Книга - Final Judgment

Final Judgment
Don Pendleton


JUDGMENT DAYWhen neo-Nazis seize a U.S. courthouse and demand the release of their leader, Mack Bolan is called to go in under the radar and eliminate the gunmen. But before he can finish the job, the WWII Nazi escapes. With hostages.Bolan knows that more innocent blood will be shed unless he can take out the neo-Nazis–every last one. And speed is of the essence, as the war criminal has picked the leader of a holocaust remembrance group as his new target. This time there will be no escape. The Executioner is judge and jury, and he's ready to deliver his own form of justice.







JUDGMENT DAY

When neo-Nazis seize a U.S. courthouse and demand the release of their leader, Mack Bolan is called to go in under the radar and eliminate the gunmen. But before he can finish the job, the WWII Nazi escapes. With hostages.

Bolan knows that more innocent blood will be shed unless he can take out the neo-Nazis—every last one. And speed is of the essence, as the war criminal has picked the leader of a holocaust remembrance group as his new target. This time there will be no escape. The Executioner is judge and jury, and he’s ready to deliver his own form of justice.


Claymore mines had been stashed in the stairwell

But Bolan was prepared for them. He skirted the stairs until the banister was at chest height, then hopped over the railing, well out of the effective kill zone of the explosives. The balcony was clear. A set of double doors took him to an anteroom.

The sentry stationed there was pressed against the wall, opposite the door. As the terrorist leveled his shotgun, Bolan swiveled, bringing up the M4.

The shotgun roared, the impact slamming into Bolan’s gut like a hammer blow. Air rushed from his lungs and he went down, landing on his back, hard.

Then all he could see was the barrel of the shotgun. The neo-Nazi racked the pump action. “Bye-bye, asshole.”


Final Judgment






Don Pendleton






www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


The rifle…has no moral stature. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

—John Dean “Jeff” Cooper

1920–2006



Every man confronted with the need to correct a terrible wrong—to strike back at those who’ve taken his blood, destroyed his life—must choose. He can choose the path of revenge or he can choose the path of justice.

—Mack Bolan


THE






LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a com-mand center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.


Special thanks and acknowledgment to Phil Elmore for his contribution to this work.


Contents

Chapter 1 (#u2b9b358f-99ee-510d-8746-91bac8f5fbe8)

Chapter 2 (#u5b12d8cf-07b1-5aa0-a15e-e066cb58c31d)

Chapter 3 (#u83d09353-76b5-5349-bf62-d6d95e85e030)

Chapter 4 (#u7d45b238-76e0-5d74-8c54-5eebd761f47b)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter 1

Mack Bolan chopped the sentry in the throat with the edge of his hand. The neo-Nazi, clad in camouflage fatigues, made choking, gurgling noises as he collapsed to his knees, his eyes wide. The plea on his face was obvious.

Bolan smashed his elbow in and down. The sentry collapsed in a tortured heap on the floor of the stairwell. The man still known to a select few as the Executioner deftly plucked a Kalashnikov rifle from the neo-Nazi’s grip, popped the cover and removed the bolt. He tossed the latter down the steps and left the disabled weapon with the unconscious man—but not before zip-tying the sentry’s hands and feet and running two layers of black gaffer tape across the man’s mouth.

Then Bolan waited.

Few men could be truly still when they needed to be. Mack Bolan was a master, and now he waited to see if the noise of his covert insertion had alerted anyone else. The access door he had used to gain entry to the District of Columbia courthouse had been guarded from without as well as by the sentry he had just removed, but the terrorists were expecting a SWAT incursion or some other force to attack en masse. They weren’t prepared for a single man, because in their minds one armed man wasn’t a threat.

They were wrong.

Bolan carried his standard complement of weaponry over his combat blacksuit and attached to his web gear. His suppressed and custom-tuned Beretta 93-R machine pistol rode in the shoulder holster under his left arm; his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle pistol rode in his waistband behind his right hip, snug in a Kydex friction-fit scabbard. On his web gear, inverted for a fast draw, was a combat dagger with a tapered, rubber-coated handle and an upswept, razor-sharp blade. The knife was the length of Bolan’s forearm.

Across his chest he wore a canvas war bag bearing more munitions and combat items, while slung on his body in a single-point harness was a heavily modified M-4 carbine. The cut-down assault rifle bore red-dot optics, and an adapted M-203 grenade launcher was slung beneath its barrel. It was also capable of full-automatic fire, not just 3-round bursts, thanks to the tender ministrations of John “Cowboy” Kissinger, the Stony Man Farm’s armorer. Not for the first time it occurred to Bolan that, were he ever to cut ties with the Farm and the Sensitive Operations Group, he would genuinely miss the toys.

It was Hal Brognola, director of SOG, who had dispatched the Executioner on this mission. The call, scrambled through Bolan’s secure satellite-capable smartphone, held an edge of urgency that immediately triggered the soldier’s combat instincts.

“Striker,” Brognola had said, using Bolan’s code name, “our justice system is under attack.”

This was a sensitive point for the big Fed, for Brognola operated under the auspices of the Justice Department. Bolan knew his old friend would take very seriously any threat to the system he and the counterterror operatives of Stony Man Farm worked so hard to protect.

“I’m listening, Hal,” Bolan had said.

“Klaus Reinhardt Nitzche,” Brognola said, practically spitting each word. “Heard of him?”

“That’s the old Nazi concentration camp guard they just caught in Buenos Aires, isn’t it?”

“Nitzche was more than just a guard,” Brognola said. “He was the provisional camp commander of Schlechterwald, one of the more obscure but vile death camps established in the waning days of World War II. According to records recovered after the camp’s liberation, Nitzche assassinated the camp’s SS leader and assumed his place because Nitzche believed the SS was too soft on the prisoners. He remained in place until Hitler’s suicide, disappearing sometime during the chaos surrounding the end of the war and the collapse of Nazi Germany.”

“Sounds like a beautiful human being.”

“He was a monster,” Brognola said. “Rumor has it that he kept a very detailed diary, some pages of which he copied into the camp’s logs. Those logs, recovered by American forces who assaulted the camp, detail atrocities you cannot imagine, Striker.”

Bolan said nothing to that. He had seen plenty of atrocities in his endless war. He doubted there was much a human being could do to violate another that he hadn’t encountered, but the Nazis had proved extremely imaginative on that score.

“Do you recall,” Brognola said, “the Holocaust remembrance program broadcast nationally last fall?”

“I don’t get to watch a lot of television,” Bolan said.

“The program was notable,” the Fed explained, “because it featured a recorded interview with Eli Berwald. Berwald was a youth when he and his parents were imprisoned and tortured in Schlechterwald.”

“He’d have to be…”

“He’s pushing eighty,” Brognola said, “and not in the best of health. But his mind is strong, as is his passion for revenge. He said as much in the interview, which was taped only weeks before Berwald’s organization, Lantern, brought the eighty-eight-year-old Nitzche kicking and screaming from Argentina.”

