Force Lines. Don Pendleton

vicinity—were on the money.

      It was just under a mile hike from where he’d ditched the Ford Explorer rental in a wooded gorge. The big war bag with the heavier firepower, satellite link, spare clips and grenades was stowed in the back of the SUV, and may God have mercy on the man fool enough to venture forth with curious or felonious hands. The vehicle was rigged with a state-of-the-art zapper, voltage enough to dump a man on his back, out cold. Should some enraged vandal witnessing a comrade’s initial failure then smash out the windows, the war bag was armed with sensors, primed to cut loose with enough sulfuric acid to melt its contents into a molten puddle, and in the meantime cook off some rounds and frag bombs to send the more brazen and stupid running for cover. Should a local cop or state trooper pose a problem, then Bolan was armed with his bogus Justice Department credentials that declared him Special Agent Matt Cooper.

      All set, then, but for what exactly?

      The soldier had a plan, but the more he thought about it he began amending the original blitz to include, above all else, the capture—or at the very least—the grilling of an SOR reprobate on the spot.

      The stone-and-timber lodge and surrounding six acres was the sole property of the leader of the Sons of Revelation. He was a former Boise sheriff who had retired before suspicions of alleged corruption were brought to light. Two stories high, with veiled light striking against thick curtains on his side—the south end—the Stony Man warrior counted two sentries posted on the east and west edges, both armed with assault rifles. If timing was everything in life then it looked as if a full SOR gathering was underway beneath the roof. Strung out to the east and north of the lodge was a motor pool of SUVs, backwoods 4X4s, with a few classics to finish off the vintage car show. The late and lamented undercover men cited the rabble at forty to fifty strong, maybe more, depending on plebes undergoing initiation pains, the likes of which had also reached Brognola’s desk. Then there were drifters, handfuls of other miscreants believed loosely affiliated with the right-wing vultures, local cops suspected of being buried deep in the group’s coffers.

      Dirty cops posed something a problem. In the beginning—a hundred lifetimes and a thousand battles ago—Bolan had vowed to never gun down an officer of the law. But with the changing times his personal philosophy could be altered enough to include a tainted shield, especially when it came down to them or him. In truth, the more he thought about it, a dirty badge was worse than the criminal they had publicly sworn to protect law-abiding citizens and their property from.

      But he would take the savages, on either side of that thin blue line, as they came, as they called the play.

      Evil was still evil, no matter the law, flag, money or mask of human respect it hid behind.

      The soldier gave the narrow plateau another search, this time through small field glasses he switched to infrared. As he panned the wooded perimeter around the compound, he felt the combined weight of his walking arsenal hung from webbing, slotted in a combat vest. Given what little he knew, the soldier wondered if the mixed assortment of grenades, twenty pounds of C-4 with radio-remote primers, the spare clips for his subgun, the shoulder-holstered Beretta 93-R and the .44 Desert Eagle Magnum hung on his hip in quickdraw leather would prove sufficient.

      So far, the EM scanner hadn’t turned up any sensors and cameras. In truth, Bolan knew a den of Goliaths may be on hand, waiting for his special brand of scorched earth, but the Executioner wasn’t about to take any man for granted.

      The living ghost in black spied a narrow trail that snaked northward, marked it on the personal digital assistant, and set out to ring in the new day for the Sons of Revelation.

      CHAPTER THREE

      It was beyond insanity. And, he decided, when he weighed the truth and the rediscovered precepts of his own faith against the present, he now knew, beyond a morsel of doubt, that he no longer belonged, no longer fit.

      That he was living a lie.

      Or was he now simply donning the disguise of wolf in sheep’s clothing?

      Whatever the case, the strange state of utter and miserable aloneness he now found himself submerged, Mitch Kramer braced for the coming events. If the past proved true to form—and he had little doubt it would—the floorshow would be one part briefing, laced with the usual fire and brimstone about the ills of America and the coming Apocalypse, one part initiation. The latter already had him squirming in his seat, even as he tried to will away the first onslaught of revulsion.

      They were gathered in what was called the Council of the Living Creatures. He was seated at the knight’s table with the other so-called High Sons, while the regular army—just over thirty strong—was forced to take its place in the rows of metal chairs at the back of the hall, reserved for the grunts. Two of the big chairs were empty, and about twelve seats from the grunt gallery were vacant, but he had his suspicions, based on what little he knew about the Day of Judgment. Dear God, he heard his mind groan, what had he done? What had he involved himself in?

      As he felt the anticipation build from without and the blazing furnace of disturbance heat up from within, he felt himself on the verge of a sudden and frightening revelation. For the first time since day one—when he’d allowed himself to become entangled through what he reasoned was the sheer loneliness and maddening isolation that was alcoholism and the final dirty vestiges of every vice attached to his old ways he had sought so desperately to shed—Mitch Kramer saw it all in a new and blinding light.

      He had begun to pull himself together a few short hours ago and then the call had come from the First High Son, demanding his immediate presence. Reporting, then, to the SOR compound, he felt trapped, surrounded by living evil. In truth, his very participation in the events about to unfold would find him condemned by his faith, both in this world and the next.

      From the far end of the knight’s table, he watched as their leader took his chair, a mahogany throne, rather, with gold trim around the arms, on which protruded white marble cherubim and seraphim. Jeremiah Grant cleared his throat in a rumble that called them all to order.

      The lingering silence seemed to carry a living force all by itself, as Grant sat, unmoving, glaring down the table, with the coat of arms of the Four Living Creatures seeming to roll out of the wall directly behind the man. With smoke clouds swelling the air from one end of the hall to the other, Kramer stole the dramatic pause to search each face in turn, and wonder about the madness of it all.

      “Soldiers and Sons of Revelation, we are the chosen converts of the Almighty. As such, we are no longer ‘of’ the world, but are simply ‘in’ the world, a world, we all know, that is quickly succumbing to the dominion of the adversary. Our own country, once the land of the free and the brave, is being devoured with each passing minute by an army of infernal spirits who masquerade among us as human beings in the present day American society.”

      And thus Grant began, but in a slightly altered version of his usual preamble. It was all Kramer could do to stifle the groan. Suddenly, the vision wanted to flame back to mind, and he wondered why the .45 Glock grew heavy in its shoulder rigging beneath his sheepskin coat. He glanced at the leader, fearing he might be singled out for lack of rapt attention. He was pretty sure that sparkle in Grant’s eyes was owed more to a shot or two of whiskey-spiked-coffee than any fire of fanaticism, though there was no question in Kramer’s mind the man was deadly serious.

      “In the name of God, we are prepared at what is the most critical juncture in the history of democracy to carry out His justice. We are at war, my friends, make no mistake, and we must stop the sons of Cain—the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex of the United States shadow government and who uses the mass media as its propaganda puppet-slaves, but who control what was once a great and God-fearing nation. Yes, we know well who the sons of Cain are, my friends. They are the devil’s vanguard. They dwell and claim seats of power and influence from the nation’s capital to Wall Street, from the scattered and numerous classified military bases around the West and Southwest to the whoremongers and purveyors of filth of Hollywood, but this is our supreme hour. We must, therefore, take courage. And since we are on the side of God—and if God is for us, then who can be