The office was tastefully appointed. And anonymous. Hal Brognola didn't much care for its lavishness and was obviously ill at case in the borrowed surroundings. Brognola chewed on his cigar as he paced before the large picture window.
Outside, the snow was getting heavier, and Bolan was already two hours late.
Idaho was a state the Fed rarely visited.
If he had his way, he wouldn't be coming back.
Sure, the mountain view was gorgeous. But he was used to buildings, pavement, the sound of traffic. It was so damn quiet here that he could hear his heart beat.
Brognola knew the man they called the Executioner better than anyone else. They weren't exactly friends, but then Mack Bolan probably didn't have any friends. Hell, the man didn't even have a family except for his younger brother, Johnny. Friends were a luxury for a man in Bolan's line of work. His years in Vietnam and his subsequent intelligence work had created a network of sources, allies, snitches and comrades. But not friends. Brognola knew he was the closest thing to a friend Bolan would ever have.
At times it bothered him that he never socialized with Mack. But Brognola knew that the Executioner could not afford to let down his guard at any time.
Too many people wanted his ass. Badly.
Brognola sat down and propped his feet up on the oak desk in front of him. He reached forward and put the cigar down in the massive glass ashtray before returning the chair to an upright position. He started poring over the sheaves of papers in a dozen file folders stacked in one corner of the desk.
Each one bore a small brightly colored label on its raised tab, and each was stamped SECRET in the no-bullshit kind of lettering preferred by guys who were deadly serious about their line of work. Without exception, the colored label bore the name of an American nuclear installation. The folders were on loan from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and only one other person knew they were in Brognola's hands. That man had refused to part with the papers at first. He relented only when Brognola had sworn to return the documents within forty-eight hours. Uncopied. And unaltered.
And Brognola didn't blame the guy, once he got a look at the files. Not a bit. More megatonnage was sitting right there in those folders than had been dropped on Hiroshima. And Nagasaki. The intel was that explosive.
Critical, actually. And right now Brognola could barely contain his anxiety, waiting for Bolan to report back on a related piece of intelligence the Fed had received that morning. Each folder laid out, in painful detail, recent nuclear accidents. What was clear, and what the files proved beyond reasonable doubt, was that the "events," as they were tidily called by the NRC, were no accidents. None of them. This morning's information concerned an incident that had not yet happened, and if Bolan got there in time, would never happen.
No way.
Bolan never failed when it really counted. But Brognola couldn't help but wonder where he was.
As if tired of the unspoken question, the Executioner stepped into the office, still wearing his arctic whites.
He crossed the room quietly and sat wearily on the edge of a sofa across from the desk. Brognola waited a moment. When Bolan said nothing, the big Fed prompted him.
"Well?"
"Your intel was sound."
"And? Come on, man, don't make me pry it out of you. What happened?"
"Somebody planned to blow one of the high-level waste tanks."
"Well?"
"They didn't make it." Bolan sounded tired.
Whether it was from the night's work or the nature of his business, Brognola couldn't tell. And he didn't really want to know. It scared him to contemplate what things would be like without the big guy around. Bolan was practically an insurance policy on the nation's health. The damnable thing was that so few people knew it. But the Fed knew it had to be that way. Bolan brought his mentor up to date on the night's activities, pausing briefly before describing the fate of the chopper, and of the men who had been in it.
Brognola reached for his cigar and then got up from his chair to stretch. He paced back and forth in front of the window, until finally, unable to endure the silence any longer, he spoke again.
"And tonight is only the beginning. I didn't have time to tell you earlier. What was supposed to go down out at Dunford wasn't the first phony accident. And it isn't supposed to be the last, either."
"Tell me about it," Bolan said. The tiredness in his voice was gone as Brognola confirmed his suspicions.
Bolan had seen something out there in the snow he didn't like. If there was a chance it could happen again, he wanted to do something about it.
Damn right.
"What I've got," Brognola said, patting the stack of folders on the desk, "is proof positive. A dozen incidents at a dozen different locations, hundreds of miles apart, all nuclear installations. The statistical odds against any one of them being accidental are enormous. And when you figure the odds on all twelve, well..."
"Hal, we don't have time for a math lesson. I know probability theory. What are the particulars? What's going on? Who's behind it?"
"That's where we've run up against a brick wall, Mack. We know what, but we don't really know who. We can guess. You can, too, I think. But what we need is the goods. We need to make a case, and make damn sure it will stick. We want these bastards handled, and we don't much care how. Or by whom."
Bolan jerked forward, then stopped as Brognola waved a hand.
"No. I know what you're thinking, but no. The President hasn't given me specific authorization to put you on this thing. But he sure as hell knows I will. And," Brognola said, winking broadly, "he didn't tell me not to."
"That's it?" Bolan asked.
"Best I can do, Mack. Sorry."
Sorry. It seemed to Bolan he'd heard it a thousand times since Stony Man. He was good enough to do their dirty work for them. Oh, yeah. Just as long as he didn't tell them about it. He was a back-door man, somebody your servants dealt with.