“They extracted him?” Bolan asked.

“They kidnapped him,” Brognola said. “Once they had him in the U.S., their legal team jumped through a bunch of hoops. I won’t bore you with all the bureaucratic maneuvers involved. Suffice it to say they eventually had Nitzche processed through our legal system and charged with war crimes. The trial, a real televised circus, was to start today. It was going to be a message, a final blow to the last bastions of World War II. To war criminals, should any be alive and lurking out there today. Lantern has issued several press releases to that effect. Justice Has a Long Memory is their slogan.”

“They have a lot of pull for lobbyists.”

“Lantern is not simply a Jewish activist group,” Brognola said. “It borders on a vigilante organization. They are extremely militant and completely unapologetic about their activities. Much more so in recent years than in the past, but there it is.”

“Can you blame them?” Bolan asked.

“No,” Brognola said. “But that doesn’t change the complications this raises.”

“Such as?”

“Berwald’s Lantern is led primarily by his son, Eli Berwald Jr., known as Aaron to his friends and family. The elder Berwald operates in an advisory capacity, but Aaron is a firebrand. He’s run afoul of weapons charges twice, although both times, strings have been pulled behind the scenes to get him off. His father has powerful friends within the government, as you might expect. Berwald Sr. is no stranger to the games we play here in Washington.”

“And?” Bolan prompted.

“Lantern paid a celebrity bounty hunter some outrageous fee to go into Argentina and kidnap Nitzche,” Brognola said. “You probably haven’t seen the guy’s reality-television program.”

“I can’t say I have.”

“Nitzche was almost killed during the illegal extradition,” Brognola said. “Several men were injured. The bounty hunter is now wanted in Argentina, which is irrelevant, but the fact that Nitzche was guarded by armed men is what makes this complicated. These men were members of a secretive neo-Nazi group called Heil Nitzche, which Klaus Nitzche has been operating under the radar since he went to ground in Buenos Aires all those years ago. I’ve had the team at the Farm digging through the records, now that we know what to look for. The pattern painted is alarming. Heil Nitzche has funding, they have equipment and they have balls. And as of half past eight this morning, they have an entire courthouse right here in Wonderland.”

“A terrorist assault,” Bolan said.

“Yes,” Brognola said. “Nitzche and his HN thugs have seized the building and taken the judge, the jury and the gallery hostage. They’ve got automatic weapons and, we believe, explosives. They’re demanding safe passage by helicopter out of D.C., and if they don’t get it by their deadline this afternoon, they’re going to start killing hostages. Several court security officers have already been killed.”

“Which is where I come in,” Bolan stated.

“Absolutely,” Brognola said. “The Man asked for you specifically, and if he hadn’t, I would have pushed for it. We need you to do what D.C. SWAT personnel and perhaps even Able Team wouldn’t be able to do. A single man may be able to get inside that building and take them down from within. If we mount a coordinated assault, it will quickly become a massacre.”

“Get me there,” Bolan said. “I’ll do it.”

“G-Force is already on his way to your location,” Brognola said, referring to the Farm’s ace pilot, Jack Grimaldi, by his code name. “But this gets worse.”

“Worse than a courthouse full of hostages, held by a Nazi war criminal relic backed by well-equipped enforcers?”

“Lantern is still involved,” Brognola said. “Authorities manning the cordon around the courthouse have twice stopped Eli Berwald Jr. and a team of men armed only with knives. They’re smart. They know that without a firearms violation there’s not much we can do to hold them. The second time, the Metropolitan police took them in on tenuous trespassing charges, but that’s not going to stick.”

“I assume they’re keen to bring Nitzche back into custody themselves?”

“Something like that.” Brognola sighed. “Lord save us from zealous amateurs. They’re not that far away. Lantern has a fairly impressive headquarters in Williamsburg, Virginia. While we can probably keep them from blundering past the cordon and getting themselves shot, I can’t absolutely guarantee you won’t trip over them at some point.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bolan said. It wouldn’t do to put a bullet in a Lantern activist, after mistaking him for one of Nitzche’s neo-Nazi HN goons. “Operational parameters?”

“Save the hostages,” Brognola said.

“And Nitzche?”

“Your discretion. As long as he doesn’t remain at large, the Man will be satisfied. And so will I.”

“You got it,” Bolan said.

“Striker?”

“Yeah?”

“Good hunting,” the big Fed said.

“Thanks.” Bolan had closed the connection, determined to get in position and get to work as soon as possible. Only moments later, he had heard the thrumming of rotor blades. That would be Jack Grimaldi and a helicopter.

The helicopter was a gunship. A care package, bearing the modified M-16 rifle and Bolan’s war bag of munitions, had been aboard.

Now, only hours later, the soldier’s boots were on the ground behind enemy-held territory.

He checked his smartphone’s files, which Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price, had uploaded to his phone while he was in transit to D.C. The layout of the building was simple enough. The construction was very solid—concrete, stone, marble, and reinforcements where applicable. These walls would be more resistant to gunfire than many; a pistol bullet would travel through most interior walls and even some exterior ones in a traditionally framed building. Bolan knew, too, that the sound of his steps would be amplified. He moved carefully, heel to toe, his combat boots as quiet as he could make them on the marble floors.

At the top of the stairwell he found the first claymore-style mine.

It was a few generations removed from the old Vietnam-era claymores, but the device’s purpose was obvious enough. Written in German across the front of the mine were words that roughly translated to “front toward enemy.” Bolan had picked up enough foreign languages through the years that he could tell that much. The mine had an amber LED that blinked once per second.

Bolan shrugged, reached down and turned it around to face the other way.

He moved to the side of the metal fire door, pressed himself against the wall and rapped quietly on the reinforced glass window. “Help!” he said quietly, hoping he was still loud enough to be heard on the other side. “I’ve cut myself! I think I’m bleeding out!”

The response was almost immediate. Another man in camouflage fatigues pushed the door open. His hand was still on the door lever when Bolan reached out, locking his wrist between thumb and index finger. He pulled sharply.

The surprised neo-Nazi had no time to cry out, no time to resist. He made a strange grunting cry as his brain tried to process his sudden freefall through space. Then he landed on his neck in the stairwell below. There was a sickening crunch as vertebrae snapped. The rattle of air escaping his lungs was paced by his evacuating bowels.

Bolan scanned the corpse but saw no weapon. He was holding the door open to prevent it from slamming back into place, where it would lock once more. Sticking his head through the opening, he saw another Kalashnikov leaning upright against the wall.

Amateurs, Bolan thought. He gave this weapon the same disassembly treatment he had given the previous one, separating the bolt from the assault rifle and tossing the component onto the corpse of the rifle’s former owner. He left the weapon itself at the top of the stairwell, behind the door, where it couldn’t be seen by casual observers from the other side.

