Don Pendleton - Day of Mourning

There was no inclination to talk.

A merc-gone-bad named Al Miller.

The next link in the chain.

Bolan would find Miller at Stony Man Farm.

He could have waited at the Farm all evening for Miller instead of tearing apart Wonderland on the Potomac, looking for the truth in a city of lies.

Sure.

Hindsight is 20-20.

But Bolan would have missed the privilege of dispatching the vermin he had encountered on this chase that was about to erupt at the very heart and soul of everything that meant anything to Bolan in his life as John Phoenix.

A commando assault on Stony Man Farm.

How many men had the Executioner killed this night?

Not nearly enough.

The undulating Blue Ridge terrain was magnified and rendered clear by the infrared binoculars, pitch-darkness turned into dusk hazed with a reddish glow.

Al Miller was splayed flat on a low knoll that interrupted the forest with a superb view of the killing ground.

From a point five hundred meters outside the Farm's perimeter, he slowly panned the acreage with the glasses, reconfirming the patterns of security established by Stony Man after the sabotage of their satellite-communications unit.

Personnel were working desperately down there to repair the unit.

Not that it will matter, thought the misguided merc.

"Not after tonight," he said aloud to himself.

Movement from his right. He dropped the binoculars to let them hang by their strap and whipped the Uzi around as he darted back to the base of a wide-trunked oak.

"Zebra alpha," he hissed into the darkness. Then he soundlessly switched positions in case someone wanted to fire at the sound of his voice.

"Ambrose tango," came a cautious whisper out of the early-morning gloom, and another commando approached Miller's position.

Pete Kagor and the rest of the team wore night-infiltration garb that matched Miller's. They were togged in black, faces camouflaged with black combat cosmetics, toting side arms, Uzis and grenades.

Kagor lay flat beside Miller.

"We're twenty seconds and counting."

"We'll give them five minutes to engage security," Miller said, continuing to view the Farm stretched out in the distance below their position.

"Five minutes? Jeffcoat expects us to follow through two minutes after he initiates."

"Jeffcoat is wrong."

"Hold it, Top. Those are good men."

Miller pulled his attention away from the binoculars to eyeball his second-in-command.

"You getting an attack of the conscience, suddenly? Kinda late for that, isn't it?"

"No one said we were going to sacrifice good men."

"It'll be worth it." Miller resumed his infrared pan of the terrain. "Those folks down below are going to respond fast. Faster than we think. Another three minutes will give their security that much additional time to pull extra forces into the fray at the airfield, and that's less warm bodies we'll have to kill on our way in."

"I understand your reasoning, but — "

"Aren't you getting paid enough, soldier?"

"Okay... okay, I'm getting paid enough," Kagor grunted. "But there are other ways — "

"Get to your goddamn post," Miller snarled. "We move in five minutes after Jeff coat's team hits. Or do you want to argue about it?"

"I just don't think it's right."

"Fuck what you think is right," Miller hissed. "Git."

Kagor got.

Al Miller focused the infrared binoculars on the airfield situated two thousand meters inside the north perimeter of this secret base. He could see two hangars, camouflaged from air detection, and a runway. Two aircraft, a prop job and a chopper, sat on the airstrip. There would be more in the hangars.

Any second now.

Miller's attack force was deployed into six-man combat teams, as they had rehearsed for so long at the grounds of the Potomac estate. One team was waiting outside the Farm's north perimeter, not far from the airfield; another team was poised to strike from the southwest corner of the Farm.

The remaining team hid in the dense predawn darkness near Miller's present position.

Each team was equipped with two portable one-man grenade launchers. The teams had rehearsed to close in slowly, then group into two three-man squads with a pointman leading a squad by twenty paces.

These men were combat specialists, intensively trained by Miller for this one hit in all the arts of silent night killing. The grenade launchers would devastate any serious defense encountered by Miller's commando unit.

He intended tonight's action by this crew to be a standard hit-and-git night attack.

Jeffcoat's team would engage Stony Man forces at the air base.

Kagor's crew would hit from the southwest. Miller's own team would strike from this easterly position they now held. There would be casualties on Miller's side, he knew, but they would spread out around the Farm's command center, that innocent-appearing farmhouse in the middle of the acreage.

The Stony Man Phoenix project would be canceled forever.

And Al Miller would be a rich man.

They would all be rich men.

Those who survived.

Miller had learned his infiltration technique as a Green Beret in Vietnam. Covert actions in that war made it an easy step to work for the CIA when the war was over; the connections had already been made, and the Company knew Miller to be a ruthless specialist in the many arts of violent death.

Miller considered himself a success because he kept morals out of his professional work. His only morality was a big paycheck, and he had a healthy Swiss bank account full of hefty retainers as a specialist and adviser in such places as North Africa, El Salvador and Ireland.

On occasion he had played both sides against each other, collecting two paychecks. That had taken a bit of fancy footwork. But it was nothing like tonight.

Miller glanced at the luminous hands of his wrist-watch.

One more minute.

Then... attack.

He focused the infrared binoculars one last time on the farmhouse.

Except for a few men working on the damaged satellite system, there was no movement. Lighted windows were well draped.

Miller knew most of the activity was underground. That subterranean section would be the most vital part of this hit... and the most difficult. But once their security force was dealt with, the house could be taken with the firepower his teams would rain down upon it.

He shifted the binoculars to make a final check uprange, where he could make out the nondescript guardhouse at the main entrance to the Farm, near the northeast corner of the sprawling property.

The guardhouse did not look fortified, although Miller knew it was. It didn't even look like a guardhouse, but it was manned by a team of crack troops, all heavily armed.

He could see nothing had changed since the last time he checked the guardhouse several minutes earlier. Security had been beefed up around the farmhouse and perimeter since the soft-probe sabotage, but Miller saw nothing that his team could not handle.

And Miller would be a rich man.

Tonight would pay off better than the last two overseas missions Miller had undertaken. And the fact that it was an internal squabble within his country's intel network did not mean a damn thing to Miller.

He had moved through this maze of spy shenanigans at home and abroad long and hard enough to know that this sort of thing happened now and then.

Besides, it was as good a way as any of weeding out those not strong enough to survive this kind of work.

Hell, if tonight's action meant a life of ease in some pleasure-spa with naked babes, good booze and gourmet food, why not?

Someone had to do it.

Sure, things would be hot for Al in and around D.C. — things would be hot for him everywhere — after tonight.