Don Pendleton: Treason Play

“Hello, Terry,” Daniel Masters said, his British accent obvious.

Lang nodded, but said nothing.

“You’ve caused us some problems,” Masters said.

“Sorry, Daniel,” Lang said. “I didn’t know you were in Dubai. Perhaps we can talk about this.”

If the Englishman was surprised Lang knew his name, he showed no outward signs. Instead, Masters nodded at the man on the ground. By now, the man was tucked into a fetal position, groaning, one hand clasped over his injured eye.

“Think I’ll pass,” Masters said. “I see how you talk.”

Lang shrugged. “Sorry about your man. I didn’t want to do it, but he pulled a gun on me.”

Masters made a dismissive gesture. “To hell with this idiot. You could kill fifty like him for all I care. Maim them, whatever. Best man won, as far as I can tell.”

“Very understanding.”

“You’re tough. For a reporter.”

“Special Forces. Army. Long time ago, but I still have a few tricks I can use. You probably already knew that, though.”

“I did. But I think it goes deeper than that.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

Lang knew where the conversation was going and he didn’t like it. Fear fluttered in his stomach and sweat slicked his palms. His hands closed into fists. Masters was close, but not close enough to take a swing at without taking a couple of steps forward, telegraphing the attack. Because it didn’t fit his cover, Lang didn’t carry a gun, though he thought longingly of the one hidden back in his apartment.

One of the men was moving in a wide circle around Lang, moving behind him. A third had broken away and was approaching from the side. All kept their distance, forcing him to lunge in any one direction if he wanted to strike first. That gave them ample time to put a bullet in his head before he could complete any attack.

Masters apparently sensed the calculations racing through Lang’s head.

“You can’t make it,” he said. “Even if you took one of us, the others would put you down in a heartbeat.”

Lang flashed what he hoped was his best disarming grin. He spread his hands wide. No threat here, his body language said.

“Hey, if this is about something I did, something I wrote, we can talk about it.”

A humorless laugh escaped Masters’s lips. “What you write in your shitty little newspaper isn’t the issue. It’s what you’re reporting elsewhere that’s giving us heartburn.”

“I don’t—”

“Khan tried to shut you down, tried to stop your snooping. It didn’t work. He tried to do it the easy way. Evidently, you’re too damn thick to get the message. So here we are.”

Lang put some steel in his voice. “Khan doesn’t tell me where to go, who to talk to. If he doesn’t like it, he can go to hell.”

“And aren’t you the crusader?” Masters said. “Playing the part to the very end. There’s a good lad.”

He nodded and the men who’d surrounded Lang closed in. Lang figured the charade was over. Lang hoped that because Masters had spent so much time jawboning and getting his men into position, that Masters wanted him alive. If that and Lang’s lack of a discernible weapon caused the men to hesitate even slightly, he’d exploit it as best he could.

If not, well, he probably wasn’t going to come out of this alive anyway. Given the choice of dying now or dying in captivity, he’d just as soon get it over with. The end result was the same.

The gunman closest to him brought his shooting hand up to shoulder level and locked his pistol on Lang. The CIA agent stepped sideways and brought the gleaming blade down in an arc, burying it in the soft tissue of the man’s neck. Yanking the blade, he brought it forward until steel burst through flesh in a spray of crimson. The man’s gun thundered, discharging a round within inches of Lang’s face. The close-range blast caused his ears to ring and disoriented him.

At the same instant something blunt, hard, punched the back of his skull. The impact caused a flash of white light to explode from behind his eyes. His legs turned rubbery and he crashed first to his knees, then to all fours.

Gasping, vision blurred, he only was vaguely aware of a shape that loomed overhead. When the second blow to the head was struck, his limbs went loose and he crashed to the ground. A black veil of unconsciousness settled over him.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, was the last to arrive at the War Room. When he entered, he found Hal Brognola, his sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearms, a tattered cigar clenched between his teeth, already seated at the table. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s honey-blonde mission controller, was also seated at the table. She was setting a coffee carafe on the table, and judging from the steam wafting from her mug had just filled it with coffee. Her full lips turned up in a warm smile, which Bolan returned.

Brognola, who’d been staring into the contents of his coffee mug, his brow furrowed, looked up at Bolan and gave him a tight smile. Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, head of Stony Man Farm’s cyberteam, shot the big Fed a look. When he spoke, he laced his voice with mock indignation.

“What the hell, Hal?” he said. “You’re looking at the coffee like you expect the Loch Ness monster to pop out of there.”

“I don’t think Nessie could survive in this swill,” Brognola retorted.

“Where is the love?” Kurtzman replied.

Bolan found his seat and, against his better judgment, poured himself of a cup of Kurtzman’s coffee. Once the soldier got settled in, Brognola turned to him, his face grim.

“We’ve got a lot to discuss, Striker,” the big Fed said.

“I expected as much.” Bolan leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. His old friend slid a folder across the tabletop and it came to rest inches away from Bolan. The soldier opened the folder and leafed through the contents, which included several top-secret intelligence reports, several printouts of news stories from newspaper websites and half a dozen or so pictures. Bolan picked up the pictures and scanned through them one at a time. The image of a Caucasian man with ruddy cheeks, blond hair and pale blue eyes stared back at him.

“His name’s Terry Lang,” Brognola said.

“The journalist?”

“Among other things. There’s more to this guy than meets the eye. Lots more.”

“Meaning?”

Brognola turned his gaze in Price’s direction. “You want to field this one?”

Price set down her coffee mug. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and scanned several papers arrayed in front of her before looking up and meeting Bolan’s gaze. “What Hal means is that Mr. Lang has one hell of a freelance gig going on the side.”

Bolan scowled. “You two aren’t making a lot of sense.”

“You’re right,” Price said. “We really aren’t. Sorry.”

“I know Lang is a reporter for the London Messenger. He writes mostly about energy and foreign policy. Occasionally he writes about nukes and nonproliferation issues, too. Works out of the Middle East a lot, I guess because of the energy coverage.”

Price seemed impressed. “When do you have time to read anything other than top-secret dossiers?”

“His articles have been in more than one of my mission packets,” Bolan said. “Occasionally he publishes a clunker or two. But most of his stuff seems to track with what I’ve seen. I always guessed he either had impeccable sources or he was a spook.”

“Give the man a cigar,” Brognola said.

“So he really is a spook?”

Price nodded.

“He works for the Central Intelligence Agency. He operates in a nonofficial cover capacity, and he tracks nuclear proliferation and smuggling for them. Or he did.”