There were two more claymore-style mines here. He picked them up, checked them, and simply flicked the switches on their electronic detonators. The amber LEDs switched off. He tucked the mines into his war bag.

Moving smoothly down the hall, checking the floor plan on his phone, Bolan caught a glimpse of movement around the corner of the corridor ahead. He ducked into an alcove that housed a trio of pay phones and a water fountain. Waiting, he heard footsteps. There were two men.

“South stairwell,” one of them said. “I say again, south stairwell, this is Rover Two. Come in.”

Bolan knew the stairwell where he’d made his entry faced south. No doubt these HN thugs were checking on their sentry posts—and getting no response from the pair Bolan had just sent to whatever hate-drenched Valhalla these neo-Nazis thought awaited them. When there was no response, the pair would raise an alarm. Bolan’s element of surprise would evaporate.

Well, he’d known that would happen.

Quietly, the soldier popped the retaining snap on his leather shoulder holster, covering the sound with the flesh of his thumb. The Beretta 93-R machine pistol filled his hand as if custom molded to it. He flicked the selector switch to Single as the snout of the attached suppressor cleared leather. There would be a time and place for his own assault rifle, suspended from his harness on its single-point sling, but right now, he wanted quiet.

Bolan leaned out of the alcove as the pair of neo-Nazi terrorists walked past his position. They were perhaps two yards away when he extended the Beretta, lined up his sights on the head of the man with the walkie-talkie and squeezed the trigger.

The two-way radio was soaked in blood when it hit the marble floor. The corpse stood for the briefest of moments before its knees gave way and it toppled. The other sentry, whose AK was slung over his shoulder, slowly turned. The side of his face was speckled crimson.

“Call out and you’re dead,” Bolan warned. “Put the rifle on the floor.”

“You shot him from behind,” the man hissed. Shock and rage twisted his face. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

“Does that offend your sense of honor?” Bolan asked quietly. “A terrorist holding innocent people hostage, desperate to free an old hatemonger with the torture and death of countless innocent people on his hands? You’re upset that I didn’t follow the rules?”

“Coward,” the sentry said. His hand started to creep across his chest. He was going to try for the rifle. “Race traitor.”

“You know what I hate most about neo-Nazis?” Bolan asked, his voice calm, just the barest hint above a whisper. “You’re always convinced you’re the smartest people in the room. You think you’ve got it all figured out, and anybody who doesn’t agree with your hateful simpleton’s logic must be a sellout to the bogeymen you fear.”

“Zionist Jew-lover—” the neo-Nazi started to shout.

“Shut up,” Bolan said, and shot him in the throat.

The sentry hit the marble. His hands went to his throat. Trying and failing to stem the flow from the wound that had choked off his words, he stared up at Bolan, then bled out.


Chapter 2

Bolan made more than one circuit of the middle level of the courthouse, which opened onto a stairwell leading down to the main gallery, the doors of which were closed and chained from the outside. Four armed, camouflage-clad sentries stood with Kalashnikovs at the ready at the bottom of the semicircular stairs.

Within, Nitzche and the rest of his HN gunmen—those not detailed to secure the structure itself—would be passing the time however it suited them. Even through the thick walls of the courthouse, Bolan could hear the bullhorn-amplified shouts of hostage negotiators coming from behind the police cordon. Brognola and the Farm had provided a comprehensive report outlining what was known of the initial terrorist capture of the building. It showed an above-average level of military awareness that was reflected in the sentries’ cross-patrol communication.

Bolan had no respect for neo-Nazis, but this bunch had more training than was usual, probably because Nitzche had been calling the shots while building the organization to serve him as a private army. That meant the danger they represented to Bolan, and the resistance they could offer, was correspondingly greater than other groups of white supremacists he had faced. Nitzche was, according to their files, a strong and intelligent leader. Such an individual made all the difference when rallying followers like these.

It was time to start chipping away at the opposition.

Before Bolan moved back into the corridor, he positioned his captured remote-detonation mines. Then he circled around to the access stairs that led to the rear of the court. There was a second stairway inside the court itself, accessing a balcony observation level that connected, in turn, to the roof. These were used by reporters and people who attended the proceedings, and were far more public than the stairs at the rear.

The back steps were adjacent to the judge’s chambers and were, according to the plans and information sent to Bolan, used by the presiding judge if he wished to make a discreet exit to the second-floor offices.

Predictably, this access was mined, but none of the weapons bore antitamper switches, such as mercury triggers designed to detonate the device when it was disturbed. Such measures would have made short work of the counteroperation Bolan was running. His adversaries were trained, he decided, but they weren’t that trained. He permitted himself a wry smile as he repositioned two more of the mines at the edge of the access stairs.

The neo-Nazis probably thought an assault on the building would be loud and obvious. So they’d have plenty of warning. Nitzche’s people had likely planned to use the mines as a first-wave defense. They would have been effective, too, had it come to that. Brognola and the President had been correct to think one man could do what a coordinated and overwhelming use of force could not.

Such operations always entailed heavy losses. Bolan’s acceptable percentage of noncombatant deaths was zero, but there were other counterterror operatives who didn’t feel that way. Russian special forces had several times demonstrated that, and painfully, in one case putting down a high-profile hostage standoff using anesthetic gas. They had gassed the target building and then swept through it, checking the unconscious occupants and shooting the terrorists in the head. The tactic was brutal, efficient and very, very final.

The only problem was that the powerful gas used had caused overdose deaths in some of the civilians. Conventional force operations traditionally fared little better, even when simultaneous and coordinated guerrilla tactics were used. No, in this case, the Executioner was the hostages’ best hope of walking out of court alive.

Bolan intended to see that they did, every last one of them.

He was counting on the fact that, as much as they blustered about killing their captives, the neo-Nazis needed those human shields. The hostages were the only reason the building hadn’t been taken and cleared using overwhelming force. Even when the gunfire started, the terrorists would be reluctant to start shooting their only leverage. They would fear coming face-to-face with SWAT or military guns with nothing standing between them and righteous bullets.

That would be all the delay Bolan needed.

The rear door to the judge’s chambers was almost hidden, flush with the wall and paneled to match it. Through the door, he could hear voices.

“—a problem,” said the first man. “Several sentries aren’t reporting.”

“Try them again,” said the second man.

“I have. No good.”

Bolan placed the last of his stolen claymore-style mines in front of the concealed door. He backed away down the corridor, using the corner of the hallway to shield himself. He was exposed to either side, and was very aware that there were more neo-Nazi sentries patrolling the building. There was no helping that. When the bullets started to fly, he would rely on his training, his experience and the simple luck that had sustained him for years. When the Universe finally saw fit to put him down, he would be moving forward to meet it.

He drew both his pistols, covering either direction.

Time to go to work.

