Death Run (2 page)

When the security officer left the warehouse, the Executioner unfastened the tie-downs securing the blue tarp and pulled the back corner aside, revealing a rear hatch locked down tight by a high-security hardened steel padlock with a hardened steel shackle. It would take more than his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle to blast through that lock, but it didn't matter. He couldn't use a gun in the warehouse without alerting the guard, not even his sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R.

Bolan pulled the blue tarp back to reveal a red-and-yellow paint scheme. A painting of a blue racing motorcycle adorned the side of the container. He pulled the tarp farther back to reveal the words Free Flow Racing emblazoned on the bike's fairing. It wasn't what the soldier expected to see. According to the intel he'd received from Aaron "the Bear" Kurtzman, these containers held the ten kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium that disappeared in Pakistan the previous week. That was enough of the dense substance to build a nuclear bomb capable of destroying an entire city.

The president of the United States had ordered Hal Brognola, Director of the Justice Department's Special Operations Group, to get the plutonium back. Because sources indicated that the material had gone to Qatar, getting it back would be a delicate task, given the close relationship between Qatar and the United States. Qatar, an independent emirate that jutted into the Persian Gulf — or
Arab Gulf,
as the locals called it — was one of the few remaining countries in the Middle East that welcomed U.S. military bases. Though the tiny emirate was politically stable thanks to its oil wealth, Qatar's relatively moderate policies — it had been the first Arab nation to allow women to vote — made it a target for fanatical Islamic fundamentalists. The emir didn't want to agitate the region's radical factions by allowing the U.S. military to conduct an overt operation to retrieve the stolen plutonium so the Man asked Brognola to send in a discrete force. The big Fed assigned the task to the force of one known as the Executioner.

Because plutonium 239 is extremely toxic when inhaled or ingested — absorbing only a few micrograms causes cancer — destroying the ship would have been the equivalent of setting off a massive dirty bomb in the Doha Port, killing thousands of innocent Qatarians. Bolan had to find the material himself. He knew his job wouldn't be easy. Though one of the most toxic substances ever created, plutonium 239 emits very little gamma radiation, making it virtually undetectable.

Because it ignites at room temperature when exposed to oxygen, plutonium 239 needs to be transported in a self-cooling container. Kurtzman discovered that a German firm had recently built an unusual type B container — a ductile iron cask with plumbing for coolant, a shock absorbing outer casing, and a nickel-lined interior coated with a synthetic resin that sealed in all radiation — that was small enough to fit in the back of a cargo van. The container had been shipped to a client in Pakistan. The only possible use for such a container would be the transport of nuclear material. When Kurtzman investigated the client, supposedly a Chinese energy research company, it turned out to be nothing more than a post office box in Grand Cayman.

The same source that alerted U.S. intelligence to the theft of the plutonium believed the material had been transported to the Port of Karachi, where it would be shipped to Qatar. The Bear's team hit their computers and tracked every cargo shipment leaving Pakistan for Qatar. The manifest of one vessel, the container ship
Hammam,
contained anomalies that caught the attention of Stony Man's cyberdetectives, convincing Kurtzman that this was their ship. Now Bolan stood before the containers that the team had identified.

The Executioner didn't hear anything behind him but suddenly sensed the pair of eyes boring into him from behind. Instinctively, he threw himself forward and rolled over on his shoulder to see the security officer lining him up in the sights of a Heckler & Koch MP-5. Bolan flattened himself against the concrete floor and felt the initial volley of bullets skim over the top of his head. As the security guard fired, the muzzle rise made his trajectory climb, giving Bolan room to scramble behind the container.

If he'd been going up against an outlaw or terrorist, Bolan would have simply killed the man shooting at him. But the Executioner didn't want to kill law enforcement officers, whether they were U.S. cops or members of Qatar's national security force. He'd have to find another way out of this predicament, one that didn't involve using his own guns.

