Stengard fired again, ducking back inside the room and dragging the door shut. As the door slammed, Riba cut loose with M-16, the stream of 5.56 mm slugs blowing holes in the door at waist height.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Sitting up, he used his rifle to push himself to his feet. His hip was stinging from the bullet clip, blood soaking through his pants.

  “Joshua.”

  It was Bolan. He moved along the corridor to join his comrade, spotting the blood-soaked pant leg.

  “You hurt bad?”

  “Just a graze. You?”

  “Ryan’s assault team is down a few men.”

  “Stengard went in there after we had our little set-to.”

  “That’s one who isn’t getting away,” Bolan said.

  He moved to the bullet-riddled door and tested the handle. The door opened easily. Bolan stepped to the side in case Stengard was inside, waiting for someone to show.

  Nothing happened.

  Riba braced himself against the wall on the other side of the door.

  “Yank that door open and I’ll lay down a few loads.”

  Bolan nodded. He grasped the handle, then pulled the door wide open. Riba triggered several bursts, arcing his muzzle right to left, until the M-16 magazine was empty. The moment he had stopped firing, Bolan went in fast, hitting the floor inside and rolling to the left. He held the M-16 ready for use as he scanned the confines of the room.

  It was bare of furniture of any kind.

  And there was no one else in the room. He climbed to his feet, double-checking the room.

  It was empty.

  Colonel Orin Stengard had disappeared.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Bolan spotted the exit door on the far side of the room. He sprinted across, flattening against the wall beside it.

  “You want me to stay here?” Riba asked.

  “Get to where they have Buchanan and Kaplan. Stay close.”

  “You got it.”

  As Riba disappeared, Bolan snatched the door handle and pushed it open. He peered out. An empty stretch of corridor lay before him. At the far end an open door showed daylight.

  Bolan went down the corridor fast. As he neared the exit door he picked up the sound of raised voices.

  VALENS HAD COME around the corner in time to see Orin Stengard pushing open the door that led outside. He had an autopistol in one hand and a transceiver in the other, and he was talking into it rapidly. She paused at the open door, checking outside.

  Wide lawns spread away from the building to a high security fence four hundred yards distant. On the far side of the fence thick woodland hid the facility from sight.

  Stengard was standing no more than ten feet from the open door, still talking into the transceiver, the handgun at his side.

  Valens picked up the sound of a helicopter coming in toward them. It swooped down from overhead, swinging around to approach the area fifty feet from where Stengard was standing.

  It was a drab-colored Boeing CH-47 Chinook, a heavy transport chopper used extensively by the U.S. Army.

  Valens wondered why Stengard was calling it in. Reinforcements? Or a means of taking Doug Buchanan and his biocouch away?

  The reason was of secondary importance to her. Valens had only one thing on her mind.

  The fact that the man standing in front of her had killed her partner. Shot him down in cold blood without a trace of regret, or concern, and for no other reason than to make a point.

  Valens allowed she was letting her emotions dictate her actions. She didn’t give a damn about that. Just as long as the cold bastard didn’t get away with what he had done.

  She launched herself from the door, crossing the lawn with long, powerful strides to quickly close in on Stengard.

  The beat of the Chinook’s twin rotors deadened any sound she might have made, so Stengard didn’t know she was there until she slammed into him, the force of her attack knocking him to the ground. He hit facedown, the breath driven from his lungs, the transceiver flipping from his grip. He lay for seconds, stunned by the force that had put him down, and in that time Valens went for his gun hand. The heavy boots she was wearing made good weapons. She pounded down on his gun hand, breaking two fingers, then kicked the gun aside as it slipped from his grasp. As Stengard raised his head, blood streaming from his nose where he had hit the ground, Valens launched a kick that impacted against the side of his head. Stengard gasped at the pain, tasting blood in his mouth. He rolled with the blow and for the first time recognized his attacker. He had no time to register anything else because Valens kicked him again, the toe of her boot catching him on the left cheek, opening a ragged wound that streamed blood down his face. He arced over on his side, trying to ward off her continuing attack and failing. Valens’s next kick took him in the stomach, and Stengard almost retched with the pain. The kick turned him on his back, and Stengard kicked out with his own feet and hands, desperately attempting to gain some distance from the enraged woman standing over him.

