question.
“Something like that,” Brognola admitted with a shrug. As his jacket swayed open, he briefly exposed a shoulder holster and an old-fashioned snub-nose .38 revolver.
“Leave them alive?”
“Unfortunately. Getting this to you intact was a lot more important,” Brognola said, placing the laptop on the table. He pushed it over. “I’m eager to hear your opinion on this matter.”
Flipping open the lid, Bolan saw the monitor flicker into a scene of a rainy mountain valley. He concentrated on the brief recording. It was obviously taken from a series of security cameras, grainy and unfocused, shifting abruptly from one angle to another. Then the explosions started, and the recording ended soon after that.
Scowling, Bolan watched it again, then sat back and took a sip of the coffee. It was cold, so he waved at Lucinda for a refill.
“Anything else ya want, sweetie?” she asked hopefully. Her upper thigh pressed warmly against his hand on the table, and she shifted slightly to let him feel the play of the tight nylon against his skin.
“Just the coffee, doll,” Bolan said, leaving his hand in place, but quickly lowering the lid on the laptop. “We’re talking some business, ya know?”
“Yeah, sure,” Lucinda said softly, topping off the mugs.
As she turned, Bolan smacked her on the rear. She gave a little jump, then looked backward with the kind of primordial smile of the sort that once had toppled the city of Troy, and walked away with a pronounced bounce in her step, just to let the man see what he had missed having for desert.
“So, when’s the wedding?” Brognola chuckled, watching as the smiling woman disappeared behind the counter.
“Next week, in Vegas. Come as Elvis,” Bolan replied with a straight face, then returned to business. “All right, from the Cyrillic writing on some of the street signs, and the poor condition of the buildings, I would guess this was taken in the Ukraine.”
“Close. Kazakhstan.”
“Somebody blew up a radar outpost in some remote mountain valley. What does this have to do with me?”
Reaching inside the pocket of his flannel shirt, Brognola produced a small envelope. “On my orders, the NSA did a scan of all cell phones in the area during the time of the attack, and they recovered this.”
It was a blurry shot of a burning building with a bird flying by, silhouetted against the flames. Bolan started to ask a question, then paused. Barely visible in the firelight, he could see that the bird was armed with missiles. Obviously, it was some kind of an unmanned attack vehicle— UAV—a drone. Then the implications hit him. One drone couldn’t have done that much damage in a week. There had to have been several of them, eight, maybe ten. And if their first target was the radar station…
“It looks like somebody cracked the heat-signature problem on the engines,” Bolan muttered, returning the picture.
Tucking the photo away, Brognola nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. In my opinion there is no question of the matter. These shots are of a new type of stealth drone, fast, silent, radar-proof and incredibly lethal.”
“Fair enough. Then why are we meeting here and not in your office?”
“Because nobody else in the Justice Department agrees with me on this. Not even the President thinks that there is any real danger to America.”
“And what makes you think there is?” Bolan asked.
“Just a gut feeling.”
Bolan accepted that. Over their long years working together, he had learned to trust the man’s instincts. They had saved the soldier’s life more than once. “Haven’t the British been secretly working on a new stealth UAV?”
“You know your weapons. Yes, it would have worldwide strike capability, and carry a complement of thermonuclear weapons.”
With that kind of range and firepower, the British drone would be enormous. “How close are they to finishing it?” Bolan asked, leaning back in the chair. It creaked slightly under his weight.
“Decades, at the very least.”
“Then there is no way that this was a field test by the British.”
“Not a chance in hell. And even if the Brits had a working version, why bomb Kazakhstan? There’s nothing there of any importance.” Turning the laptop around, Brognola tapped a few keys and shoved it back. “Or at least, that was what I thought until these pictures were relayed back from a WatchDog satellite doing a pass over the area the next day. Pay close attention to what wasn’t damaged in the strike.”
Arching an eyebrow in frank surprise at the statement, Bolan carefully looked over the wreckage from the attack. The photos were black-and-white, but crystal clear, and he soon spotted the pattern in the destruction.
