Defense Breach. Don Pendleton

The snow formations in this area resembled shallow riverbeds, the shapes blown into the prairie in much the same way water sculpted a stream’s dirt banks. After performing a quick touch-check on the weapons he wore, Bolan crawled to the edge of the snow brim where he could see the outline of the cabin tucked into the edge of a small stand of spruce bordering a sparse coppice of hardwood and pine.

      A bone-chilling wind from the north fueled to life more than a dozen miniature tornadoes of fine dry snow, setting them swirling wildly in front of Bolan’s position. The whirlwinds danced for minutes at a time across his field of vision before each fell abruptly back to earth, only to be instantly replaced by others leaping skyward from the white powder.

      Distances were deceiving on a flat terrain where the sun, while low on the horizon, was nevertheless still brilliant. Even coming in at an extreme angle, rays shining onto a pristine white countryside devoid of color often played tricks. Bolan scanned the area before him in long overlapping sweeps, estimating the cabin to be slightly more than a half mile away. The building was cast in late-afternoon shadow by half a dozen spruce trees whose gnarled and misshapen boughs were testimony to the number of years they had stood like sentries, their crooked growth influenced by decade after decade of the wind’s unrelenting push.

      Bolan reached into one of the pouches on his white combat belt and withdrew a pair of binoculars whose lenses were composed of the same material he wore in his goggles. The compact binoculars were ruggedized, which meant they could withstand harsh environments, including shock and vibration, without a resultant performance loss. Bolan peered through the eyecups while fingering the focus wheel.

      Despite the generator’s noise, the cabin appeared to be deserted, but three snowmobiles pulled into a tight huddle against the building’s east wall belied the initial impression. Bolan switched the binoculars into infrared mode, causing the landscape to shimmer for a few seconds while the internal photocathode sensors adjusted to the IR data stream. Processed from a half mile away, an infrared view’s validity was suspect, but the image coming through the lenses clearly showed that the cabin walls were considerably warmer than its surroundings. The snowmobiles emitted a color profile that indicated none of the engines had been fired up recently. Notwithstanding the apparent inactivity, Bolan would approach the cabin as if the people inside were armed and awaiting his arrival.

      He lowered the binoculars and put them back into their pouch. As he pushed himself away from the berm’s shallow lip, he took mental inventory of his weapons.

      In a white leather holster riding low on his hip, the soldier wore a .44-caliber Desert Eagle. If called into service, the oversize handgun’s appetite would be fed with the two hundred rounds of Cor-Bon 249-grain ammo he carried in one of the pouches on his white combat belt.

      Bolan’s Beretta 93-R, loaded with a 20-round clip of 9 mm Parabellum ammunition, was housed in a shoulder holster with Velcro flap. In one of the pouches on his combat belt, Bolan carried two hundred additional 9 mm rounds and the pistol’s sound suppressor. This mission did not overtly call for a suppressor, but after spending a good portion of his life in conditions that wavered to the whims of battle uncertainty, Bolan knew there was no such thing as being too prepared or too well-equipped for a job.

      A foot-long Sykes-Fairbairn tempered steel knife, honed to a razor’s edge, rested in a white leather sheath strapped to the outside of his right calf. Four MK3A2 concussion grenades hooked to the combat belt’s webbing ensured the availability of additional firepower in the event his planned soft probe took an unexpectedly intense turn.

      Bolan climbed back onto his snowmobile, started the motor and circled around to the cabin’s far side. Numerous tracks in the snow close to the building alerted him that there had been recent visitors. Although not as unique as tire tracks, the traces on the ground displayed sufficient variation for Bolan to determine that four separate snowmobiles had arrived from the west, departing in the same direction. He eased his vehicle into the cover of the thin woods behind the cabin, cruising twenty yards among the trees until he found a spot affording acceptable concealment. Once there, he switched off the motor. As he dismounted and drew his Beretta, a crow cried out from its perch in a nearby tree, and the warrior paused to listen to nature’s voice. The very distant drone of the snowmobiles he had registered earlier was the only man-made sound reaching his ears.

      On feet as silent as those of a stalking tiger, he swiftly covered the distance between the cabin and woods. Reaching the structure, he pressed himself against the weathered siding close to where a propane gas tank was mounted on a steel frame. There was no sound from within. Before entering, he removed his protective goggles and put them away, exposing blue eyes that darted from one point to another, continuously processing information relative to his surroundings.

      Bolan inched closer to the door, raising his Beretta to the ready position. When he reached the doorknob, he halted for a second, steeling himself for whatever he might find inside. Knowing he might come under gunfire as soon as his presence was discovered, he took hold of the doorknob and turned, finding it unlocked. Without further delay, he stepped into the cabin where the nauseating stench of death immediately accosted his nostrils.

      With dusk settling over the region, the light inside was dim, coming from a single overhead bulb hanging from an extension cord stapled to the ceiling. The cabin was built with three rooms, the austerity of furnishings bearing testament to its short-term use. An open area contained a beat-up table and half a dozen chairs arranged in the vicinity of a propane stove. A tiny bathroom with a stall shower visible through an open door was situated against the rear wall and a bedroom with an open curtain in place of a door was next to the bathroom. On the floor in the center of the main room, two bullet-ridden bodies lay in grotesque death poses, their blood mingling on the floorboards in an irregular dark stain occupying the space between them. One of the corpses had been shot numerous times—some bullets obviously postmortem, as if the purpose of the additional slugs was to eradicate the victim’s identity. Indeed, identifying the disfigured corpse based on facial evidence alone would be impossible. Why, Bolan wondered, weren’t they both mutilated?

      With pistol drawn, he made his way silently to the back bedroom, taking care to avoid stepping in the bloodstains splattered randomly across the floor. There should have been electronic equipment here—at the very least, a radiation source and monitoring device. If the radar Tokaido’s module had detected was not coming from this cabin, where was its origin? There were no other possibilities.

      The bedroom was considerably darker than the outer room. Bolan pulled a powerful pen flashlight from one of his pouches and swept the interior with its beam, his eyes scanning the space before him while he listened for signs of life. In the seam where the floorboards met the distant wall, the flashlight’s beam played across a line of bright yellow sawdust, the color alerting him to the fact that the dust had not been there for a full winter during which time the elements would have turned it an oxidized gray.

      Recalling the three snowmobiles outside, Bolan stepped into the center of the room and pushed the bed against a wall. The outline of a trapdoor was visible in the floorboards, a rectangle approximately three feet by two. Whoever constructed the door had done a good job placing the hinges on the underside; with only a casual glance under the bed to make sure no one was hiding there, the door would have gone unnoticed.

      “Police!” he shouted to alert whomever might be under the floorboards. He had told lies much worse than impersonating an officer of the law. “Come out with your hands up.”

      There was no response.

      Bolan placed the penlight between his teeth and drew his knife, sliding the blade into the crack forming one of the short sides. Using the weapon as a lever, he discovered there was no locking mechanism on the door. With minimal effort he was able to pry it open a few inches, which then grew wider as he pushed down on the knife’s leather grip. When there was sufficient space between the door and the floor, he grabbed the hatch’s edge with the hand holding his Beretta and threw it back all the way. The door banged open onto the floorboards, sounding unnaturally loud in the still of the bedroom.

      “Please! Please don’t kill me,” came from the darkness below. The words were spoken in a voice laced with terror.

      Bolan had