Don Pendleton - Contagion Option

He checked the room where the two gunmen had first encountered him, and except for several bunks and personal items, there was only one sailor inside, clutching the severed hand that had been chewed off by the P-90’s burst. The injured sailor wildly eyed Bolan, too terrified to move. The Executioner knew there wasn’t any fight left in him, so he continued on to the engine room.

Gunfire greeted Bolan immediately, and he ducked to one side. He holstered the big Desert Eagle, plucked a pair of stun grenades from his bandolier and launched them simultaneously. As soon as he threw them, he took the instant before their detonation to feed the depleted P-90 another magazine. The moment the double thunderclap shook the engine room, he ducked through the hatch, submachine gun leading the way.

Blind and stunned, the defenders of the engine room provided little hindrance to the Executioner. He set the breeching charge on the side of the boiler.

“Jack?”

“You’ve got eleven minutes, Sarge,” Grimaldi informed him.

Bolan set the timer on his detonator and stuck it in place.

A hand gripped his ankle and Bolan tripped over the shocked defender’s grasp. The Executioner twisted his boot free from the stunned Korean and regained his balance. Once his freed foot was firmly planted, he used the heel of his other boot to smash down violently on the sailor’s jaw. Bone shattered with the force of the kick, and the sailor slumped to the floor, dead.

A second Korean fought to get to his knees, and Bolan kicked him in the stomach and used the butt of the P-90 like a hammer to finish the man. He didn’t have much time, and he needed to hit the captain’s quarters. With doomsday numbers ticking down, Bolan exited the engine room and spotted two sets of legs stomping down the stairs.

Before they could come down the steps far enough to see the Executioner, he cut loose with the FN submachine gun, catching them at groin level. Bullets plowed through soft tissue, severing arteries in their violent passage, while others hammered into heavy pelvic bone. The two defenders screamed and toppled down the steps, their bodies landing in a tangle. Bolan milked off two more shots, one into each head, then raced forward, vaulting the corpses.

He was halfway up the stairs when someone slammed into his back and drove him against the hard metal steps. The Executioner struggled to shake the Korean off his back as tightly knotted fists pummeled his neck and sides. Only Bolan’s battle-hardened musculature and his combat harness blunted the bone-breaking force of his attacker’s punches. That gave him a moment to jerk himself upright and flip the unsecured sailor off his back.

The Korean toppled to the deck and clawed for the handgun in his holster. Bolan, still stunned by the sudden and savage attack, lurched up the steps and flipped over the top stair. As his body disappeared behind the upper deck, a bullet sliced the air, barely missing him. The sailor cursed at him in his native language, but the Executioner used the duration of his tirade to recover his wits and get his second wind. The P-90 had been torn away by the Korean’s sudden attack, so he reached for his .44 Magnum pistol.

Bolan saw a gun frame pop up out of the stairwell, and he kicked his way through a hatch to the next compartment before he was sliced apart by his own weapon. High-powered bullets clanged on metal, one slicing across his shoulder. It was a shallow scratch, but it reminded the soldier that his enemy was to be taken seriously. He flicked off the Desert Eagle’s safety and braced himself. The Korean sailor appeared at the top of the steps, P-90 in one fist, the handgun in the other.

Bolan tripped the mighty Magnum pistol’s trigger and a .44-caliber slug cored through the defender’s chest. The Korean collapsed to his knees, vomiting blood. Glassy eyes looked in disbelief at the Executioner, and sticky red lips tried to form words. Bolan punched another slug through the round, pale face, and then stepped forward to retrieve his submachine gun. He cut back through the bridge and located the captain’s cabin.

It was a mess, and he found torn maps in the trash receptacle. A box of matches sat on the desk, several matchsticks lying broken where the captain failed to light them. Presumably the captain was one of the last of the defenders that Bolan had encountered. He looked at the personal computer on the captain’s desk, and saw that it was in the process of deleting its files. Bolan shut off the computer, then pulled out his combat knife to open its main casing.

The hard drive sat like a silver brick in the center of the motherboard, and Bolan cut its IDE cables and wrenched it off the silicone-and-plastic board. The drive itself was as solid and strong as steel, so he stuffed it in an empty magazine pouch on his harness. Though the captain had been deleting all of its files, Stony Man Farm had data recovery software that could bring back any information that had been erased. It wouldn’t be difficult, and it would give Bolan a better understanding of why the Koreans were smuggling human beings and cattle into their country.

“Sarge?” Grimaldi asked over the radio.

“Still here,” Bolan answered.

“It got quiet,” the pilot explained.

Bolan looked at his watch. “I’ve got eight minutes before the carrier arrives. Lower the crane and I’ll be topside.”

“Gotcha.”

“We’ll head back to our airfield and process what’s on this hard drive,” Bolan told him. “Looks like I uncovered a lot more than people smuggling.”

“A black market submarine and cattle? I don’t doubt it,” the pilot quipped. “’Round and ’round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.”

Bolan left the captain’s quarters, wary for remaining defenders. But even as he did, he knew that Grimaldi was right. What started as a simple smuggling intervention had just turned into the potential for a nightmare.

Business as usual for the Executioner.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Kirby Graham handed Rachel Marrick a cup of coffee as they waited at the perimeter of the bank standoff. Rachel took a sip and looked at Stan Reader, who was riffling through his luggage.

“So, who’s he?” Marrick asked.

“A friend from college,” Graham replied. “Actually, best buddies. We even went into the service at the same time. We worked together a few times there.”

Marrick smiled. “So why did he want to come to a bank robbery on his vacation?”

Graham handed her Reader’s temporary badge. “He’s a contracted asset to the FBI.”

“Contracted asset? Like a consultant?” Marrick asked.

“Yeah,” Graham stated. “Technical adviser on cases involving high technology. He used to be an engineer on a nuclear submarine. When he got out, he had a position as a professor of nuclear physics, but that got way too boring for him. He applied for a private investigator’s license and signed on as a civilian contractor for several federal agencies.”

“Private eye?” Marrick mused. “Still sounds kind of nerdy.”

“Well, he uses a lot of big words when little ones will do, but only around people who understand that kind of stuff,” Graham explained.

“I noticed that he’s packing, too,” Marrick mentioned, seeing the butt of a revolver poking out from under Reader’s jacket. “I hope he knows how to shoot.”

“Part of the U.S. Navy Marksmanship team for a year,” Graham replied. “And he’s taken courses at Gunsite, Thunder Ranch and the Lethal Force Institute.”

Marrick raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. So, why is he hanging out with us?”

“He’s scouting for people to work in his new company,” Graham answered. “He needs field assistants.”