He pushed his foot into the blue canvas and gained a foothold on one of the metal support ribs that ran the length of the cargo container. With a kick, he propelled himself high enough to grab the top of the container, and with the grace of a gymnast, he swung himself onto the top of the container. Because the security officer had still been firing his weapon, he hadn't heard Bolan land atop the container.

When the shooting stopped, Bolan raised his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the officer. The greasepaint on the soldier's face made him hard to see in the dark warehouse, but his blacksuit wasn't providing much camouflage against the blue tarp. Bolan watched the officer creep toward the wall, where he could see behind the container. When he looked up, he'd see Bolan on top of it. The soldier grabbed an M-84 flashbang grenade from the vest he wore over his blacksuit, pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade over the edge of the container toward the officer.

The man spotted the motion and fired at Bolan. He only got off one round before the flashbang detonated, but that round struck the soldier square in the chest. He wore a vest containing an experimental lightweight armor that John "Cowboy" Kissinger had developed back at Stony Man Farm. The weapons specialist claimed this thin, flexible armor could stop anything up to and including a standard 7.62 mm round, though he wasn't sure about high-velocity armor-piercing rounds. Fortunately it was capable of stopping the 9 mm round from the officer's machine pistol, though the bullet struck the Executioner with enough force to knock him over the edge of the container.

Still in midair when the flashbang went off, Bolan covered his ears, closed his eyes and let out a shriek to equalize the pressure in his lungs. He landed on his feet, his legs pumping as soon as they hit the ground. The security officer would recover from the flashbang, but not before Bolan slipped back into the vent through which he'd entered the building.

Doha was a quiet city, and if the shots that the officer fired didn't bring nearly all eight thousand men of the Qatar security force to the warehouse, the flashbang's explosion certainly would.

The Executioner moved the grate covering the vent pipe aside, slid inside, replaced the grate and climbed up the pipe. When he got to the top of the vent, he crawled through the rectangular vent pipe that ran along the roof toward a blower fan until he reached the hole he'd cut in the bottom of the pipe. There was only about eighteen inches between the pipe and the roof of the warehouse so he had to snake his way out of the pipe. He could see flashing blue lights from the security force vehicles driving toward the front of the warehouse. Bolan ran to the back edge of the roof where he'd left the rope he'd used to climb up and clipped his descender to the rope. He let himself down the side of the building as fast as he could without breaking any bones. Upon hitting the ground, he ran toward the hole he'd cut in the security fence on his way into the warehouse facility. He was in his Range Rover and driving back toward his hotel before the security officers even discovered he'd left the building.

Bolan was grateful that he hadn't injured any of the officers who kept the peace in the tiny emirate. Qatar's security force had a reputation for being good cops, honest and reasonable men who had never been charged with a human rights violation.

He hadn't been so lucky; he was pretty sure he'd broken a rib when he took the round from the officer's MP-5, but he'd survive. He hadn't located the plutonium, but at least he had a lead: Free Flow Racing. He knew that the Losail circuit in Doha would be hosting Grand Prix motorcycle races that weekend. He wouldn't be able to get back in the warehouse after the fiasco that had just occurred, but at least he knew where to look.

First, he'd have to find a reason to be at the race. He drove back to his hotel and dialed the secure number for Stony Man Farm on his cell phone. It took a few moments for the signal to travel its circuitous but untraceable route before he heard Kurtzman on the line. "What's up, Striker?" Kurtzman asked, using Bolan's Stony Man code name.

"I need to be someone else," Bolan replied.

"Anyone in particular?"

"I'd kind of like to try an average Joe, but maybe another time. Right now I need to be a salesman."

Posing as Matt Cooper, Bolan presented his credentials to the paddock guard. Overnight Kurtzman had created a background for Cooper, an American sales rep for the racing fuels division of CCP Petroleum, a Russian company created from the ashes of the failed Yukos Oil. Cooper's assignment was to get MotoGP racing teams to use CCP racing fuel. To create the character of Cooper, Bolan, who spoke decent Russian, spent the night studying the recent history of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

The Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) formed the MotoGP class, motorcycle racing's most prestigious racing series, for the 2002 season. Originally FIM had dictated that 990 cc four-strokes raced in the class. When those motorcycles became so powerful that their performance outpaced the limits of tire technology, the FIM lowered the displacement limit to 800 cc for the 2007 racing season.