“SWAT! SWAT!” Bolan bellowed. “They’re everywhere! Blow the mines!” He pointed his Desert Eagle around the corner and pumped several rounds into the concealed doorway. The .44 Magnum hand cannon was deafening in the enclosed space.

The shouts of alarm from within the judge’s chambers were cut short by the splintering of wood and the scream of hot metal shrapnel. The claymore at the doorway had been triggered, shattering the barrier itself. Bolan’s ears began ringing from the concussion, but as with so many things, he would simply have to endure it. It was, he knew, nothing short of a miracle that he didn’t suffer significant and permanent hearing loss after so many years of firefights.

He thrust his pistols back in their holsters and brought up the M-4, charging the smoking crater where the chambers door had been. Blood stained the ragged opening and coated the floor beyond; the claymore had caught at least one of the terrorists inside. Bolan triggered a short burst of 5.56 mm rounds before vaulting through the doorway.

He almost took a bayonet in the face.

As he entered the room, his senses registered a flash picture of the terrain he faced. The judge’s desk was flanked by heavy upholstered chairs, one of which had been overturned. The desk itself was pocked from shrapnel, and everything on top had been shredded. Opposite this were smaller chairs, obviously intended for guests conferring in chambers. They had been knocked over and one was split in two, near the body of the sentry whose blood decorated the blown door. Another corpse was lying, broken and still, near what Bolan knew was the entrance to the courtroom. This door was bolted from within.

The Executioner processed all of this in an instant, from long habit. As the AK bayonet—a heavy, clip-point blade, like a sturdy bowie knife—sliced through the air toward his eyes, he brought up the barrel of the M-4 and sidestepped. He was able to catch and guide the blade around and to the side, ducking it neatly, placing himself on the outside of the knifer’s swing. Bolan immediately reversed his weapon and slammed the retractable butt into the bridge of the attacker’s nose.

The neo-Nazi was wild-eyed and bleeding from several deep gouges in his scalp and neck. The neck wound pulsed. The sentry was dying on his feet but didn’t know it. Pale with shock and blood loss, he screamed as he tried for another blind, overhand stab. There was no technique here; there was only desperation and rage.

Bolan didn’t try to meet the knife. He sidestepped again, crossing the opponent’s body, moving out of range. As he went, he brought up his opposite leg in a soccer-style kick. The sole of his combat boot crushed the neo-Nazi’s knee joint and the man collapsed, screaming.

The soldier let his rifle fall to the end of its sling. He grabbed the attacker’s knife arm, twisted, and torqued the man to the left, tying him up. In the same fluid motion he drove the captured arm in and down.

The bayonet buried itself in the neo-Nazi’s stomach.

Bolan dropped to one knee as he shoved in the blade, using his enemy’s arm as a lever. His eyes locked with the terrorist’s.

“You bastard…” the man said.

“‘And then some,’” Bolan told him, ripping the knife across the neo-Nazi’s gut. Blood splashed from his abdomen as it erupted from his mouth. Bolan finished him with a tight elbow across the face, snapping his head back, knocking him flat.

Covered in gore, the soldier pushed himself to his feet and sprinted to the courtroom door. Screams and shouts came from the other side. Some were those of hostages, voicing their fear. Others were the terrorists, throwing confused orders to one another, terrified that the moment had come and the police outside were storming the building.

That’s when Bolan heard the chopper.

“Sarge!” Grimaldi’s voice sounded in his earbud transceiver. “We’ve got a problem!”

“Jack?” Bolan asked. “Is that you?”

“Negative, Sarge, negative,” Grimaldi responded. “The locals have—”

The hollow, metallic clatter of Kalashnikovs on full automatic cut off Grimaldi’s words. The commotion had drawn more of the sentries. Evidently Bolan’s trick with the mines hadn’t caught them all, nor had he realistically expected it would.

They came on without caution, without a plan, without apparent fear. Bolan raised the M-4 and ripped off several measured bursts, meeting the charge. Several of the neo-Nazis who attempted to breach the judge’s chambers were already bloody. They might have caught shrapnel from the claymores or simply have been nearby when their comrades did. The suicidal charge they now mounted was a symptom of Bolan’s turnabout. He had transformed the predators into prey, so swiftly and unexpectedly that they had reacted with ferocity.

Bolan shot out one man’s knees, dropping him to the floor, then pumped a burst of fire into the chest of the next terrorist. Two more gunners appeared hard on the heels of their comrades, and Bolan drilled each in the head with well-placed fire as he aimed through his carbine’s optics.

“Say again, Jack, say again,” Bolan said. He didn’t have time to hear Grimaldi’s reply before the courtroom door behind him was thrown open. The gunmen leaning through the opening held micro-Uzi submachine guns.

Bolan hit the deck.

The swarm of 9 mm rounds scorched the air where he had been standing. With nowhere to go, the soldier rolled sideways, out of the line of fire, until he slammed into the shrapnel-riddled wooden desk. He almost didn’t fit with his web gear, but he managed to shove himself under it and through to the other side.

The gunmen were on the move now, pushing into the room and looking for a better angle. They immediately lined up the desk and started firing on it. The heavy oak, which had already suffered extensively, groaned under the onslaught. A round tore the floor near Bolan’s left boot. Another burned a furrow in his calf, lightly grazing him. His teeth clenched as the pain bore into him.

Under the gunfire and the ever-louder sound of the chopper, he could feel vibrations in the floor. Footsteps―a lot of them. The occupants of the courtroom were being moved. The helicopter overhead sounded as if it was practically on top of the roof…which it would be, if it were to serve as Nitzche’s means of escape.

“—something screwed up out here, Sarge,” Grimaldi’s voice said into his ear, dotted with static and almost drowned out by the nearby gunfire.

“I need an ID on that chopper!” Bolan shouted. “Jack, intercept! Intercept!”

The desk stopped shaking for a moment.

A grenade skittered across the floor and brushed Bolan’s boot.

He would never clear the desk and get beyond the blast radius in time. Instead, Bolan stretched for all he was worth, wrenching something in his shoulder. His fingers found the bomb and he whipped his arm up at the elbow, tossing the deadly steel egg over the desk and back at his attackers.

The explosion had enough force to shove the desk against the wall, pinning him under it. His ears, already ringing, were rattled by the blast. He bit his lip and tasted the coppery tang of blood.

“Sarge, do you read me?” Grimaldi was saying. “Sarge! The locals are telling me to hold at a one-mile perimeter. They’ve got some FBI hostage negotiator on-site who’s cleared a cargo chopper for the terrorists.”

“That wasn’t the play,” Bolan said. He checked his M-4 while crouched under the desk. “Who cleared that?”

“I can’t get confirmation,” Grimaldi said. “Sarge, you want me to take out the chopper?”

“Who’s flying it?”

“No official word,” the pilot replied, “but my guess would be either law enforcement or civilian volunteers.”

“Innocents, in other words.”

“Yeah.”

