Critical Exposure. Don Pendleton

considered the grim visage of the Executioner.

      “If you repair it, they’ll be expecting you to return,” Bolan said, his plan already formulated. “They won’t be expecting us.”

      “Us?”

      “Yeah,” Bolan said. “You help me, and I’ll make sure you’re out of the way when it all goes south.”

      “Oh, shit,” Ducken said. “You’re about to put me out of work again—aren’t you?”

      “Afraid so,” Bolan replied. “Fix that thing.”

      Ducken turned his attention toward the power box, and as Bolan suspected the young man had it up and humming in just a few minutes. Fortunately there had been a toolkit secreted in a nearby compartment that Bolan had thought was a transformer box, as it was labeled such, but in fact contained an array of tools and replacement parts. At least Bolan had some inkling he was dealing with an ingenious enemy.

      But who?

      The question troubled him and he pondered it as Ducken led him into the woods and down the slight hill. They proceeded for what Bolan estimated was at least a quarter mile, Ducken wheezing and panting the entire trip, until they arrived at the main facility. It wasn’t impressive at first glance, mostly because it was obscured with heavy camouflage—a bunker of sorts with a low-hanging entrance and sloped dirt walls covered by brush and the tops of pine trees. Additionally there was radar-scattering camouflage netting woven into that.

      Bolan grabbed Ducken by the shoulder and pulled him up short, putting his lips close to the tech’s ear while he jabbed the muzzle of his MP5K PDW into a spot near Ducken’s left kidney. “Hold it. Where are the guards?”

      The tech shook his head emphatically. “No guards, man...no guards.”

      Ducken held up a card and Bolan realized at a glance it was a coded access card. “Fine. What sort of security inside?”

      “Just a few guys with pistols, a sort of roving guard.”

      “Are they on any sort of predictable schedule?” Bolan asked.

      “No,” Ducken said. “They just appear every so often, look things over and then they leave. They go to some area that’s off-limits.”

      “How many like you inside?”

      “You mean workers?”

      “Yeah.”

      Ducken shrugged. “I think there’re about a dozen of us, all told. But usually we rotate in twenty-four-hour shifts of four. Each shift has a technician, a couple of data guys and a microwave tech. That’s me. That’s what I do.”

      “Fine. You’d better be telling me the truth, Ducken, because lies won’t end in anything good for you. Now let’s move out,” Bolan said as he nudged the tech with the MP5 for emphasis.

      The pair continued down the path until they reached the entrance to the bunker. Ducken looked back at Bolan, who met his gaze and nodded, and then swiped his card. The amber light turned green and Ducken opened the door. Bolan gestured for the guy to go ahead and he followed behind.

      They passed through a very narrow corridor, so narrow that Ducken’s girth barely managed to walk along without his arms brushing the walls. The floor of the corridor was composed of metal grating and traversed a decline path until leveling out where it opened onto a large room. The light there was minimal, most of it coming from computer workstations with large screens. Somewhere Bolan could hear the steady thrum of power generators.

      True to Ducken’s words, three other people were in that room, and they didn’t even notice Bolan at first because Ducken obscured him. The soldier’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and he spotted the empty seat that had to belong to Ducken. He shoved the guy toward it and then brandished his weapon high in two hands so all those present could see it clearly.

      “That’s enough,” Bolan said. “Take your hands off the keyboards and put them up where I can see them.”

      One skinny kid with an unlit cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth squinted. “Who the hell are you?”

      Bolan turned toward the young man. “I’m the guy holding the hardware, so I would guess that puts me in charge. Is that good enough for you?”

      The youth’s haughty mask melted and he sat back in his chair, all signs of potential defiance fading. Meekly he replied, “Yeah, it sure is.”

      “Now, your pal here tells me there are a few guards in this place. Where might they be?”

      “They come through there,” a young woman, the only female in the group, said, pointing to a door in the corner. “About every hour or so.”

      “When was the last time they came through?” Bolan asked even as his ice-blue eyes flicked toward the large, tinted plate glass that spanned one of the walls.

      “Maybe...maybe forty minutes?” she replied.

      “Fine. You guys—”

      The Executioner never finished the statement because the glass “wall” disappeared in a massive shock wave of splintered glass shards followed by a blast of autofire. One of the young men at a terminal, the only one who hadn’t spoken, was the first to buy it as a half dozen rounds slammed into his lithe frame. One blew part of his head off and the impact knocked him off his rolling chair. He crumpled to the ground a bloody mess of mangled flesh.

      “Get down!” Bolan ordered as he went into motion and beelined for cover.

      On the move, Bolan swung the MP5K in the direction of the fire and triggered a short burst of his own. His eyes were still adjusting, and through the one pane of shattered glass fragments he could make out several shadowy forms approaching. All were toting weapons, the evidence of that fact in the winking muzzles followed by the angry cloud of rounds pelting the opposite walls.

      Equipment was shattered, terminals emitting showers of sparks as the remaining three technicians jumped out of their respective seats and made best possible speed for the floor. Bolan got behind a console just as the next volley of rounds passed overhead and then peered over the top long enough to deliver a sustained burst.

      Bolan had finished spraying his magazine and was exchanging it for another during a lull in the firing when something metal sailed through the window, bounced off the wall-length tabletop that had served to house two of the workstations and skidded to a stop near his foot. It was difficult to see in the dim light, but Bolan could make out its shape well enough to know what it was.

      Putting all fear aside, the Executioner reached for the grenade.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      Under other circumstances the soldier might have chosen a different strategy when faced with imminent dismemberment by an HE grenade at such proximity. These circumstances were different. Bolan no longer had himself to think of, but these young souls—these ignorant people who barely passed as adults—who had allowed themselves to be involved with terrorists. They were guilty of nothing more than being really brilliant at what they did and having no decent and safe outlet for their collective genius.

      Such were the ideal victims of America’s enemies, Bolan’s enemies, lured by the temptress of prestige and money. When it came right down to it, that wasn’t something for which any of them deserved to lose their lives.

      Bolan didn’t do anything as cavalier as throw his body on the grenade. He was no good to this salvageable crew under such circumstances. So he did the only thing he could—he scooped up the grenade and got rid of it. The bomb just barely cleared the frame of one of the shattered windows before it blew, but Bolan had managed to gain shelter under one of the heavy shelves serving as a makeshift desk. His ears rang from the explosion and he choked on the heavy coat of drywall dust that rolled through the darkened room, but otherwise he and the people he’d just saved were unharmed.

      “Get