Don Pendleton - Devil's Bargain

Or else…

The grim thought trailed away as he saw the tall FBI man materialize in the doorway, venture a few steps across the porch, then appear to balk at what he saw.

“You Special Agent Matt Cooper?”

Of course, the FBI man knew that already, the coded message radioed ahead before his Black Hawk breached their airspace. “That would be me.”

“Agent Michael James. ASAC, now that you’re here.”

“What do you have?”

“What we’ve got are definite major ‘effing’ problems.”

“How about telling me something I don’t know?”

He pulled up short, watching as ASAC James looked him up and down, the FBI man perhaps wondering more “what” he was than “who.” No question, he looked military, specifically black ops, worlds apart from any G-man, he knew. Start with the dark aviator shades, for instance, then the combat blacksuit, his tried and proved lethal duo of side arms filling out the windbreaker. There was the Beretta 93-R in shoulder holster, the mammoth .44 Magnum Desert Eagle riding his hip, for killing starters. Just above the rubber-soled combat boots, a Ka-Bar fighting knife was sheathed around his shin, just in case all else failed. Combat vest, pouches slitted to house spare clips, webbing lined with a bevy of frag, tear gas, flash-stun and incendiary grenades, and whatever else he needed for battle, urban or otherwise, was bagged in nylon in the gunship.

“Come on, we’re on the clock, Cooper.”

Inside the nerve center, trailing James, Bolan felt the air of controlled frenzy, a hornet’s nest of buzzing activity. Banks of computers, digital monitors and wall maps packing the room with inches to spare, he navigated through the web of cables strung across the floor. Above the electronic chitter and voices relaying intelligence over com links and secured sat phones, he heard James say, “We think there may be as many as six to ten cells, according to electronic intercepts, surveillance, what cooperation we’ve gotten from their own communities, informants, here and abroad, on our payroll, filling in a few particulars. In the plus column, we grabbed another of these assholes in Boston. He appears willing to talk, but I’m hearing he’s second or third tier, meaning he was on need-to-know until the last minute before the big bang. We don’t know if the cells are working in twos, threes or as independent operators, nor what their specific destinations of target.”

James stopped by a bank of monitors tied into fax machines, sat phones. “Another sliver of sunlight—two more were snatched at Penn Station, while you were in the air. They were minutes from boarding the Number 90 and 93 trains. Two carry-ons per scumbag, four bags, all loaded with Semtex, the payload just inside Amtrak’s fifty-pound limit. Military explosive. Begs the question how the hell they got their hands on it, where and from who in the first place. First-class tickets, one way, of course, they were booked two cars down from the driver’s seat. That much wallop, we figure at least two cars trashed and gone up in flames, complete derailment, the works rolling up, one car after…”

“I’ve got the picture.”

“Okay. We are on ThreatCon Delta, terrorist alert severe. If you could ratchet it up a notch the country would be under martial law. You can well imagine the panic already out there among John and Jane Q. Citizen, what with the media jamming mikes and cameras in the face of anybody who looks official. All local and state law enforcement have been scrambled to aid and assist the National Guard, the Army, Special Forces, Delta in the shutdowns, searches, sealing off perimeters of all terminals and depots, starting with the major cities, particularly the Eastern Seaboard, the West Coast. If we don’t chop them off at the knees, and soon, well—”

“Airports?”

“Security personnel and procedures have been quadrupled, but we’re reading this as a whole different ballgame than using jumbo jets as flying bombs. Just the same, the skies are swarming with every fighter jet we can put in the air. Incoming international air traffic, especially executive jets, will be intercepted and escorted to landing. No compliance, bye-bye, that’s straight from the White House. Same thing with ships, large, small, pleasure or commercial. The Coast Guard and the Navy have formed a steel wall, up and down both shorelines, likewise the Gulf.”

Was it enough? Bolan wondered. It was a task so monumental it boggled the mind. No amount of manpower, no matter how skilled or determined, could one-hundred-percent guarantee a few of the opposition didn’t slip through the net. Then there were trains, buses, already rolling, loaded with unsuspecting passengers, potential conflagrations on wheels that could detonate any moment. He looked at the monitors, saw numbers scrolling as fast as personnel could scoop up sheafs of printed paper. Digital maps of Chicago, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami were yielding the locations of train and bus terminals, points of travel, layovers and final destinations, all flashing up in red.

“So far, we’ve sealed off and stopped all departures from Seattle’s King Street Station. We’re working on Union Station in D.C. now,” James said. “You have Metrorail, the VRE, MARC, and that’s just Washington to worry about. The list is near endless as far as manpower is concerned, covering all bases. We’re stopping trains and buses that are in transit—as we can get to them—board, clear them out, search all luggage, but it’s going to take time, something we don’t have. We’ve just alerted the Chicago Transit Authority. They are under presidential directive to shut down Union Station on Canal Street, but as you might know, Chicago is considered the railway center of the country. God only knows how many trains we’re looking at, arriving or leaving in or within a hundred miles around the compass of Chicago alone. You’re talking over two hundred trains, rolling anywhere along some twenty-four thousand miles of track at any given time. I don’t even have the numbers crunched yet on how many Greyhound, Trailways and charter and tour-bus terminals and depots we have that may be in their crosshairs. There’s more,” he said, and paused. “The headsheds are thinking there could even be eighteen-wheelers, vans, U-Haul trucks out there, cab and limo drivers…you get the picture? If this thing blows up in our faces, the entire transportation network of the United States is shut down, end of story. Even if they set off one, two trains or buses, and you’ve got wreckage and dead bodies all over the highways and tracks. I don’t even want to hazard a guess as to the chaos that would break out.”

“I want everything you have in ten minutes.”

“You’ve got it.”

“I’m thinking we might be able to narrow our problems down in short order.”

“How so?” James asked.

“Where are the prisoners?”

James grunted, jerked a nod to the deep corner of the room where an armed guard stood. “In the cellar. Problem is, we’ve already lost two of the four.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m afraid the show’s already started without you. I have to warn you, Cooper, it’s messy down there. His name is Moctaw, or that’s what he calls himself.”

“What is he?”

“I don’t know, but he was dumped in my lap, damn near a suitcase load of official DOD papers telling me I was to step aside—that is if I wanted to finish my career with the FBI. There was nothing I could do.”

A sordid picture of what he was about to find downstairs already in mind, Bolan followed James across the room, the FBI man barking for the guard to step aside and open the door.

“I’ll leave you to introduce yourself,” James said, wheeled, then marched back for the nerve center.