War Drums. Don Pendleton

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

       CHAPTER THIRTY

       CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

       CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

       EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      London, England

      He never saw his killer. At the last moment he heard a faint click as someone eased off a safety. Before that, nothing. Whoever had come to end his life was good. That he had got this close meant he was better than good. And the sudden realization that he was about to die brought a rush of emotions and an overwhelming sadness that unrealized dreams would now never be. In the final moment he did make an attempt to pull out his own weapon, but the very act of reaching for it became his last. The bullet that blew apart his skull impacted a scant second before the second one followed. He felt only a solid blow that completely took away all of his senses in the ferocity of its effect on his brain and the functions it had controlled. There was no sound. No time to think about what had happened. Just that stunning blow that wiped his life away in an instant. The second bullet cored its way through and blew out his left eye. His body lurched forward, then dropped to the ground in the fluid slackness that comes only with death. There was no grace in his demise, simply the collapsing of a lifeless corpse that had only seconds before been a living, breathing man.

      The body lay for almost twenty minutes before it was spotted by an employee of one of the restaurants the alley ran behind. Stepping outside for a cigarette the kitchen assistant almost tripped over the corpse. He recoiled at the sight of the body and the pooling, drying blood that had edged out from beneath the head. He stood for a few seconds, simply staring, uncertain what to do now that he found himself confronted by the corpse of someone who had been the victim of a violent death. He turned and went back inside to let others know what he had found, then made his way to a telephone to inform the police.

      TWENTY MINUTES LATER THE crime scene team showed up. The metropolitan police cruiser that arrived earlier had cordoned off the area, holding back onlookers so the crime scene was untouched. With practiced efficiency the CS team marked possible relevant evidence, took photographs and checked the vicinity. When they were satisfied, they had the body removed, the contents of the victim’s pockets tagged and bagged and sent to the CS lab. In due course fingerprints were taken and fed into NAFIS, the UK cousin to the American AFIS system. It was, due to the current security conditions, connected to the U.S. database and it was able to identify the dead man. According to the criminal database the deceased was one Harry Vincent. NAFIS threw up a rap sheet that showed Vincent to have been arrested twice in the U.S. for suspected arms trafficking, but insufficient evidence had meant he was never charged. He had done time in prison for minor criminal acts. His background read like a familiar story of early criminal activity that continued into adult life. Certain questions arose that the UK police needed answers to. The main one concerned the seeming ability of a known criminal to be able to move back and forth through customs, without his past raising a flag.

      Before the police could continue their investigation, matters were taken from their hands in the form of agents from the London field office of the CIA stepping in with a claim for Harry Vincent. Protests were stepped on harshly by orders from the higher-ups in Scotland Yard, who had received their instructions from MI-5, acting on calls originating in Langley, Virginia. Everything referring to Harry Vincent was confiscated by the CIA. There was a brief flurry of protest that ran all the way up to the top and back. At each level, those in control were given the stern warning to stand down. This was not a request, it was a top-priority command. Those who had identified Harry Vincent were told to forget about him. They found their computer access blocked, all references to Harry Vincent deleted. The phrases “need to know” and “in the national interest” were trotted out. That didn’t settle too well with the police department, but in the era of cooperation and national-international security, any tardiness was frowned on when it came to interfering with due process. The CIA team did its work with cool efficiency, whisking away Harry Vincent, his belongings and all the data gathered by the police. By the end of the day it was as if Vincent had never existed.

      In truth, he never had.

      Only those at the uppermost level knew that Harry Vincent was simply the cover identity created by the CIA’s Deep Cover section for one of their agents. His fingerprints, fed into NAFIS, then AFIS, had set off alarm bells at Langley. Langley had informed the London field office, issuing a removal authorization that entitled the team to acquire Vincent and all relevant data. The body was driven directly to a small airstrip used by the CIA and put on a plane that would finally deliver Harry Vincent to Langley, Virginia.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      Two days later Hal Brognola, director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, received an urgent summons that took him directly to the White House where he was ushered in to see the President of the United States. The big Fed was sequestered with the Man for almost two hours. When he left, with a briefcase holding a “need to know” file, he returned to Stony Man. During the helicopter flight, he sent an e-mail directive requesting an immediate mission briefing. On touchdown he went directly to the office he used while at the farm and made four copies of the file, then headed to the War Room.

      Those in attendance were Barbara Price, mission controller, and Aaron Kurtzman, the facility’s cybernetics chief. The third person he had requested was missing.

      “Where is he?” Brognola growled as he sat, opened his briefcase and slapped the presidential files on the conference table.

      “He’s on his way,” Price said. Concentrating on her own paperwork, she maintained a calm manner, hoping that her emotions didn’t betray her.

      Brognola sorted the files, muttering to himself, and failed to hear the door open and close behind him.

      “Time on this is scarce,” Brognola said sharply.

      “I’m all ears, Hal.”

      Brognola glanced up to see Mack Bolan facing him across the table, a slight smile on his face. The big Fed loosened his crumpled tie and opened the top button on his shirt. He noticed that Bolan looked cool and relaxed in clean, casual clothing, his hair still holding the damp shine from a recent shower.

      “By the look of you, I’m being too easy. Not interrupting your free time am I?”

      Bolan sat. “Not right now. R and R is over.”

      If he hadn’t been so immersed in his paperwork Brognola might have noticed the sudden rush of color that invaded Price’s cheeks. It was only Kurtzman who picked up on it and chose to ignore it, sliding out a computer keyboard from the table, busying himself logging on. For the briefest moment Price’s eyes caught Bolan’s and they exchanged a fleeting smile. Then the soldier turned his steady gaze on Brognola.

      “So what have you got, Hal?”

      Brognola