Take what he's selling, just don't let him in the parlor. That was for polite company only.
He'd seen it all before-during the Mafia wars. Nobody wanted to acknowledge him then, either.
Oh, sure, some did — a good cop here and there, a grateful citizen now and again. But everybody else said, "Do what you can. Just don't bleed on the rug. Not my rug." And Mack Bolan did it. He did his job.
He did it because it was his job. And he did it because it had to be done. Stony Man had been that way, until some Soviet fox had gotten into the henhouse. And Mack Bolan had been the only guy man enough to crawl through the shit to get him out.
Now some new evil was trying to eat away at America, to devour the good. This time they were atomic chickens, laying nuclear eggs. No way Mack Bolan would let this one slide. No way. No matter how he felt. No matter how tired of all the crap he had become. This was his job. It was his job, and he would do it. Because he had to, and above all because he was Mack Bolan. The Executioner.
"Okay, Hal, I want it all. Everything you know. Everything you suspect."
Brognola ran down the incidents one by one, leaving the chaff aside. Every incident was analyzed. Common threads, of which there were several, were highlighted. Possible reasons were discussed, probably scenarios considered. What it all boiled down to was that someone wanted to cramp American nuclear style. There had been attempts to sway public opinion before, of course. Most of them were honorably motivated.
But this was different. This one smelled, badly. It stank of vodka and borscht. It smelled of KGB. You didn't have to look too deeply to find them under most rocks. There would be rocks, of course. Rocks labeled Cuba, Libya, Nicaragua. But they were only rocks. It was the thing that crawled out when you kicked one over that Bolan hated most of all. And this rock would probably be lettered in Arabic. But the return address would be Moscow.
Of course.
"Did you look into the antinuke groups?" Bolan asked.
"Yes. There's something there, but I'm not sure. There's Arab money, of course. But that doesn't prove anything. It's legal. And why shouldn't there be, after all. Hell, if I was sitting on all that oil, I think I'd want all the competition on the run. Including flashlight batteries. Nuclear power could put them out of business."
"Sure, Hal. But what I saw tonight was not fair business competition. There were two good men in that chopper. Somebody killed them. And somebody's got to pay for it. Yeah, I nailed the gunners, but I want the people who paid them. What they're up to isn't legal."
"Look, I know how you feel, but we have got to play this one carefully. We have some people inside. Good people. We have to make damn sure they're covered."
"You know better than that, Hal."
Brognola looked at the big guy for a few seconds before he answered. "Yeah, I do." Whatever else Mack Bolan was, he wasn't a hothead. No way would he compromise somebody on the inside of a deal like this. There was too much at stake, and nobody would know that better than the guy right there on the firing line... or on the wrong end of the gun. "Look, the best thing you can do is read these files. When you're done, I'll try to answer your questions. There's a lot here, but there is a hell of a lot that isn't. And I have to have those papers back by tomorrow night. We don't have a lot of time."
Brognola paced while Bolan flipped through the files one by one. Once in a while he'd ask a question, then push on. His jaw grew tighter with each file. When he was finished, he pushed them into a neat pile and stood up to stretch.
"Not a pretty picture, is it?" Brognola asked.
Bolan didn't answer.
"I want you to meet our best source of information. She can tell you more than I can about some of the groups that might be involved in this business."
"She?"
"Rachel Peres. She's damn good. Been with us a long time. Former Mossad."
"Former? Come on, Hal, that's too damn risky. I can't afford to rely on somebody who might be playing both ends against the middle in this thing."
"No way. She's solid. I can vouch for that. And we really need her. It's taken too long as it is to get somebody on the inside. I can't go back to square one on this. Not now."
Bolan stepped to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Beyond the glass was a second curtain, this one made of snow.
"Mack, you have to trust me on this. I know what you're thinking. But this is too big. And too damn important. You'll need her help."
Brognola was right, of course. And Mack Bolan knew it. And he knew he had to protect himself. He knew Mack Bolan would not be working with Rachel Peres. No. Her partner would be the Executioner.
"Where do I meet her?"
"Right here. She should be in the reception area," Brognola answered as he checked his watch before moving to open the door.
Bolan turned in surprise to stare at the slender dark-haired woman who stood in the office doorway. Her eyes were even darker than her hair. As she walked toward him, Bolan decided there was a no-nonsense look about her, and her grip was firm when she reached out to take his hand in her own.
"I've heard a great deal about you, Mr. Bolan. And to set things straight from the beginning, I assure you, I can take care of myself, and of you, too, if it should come to that."
"I believe it," Bolan said, relaxing somewhat. "Let's get to work. We have a lot to do."
"More than you know, Mr. Bolan."
"Call me Mack."
"Fair enough."
Bolan was impressed by Rachel Peres's grasp of detail as she outlined the information she had gathered. Her efficiency reminded him of someone, someone it was too painful to remember. A woman who had made the supreme sacrifice for him. A woman who had given her life for him.
April Rose.
But this woman was something else. As Bolan's thoughts returned to the present he decided that working with her was not going to be that bad. Not at all.