  “Goddamn, you bitch, don’t you know who I am?” he managed to blurt out, spitting blood.

  “Why don’t you tell me? I might be so stunned I’ll surrender.”

  Stengard got his arms under him and pushed into a half-sitting position. He was struggling for breath. His body hurt and he could feel blood all over his face.

  “I could have you arrested and shot for what you’ve done.”

  Valens crouched and picked something up off the grass. As she rose, Stengard saw it was his own gun. She turned it so the muzzle was aimed at Stengard.

  “I’m glad you brought the subject up, you gutless excuse for a man.”

  “What are you going to do?” Stengard sneered. “Kill me? A senior officer of the United States Army.”

  “Really? You could have fooled me.”

  The Chinook was hovering ten feet off the ground, sideways on. The side door, situated just behind the flight cabin, had been opened to reveal a figure manning an M-60 E-1 machine gun he carried cradled in his arms.

  Valens, still in a high state of anger, hadn’t even turned to look at the helicopter.

  As she raised the pistol she had picked up, Stengard turned toward the Chinook and raised a hand, jerking it in Valens’s direction.

  BOLAN TOOK IN the whole scene as he came through the open door: Valens standing over Orin Stengard, the pistol in her hands aimed at him; the hovering Chinook with the door gunner arcing the barrel of his M-60 toward Valens.

  Bolan raced across the grass, bringing up his M-16. He triggered a couple of bursts, the 5.56 mm slugs clanging against the side of the Chinook, close to the open door. The machine gunner jerked back, losing his aim before he could fire, giving Bolan the added seconds he needed to reach Valens.

  He saw her startled expression as he came up to her, moving fast and reaching out with his left arm. Bolan hit her sideways on, the force of their coming together sending them both off balance.

  The door gunner regained control and brought his weapon online again, triggering the M-60. A stream of 7.62 mm rounds arced in toward where Bolan and Valens had been standing when the gunner pulled his trigger, tearing up clumps of grass and earth. The thwack of bullets chewing their way into the ground filled Bolan’s ears as he rolled Valens and himself clear. He pushed her aside and rose to one knee. Shouldering the M-16, he aimed and fired, sending bursts at the door gunner. His first burst clipped the gunner’s shoulder. The next took him in the chest, kicking him back inside the chopper. The guy let out a startled scream. In his injured state he unwittingly kept his finger on the M-60’s trigger, the muzzle spitting fire and spraying the Chinook’s interior with a heavy burst.

  What happened inside the Chinook would never be known. The burst could have hit the pilot, or caused some serious damage to control settings. Unknown cause still had a visible effect. The chopper surged nose up, then slipped sideways and started to tilt toward the ground.

  Bolan had already hauled Valens up, turning her and pushing her back toward the R&D building when the Chinook started to yaw.

  Behind them Orin Stengard was on his feet, taking advantage of Valens being pulled away from him. He saw Bolan grab the woman and head for the building.

  Then he heard the faltering sound of the Chinook. He felt the brush from the rotor wash and turned to see what was wrong.

  What he saw was the dark bulk of the huge machine sliding in his direction, losing height with startling speed. He saw the whirring blades of the aft engine, blurred with their rotation, slashing down at the ground. The first tip struck, cutting through the soft earth, the rotor bending, snapping, sending fragments through the air. He felt something strike a hard blow to his left arm and when he looked down his limb had been completely severed just above the elbow. He saw the spurting blood and had time for a short scream of pure terror in the instant before another blade ripped through him with total ease. His torso was cut through from shoulder to waist, his life ending in that shrieking moment of pain and noise and confusion.