Darrick Anderson, an American rider, dominated the first three seasons of MotoGP, but problems with alcohol and other drugs had destroyed his career. He'd disappeared for several years, but this year he was back. Bolan had Darrick's name at the top of the list of people he planned to interview, since Darrick was Free Flow Racing's top rider.

Posing as Cooper's assistant at CCP's American branch, Barbara Price, Stony Man's mission controller, had arranged meetings with representatives from several MotoGP teams. Most top teams were already supported by major oil companies so the story was that CCP targeted smaller teams. Since MotoGP teams didn't get any smaller than Free Flow Racing, it only made sense that Cooper would meet with them first. Price set up a meeting with Team Free Flow Racing's general manager Jameed Botros.

Bolan arrived at the Free Flow Racing garage complex in the Losail paddock fifteen minutes before his scheduled meeting with Mr. Botros but found the area deserted. The doors were open, so he let himself inside, hoping to find out where everyone was, but the garages were empty. The Executioner walked toward a wall covered with television monitors and realized why the complex was empty. From several different angles the monitors showed Darrick Anderson's lifeless body being loaded onto a helicopter. Bolan could tell things didn't look good for Mr. Anderson.

He looked around the building and saw several containers identical to the ones he'd seen in the warehouse the previous night. He activated the GPS locator in his cell phone and saw that the container he wanted had to be either in the very back of the garage complex or behind it. He made his way to the rear of the complex without finding the container.

He punched a button that opened one of the overhead doors in the back wall and went outside, where he found the container he'd tagged with the homing device still secured to the bed of a truck trailer. He examined it and saw that the seals applied to the container in Pakistan still hadn't been broken.

Bolan turned around and found himself face-to-face with a man dressed as a member of the Qatar security force, though the dagger in his hand was not standard-issue for the force. Bolan hadn't heard the man approach because of the noise generated by the barely muffled motorcycle engines that permeated the entire Losail facility. The officer lunged at Bolan with the dagger, its tip contacting Bolan's rib cage just below his left armpit. Because the Executioner had moved back the moment he saw the blade coming at him, the dagger barely penetrated his skin.

Bolan brought his left elbow down on the attacker's arm, snapping both the radius and ulna bones in his forearm. The man fell beneath the force of the blow. Bolan reached around with his right hand and caught the knife as it fell from the attacker's disabled hand. The man lunged forward and in an instinctive reaction Bolan sliced upward with the knife, catching the man several inches below the navel and cutting all the way up to his rib cage.

The man staggered backward and fell, clutching his midsection in a failed attempt to hold in the intestines that poured from his eviscerated abdomen. Bolan knew this man most likely was not a cop. Cops didn't try to assassinate strangers with daggers, especially Qatar's security force officers. He was certain that the man he'd just gutted was a criminal posing as a security officer.

Bolan pulled his Beretta from his shoulder holster and asked the man, who was dying too slowly to avoid intense suffering, "Do you speak English?" He received no answer. The man had entered a state of shock and wasn't able to respond. Bolan estimated he would be dead within minutes.

He holstered the Beretta and began searching the body for some identification but stopped when he heard movement behind him. He spun around just in time to see a steel pipe swinging toward his temple. Then the lights went out.

The Executioner knew he was on a boat the moment he regained consciousness. From the sound of the muffled diesel engines and the carpeted floor on which he lay, he guessed he was on some sort of pleasure craft. The musty smell of the carpet told him it was an older boat. He heard at least two people conversing in Arabic, but otherwise he deduced very little information about his current situation. What felt like duct tape covered his eyes and mouth. His hands were bound behind his back and his feet were tied together tight, presumably with the same material.