Bolan swore under his breath. “Break the airspace cordon. Block that chopper. Threaten to shoot it down if you have to, but don’t fire on it. We’ve got to cut off Nitzche’s escape route.”

“You got it, Sarge.”

On his back, Bolan got his legs under the desk, then heaved, shoving the heavy piece of furniture across the floor. He wasted no time as he used the desk to cover his move back to his feet. He moved toward the doorway to the courthouse, the M-4 leading the way.

He met no resistance, which told him the courthouse had already been emptied. When Bolan began the dive to the doorway, he went low, extending his arms to keep the M-4 in firing position as he landed painfully on his stomach.

At the last minute he pushed right and slammed into the wall next to the door. He’d caught a glimpse of another remote claymore mine sitting in the opening, a trap set by the gunmen he’d taken down. They had fought a delaying action, giving their leader and his hostages time to get to the roof, and they had left a little explosive package behind just to be sure.

Bolan got to his feet and raced back to the entrance opposite the formerly concealed door. Using the wall as cover, he aimed around the corner and simply shot the mine.

The explosion rocked the room, decimating the books and knickknacks on the shelves in the judge’s chambers. The smoke was still swirling as Bolan burst through it.

The court was a shambles. The explosion at the chambers’ door had done only minor damage, but the terrorists had trashed the place while waiting with the hostages. Whatever wasn’t nailed down had been turned over and even shredded. Law books and court records were strewed everywhere. The American flag had been torn to rags, its pole thrust through the seal on the wall behind the judge’s bench.

There were several bodies.

A couple were bailiffs, their guns missing from their holsters. One had been shot. The other had been stabbed repeatedly by someone who obviously enjoyed his work.

No one opposed Bolan. The courtroom was empty. The entire building vibrated under the buffeting of the helicopter overhead, which would be only a couple yards above his position right now. He felt it as much as heard it.

More mines had been stashed in the stairwell leading up to the balcony, but this time the soldier was ready for them. He skirted the stairs on one side until the steps were chest height, then lifted himself up over the railing, well out of the effective kill zone of the explosives. He hit the stone steps and climbed them two at a time. The balcony was clear of weaponry. A set of double doors took him to a small anteroom.

The sentry stationed within was pressed against the wall opposite the door. As he leveled his sawed-off shotgun, Bolan swiveled, bringing up the M-4.

The shotgun roared, the impact slamming into Bolan’s gut like a hammer blow. Air rushed from his lungs, and he went down, landing on his back, hard.

The gunman was standing between Bolan and the ladder to the roof. Behind the shotgunner’s head, the soldier could see the metal hatch. It was closed.

Then all he could see was the barrel of the shotgun. The neo-Nazi racked the pump action.

“Bye-bye, asshole.”


Chapter 3

Black spots swam in Bolan’s vision. He ignored the pain, ignored the burning in his chest, ignored his inability to take in air. Instead, he snapped his feet out and together, creating a scissors that collided with the shotgunner’s lead ankle.

Bone snapped.

The gunner screamed and folded, collapsing to one knee as the stark white bone of a compound fracture jutted through the flesh of his leg and a rip in his pant leg. Bolan pushed himself to a sitting position, grabbed the butt of his combat dagger, yanked it free of its scabbard and rammed the curved tip through the neo-Nazi’s neck. The blade penetrated up and through, lodging inside his skull, killing him.

Bolan could still hear the helicopter, which was practically on top of him, over the courthouse roof. Just beyond that closed hatch.

“G-Force to Striker!” His transceiver sounded again. “Sarge, we have a big problem here. Washington Metro has scrambled a D.C. MPD chopper to protect the cargo helicopter they’re bringing in for the evacuation. The MPD is blocking me. Repeat, Sarge, the Metropolitan Police Department is protecting the cargo chopper! It’s a Boeing Model 234 Long Range. If the authorities let them fly loose, they could be six hundred miles away before they need to refuel!”

Bolan tried to speak, but his breath caught in his throat. He focused on short, shallow breaths. The tension was bad, but he thought it was starting to ease.

He focused on his body, lying very still. Carefully, he moved his hands to his stomach, probing. He found his canvas war bag instead. The fabric was shredded. Magazines and other pieces of equipment were spilling out.

Sitting up, Bolan assessed the damage. Every breath still felt like fire, but they were coming more easily now. A double O buckshot pellet spilled out of his war bag, followed by another. He realized then what had happened. As his body had turned, the sturdy canvas war bag had shifted in front of him. The heavy shot had punched him with all the force of the close-range blast, but the gear in the bag had absorbed some of its energy. The result was a badly bruised abdomen for Bolan—and some items dented and destroyed—but no serious damage that he could detect. With some difficulty he pulled the long, wide strap free from around his neck and over his shoulder. The canvas bag would keep.

Pushing to his hands and knees, he dragged himself to the dead sentry, gripped the hilt of his knife with one hand and pushed against the dead man’s forehead with the other. The blade finally came free. Bolan wiped it against the man’s battle dress uniform before resheathing it.

He hit the steps of the ladder and grunted as ripples of pain rushed through him. He would be feeling that close call for a while. It didn’t matter now; he had no time to worry.

Shoving the hatch open with his shoulder, Bolan risked a look.

Bullets tore into the roof to either side of him. He let himself fall, crashing heavily to the floor below, slowing his descent only by gripping the ladder’s uprights with his knees as he slid down. Catching his shoulder at an imperfect angle, he cracked his head and swore as his teeth rattled.

The gunners above ripped the hatch up and chased him with automatic fire from their micro-Uzis. The opening hatch admitted a small tornado of wind churned up by the cargo helicopter. The neo-Nazis were visible briefly in silhouette against the sky. There were no hostages nearby.

Rolling to dodge the bullets, Bolan yanked a grenade from his web gear, jerked out the pin and counted. The neo-Nazis were just moving to close the access hatch when, as if thrusting a shot put in the Olympics, the Executioner heaved his grenade through the opening. He continued his roll as the explosion rattled the metal hatch in its frame, buckling it. Plaster dust and fragments of concrete pelted his arms while he covered his head from the debris.

“Jack,” said Bolan, his ears ringing. “G-Force, come in.”

There was no response.

He reached up and touched his ear. The earbud transceiver was gone. It had to have been dislodged during his fall. If Grimaldi was still speaking to him, Bolan’s hearing was too far gone at the moment to perceive it.

The only option was the ladder, then the roof. Grimaldi would have to look after things in the air as best he could; there was no way for the soldier to ask for help or suggest options.

The noise of the chopper above was changing pitch, growing more powerful. The craft was lifting off.

Bolan hit the ladder, pausing when the steel structure creaked and groaned, obviously loosened in its mounts by the explosion. The soldier kept going, again putting his shoulder against the hatch, this time straining with all his might against the bent, hot metal. He finally succeeded in dislodging the cover, and pushed through, hitting the roof of the courthouse amid the gritty windstorm that was the big helicopter’s rotor wash.

