Force Lines. Don Pendleton

of divine wrath on all those not of the elect and who would trample us to dust with every outrage, every vice, every blasphemy, every abomination. Nothing short of a vengeance that far exceeds anything that annihilated Sodom and Gomorrah in the blink of an eye is demanded.”

      And there it was, Kramer decided. For all of his next spiel about all of them renouncing their former ways, how there were no deathbed conversions among them and which was what made them all so real and heroic, doing what was right and true in the name of God’s work without the terror of impending death forcing them to answer the call to divine arms, Kramer knew the very rottenness of their former lives and transgressions was what had led them all to this room.

      To this moment in their lives where eternity would be decided.

      “Before I get to the heart of our mission, I would like to remind you men of the simple facts of life, lest you feel your backbone begin to lose some of its iron.”

      Kramer glanced at the small black file in front of him. Each of them had been given their marching orders, detailed, more or less, on the CD-ROM inside each packet. He reached out and picked his intel package up, then spotted the tremble in his hand. He realized the other hand had suddenly somehow moved toward his coat lapel, just inches below the hidden semiautomatic pistol. Quickly, he dropped both his hands in his lap, one ear tuned to Grant, as his own voice seemed frozen in the blackest of midthought, shocked at what he realized he was prepared to do.

      By slow degrees, he became aware of the doors opening, a shabby naked figure being marched forth, hustled toward the shower stall near the east wall, midway down. He heard the snickers from the grunt gallery, as one of the soldiers twisted the knob and water hissed from the nozzle. It was just about all Kramer could endure. As they held the plebe by the arms and whose hands covered his crotch and who wore the despair and horror of a condemned man he recalled his own agonizing rite of passage into the Sons of Revelation.

      It was Grant’s version of baptism, only these waters were scalding hot, and the only stain they purified was the surface dirt and grime.

      With the concrete walls spaced just far enough apart to allow a man to squeeze between, there was no escaping even a few drops.

      Kramer could already feel the man’s pain. Every second in that cramped cubicle, he recalled, felt like an hour, as what seemed like no less than liquid fire wanted to eat the flesh right off the bones. A man quickly forgot about the shame of his nakedness.

      As if reading the grim confusion on a few of the faces of the High Sons, Grant explained that this was penalty for failure, only it would be eternal.

      And Kramer could believe it.

      “Put him in,” Grant ordered.

      Kramer felt sick to his stomach as the figure was shoved ahead, all but vanishing into the thick billows of steam. At the first scream, Kramer was rising from his seat. He glimpsed the victim trying to fight his way out of the watery hell but, as part of the price for such a display of cowardice and timidity, he suffered vicious blows to the head and stomach that drove him back, his so-called guardians shouting curses in his face. Of course, he could quit, holler as much, but there would be no money, and he would be sent packing, warned to never return or speak about what happened and under the most severe penalty. When it was over, when he was freed—or sometimes collapsed from pain and shock—every inch of skin would be raw, his flesh like living coals but that burned inward. There would be blisters the size of thimbles all over, a relentless maddening itch from head to toes that would last for…

      Kramer suddenly realized he was heading for the door, as Grant’s voice boomed and shattered the sense he was a disembodied figure slogging through a bad dream.

      “Where are you going?”

      “I need to take a leak.”

      It was not altogether a lie, but he was surprised at how easy, how quick the words left his mouth, then how Grant seemed so ready to accept his excuse, the man nodding, then returning to the torture show.

      Mitch Kramer somehow forced himself to move, slow and steady, even as the screams of pure agony flayed his ears and hit his back like invisible fists.

      THE PLAN CAME to Bolan, walked straight toward him, in fact.

      Opting for the sound-suppressed Beretta, he was settling into a low crouch, poised to launch from a half circle of bramble and hanging ferns, the last of four-pound blocks just planted and primed when the first of the bone-chilling screams, muffled as they were by the wall, struck his ears. The fireworks were staggered, every third or fourth vehicle, the shaped charges just inside wheel wells closest to the few gas caps he discovered lacked the modern era necessity of locks. He counted the headwinds as another small blessing, whatever fumes meant to be ignited by the initial blast wave carried away from the sentries.

      The lean figure in sheepskin coat was ambling away from his two militia pals, both of whom were chuckling and hooting about his lack of nerve while Sheepskin turned and shot them the middle finger salute. He was hollering back something about a little privacy, when the soldier judged the hang-dog expression that struck him as akin to depression, or regret. Bolan considered himself better than a decent judge of character—though the darkest corner of the human heart and mind was capable of hiding the worst of evil and treachery—and as Sheepskin shuffled closer he made a sudden decision.

      A choice that would either burn him down before the mission was even out of the gate, or lead him through a back door, hopefully to step on the tail end of the vipers.

      The next moment turned even brighter for Bolan. Sheepskin got the privacy he demanded, as the soldier watched the sentries vanish around the far south end. For a heartbeat or two, the warrior analyzed the look, weighed his next move against the pluses and minuses of the hard probe.

      Sheepskin, the bulge beneath his coat warning Bolan he was packing, stepped onto the narrow path, took a few more strides his way, unaware of the problem ready to spring on him from little more than an arm’s length away. He put a cigarette on his lip, shook his head about something, scowled, reached for his fly. That was disgust, contempt or the expression, the warrior decided, of a man in search of a new future. Clearly, he was pondering some deep thought that had left him spooked, some far-away glaze to the eyes that Bolan would have sworn was the face of a man who had just seen a ghost—or his own death.

      Just as he was torn between lighting his cigarette and tugging at his crotch, Bolan rose and surged forward. Sheepskin became aware, too late, of the dark menace boiling out of the brush. He was turning, as Bolan slammed an overhand left off his jaw and sent man and cigarette flying.

      IT WAS BEYOND the point of no return, and this was only the start of the very beginning.

      As Mark Drobbler trailed Infinity to the keypad on the steel door of the oversize black barn a mental picture flamed to mind, out of nowhere. He saw himself doing a rapid about-face, washing his hands all the way back to the Black Hawk. But, then what? He was too old, too tired, too set in his ways. There was nothing but an empty mobile home in the deepest bowels of the remotest wilderness to return to if he bolted. Four walls, inside of which he could sit, swill beer and whiskey and pass the time watching cable television or hang out in the local tavern for yet more drinking and mental gnawing on all that could have and should have been while…

      Right. While opportunity passed him by. And if the others didn’t outright hold him in contempt for bailing, all but branding him a coward and a traitor, he would never know a moment’s peace for whatever the remainder of his days. Not without looking over his shoulder. Not without sleeping with his assault rifle set on full-auto under the covers.

      Infinity was punching in the sequence of numbers, then Drobbler found those lifeless chips of glacier ice were looking back at him, as if the black op was having second thoughts about something.

      Drobbler broke the stare, scanned the dark wood-line. He was sure that hidden cameras, motion sensors were all over what was another classified U.S. government compound. Up to then he’d only heard a word or two about what waited inside the black barn, aware that the bulk of the matériel had only been shipped by van and military transport with U.S. government