Day of Mourning

5

Andrzej Konzaki was in a coma.

The Stony Man armorer lay struggling for life in the emergency sick bay of Stony Man Farm. Mack Bolan and April Rose stood next to an armed man in uniform on the other side of an observation window in the hospital facility.

Konzaki was enshrouded in an oxygen tent. Tubes ran to him from two bottles.

A nurse beside the bed monitored a cardiograph machine that registered a very weak pulse.

The tough-looking man in uniform who stood next to Bolan was Captain Wade. He was in charge of the security force that patrolled the perimeter of Stony Man Farm.

"He was reported missing at 1400 hours, sir," Wade reported. "We instituted a search immediately."

All Farm personnel made voice contact with one of Kurtzman's central computers every two hours. A security precaution.

"Was he missing before or after the explosion?" asked Bolan.

"Before, sir."

April spoke up.

"Why do you think Konzaki wasn't killed, Mack?"

"Being in a wheelchair probably saved Konzaki's life," growled Bolan. "At least, so far."

Wade picked up the thought.

"The angle of the blow. Sure. Whoever slugged him wasn't used to chopping down at that angle. The blow that meant to kill Mr. Konzaki caught him at the wrong angle."

April's lovely features were taut with an inner rage she could not conceal.

"A man in a wheelchair — "

"Do you have anything else to report, Captain?" Bolan asked Wade.

"No, sir, I'm afraid not. No signs of penetration anywhere along the perimeter. The ground is soft this time of year. But there were no signs of footprints where Mr. Konzaki was attacked."

Bolan had heard enough. He could do no good for Konzaki standing there.

"Captain Wade, return to your men. April, let's see what Kurtzman has for us."

It was twenty minutes after Grimaldi had set them down on the Stony Man airstrip in the F-14 Tomcat jet that had flown them to Washington from Miami.

At this moment, the pilot was at the airstrip's camouflaged hangar, ensuring that the jet would be ready if needed on short notice.

The brain center of the Farm was a sprawling collection of rustic buildings set amid a dense forest of hardwood and conifer and the occasional grassy meadow like the one that surrounded the ordinary-looking "farm buildings."

In fact, the buildings and the underground facility beneath them housed the brightly lit, modern headquarters of the Executioner's Phoenix world.

The Blue Ridge terrain was dominated on the far horizon by Stony Man Mountain, one of the highest peaks in the region.

The weather was unseasonably warm, but the mountain was wreathed in low-hanging clouds that gave the spring day a grim, foreboding look.

Bolan felt the same way inside.

He had known Andrzej Konzaki only by the man's work in the Stony Man program. In that regard, Bolan ranked the Farm's armorer at the absolute top, and he now regretted not having gotten to know Konzaki better.

Konzaki was officially with the Special Weapons Development branch of the CIA, unofficially attached to Stony Man shortly after the inception of the Phoenix program. Konzaki, legless since Vietnam, was one of the most innovative armorers in the world, a master weaponsmith. His CIA profile read: "trust him."

Konzaki had never let Bolan down.

And now the guy lay in a coma with a less than fifty-fifty chance of pulling through. With the identity of his assailant locked up inside where it would stay forever if a good man named Konzaki died.

Aaron Kurtzman was waiting for Bolan and April at the polished conference table in the briefing room, down the corridor from where Andrzej Konzaki lay.

"All of our computer-satellite linkups are totaled," grumbled The Bear. "Someone got inside the terminal housing at the back of this building. My guess is they used some form of plastique."

"How long to repair?" asked Bolan.

"The necessary component replacements are on their way," Kurtzman reported, "but it's still taking time, too much damn time, because Stony Man Farm supposedly does not exist. For that same reason we can't go through any of the standard channels."

Bolan stood up and began to pace about the briefing room as he put the thing together aloud. An urge for action had him restless.

"Wade's men didn't find any signs of penetration. That could mean there was no penetration."

April frowned.

"An inside job? That's... almost unthinkable, Mack. Everyone at the Farm has been screened so thoroughly."

"Determine the key people in this area and screen them again," said Bolan. "Start with Captain Wade."

"As you say," agreed April.

"What about the saboteur?" asked Kurtzman thoughtfully. "Whether the damage was done by a man or woman inside the Farm or by infiltration, we still don't have any point to start from."

"We narrow it to categories," said Bolan. "Someone has tried to sabotage our operation. Is our enemy domestic or foreign? How did they learn about us? Bear, I want you to backtrack over every possible security leak point you can think of in the program."

"Roger."

"I ordered Wade to double his security force as soon as Konzaki was reported missing," said April.

"Good work," said Bolan. "Now triple it. And I'll want to review the defense with you and Wade after it's been revised."

"Defense?" echoed Kurtzman. "Sounds as if you expect an attack."

"That sabotage was a soft probe to test our reflexes," said Bolan. "And I'd say everyone here reflexed right on the money."

"That means," added April, "that if someone is planning to attack the Farm, they'll hit us with a sizable force." She stood, tall, lush-bodied.