The chopper was hovering three feet off the roof, its doors open. When the neo-Nazis saw Bolan and, more importantly, his modified M-4 carbine, they opened up on him from the chopper with their Kalashnikovs. The soldier took cover behind the only object close enough and strong enough to save him: a large external air-conditioning unit squatting on the rooftop.

The frame of the air conditioner rattled and banged as the 7.62 mm rounds started to smash it apart. Bolan arranged himself to present as compact a target as he could. Then he pressed up with one leg, waited for a lull in the gunfire, and popped up, triggering a blast from his carbine.

He targeted the chopper’s rotor. The pilot recognized the threat immediately and began to veer away. It was unlikely Bolan could bring the bird down that way—nor was he putting the hostages in any danger—but if he damaged the rotor sufficiently, any sane pilot would put the aircraft down. There was an equal chance the helicopter would simply fly away to escape the danger. Either way, the hostages would be out of the direct vicinity of the firefight, if only because the neo-Nazis had left their opponent behind.

Where was Grimaldi?

Bolan popped up again and unleashed another blast. The chopper moved farther from the roof, nearing the edge.

Three men jumped out.

The camouflage-clad neo-Nazis ran straight for Bolan’s position, firing their weapons. The soldier was impressed; it was the play they were least likely to make, requiring the most guts. He let them blaze away. They were well-trained for their kind, but not compared to him. They didn’t stagger their fire, and ran dry on top of one another, scrambling to change magazines. With no choice but to fight or die, they rushed Bolan, perhaps thinking to bludgeon him with the heavy wooden stocks of their assault rifles.

Behind them, the chopper lifted clear and kept going.

Bolan rounded the chewed-up air conditioner and emptied the magazine of his carbine into the first man. He let the weapon fall to the end of its sling, drawing his Beretta 93-R and Desert Eagle in one smooth motion. The men were coming straight for him as his pistols came up, tracking them both.

The Executioner could hit whatever he could see, but he was human.

There simply wasn’t time to shoot the men before they collided with him. Bolan hit the roof on his back, tucking his head this time, clenching his jaw against the pain as the neo-Nazis bore him down and crushed him. The shotgun blast to the abdomen made itself known again, as his stomach screamed in pain under the pressure of his two foes.

Bolan slammed the Desert Eagle into the side of the closest man’s head and pulled the trigger, punching a round into the roof of the courthouse. The thunder of the pistol against the neo-Nazi’s skull burst his eardrum. Screaming, bleeding from the ear, he clapped his hand to the wound, losing his grip on Bolan.

The soldier wrenched his Beretta back on target from beneath the second enemy. He slammed the butt of the Desert Eagle into the man’s face and pulled the Beretta’s trigger a heartbeat after. His opponent jerked, his eyes rolled up and he collapsed, now nothing but deadweight.

Bolan’s hearing was, despite the firefight, returning to normal. The sound of sirens was becoming louder. There were many of them.

Standing, the Executioner stepped in and threw a savage kick into the ribs of the writhing, half-deafened neo-Nazi, who was struggling to draw a pistol from a holster on his hip. The kick caused the terrorist to double up. Bolan bent and, realizing he had nothing with which to secure the man’s hands, rolled him over and grabbed him by the collar. He dragged the bleeding, stunned man behind him toward the open hatch and threw him in. The terrorist landed with a crunch as Bolan followed, sliding down the ladder before it came completely free from its frame. Loose now, it rattled within the widened metal collar framing the hatchway.

“Sarge!” a tinny voice was saying from somewhere in the anteroom. “Sarge! Come in!”

Bolan looked toward the neo-Nazi, who was curled in a ball on the floor, and then scanned the space. He spotted his transceiver and snatched it up, replacing it in his ear.

“Sarge!” Grimaldi called once more. “I’ve lost the chopper, repeat, I have lost the chopper!”

“Striker to G-Force,” Bolan said. “Report.”

“Sarge, the MPD shielded the helicopter with their own units. They dared me to shoot them down, knowing I wouldn’t. Barb and Hal are burning up the airwaves with the powers that be in D.C., but they’re stonewalling us. I repeat, they’re stonewalling us.”

Bolan grunted. “No small feat.”

“No, it isn’t, Sarge,” Grimaldi said. “There’s more bad news.”

“Go ahead.”

“Your position is about to be overrun. Police, fire, first response medical… It’s a zoo out there now that Nitzche and his men have pulled out.”

“Understood,” Bolan said. He began rummaging through the shredded remains of his canvas bag, sorting out the undamaged equipment and munitions from the rest. He found several of his plastic zip-tie cuffs and used these to secure the deafened terrorist’s wrists and ankles.

In the little time he had left, the soldier redistributed everything he could from the ruined war bag to his web. Fortunately, most of his loaded magazines had survived the assault. A few pieces of electronic and countermeasures gear were destroyed. Finally, he found the item that had saved his life: a slim netbook computer, sheathed in a Kevlar skin designed by John “Cowboy” Kissinger. The tiny computer was wrecked, bent into a V-shape from the fist-size punch of heavy shot at close range. It was the point of that V that had bruised Bolan’s gut, as brutal as any spear-hand blow to naked flesh.

He heard footsteps echoing from the courtroom beyond the anteroom. His company was here.

“Freeze!” someone shouted.

“Don’t move!” another man roared.

Bolan was suddenly very aware of the many rifles and shotguns pointed at him.

“We have him,” shouted one of the members of the Special Response Team. They were wearing Kevlar helmets and body armor and wielded MP-5 machine pistols.

“Federal agent,” Bolan said, standing and holding his arms out at chest height, palms open.

“He’s armed for bear, sir,” one of the SRT operatives said.

“I can see that.”

“Cooper,” Bolan said. “Matthew Cooper. Justice Department. My credentials are in my pocket.”

“Let’s see them, Cooper,” the first man said. His subdued name tag read Reynolds.

The soldier produced his identification, provided for him by Stony Man Farm. He offered it to Reynolds and was very careful to make no moves that could be construed as hostile. His weapons were all in position about his body, the M-4 at the end of its sling. The SRT team was as aware of this as Bolan was.

The neo-Nazi on the floor moaned. One of the SRT men jerked an MP-5 on track to cover him.

“Who’s that?” Reynolds demanded.

“One of Nitzche’s men,” Bolan said.

When the SRT men looked at each other, he added, “One of the terrorists.”

Another contingent of armed, armored SRT personnel arrived at the entrance to the anteroom. The lead man’s tag read Reed.

“Sir,” Reed said. He spared Bolan a wary glance. “The building is cleared. We have emergency personnel on-site and sweeping the building for stragglers.”

“There are men on the roof,” Bolan said.

“Active hostiles?” Reynolds asked.

“Neutralized,” Bolan replied. “Like him.” He jerked his chin to the terrorist on the floor.

