Don Pendleton - Sabotage

There wasn’t much more time. Bolan began to move among the assembly tables, snapping photos of the components he saw waiting there. These, too, were transmitted automatically to the Farm for analysis. He gave the rest of the room a cursory search, then paused outside the door to the office, ajar by perhaps two inches.

Standing to one side of the threshold, he reached out and gave the door a push. As he yanked his hand back, a shotgun blast ripped through the flimsy hollow-core door, throwing splinters in every direction. There was the unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun being racked. A second blast, deafening in the close quarters, followed the first.

Bolan wasted no time. As the gunner beyond desperately racked his pump shotgun again, the soldier planted a combat-boot sole in what was left of the door, shoving it aside as he plunged through. The man standing in the cluttered office looked up in stark terror as the soldier hurtled toward him. Bolan slammed the butt of the Tavor into the shotgunner’s head. He collapsed without a sound. The shotgun hit the floor, its action still open, another round from the tubular magazine waiting to be pushed into the chamber.

The man was dazed but not completely unconscious. Bolan propped him up against the scarred wooden desk that dominated the little office. A name tag on the man’s stained and rumpled white, button-down shirt read Hal West, Manager. He didn’t have the look of a professional; he looked like exactly what he was, the manager of a mechanical assembly plant. Bolan searched the man’s pockets and turned up a wallet, a pair of car keys and a few other personal items. Bolan found a pair of glasses in a vinyl case in the man’s shirt pocket. He took these out, unfolded them and placed them on West’s face.

“West,” Bolan said. He snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face a few times.

“Wha…?” West sputtered.

“West,” Bolan said more forcefully. “Wake up.”

“Who…who are you?” West managed to focus on the soldier.

“I’m with the government,” Bolan said. He risked flashing his Justice credentials. It was a test, and he wasn’t disappointed. West’s eyes went wide and he visibly paled.

“You…you’re…”

“That’s right,” Bolan said. “You just took a shot at a government official.”

“I’m sorry!” West blurted. “I didn’t know! I thought… I mean… I thought you were…”

“Slow down,” Bolan said, though he was keenly aware that his own time was running out. He would have to move fast if he wanted to get out of the building before becoming entangled with the local law.

“They just told us to keep an eye out,” West stated. “They said if anyone ever showed up and got violent, it was the terrorists. We couldn’t trust the workers, of course, but I brought the shotgun in from home, kept it here in the office.”

“Terrorists?” Bolan asked. “What terrorists?”

“You don’t know? That isn’t why you’re here?”

“Why don’t you tell me,” Bolan said.

“The parts—” West gestured toward the wrecked door “—the assemblies. We’re making transmitters.”

“Transmitters,” Bolan said. “Not, say, parts for DVD players.”

“No, no,” West said. “That’s the cover. That’s what they told us to say if anybody asked. They said it was top secret. The folks on the floor didn’t know, just management. Just me.”

“Who is ‘they,’” Bolan said, “and what exactly did they tell you?”

“Consolidated Funding and Liability,” West said. “That’s who pays us, anyway. That’s who hired me to run this place. They told me it was top secret, told me I would be helping my country. They said the transmitters are used by the Department of Defense. Missiles or something, hell, I don’t know. I didn’t need to know. The components showed up, and the plans were given to me, and my people just put the boards and everything else together. We didn’t need to know. It was better if we didn’t, they said.”

“Who at this Consolidated Funding and Liability did you actually talk to?” Bolan asked.

“Some guy.” West shrugged. “He said his name was Richard Smith, which I thought was strange.”

“Why?”

“He was Chinese,” West said. “Or Japanese, or Korean, or whatever. Beats me. But he had an accent and didn’t look like a Richard Smith to me. But I figure, the government, it has its secrets and its reasons.”

“How were you contacted to take this job?”

“I just answered an ad in the paper,” West said. “They told me I was hired, and then told me I was sworn to secrecy, and told me it was my patriotic duty not to tell anybody what was really being built here, because it was for defense. Of course, man, why wouldn’t I? I love my country. I’d never sell it out.”

“How did they know they could trust you?” Bolan asked.

“I guess they must have looked at my records,” West said. “I mean, I just assumed I have a file somewhere, you know? And they paid me a ton of money. A guy would have to be crazy not to take that deal. Six figures to watch the factory floor and not tell anybody we’re making transmitter parts. Seemed okay to me, and I’m as patriotic as the next guy. They arranged for the security guys, too. I figure they’re like, what, contractors, like those guys in Iraq, right? Those company guys who go over and guard convoys and stuff. They never talked much and I didn’t ask. Why did you shoot them?”

“Because they were trying to shoot me,” Bolan said. “West, forget everything you were told. This wasn’t a government facility. You’ve been duped, plain and simple.”

“I…what?”

“You weren’t protecting a government secret,” Bolan said. “I have my suspicions, but let’s just say you were working for the other side.”

“Oh, God,” West said. “You’re kidding. What, like terrorists?”

“It’s difficult to say,” Bolan said. “Don’t worry about it. Cooperate and everything will be fine.” He stood and helped the still-wobbling West to his feet. “Leave that shotgun right where it is. I suggest you get out of here and wait for the cops. Tell them what you told me. Are there any schematics or plans here?”

“Oh, God,” West said, ignoring the question. “Oh, God, I tried to shoot a cop.”

“I’m not a cop,” Bolan said.

“You might as well be!” West said. “Look, man, you gotta help me. You gotta make them understand when they get here. I was just trying to do my patriotic duty, man. The owners said that ecoterrorists might show up and want to take us down, something about lead in the circuit boards. I didn’t ever figure it would come to that. Man, man, you gotta help me. I wasn’t trying to kill a cop, honest!”

“I’m not a cop,” Bolan said. “Listen to me. Are there any schematics or plans here, any data on what you were building?”

“I’ve got them,” West said. He rummaged absently around on his desk before producing a flash drive, which he handed to Bolan. “This should have all the latest designs on it. They haven’t changed much. Everything’s very much at the component level. No real way to tell what these go into, or what they do beyond the most general.”

“All right,” Bolan said. “You should—”

“You! In the building!” a voice amplified by a megaphone shouted from outside. “Come out with your hands up!”

“They’re here already!” West said. He bolted before Bolan could grab him.

“Wait!” Bolan said.

“I have to make sure they understand!” West called, running. “I’m no cop killer!”

Bolan took off after him, but as West hit the double doors, the soldier had one of his battlefield premonitions, a flash of instinct. As he threw himself to the side of the doors, catching a glimpse of West running outside through the outer pair, he realized what had tipped him off. There had been no sirens.