“Me, too,” Bolan said. “I was afraid he’d call our bluff.”
“Who said I was bluffing?” Grimaldi joked.
Bolan shook his head. “Forget it. An old tomcat like you could never do that.”
“Your buddy didn’t tell us a lot,” Grimaldi said.
Bolan nodded. “Foot soldier,” he said. “Probably doesn’t know a whole lot.”
Fifteen minutes later, the Black Hawk was aloft with Grimaldi guiding it expertly toward Waziristan, a Pakistani territory.
Straining against the harness holding him in place, Bolan reached into his equipment bag and withdrew a laptop. The pressure of the straps against his recently bruised skin, even through the Kevlar vest, kicked up jolts of pain. He winced, ground his teeth and ignored it. During his War Everlasting, the soldier had suffered much worse, and had the scarred flesh to prove it.
Setting the laptop on his thighs, Bolan popped it open and powered it up. Within minutes he’d lock into a Stony Man computer dump system via an encrypted wireless connection. A digital camera would eventually carry his and Grimaldi’s images electronically to the Computer Room. After a few more keystrokes, Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman appeared on the screen.
“Striker,” Kurtzman said.
“You get the coordinates I sent earlier?” Bolan asked.
“Right,” Kurtzman replied. “I ran them through the National Security Agency’s database and liberated a few things for our use. I’ll send you the satellite pics while we talk. But your guy told the truth. There’s something there, an encampment of some sort, right on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It was an al Qaeda camp at one time before a CIA paramilitary team shut it down a few years ago. After the team arrested the inhabitants, seized all their computers and documents, a couple of F-18s bombed the buildings to rubble.”
“Our boy told us they’ve been setting up the place for months,” Bolan said. “On the surface it looks like an agriculture operation, with animals and the whole thing. They do all their training inside a series of nearby caves to help avoid satellite scrutiny. No outdoor firing ranges, or anything like that. They do a lot of hand-to-hand combat training, classroom work, that sort of thing. There’s also a large concrete building that houses their command functions.”
Kurtzman nodded. “That tracks with what I found out. The intelligence community had tagged the site as suspicious because of its history. But without any hard intel, they had to knock it pretty far down on the priority list. Plus, it’s a crappy target.”
“What do you mean?”
“Guess al-Shoud and his people brought their families along with them. Women, kids, elderly.”
Bolan’s brow furrowed, his lips formed a tight line as he considered the implications. “Lots of innocents on the firing line,” he said finally.
“Right,” Kurtzman said.
“We don’t have much of a choice in this one,” Bolan said.
“Just laying out the facts,” Kurtzman replied. “Hey, Hal wants to speak with you.”
“Go.”
Kurtzman disappeared from view. An instant later Brognola’s weary features appeared on the screen. Since Bolan had last seen him, the big Fed had lost his necktie, but judging by the coffee stain on his right breast, he still wore the same shirt, now unbuttoned at the collar.
“Striker,” Brognola said, “what’s the word on Jennifer Kinsey?”
“Nothing yet,” Bolan stated. “The man we spoke with knew nothing about her.”
“Could he have been lying?”
Grimaldi cut in. “He was pretty motivated to be honest.”
Brognola drank some coffee from a foam cup. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”
“That’s why we wanted to find Shallallab,” Bolan said, “the finance guy. He’s high enough up that he’d know whether she was there. Al-Shoud considers him a confidant.”
“But you’ve got a good fix on al-Shoud?”
“Yeah,” Bolan said. “Bear says we’ve got apparent innocents in the way. I plan to make this a soft probe until I learn more.”
“Keep Barb and Aaron posted,” Brognola said. “I won’t be around.”
“Why?”
“We have an antiterrorism summit at an undisclosed location,” Brognola replied. “Heads of state from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are expected to be there. So are their intelligence chiefs. We’re going to share information, try to expand cooperation, all that sort of thing.”
“Hal the politician,” Grimaldi said.
Brognola smiled around his stogie. “Yeah, I’m loving it, too,” he said. “I’d stand naked in Times Square, but it’s a command performance. The Man wants me there, so I’m going.”
“Barb’ll take good care of us,” Bolan said.
“I have no doubt,” Brognola said. “Look, the minute you get a line on Jennifer Kinsey, let us know. If she’s still among the living, we’d very much like to bring her home.”
Bolan nodded. “Feeling’s mutual. We’ll do what we can.”
“No doubt, Striker,” Brognola said. “Just watch your ass. Al-Shoud’s operation may be small, but he’s not small-time. Most of his men are former intelligence agents who’ve pulled some serious black ops in India. Badasses all. If this turns nasty, do your best—hell, do your worst—and come home.”
“We’re on it,” Bolan said. Killing the connection, he and Grimaldi began scanning the satellite images and other intel provided by Stony Man’s cyberteam, preparing themselves for what needed to be a short, precise confrontation.
CHAPTER TWO
Jennifer Kinsey saw the U.S. Embassy compound from about two blocks away. Another block ahead of her, state police armed with automatic weapons had blocked all roads leading to the embassy with wooden sawhorses and officers. She guessed the Marines and Diplomatic Security Service agents also had doubled up their efforts since James Lee’s murder.
A shudder that had nothing to do with the biting cold seized her. Unconsciously she pulled the burqa’s heavy fabric tighter around her, as if doing so would protect her from homicidal bastard that had pursued her now for how long? Three days? Four days?
Underneath the thick black robes, she still wore her navy-blue business suit and white silk blouse, both stained dark crimson by James Lee’s blood. She chewed at her lower lip for a moment as unbidden memories of Lee’s death flooded her consciousness.
Almost immediately, she shook her head to purge the memories. Stay strong, she told herself. If you want
