Don Pendleton - Stolen Arrows

“Just past the ten-kilometer mark,” the man replied gruffly. “That puts her in international waters and will be hard for the Brits to get on board without a bloody good reason.”

“Then do not give them one,” Zalhares said, locking eyes with the sailor for a moment.

The other man tried to match the gaze and had to turn away. His crew were professional smugglers, hardcases and killers from a dozen countries, but this dark foreigner had the look of a buttonman, a stone-cold assassin, and the boson knew that he was out of his league here.

Standing on the dock, the two men watched as the crew of the Tullamarine removed canvas sheeting from a forklift parked at the base of the cliff, far away from the corrosive salt spray of the surf. With the Uru in hand, Mizne stood guard as they dragged out the heavy wooden crate and hauled it over to the waiting launch. Everybody stayed alert until it was firmly lashed into place again with ropes and more chains.

Checking the lashings himself, the boson grunted in satisfaction, then climbed back onto the wet jetty and pulled out the radio. “Clear,” he said before turning it off and tucking the transmitter into a pocket.

On the launch, the sailors started to release the mooring lines. The craft’s big gasoline motor purred to life.

“Anything else?” the boson asked, pulling out another apple and polishing it on the front of his shirt before taking a bite.

“Yes,” Zalhares said unexpectedly, pulling his flesh-colored gloves on tighter. “If there’s any trouble, destroy the cargo. Just firing a few rounds into the wood should do the trick. The crate is packed with thermite charges so it will burn even if you toss it overboard.”

“Fair enough,” the boson replied, taking a juicy bite. “Not going to get a refund though.”

The armed sailors laughed at that as they stored the lines in preparation to leave. Only the guard with the Stinger didn’t join in, his hard eyes never leaving the clear blue sky.

“Don’t worry about it,” Zalhares replied, turning to walk back to the waiting truck. “We have already gotten our full money’s worth from you.”

Still chewing, the boson frowned at that and glanced nervously at the packing crate in the launch. Just what the hell kind of contraband were they smuggling out of England this time?

Washington, D.C.

HAL BROGNOLA SAT hunched over his desk, looking at a picture of his family, then at the clock, and back to the telephone, silently willing Mack Bolan to call. As he stared at the photograph of his wife and two children, he felt a momentary pang of remorse over spending too much time on the job and not enough with his loved ones. But such were the demands of his career. He had no choice, really. So here he was again, behind his desk at the Justice Department on the weekend. The big Fed sighed loudly. No rest for the wicked.

The phone rang. Darting out a hand to grab the receiver, Brognola forced himself to wait until the trace circuits finished their work. It only took a few seconds before the small plasma indent screen showed the phone call was coming from a delicatessen in Brooklyn, then switched to a motel in Staten Island, a synagogue in Long Island, gas station in Harlem, Queens, Empire State Building, 42nd Street subway station, and so on, the location steadily changing every two seconds. Good, that meant it was Bolan and the Farm had tracked him down. Any phone call could be traced in time, but Aaron “The Bear” and Kurtzman the electronic wizards at Stony Man Farm had cooked up a device about the size of a pack of cigarettes that gave a hundred false identifications along with the legitimate location. It was classified as President Eyes Only and very few people in the entire world even knew of its existence, much less possessed the scrambler. Mack Bolan had the very first model released.

“Brognola,” he answered, lifting the receiver.

“It’s me,” Bolan said.

“Thank God, Striker,” Brognola exhaled, leaning back in his chair. “Do you know what Project Zodiac is?” he asked without preamble.

There was a brief pause. “I have heard rumors,” Bolan replied. “Some sort of doomsday plan from the cold war.”

“Damn close. President Kennedy wanted something to put the fear of God into the Soviets, and the CIA cooked up Project Zodiac. Twelve deep-cover agents scattered across Europe, with wives, jobs, children. They lived undercover for years before receiving their Zodiac.”

“Twelve agents, each with a code name after a sign of the Zodiac,” Bolan said. “Capricorn, Virgo, and such. Cute. Sounds like the kind of nonsense the CIA thinks is clever.”

“Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Only these sleeper agents weren’t saboteurs sent to blow up certain targets, they were equipped with a compact nuclear device that fit into a standard-size briefcase.”

“Can it be that small and achieve threshold?”

“Different configuration,” Brognola stated, “and they work just fine. I’ve seen the films from the White Sands bomb range. Each of these has a full one-quarter kiloton yield, just about enough to vaporize six city blocks and destroy six more with the concussion and heat flash. Very nasty stuff, and as dirty as hell.”

“So if America fell to an enemy sneak attack, these sleeper agents walk their Zodiac to some military target and blow it up,” Bolan said, clearly thinking out loud. “How did they handle the blast? With a timer or by radio detonator?”

“A Zodiac detonates by hand,” Brognola said without emotion. “It’s a suicide device. After you set the internal trigger and close the lid, the agent only has to grab the handle tight and the next time he releases it, the bomb detonates.”

“The handle is the trigger. So shooting the agent would only set off the Zodiac when he let go. Just like shooting a man holding a primed grenade,” Bolan said, the disgust strong in his voice. “America strikes back from the grave. So what went wrong? Somebody find a list of the agents? Or did one of them turn and sell a Zodiac to some terrorist group?”

In reply, the big Fed inhaled, then let it out slowly.

“Or is it worse than that, Hal?” Bolan demanded.

“It’s worse,” the man admitted. “Last month the President canceled Project Zodiac. But when the CIA recalled the Zodiacs, they deliberately let the information slip out.”

There came a soft rustle of cloth as if the man on the other end of the line was shaking his head. “They used the nukes as bait, a damn stalking horse,” Bolan stated, not needing to hear any more. “Okay, what went wrong?”

“At first, nothing. The CIA was blowing away terrorist groups from across the globe, and then…the perimeter guards stole the truck of bombs right from under their noses.”

That only took Bolan a second to translate. “So the cheap bastards were using mercs again,” he growled.

“You got it. Save a buck and lose the war. Those guys spend too much time playing politics and trying to look good to Congress than they do getting the job done.”

“Preaching to the choir here, Hal.”

Softly in the background, Brognola could hear people chatting and machinery moving. Was it a recording, or was Striker actually calling from an airport or bus terminal?

“So the mercs now have twelve atomic bombs.”

“No, only four,” Brognola corrected. “The CIA may screw up big sometimes, but they’re not complete fools. Nobody but the mission chief knew that identical armored trucks were going to carry away every third collection. The mercs probably thought they were stealing all twelve, but they only got four.”

“Only four,” Bolan said in a graveyard voice.

“Yeah, I know. And that’s about the only goddamn good thing about this whole mess.”