“What’d you do to him?” Reed asked, bending to check the fallen man. “His ear is gushing blood.”

“He wouldn’t listen,” Bolan said.

Reynolds eyed the Executioner disapprovingly. He handed over the identification. “So you’re the one.”

“Sir?” Reed asked.

“His people at Justice have been jerking my chain all morning,” Reynolds said. “They aren’t happy about the decision to let the chopper through. Seems Captain Go-It-Alone here has an attack chopper up there whose pilot doesn’t listen to local authority very well. Maybe he’s hard of hearing, too, Cooper?”

“I was told I would have full authority,” Bolan said. “Your men let the terrorists escape with live hostages. My air support and I could have prevented that.”

“We all answer to somebody, Cooper,” Reynolds said. “My orders come from the top of the chain here in D.C.”

“I doubt that,” Bolan said.

“To go higher you’d have to go to the President, tough guy,” Reynolds stated. When Bolan didn’t blink at that, he looked less sure of himself. “Had you interfered, they might have started killing hostages.”

“Had we cut off their escape,” Bolan said, “killing hostages wouldn’t have done them any good. They’d have traded their own lives for the lives of the captives.”

“I guess we’ll never know,” Reynolds said. “Whatever authority you think you have, Cooper, I’m not interested. Nitzche is gone, and so is your reason to be here. Get out of my crime scene.”

Bolan turned to leave. He paused when Reed looked up. “Strange,” the SRT man said.

“What?” Reynolds asked.

“I wouldn’t have pegged them for the suicide type,” Reed said, searching the pockets of the terrorist’s camouflage fatigues. “That’s not really the profile of…” He stopped. “Hey. What’s this?”

Reed had lifted the hem of the terrorist’s BDU blouse, probably to check for weapons at the waistline. The terrorist was wearing another uniform shirt underneath the fatigues. Reed ripped the BDU open, popping buttons. The logo on the chest of the uniform shirt was unmistakable.

“DCFD,” Reynolds said. The terrorist was dressed as a District of Columbia Firefighter.

“Oh, shit…” Reed said.

Bolan was on the move before the SRT men could think to stop him.

Of course the neo-Nazis weren’t ready to give up their lives. It wasn’t their style; it wasn’t how they did things. If Nitzche had left men behind to cover his escape, he would have provided for them a plausible means of escape. It wouldn’t matter to him if the escape plan actually worked or not. It only had to seem workable to the men staying behind in the courthouse.

It was possible the shooters from the chopper had planned to exit the helicopter at the last moment regardless of resistance offered. That made sense: ensure Nitzche’s escape, then remain behind to counter any last-minute resistance by the locals.

It also made sense that there would be one or two terrorists hiding somewhere in the building to serve as a rear guard. They would have waited for the worst of the battle to pass them by, then blended with the inevitable mop-up chaos—simply by shedding their paramilitary uniforms.

Taking the steps two and three at a time, Bolan ran past startled emergency personnel working their way through the corridors. He hit the street, and the crush of vehicles and bystanders, at a dead run.

Someone screamed.

Bolan looked left, then right. He spotted the fire department vehicles, and then, in the opposite direction, a pair of men dressed as DCFD.

“Federal agent!” Bolan yelled. “Down!”

He brought his carbine to his shoulder and fired.


Chapter 4

Klaus Nitzche prepared his carved ivory pipe, brought for him from his estate in Argentina. The tobacco provided to him wasn’t his favorite blend, but it was tolerable. Anything was better than the cheap, often stale cigarettes with which he had been forced to make do while in prison.

He was cold. Even with the large door shut, and even with his heavy overcoat draped around his shoulders like a cape, the cold seeped into his old bones and made him shiver. It had been cold in his holding cell, too.

It galled him that he still wore the orange jumpsuit in which he had been brought to trial. To deny him the opportunity to face his accusers dressed as a man, to force him to look the part of the criminal before his trial had even begun…these were only some of the many petty insults he had been forced to endure.

Nitzche was a proud man. He had reason to be. From an early age, he had understood that the key to greatness was pride. If a person believed in himself, if he knew himself to be better than others, those beliefs became self-fulfilling prophecies. They drove a man, forced him to be better than his enemies, better than his competitors. They became the measure of what he was. They became everything.

If it was true for a man, it was true for a nation.

He remembered vividly the awful day he’d realized that his nation, his Germany, had no pride. His father was dead, a victim of overwork and a weak heart. Klaus had tried to speak with his mother about it. She was a whipped dog, content to keep her nose down and her standards low. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t help him.

Germany was crippled by war and economic ruin. Its people had the mind-set of the defeated. Its people had lost their pride.

And then everything changed.

Nitzche fussed over the pipe, packing it just so. His fingers trembled. Arthritis threatened to turn his hands into claws. He willed them to work. He wouldn’t be laid low by something as insignificant as sickness. Sickness was of the body, and the body answered to the mind.

Klaus Nitzche’s mind was superior.

From the first rays of hope that were the Führer’s ascendancy to power, Nitzche had known things would be different. He had nothing but hate for those who refused to support Hitler willingly. It was obvious from the outset that Hitler offered Germany everything she had lost: power, respect, position. And something so much more important than the rest: the pride that accompanied these other things, these lesser things.

Indio, faithful Indio, leaned over from his seat and snapped open the chrome pipe lighter he always carried. The enormous Uruguayan had been, in his younger days, a Tupamaro—one of Uruguay’s leftist guerrillas, styled after a legendary Incan leader who once fought a revolution against the Spanish conquistadores. He carried a seemingly endless supply of knives and bore the scars of many a blade fight. The most notable of these was the oldest—a wide runnel marking his forehead, cheek and left eye socket. The socket held a black glass orb Indio affected for its menace. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of six brass rifle shells, which he claimed were the first six shots he had ever fired as a Tupamaro. On his hip the South American giant carried a well-worn Tokarev pistol, which also dated to his revolutionary days.

As Nitzche puffed contentedly on his pipe despite the chill, he chuckled to himself. The thought of one like Indio in his employ, much less as a trusted lieutenant and field commander, would have horrified him as a younger man. He had been so full of idealism at that age. So eager to prove that the Führer and his notions of purity were true to the letter of Aryan law.

Yet those ideas of purity, those assertions to perfection, hadn’t saved Hitler and those closest to him. In the end, even the Führer’s pride had failed him. In the end, he had embraced defeat, reportedly taking his own life rather than be captured by the enemy. Such a waste. Such a tremendous disappointment.

When the time came for Nitzche to abandon Schlechterwald, as the enemy advanced on the camp, it had been the simplest of matters to marshal the men loyal to him and implement the contingency plans he had put in place. A wise military leader always allowed for the possibility of failure. To do otherwise was, well, it could be called prideful, but Nitzche knew there was a line between pride and hubris that could not be crossed. The latter led one to make foolish mistakes, such as holing up in a bunker and refusing to admit that the war was lost, and some other means of continuing the fight had to be found.

