“I’ve arranged for them to be couriered,” the pilot interjected.
“We’ll run them, for whatever good that will do,” Price said. “I’ll let you know.”
“So what’s the play?” Bolan asked.
“The Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security are running a joint operation outside San Antonio,” Price said. “Hal has been leaning on everyone involved, hard, to get you in on it. There’s been some resistance, but you know how these tugs-of-war usually play out.”
“Hal gets what he wants.”
“Most of the time. It doesn’t hurt to have the Man backing your play.”
“Any chance of getting some backup on this? People I can trust?”
“We’re spread thin covering potential ancillary targets,” Price said. “We believe Twelfth Reich may attempt, through satellite cells, to conduct parallel attacks while we’re occupied dealing with the train hijacking. Able and Phoenix are deployed here and abroad, for some of Hyde’s European allies may be involved. We’ve got blacksuit contingents covering other high-profile target areas. We’re just spread too thin, Striker. Except for our allies in Homeland Security and the FBI, you’re it.” Able Team and Phoenix Force were the Farm’s other field operatives.
“Understood,” Bolan said. “When do we go?”
“As soon as you signal Jack you’re ready to fly.”
“Then I’m ready to fly.” He looked at Grimaldi, stuck up one finger and rotated his hand in the universal “spinning rotors” sign.
“Striker…” Price said.
“Yeah?”
“You’re sure you’re up to this.” It wasn’t a question. The concern in her voice was obvious even through the scrambled, filtered and reprocessed connection.
“I’ll manage,” Bolan said. More quietly, he added, “Like I always do. I’ll see you soon.”
There was a pause. Finally, Price said, “Good hunting, Striker. Again. Out.”
Bolan, forcing himself to move without grimacing, pulled a pack from the locker bolted to the floor nearby. He unzipped the gear bag inside and began rifling through it. Grimaldi made a mock show of tapping his foot impatiently as Bolan shrugged out of his web gear, changed out the stiff, bloody and scorched shirt of his blacksuit, and donned his equipment. Then Bolan began to check through his weaponry, only to find it had been cleaned and reloaded. He looked at his friend curiously.
“You were asleep for a while,” Grimaldi said. “I had to keep busy.”
“Idle hands,” Bolan repeated. He smiled. “Thanks, Jack.” He made a cursory review of both of his pistols and the FN P-90, including removing the slide of the Beretta and checking its custom suppressor. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Grimaldi; this was simply long-ingrained habit, the result of years of trusting his life to the weapons he carried. One of the most basic rules of such weaponry was that you never simply trusted a weapon handed to you; you always checked it, for yourself, to make sure.
Grimaldi returned to the cockpit and began the process of firing up the chopper. He restored the in-flight connection, allowing them to speak to each other over the noise of the machine.
Once they were in the air, Bolan closed his eyes, breathed deeply and focused on his limbs. His hands and forearms were still numb, but rapidly warming. The ache that would pervade them could be blunted with painkillers, but these would fog his judgment and reaction time. He would have to err on the side of more pain, more awareness. He accepted as much and shrugged the thought from his mind. There was no point in dwelling on what couldn’t be changed.
Starting with his feet and moving up his legs, he tensed and then relaxed his muscles. As his focus moved up his torso, he rolled his shoulders, working the kinks out, feeling the tightness give way. Years of combat had left him a patchwork of scars and potential recurring stress injuries. The human body simply wasn’t built for the kind of punishment Bolan put himself through. If he allowed himself to dwell on it, he supposed he would have to chalk it up to effort of will. He was, after all, extremely well motivated. What he did, what he asked the men and women of Stony Man Farm to do with him, and what they did of their own will and motivation, wasn’t normal. That of itself was a shame, for a country as great as the United States deserved a citizenry whose every member thought superhuman effort preserving freedom was the norm.
Bolan couldn’t, and never had, faulted any man or woman for not following the path he himself had chosen. Lesser men and women might wrongly conclude that this wasn’t a choice at all; that circumstance, and tragedy, had forced Bolan to do what he did, to fight as he fought. That, of course, was ridiculous. Most men, confronted with the deaths of those they loved, grieved and absorbed the tragedy, soldiered on as best they could in the most benign sense of the word.
The men and women of Stony Man Farm weren’t truly the exception, for deep down, Bolan believed every man and woman had the potential, and the desire, to fight for what he or she valued most. It was simply that the counterterrorists with whom Bolan worked were exceptional, and that was the best way to describe them.
He snapped open the replacement satellite phone that Grimaldi had loaned him. A brief update bar appeared and, when it finished scrolling, the phone’s screen indicated that its new code assignment was STRYKR2. Grimaldi and Price had wasted no time getting him back up and running.
As Bolan watched, the send-receive icon started to blink. Data files began coming in, automatically shunted to a folder on the phone’s desktop, the wallpaper of which was still a graphic of Grimaldi’s choosing: a buxom woman in a red-white-and-blue bathing suit. Despite the grim scenario he faced, Bolan found himself smiling. Some things, he reflected, never changed. Jack Grimaldi was a constant in the universe.
Bolan supposed he was, too.
There were worse things to be.
The data files contained everything the Farm had managed to gather so far on the OPP hijacking. A complete map of the route the train was supposed to take, as well as an overlay indicating the route the Twelfth Reich terrorists intended to use, was included. Bolan called up several photographs taken of the migrant work camp, some of which were overhead shots, obviously taken by satellite. Others were news photographs taken when the camp was first established. Scans of those articles and wire releases were included.
While Grimaldi flew them to the target zone, Bolan read through each file. He never missed an opportunity to familiarize himself with data the Farm supplied. The war he fought wasn’t merely a conflict of guns and explosives, of tooth and claw and steel and fire. It was just as much a game of intelligence. There was no way to tell when a discrete piece of data might provide a crucial, missing puzzle piece; no way to predict when a seemingly unimportant bit of information would help him achieve his short- and long-term combat goals. Whenever possible, he assimilated, and committed to memory, as much of the Farm’s analysis and data as he could.
The schematics for the train and, more importantly, the armored passenger unit, were included. These were of specific interest because of the challenge they represented. He would have to find a way to free the hostages, but depending on the battlefield conditions he faced, would have to do that without killing the very people he was trying to save.
The plans had been sent by OPP. Barbara Price had appended notes to the files, adding that
