Don Pendleton: Stealth Sweep

“Why would Shen-wa want Snyder alive… Ah. So that he’ll know what we know about the Red Star, and can make preparations against our responses in advance.”

“And Snyder might know if Shen-wa is the person behind these attacks, and possibly his location,” Brognola stated.

“Striker certainly has courage, breaking into a Red Chinese maximum-security prison just to ask a man a question.”

“Whatever gets the job done, sir,” the big Fed said as a dark shadow swept past the window.

As a second shadow appeared, Brognola dived forward and tackled the President to the floor just as something exploded outside, the titanic force of the blast rocking the White House.

Mack Bolan ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

—General Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964

No matter the obstacles, I’m determined to carry on the fight, my solemn tribute to the men and women, soldier and civilian, who give their all to protect the innocent, and strive for the ultimate goal of peace.

—Mack Bolan

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Oskemen Valley, Kazakhstan

Impatiently, death waited to be released.

The rumbling sky was the color of oiled steel, and a cold rain fell in a heavy mist upon the rocky landscape. Jagged granite peaks soared high enough to rip through the dark storm clouds, a thick forest of pine trees glistened with moisture, and muddy creeks gurgled along twisting ravines until leaping off cliffs to unexpectedly become waterfalls.

With a low mechanical growl, a massive diesel locomotive slowly arched over a rocky foothill, the huge engine briefly eclipsing the crescent moon as it rested on the horizon. As the long freight train began the serpentine descent into the darkness below, a dull thump sounded from one of the sealed cargo carriages, then the corrugated roof blew off to sail away into the dripping trees. A moment later, a dozen spheres abruptly rose from inside the carriage on an exhalation of compressed air. Shooting high into the misty rain, the spheres snapped out curved wings and glided away from the chuffing locomotive just as it disappeared into a brick-lined tunnel.

As they skimmed low over the treetops, the outer covering of the strange devices crumbled away like dry ash to reveal sleek falcon-shaped machines, the wings and angular bodies painted a flat, nonreflective black. There were no running lights, no exhaust, no sound of an engine, and the machines sailed through the stormy night as silent as ghosts.

Spreading out in a search pattern, they circled the rolling foothills several times until visually confirming their location, then sharply banked away from one another and streaked away in different directions at nearly subsonic speeds.

SET ON TOP of a huge pile of broken slag was the curved white dome of a Kazakhstan military radar station, the outer protective surface oddly resembling a giant golf ball. Inside, the freshly painted walls were covered with amazingly lewd centerfolds from hardcore Spanish and Ukrainian sex magazines, along with posters of the white sandy beaches of the Caspian Sea to the far west. The coast was naturally rocky; the sand had been flown in by the Soviet Union government to create a private beach for its upper echelon. But now everybody had access to the little resorts. It was one of the more benign legacies of the brutal political regime.

Wrapping a dry cloth around the worn wooden handle, Sergeant Aday Meirjan lifted the softly bubbling pot. “Tea?” he asked over a shoulder.

“Thanks!”

“Sugar?”

Hitching up his new gun belt, Private Dastan Alisher frowned. “What am I, a barbarian?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Meirjan chuckled, topping off the pair of cracked ceramic mugs.

Hanging from the domed ceiling, clusters of humming fluorescent lights brightly illuminated a curved bank of controls, glowing radar screens and squat, utilitarian radio transmitters—the softly beeping heart of the radar station. Near the exit was a bubbling samovar, the delicious aroma of freshly brewed tea mixing with the stink of ozone wafting off the high-voltage transformers powering the antiquated electrical equipment. Positioned alongside the door to a cramped washroom was a hand-carved wooden gun rack filled with an assortment of weapons: old WW II German-made 9 mm “grease guns,” a pair of American Browning Automatic rifles, crude AK-47 assault rifles and glistening new AK-105 assault rifles equipped with grenade launchers and telescopic sights. On the floor below were crates of ammunition for each weapon. It was a miniature United Nations of death-dealing man stoppers.

Listening to the gentle beeping of the radar screens, the weary soldiers leaned back in their heavily patched chairs and took appreciative sips of the strong tea, the sweet brew bringing much needed freshness and clarity to their tired minds and limbs. This had been a long shift for both of them, and their time in Fort Purgatory was not over yet.

Located in the barren western region of the nation, Oskemen Valley was a good fifty miles from the gleaming skyscrapers and raucous discotheques of Oskemen City, and an equal distance from the horribly radioactive wastelands of the old Soviet Union nuclear test sites. While the radar station carried the official title of Listening Post 47, unofficially it was better known as Purgatory, a dead zone caught between heaven and hell.

Only a decade or so earlier, the valley had been the military foundry of the Soviet Union, with dozens of busy factories and manufacturing plants turning out an endless supply of missiles, torpedoes and artillery shells. But with the collapse of the USSR, the Russian soldiers fleeing back to their homes had taken everything they could sell for quick cash on the black market. Almost overnight, Kazakhstan had become an independent nation, and a major world power, equipped with hundreds of abandoned underground silos full of thermonuclear ICBMs.

The Kazakhstan government neatly removed itself from the deadly nuclear crosshairs of the rest of the world by simply giving the United Nations all fourteen thousand of their remaining Soviet nuclear weapons. It was a political tactic nobody had ever thought of using before.

Concentrating what limited resources the country possessed on constructing schools and repairing roads, Kazakhstan still maintained a strong conventional army, with hundreds of radar stations positioned along important passes through the steep mountains to keep a careful watch on the despised Russians to the north, and the equally distrusted Chinese to the east. Every other country along its borders could be safely ignored, as they lacked the technological ability to seriously threaten Kazakhstan.

Once they’d finished their tea, Alisher refilled the mugs this time, while Meirjan checked the steadily beeping radar screens. The noise would most likely drive most civilians mad, but to a soldier it was the beautiful music of peace. The rainy skies above the valley were empty of any aircraft, rockets or incoming missiles. Although why in the name of God anybody would want to invade the isolated valley, the sergeant had no idea whatsoever. But it was his job to guard the place, not ponder the intricacies of international politics.