Don Pendleton: Doomsday Conquest

There were few villains Hal Brognola detested more than those who sold out their country, and he didn’t give a damn what the reason.

A man chooses a side, sticks with his choice no matter what the challenges, the temptations, the internal conflicts that might have him turn his back and seek what might be greener pastures.

Right then, as he slipped the rest of the sat photos and a copy of Orion’s disk into the manila envelope, the big Fed felt a little sick to his stomach. He gave the computer team a last look. They were hard at it, juggling the action—of the coming and certain firestorms—with professional resolve, skill and determination.

And with honor.

For the moment, there was nothing more he could do here, but he had someplace to go in search of possible answers to some dark and troubling realities.

#14 DEADLY AGENT

#15 BLOOD DEBT

#16 DEEP ALERT

#17 VORTEX

#18 STINGER

#19 NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

#20 TERMS OF SURVIVAL

#21 SATAN’S THRUST

#22 SUNFLASH

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

##47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

Doomsday Conquest

STONY MAN®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Don Pendleton

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

EPILOGUE

Whatever the awful truth about the molten storm falling to earth under his command and control, Colonel Ytri Kolinko wasn’t all that sure he cared to know. A veteran of the Afghan war and a staunch believer in the Communist dictates of pre-Wall Russia, he trusted simplicity in all its forms, be it on the battlefield or in the high-tech laboratories of his current post. What the eye saw, in other words, the mind fathomed, whether his hand was dipped in the blood of slain mujahideen or held a test tube with microorganisms from outer space. Grinding his teeth as the warning siren blared, he slung the AK-74 assault rifle across his shoulder. Ignorance might truly prove bliss.

Or would it? he had to wonder as he torqued himself to a double-time march, propelled by a heady blend of fear, anxiety and excitement, heard his lieutenants of Command Red Lightning barking for the conscripts and the science detail beyond the steel door to move faster for the transport helicopters. This was his command, his protectorate in this remote and desolate abyss of Tajikistan, after all, the responsibility heaped square on his shoulders to get to the bottom of what had traveled from deep space to previously land in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgystan. And what was now breaching Earth’s atmosphere was neither comet, falling star, meteor shower nor any other space phenomenon identified by Man. If it played true to prior and—what, supernatural?—form, it would not only swamp roughly a dozen square acres, as it had in each of the former Soviet republics, thus forcing a military quarantine, but chances were the event would sear yet another terrifying memory at the sight of human beings…

He shuddered, shoved away the frightening images, cursing the young soldier who allowed the door to thud shut, near smashing his scowl to pulp. Forget the angry albeit sorry fact Moscow had dumped him in hostile country that made his former Chechen post look a Black Sea resort by comparison, the Minister of Defense wanted answers to mysteries that came from another galaxy, perhaps another world, even another dimension, if he believed what his astronomers told him about black holes, shrinking mass and evolving protostars.

Tajikistan, he knew, was marked off by the political and military barons of Moscow as a buffer zone between the Muslim extremists of Afghanistan and Russia, but another image easily leaped to mind when he thought about his woeful post. As Moscow’s man in-country, braving the cold, fighting drug traffickers, often engaged in pitched battles with both rebels and narcothugs—and often both were one and the same—he saw Tajikistan as a vast moat between Afghanistan and Russia, teeming with crocodiles—hungry and poised to devour those who would further erode the moral fiber of his country with the slow white death or outright attacking Mother Russia through terrorism and sabotage.

Prepared to tackle the night’s grim business, whatever the case, Kolinko used a bootheel to thunder open the door, barely breaking stride as he swept onto the sprawling helipads.

“Move, move, move!”

He took in the controlled frenzy of soldiers, urged on by his officers as they rushed to board three Mi-26 transports, then spotted the gaggle of spacesuits lumbering for the high-tech cocoon of the custom-built black Mi-14 search-and-rescue chopper at the deep north end. There, a squad of his black-clad Red Lightning commandos lugged the tubular lead containers with fastened vacuum hoses, muled various and sundry metal crates that housed detection and sampling verification ordnance.

As if, he thought, what was streaking for Earth could be understood by finite puny Man.

And Kolinko looked to the heavens, stood his ground, some two thousand feet high on the western edge of the Pamir Range. The scudding gray cloud banks seemed low enough to reach up and grab. Where the billows broke in roiling tendrils, he made out the faint sheen of moonlight, then stared at countless stars twinkling from galaxies both known and yet to be named.

After another few moments of stargazing, aware he was stalling, Kolinko looked back at the compound, briefly wondered if he would return to see its foreboding steel walls, see through to fruition the prototypes of future secret weapons being engineered in its labyrinth. Panning the mammoth complex, north to south, he almost envied the soldiers and science crews remaining behind, nestled as they were, safe from potential lethal doses of radiation or the terrifying clutches of antigravity, deep in the rock-hewn bowels.