Don Pendleton: Hellfire Crusade

Calculating, but with a conscience.

Deadly, but with a soul.

He was a man living on the edge.

Living large... all the way.

Each moment might well be his last. But he would go down fighting for what he believed in, the values that so many others blithely advocated but did not care to defend.

There were some good people combating the same evil tide; each doing what he or she could to hold back the violent forces of darkness and barbarism. The crippled Aaron Kurtzman was such a man.

The Bear, as he was known to his friends, rumbled around in a wheelchair these days. His spine had been shattered in the firefight to defend Stony Man Farm, but the bullet had not shut down Kurtzman's brilliant mind. The computer wizard still shouldered his share of the burden in the ongoing battle.

After Bolan himself had so forcefully severed his connection with the Phoenix project, the Bear remained a loyal contact. The Executioner was on the outside once more, waging unrestricted war the way he did best, but despite official prohibitions, Kurtzman still worked the inside track for Bolan.

The massive accumulation of data that the Bear was privy to and the complex correlations he could coax from the incredibly powerful computers under his control often gave Bolan the vital edge in this latest round of the unceasing conflict.

Hal Brognola, liaison officer between the White House and Stony Man Farm, and once Bolan's closest ally in the Establishment, knew full well of Kurtzman's divided sympathies. But he also knew the Bear would never jeopardize national security.

As it was, Stony Man's techno-wizard was a useful conduit to the big man fighting his lonely, uncompromising war against staggering odds.

Bolan returned from Rio Santos to find a bulky package waiting for him from the Bear at a prearranged drop point. Bolan collected the other mail and messages, then hurried to the secret strongbase which he shared with his brother, Johnny.

Bolan paused only to light a cigarette before ripping open the padded envelope. It contained a floppy diskette, a videotape and a note from Kurtzman.

The accompanying message had been quickly scribbled on the back of a square of printout paper. It read: Mack — do you believe in synchronicity? The day my SCAN program, which tracks international shipments of fissionable material, indicated that certain quantities of uranium and/or plutonium were being sidetracked to a small Middle Eastern state — check data on the diskette — I happened to catch the other item on a television newscast. See video. Could there be a connection? If so, it's scary! Call me as soon as you can. A.K.

Bolan slipped the diskette into the strongbase microcomputer unit and punched up the data that had attracted the Bear's attention. Ships names, ports, sailing dates and known or estimated cargoes of potentially dangerous material flickered in array across the screen. It did appear as if a freighter bound from Ostend to Karachi had detoured through the Gulf of Oman to make an unscheduled call at the port of Khurabi.

Details of the manifest were labeled as only "suspected"; still, it was enough to send a warning shiver up Bolan's spine. The crescent of the Mideast was in constant turmoil — if the ongoing Gulf War turned nuclear it could bring down the whole deck of cards.

The big warrior operated his banks of electronic equipment — having been taught by Johnny — with the same dexterity he handled the very latest firearms. He shut down the computer and swiveled to feed the cassette into the VCR.

Kurtzman had sent only the segment that was of immediate interest.

The lead-in story detailed a most unusual kidnapping, before switching to an on-the-spot report filed from Florida.

The Bear was right to call it scary.

Being away in Greece, France and South America, and concentrating completely on putting a stop to Gershen and his ilk, Bolan had missed this bizarre domestic story.

The gist of it was that a high-school student, a sixteen-year-old named Kevin Baker, was about to go on trial for breaking into the Department of Defense computer systems. The brilliant young hacker had already made headlines two years previously when he had demonstrated how easy it was for even a schoolkid to build a workable A-bomb.

At that time Baker claimed he had only done it to point up how insecure the nuclear industry was in America. The reporter noted that Kevin's lawyers would likely be arguing a similar case in his defense now that Kevin had been caught over the computer incident. Still, the Pentagon was insisting on a stringent prosecution in the hope that this would act as a deterrent to other hotshot hackers. On the morning he was being transported to the hearing, however, the car had been ambushed by six masked men. Kevin Baker was snatched and the escorting officers had been killed.

A startled motorist, passing in the opposite direction, caught a glimpse of the driver in the getaway car — here the picture cut from the deserted scene of the crime to a police composite of the suspect — whom he described as appearing of medium build, with dark brown hair and a rather swarthy complexion.

The television reporter quickly discounted rumors that Soviet agents might have seized the youth, but speculated that a radical Cuban group might be trying to extort payment from Kevin's wealthy family. However, at the time of the newscast, no ransom demand had yet been received.

Whether it was mere coincidence — or the puzzling forces of synchronicity at work — Kurtzman had a shrewd bunch these two seemingly isolated incidents were in some way connected.

Bolan, too, felt they added up to trouble.

Big trouble. Bolan tapped out the memory code; the phone automatically dialed through to a "clean," unlisted number.

"Good to hear from you," said the Bear. "At least you got back in one piece."

"You can scratch one savage," grunted the Executioner.

"He's been scrubbed already. Lawrence Wetherby telexed a report through to Langley late last night. I 'eavesdropped' on it."

Bolan showed no interest in Wetherby's account of the Rio Santos affair. The events of the past two weeks were behind him; his concentration was focused fully on the problem at hand.

"I've just been screening the material you sent. What's the latest info you've got on this?"

Kurtzman gave him a rundown. "It's been eight days since the Baker boy was snatched and, according to the most recent reports, they still haven't heard a damn thing. No threats, no demands, no call for a ransom payoff — nothing! The kid has simply disappeared."

"No leads at all?"

"Not that I can find out from here." Kurtzman made no complaint about his confinement to a wheelchair, but Bolan could sense his friend's frustration. "My machines are monitoring everything. The only clue the police have to work with is that description of the driver; fairly short, dark complected, possibly Hispanic. They're hitting on every informer in the Florida-Cuban underworld."

Bolan had some powerful contacts of his own in that shadowy half world of crime and politics that pervaded southern Florida. He made a mental note to see what his sometime associates could come up with, but without any kind of ransom demand this Baker thing did not look like a local job. "From the pictures they showed, that wheelman could just as easily have been a Sicilian," tossed out Bolan.

"Yeah, there's been rumors to that effect. But what would the Mafia want with a computer prodigy, or an atom bomb?" Kurtzman was not convinced by the suggestion of a Mob operation. "No, I still think it could have been an Arab team that hijacked the kid."

"That's the most frightening possibility," conceded the Executioner. "So does that shipment of nuclear material tie in?"

"The boat docked in Karachi four days behind schedule. According to a local contact, the captain claimed he called in at Khurabi for emergency repairs. But they had plenty of time to drop off a contraband car go."