"When they hit, we damn well better be ready for them," she said. "I'd better get on it."

There had to be time for that one brief brush of lips against his cheek. Her nearness always tantalized Bolan.

Then she was gone.

Dear April. So damn efficient.

"What's the status on Able Team?" Bolan asked Kurtzman. "Yakov told me they were homed in on the European end of that terrorist deal I just squashed."

"Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz are poised to strike at the headquarters of a man they've identified only as 'The Dragon.' The Dragon runs his show from a mountain fortress in the Hindu Kush, almost inaccessible except by helicopter."

"The Himalayas," Bolan commented. "Fourteen-thousand-foot mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. A smugglers' route for thousands of years."

"The Dragon is the biggest broker we've been able to identify," said Kurtzman. "If we stop him, we could practically dry up the flow of arms to all the terrorist groups. And maybe give us the next link in the chain to who pulls the big strings.''

Sure. Bolan knew well. Anyone who thought that the various terrorist groups functioned solely on empty rhetoric simply did not know the truth. Activities such as kidnapping, extortion and robbery netted millions of dollars per year for those unknowns who bathed in the blood of innocent victims.

And now the men of Mack Bolan's Able Team were halfway around the world, ready to make one of the biggest hits of all in this new war against terrorism. Dry up their arms supply.

Able Team was a three-man unit: Carl Lyons, a former LAPD cop who'd been a Bolan ally since the early days of the Executioner's former Mafia war, Rosario "Pol" Blancanales and Hermann "Gadgets" Schwarz, two more combat specialists who had shared the hellground experience with Mack Bolan as part of the Executioner's Able Penetration Team in that long-ago war.

Three exceptional fighting men.

Yeah.

Three men.

Against who the hell knew what?

The Dragon was a new one to Bolan.

He voiced a thought that had been with him since his arrival at the Farm.

"Where's Hal?"

A phone at Kurtzman's elbow buzzed.

Kurtzman picked up the receiver, listened, then extended the phone to Bolan. "You want him, you got him. Mr. Liaison himself."

Bolan took the receiver.

"Hal?"

"Welcome home, Striker."

"Where are you, Hal? You should be here."

"Would you believe the White House?" said Brognola.

"And what's cooking at the Man's place?"

"We're waiting on Colonel John Phoenix."

"We?"

"The president, Striker. And a guy named Lee Farnsworth."

"And what are we waiting on Colonel Phoenix for?" asked Bolan.

There was a pause, as if Brognola did not want to reply.

"Farnsworth wants the president to disband the Stony Man operation."

"What?"

"You know who Farnsworth is?"

"CFB."

"Right. The Central Foreign Bureau. He says we've stepped on CFB's toes with one of our operations. Got two of their men killed. He claims it's happened before."

"Hal, is my presence there absolutely necessary? The blackout tonight could've been a probe for something else."

"You cannot stand up the Man, Striker."

"The president's a man of good judgment," said Bolan.

"But Farnsworth has his ear, and he's making a strong case against us," insisted Hal. "I hate to remind you, old buddy, but you are a team player, remember? Your one-man-war days are over."

"I wonder, Hal. I'm starting to get an itch."

"Dammit, we are talking about the goddamn president, Striker."

"You're right, Hal. He is the boss. I don't like it, but I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

April met him near the helicopter takeoff pad.

The clouds over the mountains were moving in.

A warm breeze played with loose tendrils of her shoulder-length hair and its warm gold highlights. Movie-star hair.

The concerned look in April's eyes was that of a lover who cares about her man.

Bolan noticed one difference about the lady since he had last seen her in the briefing room awhile ago.

April wore a .44 Magnum with a six-inch barrel in a fast-draw holster on her shapely right hip. She was also carrying a spare gun-holster rig.

The lady handled weapons like a carpenter handled a saw.

But still beautiful, yeah.

No one ever said that tough and competent could not be synonymous with feminine, thought Bolan, and the woman who gave him her heart was damn well proof of that.

Bolan gestured to the spare rig and weapon that she carried over her shoulder.

"For Aaron," she explained. "It looks like he and I might be doing more than sitting on the sidelines this time."

The president could wait.

Bolan grabbed April Rose with one arm and pulled her to him.

She came willingly, pressing herself against the big man with a kiss that was all passion, all love and fire.

"God speed you back to me, Colonel Thunder," she whispered fiercely in his ear when they were close.

Another kiss.

Then it was time to move out.

Bolan boarded the chopper. But the urge to remain at Stony Man Farm pulled at him stronger than ever.

Someone had breached Stony Man Farm's security.

And there was Konzaki.

Bolan sensed that the lives of all his Stony Man allies were already on the line.

But Hal was right.

You do not turn down a request from the Man.

Bolan was airlifted from Stony Man Farm knowing that there would be no room for miscalculation or fumbling on this coming night that was about to cloak the nation's capital.

It was a jungle out there, Washington, D.C., or no.

And the Executioner was back in town.