Don Pendleton - Day of Mourning

Bolan fired a cigarette. He felt good to be above water again.

"Any idea where those Cobras were from?" he asked Katz.

Katzenelenbogen shook his head.

"The spy trawler down below has a far wider radar range than this Huey, or the Harrier Jack was flying."

"Don't remind me," groused Jack from behind the Huey's controls. "I feel terrible losing that plane."

"Like hell, Jack," said Bolan. "You did everything you could. You nailed two of them before they hit you." He nodded to the nuclear device at their feet. "And this mission is a success." He looked again at Katz. "What did the trawler's radar turn up?"

"A few maybes. The choppers could have come from a modified trawler like the ones below, fixed to handle the salvage crew and the choppers to ferry them around without drawing attention to the actual site. No way to check them out, though, unless you want to take the time now."

Bolan grimaced.

"Damn. I'd like to. But this device has got to be delivered. And there's that other thing."

Katz stared down at the nuclear bomb.

The hell bomb was still sealed in its innocent-appearing suitcase disguise.

"Hard to believe that something so inconspicuous could be worth so much killing."

"Keio might be the only one among us who can truly appreciate the horror of this little baby," said Bolan. "He lost members of his family at Nagasaki."

"That's what makes Keio so intent on these missions," Yakov said, nodding. "He reminds us all that what happened before must never happen again."

"Set a course for home, Jack." Bolan turned to the Phoenix Force leader. "We'll lower you now, Yakov. Thanks for flying-in this Huey."

Katzenelenbogen shrugged off the thanks. He moved toward the open doorway, to the winched pulley rope.

"This helicopter is modified with auxiliary fuel tanks, Striker. You'll make it to that carrier for refueling easy enough. There's a jet waiting outside Miami to take you back to Stony Man."

Then Katz got a grip on the thick rope.

"The trawler will see you away when you're done here," said Bolan. "Others besides those terrorists will be on their way here soon, Katz."

"Like the European end of the deal?" asked Katz. "Able Team is working that angle right now. They could have something on it already. And there could be something more than a bomb aboard that sunken freighter. Rafael has them going over the captain's quarters, Striker. The safe, that kind of thing. If there's anything salvageable down there that we can use from an intel standpoint, we'll bring it home with us."

"See you at Stony Man, then. Good luck," said Bolan.

He activated the winch.

It began lowering Katz toward the U.S. spy ship below.

"Mack, find out what the hell went wrong on that communications blackout."

"I intend to," said the big blitzer grimly. "That's a promise."

When the Phoenix Force team boss was aboard the deck of the U.S. trawler, Bolan slammed shut the door and shouted to Grimaldi above the constant, high-pitched whine of the chopper.

"Home, Jack."

"You know it, bossman," said the flyboy, grinning.

The pilot eased them away from the site with a gentle increase of power. The bobbing trawlers became specks on the choppy Atlantic. The Huey lifted off into the gray sky in a northwesterly course for home.

America.

The U.S. of A.

A place Mack Bolan was seeing less and less of these days.

What would he find waiting for him at Stony Man?

The mission was successful. There were no casualties for the Stony Man soldiers and the hell-bomb device, whether it survived the ship's sinking intact or not, was on its way to the proper authorities.

Any other time, Bolan's pulse would have slowed down by now from the adrenaline rush of that underwater action. Now he thought of home and those good people who shared the burden of these terrorist wars every step of the way: Hal, Kurtzman, Konzaki. And of course his lady, April, who made the wheels turn and was always there for Bolan with a candle in the window.

Stony Man.

Right.

Everything this big warrior held near and dear.

His thoughts were on these people now, sure. But it was not the warmth of a reunion to be anticipated. It was the nagging concern he had felt since they had first lost connection with Stony Man prior to the undersea hit.

Bolan's adrenaline was still pumping.

The spy trawler's computers had their own satellite linkup. An operator aboard ship had worked on the problem while Bolan was in decompression. When a connection with Stony Man Farm was finally achieved it was via a communications patch into an unscrambled phone line at the Stony Man command center.

Bolan spoke briefly with Hal Brognola. The head Fed did not mince words or tip anything that would breach security.

Hal spoke seven words over the staticky connection, saying nothing to ease Bolan's concern or slow the adrenaline down.

"Come home, Striker. ASAP. There's big trouble. "

Andrzej Konzaki was in a coma.

The Stony Man armorer lay struggling for life in the emergency sick bay of Stony Man Farm. Mack Bolan and April Rose stood next to an armed man in uniform on the other side of an observation window in the hospital facility.

Konzaki was enshrouded in an oxygen tent. Tubes ran to him from two bottles.

A nurse beside the bed monitored a cardiograph machine that registered a very weak pulse.

The tough-looking man in uniform who stood next to Bolan was Captain Wade. He was in charge of the security force that patrolled the perimeter of Stony Man Farm.

"He was reported missing at 1400 hours, sir," Wade reported. "We instituted a search immediately."

All Farm personnel made voice contact with one of Kurtzman's central computers every two hours. A security precaution.

"Was he missing before or after the explosion?" asked Bolan.

"Before, sir."

April spoke up.

"Why do you think Konzaki wasn't killed, Mack?"

"Being in a wheelchair probably saved Konzaki's life," growled Bolan. "At least, so far."

Wade picked up the thought.

"The angle of the blow. Sure. Whoever slugged him wasn't used to chopping down at that angle. The blow that meant to kill Mr. Konzaki caught him at the wrong angle."

April's lovely features were taut with an inner rage she could not conceal.

"A man in a wheelchair — "

"Do you have anything else to report, Captain?" Bolan asked Wade.

"No, sir, I'm afraid not. No signs of penetration anywhere along the perimeter. The ground is soft this time of year. But there were no signs of footprints where Mr. Konzaki was attacked."

Bolan had heard enough. He could do no good for Konzaki standing there.

"Captain Wade, return to your men. April, let's see what Kurtzman has for us."

It was twenty minutes after Grimaldi had set them down on the Stony Man airstrip in the F-14 Tomcat jet that had flown them to Washington from Miami.

At this moment, the pilot was at the airstrip's camouflaged hangar, ensuring that the jet would be ready if needed on short notice.

The brain center of the Farm was a sprawling collection of rustic buildings set amid a dense forest of hardwood and conifer and the occasional grassy meadow like the one that surrounded the ordinary-looking "farm buildings."

In fact, the buildings and the underground facility beneath them housed the brightly lit, modern headquarters of the Executioner's Phoenix world.

The Blue Ridge terrain was dominated on the far horizon by Stony Man Mountain, one of the highest peaks in the region.

The weather was unseasonably warm, but the mountain was wreathed in low-hanging clouds that gave the spring day a grim, foreboding look.

Bolan felt the same way inside.

He had known Andrzej Konzaki only by the man's work in the Stony Man program. In that regard, Bolan ranked the Farm's armorer at the absolute top, and he now regretted not having gotten to know Konzaki better.