  THE CHINOOK LANDED hard, the sheer weight of the aircraft dragging it to earth with crushing impact. The main structure buckled and twisted, seams splitting wide open. Fuel lines were sheared and fluid began to gush from the ragged ends. Electrical circuits shorted out, crackling and sparking. Fire rose and spread quickly, curling its way back to the punctured and leaking fuel tanks.

  Bolan and Valens were feet away from the open door when the Chinook blew, sending a ragged swell of fire across the grassed area. The fire had a life of its own, expanding rapidly and throwing out heat that was intense enough to almost scorch their clothing. Debris began to rain around them. The billowing fire engulfed the metal carcass of the chopper. It burned the grass brown and shriveled leaves on the trees beyond the perimeter fence.

  Valens slumped against the frame of the door, staring at the ravaged helicopter.

  “Did we do that?”

  “I don’t think it was divine intervention,” Bolan said.

  He took her arm and led her back inside the building.

  RIBA HAD CLOSED the door to the Room. After he had done what he could to tend his wound, with Kaplan’s help, he remained in the background, trying to make sense of what he was watching. The sight of Doug Buchanan stretched out on the biocouch had thrown him for a moment. The process had moved rapidly, and Buchanan had reached a stage where he was in a kind of limbo, neither fully himself nor completely integrated. Kaplan had explained this was a delicate stage in the process. In another hour or so Buchanan would take the short step from his normal existence into his new life. When that happened he would be part of the biocouch.

  “Doug and the couch blend into a single organism, each dependent on the other. A kind of cybernetic organism. Man and machine working as a single unit.”

  “Like that guy on TV? The Six Million Dollar Man?”

  Kaplan smiled. “A reasonable analogy, perhaps. Only Doug won’t be running around bending steel doors and overturning cars. He will, if we take this to its logical conclusion, be on board the Zero platform, controlling its functions and providing his human intellect toward making important defensive decisions.”

  “That’s where you got me, Doc. You’re telling me Doug is going to be in orbit? Stuck in space with nothing but a deluxe computer to keep him company?”

  Kaplan ran a hand through his hair. “There’s a lot more to it than that, Joshua. If we get out of this in one piece and time allows, I’ll explain. Right now my concern is Doug.”

  “Yeah. Sorry, Doc, just ignore me.”

  That was when they heard the distant, deep sound of the explosion as the Chinook blew.

  BOLAN LED THE WAY back through the building. They encountered no resistance.

  “Where the hell are they?” Valens asked, voicing Bolan’s own thoughts.

  “Maybe Ryan has made a discreet withdrawal,” he said.

  “Ryan doesn’t have the brains to do anything discreet. That guy is seriously nuts. He’ll be around somewhere regrouping. He hasn’t quit on us yet.”

  “We’re still one player short,” Bolan said. “Senator Eric Stahl.”

  STAHL HAD his driver stop the car short of the R&D building when the Chinook exploded. He saw the flame and smoke rising into the air at the rear of the building.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Stahl’s driver was one of Ryan’s men, named Curtis. The man opened the car door and stepped outside, reaching for the cell phone in his pocket.

  “Hey, Ryan, what’s going on? I got the senator here with me out front of the main building. You want us to come in, or what?”

  The conversation was brief. Curtis ended his call and returned to the limousine. He waited while Stahl lowered his window.

  “The prisoners got free. They’re inside somewhere. Cal suggests we back off until he gets things under control again.”

  Stahl felt angry and frustrated. And he felt like hitting out at someone. He glanced at Curtis, wondering if he could take out his rage on the man. He dismissed the idea instantly. Curtis was one of Ryan’s team. Ex-military, and as such liable to tear off Stahl’s head if he tried anything as reckless as violence. Like it or not, Stahl had to remain dependant on these people until he had Zero in his hands.

  If ever.

  It had all seemed so simple at the outset.

  “What was the explosion?” he asked Curtis.

  “The Chinook Colonel Stengard called in to uplift Buchanan and his baby couch.”

