Desperate Passage. Don Pendleton

“Jack’s already reported engine difficulty to the control tower. We’ll dip down to five hundred feet, equalize things back here and put you out the door.”

      “I’ll be ready,” Bolan said.

      Mott handed him a thick envelope. “I just counted it out of the safe. That’s for the stringer once you link up. The stringer knows nothing about what you’re doing, or why. She’s there to provide transportation and navigate the locals.”

      “That’s what Barb said,” Bolan replied, nodding.

      “You want me to help you suit up?”

      Bolan shook his head. “No. I’ll do it. Give me a couple minutes, and then you can double-check my hook-up before you kick me out the door.”

      Mott laughed, then retreated up the center aisle.

      Bolan slid the envelope into his blacksuit, then pulled his parachute from under a seat and began checking the harness and adjusting the straps for a good fit based on long experience.

      He worked methodically, with diligent attention as he slid into his harness and readjusted the straps. He double-checked that his weapons were secure and pulled on a nondescript helmet that he buckled under his chin. He decided he was better off without it and took it back off again and tossed it under a seat.

      He stood and manhandled his backpack toward the rear door of the plane where he started attaching his guidelines. His ears began to pop, and he knew Grimaldi was bringing the plane down toward jump altitude. At five hundred feet the drop would be over in an instant. He’d be out the door and on the ground so fast there’d be no room for miscalculation of any kind.

      Mott began making his way toward Bolan. The Executioner felt the plane tilt sharply as Grimaldi began his circle over the landing zone. Bolan could see a dark mass of thick tropical foliage below the plane.

      “Jack’s told the tower in Jakarta he’s compensating for a bad turboprop,” Mott told Bolan as he checked the fittings on the parachute harness. “The weather’s clear with a half moon. The old landing strip is easy to spot in the vegetation. There’s about a five mile per hour wind out of the southeast.”

      Bolan nodded. “I’m ready when you are.”

      Mott moved to the door and grasped the handle. Bolan fitted a pair of goggles into place. After two long minutes during which Bolan could see the ground growing closer through the plane’s windows, Grimaldi killed the lights in the rear compartment and Mott jerked the door open.

      Bolan felt the pull of the open door. He saw the nude scar of the old, overgrown airfield and orientated himself toward it. The sound of the plane’s engines was deafening. He shuffled forward, and Mott slapped him on the back as he went through the doorway into space.

      The slipstream took him and he was buffeted away from the cruising aircraft. He pulled his rip cord almost immediately. The chute unfurled behind him then popped and his free fall was over. He plummeted toward the earth, the parachute hardly seeming to slow his rate of descent. His eyes quickly adjusted to the low light, and treetops sped toward him beneath his dangling boots.

      He twisted hard and let the backpack dangle. The pack struck the ground and he overshot it. He hit with both feet and felt the impact slam all the way up his body, immediately rolling and absorbing the landing.

      Bolan quickly popped up and stripped away the harness connecting him to the parachute. He tore off his goggles and drew his Beretta machine pistol from its sling under his arm. He turned in a slow circle, looking for danger. Seeing nothing, he quickly began gathering in his parachute and shouldering his bag.

      He marked the position of the low hanging, half moon and headed to the east of the abandoned airfield. The old landing strip was made of hard-packed dirt dotted with patches of shrubs and jungle grass. Just on the edge of the field the Indonesian jungle encroached aggressively. At the end of the landing strip was an ancient, dilapidated Quonset hut hangar where his stringer had been told to meet him.

      In order to increase operational security the stringer hadn’t been informed of how Bolan was making his approach to the meet, only the location. Skirting the tree line, Bolan made his approach toward the abandoned structure.

      He slipped into the shadows of the trees and bushes before putting away the Beretta and concealing his parachute gear in the undergrowth. He took his M-4 carbine from his pack when he was finished.

      A rickety chain-link fence encircled the hangar, and the windows set into the structure were all broken. Nothing moved.

      As Bolan drew closer to the building, his instincts alerted him to trouble. He then saw the earth in front of the fence gate was freshly turned up in semicircular patches, revealing darker earth and, once he was close enough, tire treads.

      Bolan adjusted the grip on his M-4 and moved out of the nominal safety of the tree line. He stopped at the fence. One of the gates hung from only a single hinge. The frame was bent near the center, and rested, old metal had been scraped clean. A medium strength steel chain hung limp from the fence links. Bolan picked it up and inspected it. The chain had been broken cleanly through on one of its individual links.

      Bolan saw something in the turned up earth and bent to retrieve it. It was an old key-operated lock. A bit of the broken chain fell away as he plucked it from the mud where it lay in the middle of a wide tire track.

      Bolan looked up, scanning the silent hangar.

      He moved through the gate and put himself at an angle to the door, then jogged forward and put his back to the wall next to the slightly open sliding door.

      He paused for a moment, listening, but heard only the silence. Steeling himself, he flipped around the corner and penetrated the dilapidated hangar, M-4 up and leading the way. He moved out of the light of the opening quickly and took up a defensive position on one knee beside the sliding door. He felt the hard cylinders of spent brass under his knee and detected the aroma of cordite.

      He flicked his muzzle around the cavernous hangar and found nothing.

      The meet location was deserted.

      The Executioner left the building and hurried across the short stretch of yard between hangar and ramshackle fence. As he searched the environment, he saw a black pool that had been hidden in shadow. He knelt beside it and reached out his hand, his fingers coming away sticky and damp. He took in the copper-tang smell, confirming his obvious suspicions. The pool was blood, and whoever had been wounded had either made his or her escape or the body had been taken away to hide evidence.

      Bolan rose and made for the shelter of the jungle.

      THE EXECUTIONER his GPS unit and noted the time on his watch. He was early, as the plan had called for, giving him time to recon the area around the contingency rendezvous zone. He let his sniper’s eye take in his surroundings, cataloging them with terse efficiency, discounting shadow, penetrating dark while his ears strained to catch even the slightest and most innocuous of sounds.

      The stringer, Arti Sukarnoputri, had been told to meet him at a given coordinate should the initial contact not be made, but not how Bolan had made his insertion. That had been a deliberate precaution to avoid his being captured should Sukarnoputri prove duplicitous. But Bolan knew the fact that he had not been immediately ambushed was in no way a guarantee that the Indonesian stringer was legitimate.

      A she watched the old logging road, his finger rested on the smooth metal curve of the M-4 carbine’s trigger. Gnats, thirsty for the salty flow of his sweat, descended on him in a cloud and he could feel them batting against his face. He made no move to shoo them away.

      The minute hand on his watch moved and on cue headlights appeared in the curve on the road from the north. Bolan frowned and grasped the stock of the carbine tightly. The car was moving too quickly for the road conditions.

      The vehicle was unidentifiable in the deep gloom. He remained motionless as the car skidded to a stop on the dirt road precisely at the spot he had noted with GPS readings. The driver’s door was thrown open and Bolan saw a slim figure hop