Crucial Intercept. Don Pendleton

different nation, in order to misdirect the enemy and confuse the issue should members of the team be captured or killed.

      “That’s affirmative, Striker,” Price said. “We have identities back on half a dozen of your dead men, the ones who have Interpol records. All are Iranian black bag operators. Three were officially dead long before they ever met you. We’ve made some discreet inquiries through the usual channels, but of course the Iranians wouldn’t give us the time of day or a straight answer about this even if we were on good terms with them. It’s pretty obvious that you’re facing an Iranian-sponsored hit team, though what they could want with Baldero is still a mystery.”

      “Something’s bothering me, Barb,” Bolan said.

      “What is it?”

      “It’s no small thing to sneak a small army of commandos into the country. Logic dictates that if you did, you’d equip them locally. Weapons are readily enough come by here, after all, and even illegally obtained automatic weapons would be more easily purchased through stateside contacts than smuggled into the U.S., wouldn’t they?”

      “It would depend, Striker,” Price said. “If the Iranians were in a big hurry, they’d equip their team domestically and send them in as quickly as possible, the consequences be damned. It’s not as if we enjoy a good relationship with them.”

      “True,” Bolan said. “But if that’s the case, how did they get in? This many men, carrying weapons and explosives? There’s a huge hole in our border somewhere, Barb.”

      “That’s not really news, Striker,” Price said, “but I take your meaning. I’ll see if Bear and his people can come up with something. We’ll start prodding other agencies, especially DHS, Coast Guard and Border Patrol to see if we can come up with something.”

      “All right,” Bolan said. “I’ve lost enough time already. Time to get moving.”

      “Good hunting, Striker.”

      “Out,” Bolan said. He closed the phone.

      The officer who had first cuffed Bolan, named Sheddon, had been watching the Executioner from out of earshot, giving him time to finish his phone call. When the soldier closed the phone, the cop walked up to him and tried to smile. The result was genuine, if a bit sheepish. Officer Sheddon held up a plastic evidence bag in which Bolan’s bloody folding knife was sealed.

      “Agent Cooper?” Sheddon asked, gesturing with the bag. The Justice Department identification that Bolan had flashed liberally to the officers on scene said that his name was “Matt Cooper.” He had worn many aliases in his fight against society’s predators. The exploits of Agent Matt Cooper would be somewhat legendary by themselves, if somebody had the time and the security clearance to start tallying them up.

      “Yes, Officer?” Bolan said.

      “They’ve cleared me to return your weapons to you, sir,” Sheddon said. He pointed to one of the cruisers. “See Officer Ames, the one with the blond hair, there. He’s got them locked in his trunk, sir. You sure you don’t want medical attention?”

      “Thank you, no.” Bolan said. “I assume you have no more questions for me?”

      “None that they’ll let me ask, sir,” Sheddon said. He looked irritated and a bit rueful, but he was a good cop and didn’t appear to be holding any serious grudges. “I’m afraid they want the knife, though, sir. Evidence.”

      Bolan raised an eyebrow. “Then why not the guns?”

      “Plenty of shell casings and bullets to be had.” Sheddon shrugged. “You know how it goes. They don’t want this—” he gestured with the evidence bag again “—walking off if it was used in one of the, er…deaths.”

      “I understand. You’re doing your job.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Keep at it.” Bolan nodded to him, stood and offered his hand. Sheddon shook it; his grip was firm.

      “Sir?”

      “Yes, Officer?” Bolan asked, looking back over his shoulder.

      “Good luck with…whatever it is you’re doing.”

      “Thank you, Officer.”

      It took Bolan only a few minutes to gather up his gear, check the Crown Victoria for damage and get on the road toward Newport News. Once in motion, he pressed the gas pedal as close to the floor as he dared, weaving through traffic with skill and determination. He was already far behind the curve, but there was no point in delaying further. Until he knew otherwise, his quarry was more likely than anywhere else to be in Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, or beyond it. That meant he needed to be there, too, and soon.

      He set the cruise control and, though he knew it was dangerous, spared a glance at his phone. He scrolled through the data the Farm was transmitting to him, calling up each image as it downloaded. There were brief personal biographies of the men for whom identities had been dredged up, and complete dossiers on two men not pictured. Bolan read in fits and starts as he switched his attention from the small screen to the road and back again. These were the Farm’s best guess at the likely leaders of such an Iranian strike group. It was a guess based on past Iranian intelligence ops and what Stony Man’s almost prescient computer team could tell him of known Iranian terror operatives—those operating with the nominal sanction of their frequently rogue state’s government.

      The two dossiers were for men named Hassan Ayman, likely the senior member of an Iranian field team assigned to stir up trouble in the United States, and a Marzieh Shirazi, whose name Bolan remembered from several different terror bulletins in Europe. Each man had a file as long as Bolan’s arm. Shirazi was linked to several bombings of targets in Israel, where he had a close working relationship with the PLO and, more recently, with the Palestinian government that incorporated many high-ranking PLO figures, each man among them a murderous terrorist in his own right. Shirazi was small and squat, with a prominent brow, and dark, beady eyes pressed into a face that looked like it had stopped a brick at some point in Shirazi’s teenage years.

      Ayman concerned Bolan more. He had no definitive terror incidents or murders assigned to him but, according to the file, he had long been rumored to be an extremely high-ranking official in Iranian intelligence. He was implicated in scores of deaths of civilians and nominally military targets alike, both in Israel and during the Iran-Iraq war. This last started in 1987. Apparently Ayman was believed, by the Farm’s team and as independently theorized by CIA analysts, to have been instrumental in several high-profile atrocities during the tailend of Iran’s “imposed war” with Iraq. If either Ayman or Shirazi was on scene, or if both of them were active in the here and present, on the streets of the urban United States, things would only get more bloody.

      The big question remained: what did Iranian black-ops assassins want with a single former CIA cryptographer, a young man who had never, according to his file, worked as a field agent or on anything resembling a project related to Iran? This much was included in the data the Farm had sent on Baldero. It was a puzzle, and Bolan did not like puzzles. They pointed to incomplete information, and incomplete information, though a common problem in the field, was the most frequent cause of lost engagements. To gain and keep the initiative in combat required that he surprise his enemies. He did not intend to be on the other end of the exchange.

      He was burning up the road, having passed Hampton and Newport News without incident, debating whether to cycle back and forth between them and Norfolk when his phone began to vibrate. The Farm would know he had reached the next city, of course; they were tracking him through the SAASM-compatible GPS tracking module in his phone. The Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module technology was the U.S. Military’s answer to GPS positioning. It ensured that, while his phone could be tracked by the team at Stony Man Farm, giving Price and her people up-to-date location data as Bolan traveled the country, no enemy could do the same, nor could false position data be transmitted to the Farm to misinform Kurtzman’s cyber team.

      “Striker,” he answered.

      “Striker,