  “I believe you will find it’s a deal more sophisticated than a baby couch.”

  “Whatever you say, Senator. Anyhow, it seems this Belasko guy took the chopper down.”

  Curtis returned to the car and swung the limousine around, driving toward the main complex and the road that led back to the highway.

  Stahl settled back in his seat.

  First Randolph walking away free and clear. Then that little bastard Beringer jumping ship. That had been a bad loss. The information Beringer had fished out of the damaged files from the Zero facility would have proved extremely useful. However, there had been compensation in the form of Saul Kaplan showing up when they had finally caught up with Buchanan.

  Stahl wondered just exactly what Ryan had meant about the prisoners getting free.

  How many did they shoot? Was Buchanan still in their hands? Was anything going to go right?

  He thought of calling Ryan, but decided it wasn’t a good idea. He took out his cell phone and speed-dialed Stengard. All he got was a dead signal. The damned phone wouldn’t even connect.

  Stahl was going to take Ryan’s advice and make a retreat for the time being. His trip to SAC had been to speak with Belasko. The call he had received from Kaplan’s lodge had startled him. How had Belasko gotten his computer password? There was more than enough in those files to implicate a dozen people, military and political. Stahl had spent time and money gaining the kind of information certain to insure cooperation from any one of the people in his own files. The data was for self-protection. If he needed to bail himself out, he could use the information to blackmail, coerce or damned well scare certain influential people. His data was his get-out-of-jail card. He intended to survive, one way or another, and if others had to go down to save his skin, then so be it.

  CAL RYAN VIEWED the burning wreckage of the Chinook with more than a trace of regret. Its loss was going to make things difficult. Worse than the crippled helicopter was the body of Orin Stengard, or what was left of him after the helicopter’s rotor had done its damage. Stengard had been burned by the explosion, as well.

  Ryan stood over the body of his former commander, head bent in silent respect.

  He was bitter over Stengard’s death, but all he could do to make it right was to find Belasko and the woman. They had been seen with Stengard shortly before the Chinook had been brought down.

  “Cal, they’re back inside the building,” one of his men said. “Belasko and the woman. And that Apache bastard is in the Room along with Buchanan and the Doc.”

  “Let’s go,” Ryan snapped. “We need the girl and Belasko alive for now. Leave the Room as it is. They can’t go anywhere. Keep out of sight but watch the place.”

  THEY REACHED the corridor where the Room was situated. It looked clear. Bolan called a halt, and they surveyed the deserted corridor.

  “Too damned quiet,” Bolan commented.

  “Where are Ryan’s storm troopers? I’d expect them to be crawling all over the place.”

  Bolan felt uneasy. It was too quiet.

  “We’ll back off,” he said, “until I can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Okay.”

  Valens turned to check the way they had come, Bolan following suit.

  Her warning yell came too late. The corridor exploded in a stark white flash that seared their eyes. A savage crack of sound pounded their ears, making them hurt under the pressure.

  Bolan threw out a hand to make contact with Valens. He failed to connect. He stumbled blindly, hitting the wall.

  Someone had thrown a stun grenade. He had used them himself in the past and knew that sight and vision would return—but not soon enough to prevent their being overpowered. Bolan felt hands grab him, wrench the M-16 from his grip and strip off his harness and the sheathed knife. All this in silence and with him unable to see his attackers.

  He didn’t even realize the blow was coming. Not until something hard struck him across the back of his skull and he pitched into a silent black void.

  STAHL’S CELL PHONE rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Ryan. Senator, we have Belasko and the woman. You said you needed to talk with him.”

  “Have some of your men bring them to the old Stahl warehouses. East of the Washington rail yards. You know where I mean?”

  “I know it, Senator.”

  “We may need to have a serious talk with Belasko. I’d prefer privacy. It could be too risky me being on-site at the moment. You understand my position, Ryan?”

  “I understand, Senator. One other thing. Not good news. Colonel Stengard is dead. He was killed when the chopper was brought down.”

 

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