“That’s a lot to ask of a man in your position.”
“Not if you know Larry,” Brognola said. “He was one of the best sources of insider information I had here. He knew where all the bodies were buried. That’s what made him enemies here—powerful enemies. I owe him. So I asked Striker to investigate.”
Price nodded. Who better to track a vigilante than Mack Bolan? Bolan had what was at times an arm’s-length relationship with the Farm, but the staff’s commitment to him, and his to them individually, was unwavering. She considered the man for a moment. Where was he? What was he doing? Price had an off-again, on-again relationship with the soldier. Neither of them asked for more than the other could give. It was enough. Still, she worried for him, when she let herself.
“What can we do?” Price asked. If the Farm could assist Bolan, she’d see to it.
“I’m relaying specifications he transmitted to me through his scrambled phone,” Brognola said, typing at his computer beyond the view of the sat link. “He needs a care package from you guys.”
“We’ll do our best to fill his wish list,” Price nodded.
“I also need Bear and his team to dig up anything and everything they can find on a biker gang called the CNY Purists. I’m sending a digital shot Striker took during a raid on one of their facilities last night that might help. You can send the data directly to him through his wireless.”
“We’ll get on it, Hal.”
“Thanks.” He moved to cut the connection.
“Hal?” Price asked.
Brognola paused.
“When you talk to him, tell him to look after himself.”
“I will,” Brognola promised. He cut the feed.
Price stared at the blank screen for a moment before turning to examine the incoming data. There was work to be done.
Camillus, New York
T HE E XECUTIONER LEANED against the black-and-white Syracuse police car, his arms folded across his chest. He’d spent a long night telling and retelling his story, doing his best to wear out the Justice credentials Brognola had provided in the name of Agent Matt Cooper. Now he was simply waiting for the all clear so he could resume his work.
The delay was annoying, but necessary. He would need the cooperation of local law enforcement, and he needed to know who the federal players were. In addition, making himself known might shake loose whomever Brognola’s source believed was cooperating with the murderer or murderers Bolan sought. If he made a big enough target of himself, it was a sure bet someone would take a crack at him to get him out of the way.
At least three government agencies were represented—DEA, FBI and ATF—while the county sheriff’s office and two neighboring police districts had sent units, as well. Bolan had waited patiently while they worked through their histrionics and exaggerated outrage at his presence. One of the ATF agents had held the Beretta 93-R by two fingers as if examining a venomous snake; the FBI duo had threatened to haul him in for interrogation if his ID and story didn’t hold up. The city and suburban police had steered clear of him but shot him suspicious looks. About the only one of them Bolan didn’t immediately dislike was a rookie named Paglia, who watched him carefully but expressed no emotion. That one had the look of a decent lawman who, if he stayed on the force and kept his wits about him, would go far, Bolan thought. He’d seen the type. He’d seen the opposite, too.
When their phone calls and computer queries came back verifying Cooper’s affiliation with the Justice Department, the squawking had largely stopped. Bolan was, however, obliged to stick around until cleared to leave, if he didn’t want to burn any bridges. The mobile home had long since burned itself out, and the agents and police were busily picking through the smoldering debris.
Officer Paglia, who looked impossibly young to Bolan despite his air of competence, returned to his car to drop off several evidence bags. They contained shell casings and a few other odds and ends. Bolan did not expect any of the departments involved to turn up much of use from the burned wreckage, but there was always a chance.
Paglia also carried with him Bolan’s leather shoulder harness, in which was slung the 93-R and its spare magazines. He handed the harness to Bolan and then, from behind his belt, produced the Desert Eagle. “They say you can have your roscoes back,” Paglia chuckled. “They weren’t too happy about it.”
“I’m surprised they let you take any of the evidence,” Bolan commented, nodding at the agents in their variously lettered windbreakers.
“There’s enough to go around,” Paglia told him. Something caught his eye as he turned from his vehicle. He bent to retrieve a singed and empty cardboard carton. Several more just like it were scattered across the field, hurled there by the explosion. The agents and police officers had been walking on them for most of the night.
“Cold medicine,” he said.
“Pseudoephedrine,” Bolan told him. “It’s a precursor chemical, cooked from the over-the-counter drugs in order to manufacture methamphetamine.”
“Crystal meth,” the cop said. “This is a drug house?”
“It used to be,” Bolan said.
F ROM THE TREE LINE ACROSS the snow-covered field, Gary Rook watched the big man in black collect his things and return to the unmarked Chevy Blazer in which he’d arrived the previous night. Through the powerful scope of the Remington 700, the dark-haired man’s face was clearly visible. Rook did his best to memorize the intruder’s features. He had a feeling they would meet again, soon.
Rook had watched as the commando rolled up and entered the meth lab. There was something very unusual about the interloper. He moved like Rook himself—like a man who knew his way around a battlefield. His armed entry into the trailer was textbook, though Rook could have told him there was no one alive in the trailer.
The big, bearded man smiled through red-orange whiskers. His forearms tightened as he flexed his fingers on the synthetic stock of the Remington. Briefly he had considered putting a .308 slug through the commando’s head, but he’d decided to wait. It was a very informative delay. When the Purists arrived, more or less silently on foot, he assumed they’d walked in from wherever they’d left their vehicles, responding to some desperate call made from within the trailer before Rook had finished dealing with the occupants. He’d written off the newcomer then, only to watch in surprise as the man finished each of the bikers in turn. By the time the cops began to show it was too late to move without alerting them to his presence, so he stayed where he was. He watched as they detained the commando, went through their usual songs and dances, then grudgingly turned loose the man in black. Whoever he was, he had powerful connections to go with the ordnance he was packing.
The commando was rolling out in his SUV. Rook resigned himself to waiting until the police and the Feds cleared out, as well. Then he’d make his way back to his own truck and plan his next strike. He’d steer clear of the man in black if he could. If not, well, that was too bad.
If necessary, Rook would kill him, just like the others.
2
Syracuse, New York
Roger Kohler was a busy man. As CEO and majority shareholder of Diamond Corporation, Kohler shepherded an empire spanning everything from low-income rental properties throughout Syracuse, to paid city parking lots, to a piece of the Salt City’s inner harbor development area. He owned three of New York State’s six largest shopping malls—though not, much to his chagrin, one in the city itself. He was working to change that; he was brokering a deal to build the largest shopping mall yet in the state, on the city’s south side.
The project was not without its detractors. The Supreme Court had done him the favor of ruling that local governments could seize property for private investors if that property could be used to generate more revenue.