Working his way up in the wartime German hierarchy hadn’t been difficult. Nitzche was intelligent, ruthless and enthusiastic. Most importantly, he got results, ringing every possible ounce of blood and sweat from Schlechterwald’s forced labor ranks. With the war well under way, Nitzche’s tendency to get results had saved him from the wrath of his superiors when he’d decided to take leadership of the camp more directly in hand. He had, through the years, even managed to forget the name of the SS officer he had killed in order to take over his job.

Yet he remembered vividly what it had felt like to squeeze the life from the man’s throat. He had grabbed the fool by the neck, placed his thumbs oh so precisely and pressed, squeezed, clenched for all he was worth. The flush brought to the SS commander’s face had been so great that Nitzche could feel the heat radiating from the man’s cheeks. The sound that had escaped the dead man’s lips, when Nitzche had finally released him, was like nothing he had known before or since.

The things one forgot weren’t strange at all, considering. One remembered the important details. One discarded the irrelevancies.

He remembered, for example, the day that Indio had joined his employ. In the period immediately before and after the fall of the Third Reich, many refugees from the Nazi regime had fled to Argentina and its somewhat sympathetic commercial and political climates.

Nitzche was no refugee.

Power over a camp like Schlechterwald was power over a means of production, over a lot of resources and their distribution. Nitzche had used his power to divert funds and supplies to his contingency plan. As the war effort grew more dire, and Germany’s chances less certain, he had accelerated his own planning. Were his beloved country to know another military defeat at Hitler’s hands and on Hitler’s watch, Nitzche would nonetheless continue on in the spirit of the Führer’s best teachings.

So when he was forced to withdraw from Schlechterwald with his private forces, the loyalty of which he had cultivated through long familiarity—and more than a few bribes—Nitzche traveled to Argentina not as a fleeing refugee, but as a determined soldier.

Through the years he’d focused on building his organization. That was made both easier and harder by the fact that Heil Nitzche had no clearly defined goal. Klaus followed global politics keenly and watched as other political and terrorist movements waxed and waned. He followed the social protest movements, too. Without exception they were unfocused, poorly led and ineffectual, even when abundantly funded and resourced.

Over the years, his perspective on the superiority of the Aryan race also evolved.

Yes, it was true that those of Aryan descent were superior, but that was no longer a guiding philosophy in and of itself. It simply couldn’t be. Were innate superiority all that mattered, Hitler couldn’t have lost to the coalition of race-mixing inferiors who’d stood against him.

In time Nitzche had come to liken the idea to a pack of wild dogs. In every pack there were stronger dogs and weaker ones. The latter deferred to the former, but the pack worked toward common goals.

It would be foolish for Nitzche, as the leader of his own pack, to discard a specific powerful, fearsome dog simply because he judged that dog’s breed inferior. And while ultimately the pack might operate toward some idealistic goal―in Nitzche’s case, the overall ideal of Aryan supremacy represented by political power in Nitzche’s hands—every pack’s more immediate purpose was the protection and furtherance of itself.

Nitzche and HN had therefore built an organization whose purpose was simply to strengthen Nitzche and his men. This focus on strength for its own sake had allowed HN, and its many resources, to remain below the radar of the many counterterrorist units that operated around the globe.

It was also that focus of strength as the end goal that had brought to Nitzche’s banner a variety of men who might never have sought his protection otherwise. He was currently alone among those of his contingent who had traveled to Argentina from the collapsing Third Reich. He had outlived them all. That was just as well, for many of the neo-Nazi soldiers Nitzche now cultivated would have caused his old supporters more than slight pause.

He had begun recruiting from many light-skinned races of color, most extensively those from South America, uniting them as neo-Nazis under the philosophies of national socialism and of might was right. The type of men Nitzche needed to form the ranks of his soldiers―simple, ruthless, obedient, but vicious—responded well to his modified approach. In showing them kindness, in lavishing on them resources and even gifts, in showing them that he valued their devotion to him, he succeeded in creating a cult of personality. Heil Nitzche wasn’t just a neo-Nazi organization. It was an organization devoted to Nitzche first and foremost.

Indio passed him a thermos of coffee. From the taste, Nitzche knew it to be decaf, but in truth, his doctors had forbade him anything stronger. Still, the gesture mattered, and he patted the enormous man on one rock-hard shoulder, smiling and nodding. Nitzche sipped the coffee, enjoying the warmth if not the flavor.

Indio had been close to death, that day in the alley behind a decrepit bar in Buenos Aires. Nitzche and his convoy had been passing through, taking the side streets as they customarily did, when Nitzche ordered his driver to stop. There, inspiring in his indomitable will, Indio fought no less than eight men, all of them armed with pipes, bricks or knives. They had bloodied the giant, but Indio’s opponents couldn’t break him, even as they swarmed him from every side and dragged him to the bloody pavement.

How perfect a metaphor for Germany’s own defeat! Nitzche could see in Indio’s fierce determination shades of the nation he had been forced to leave behind. His brown skin might mark him as inferior, but Indio was a worthy dog nonetheless. Nitzche had ordered his men to wade into the battle. They had reduced the odds until Indio could fight back, then stood aside at Nitzche’s orders. The giant had smashed his enemies with renewed energy, then turned and bowed to his new benefactor. He had been Nitzche’s most ardent supporter ever since, paying lip service to his neo-Nazi philosophies, while clearly interested only in protecting Nitzche himself.

Indio’s only other interest was rape, Nitzche had to admit. On the streets of Buenos Aires, the local prostitutes knew his name and feared it. No man was without flaws, Nitzche supposed.

The arrangement suited Klaus Nitzche. Fate had smiled on them both. Every one of Nitzche’s men secretly hoped that he would be selected to adopt the mantle of leadership after Nitzche’s passing. Indio alone made no mention and gave no sign of this ambition. He was content merely to serve, his personal honor wrapped up in the debt he believed he owed the much older man. In truth, it didn’t matter to Nitzche who assumed leadership when he was gone, or even if Heil Nitzche survived. It existed to serve and protect him, and after his death, what happened to its members mattered to him not at all.

Indio wore a headset, as did several of the men, so they could communicate despite the noise of the helicopter. He offered one to Nitzche, then helped him put it on his head as Nitzche continued to smoke his pipe.

“Yes, Indio?” the old man asked.

“My leader, the pilot reports there is no sign of pursuit.” Indio’s command of English was superb. He hadn’t spoken a word of it until Nitzche asked that he learn. English served as the language in common among all his recruits, because many of them spoke it. Since the death of the last of his original lieutenants, Nitzche hadn’t had occasion to speak German to any of his supporters. The emotion this thought brought him might have been regret, but on the whole, Nitzche wasn’t sentimental. He cared only to be as strong as he could be and to make those who had hurt him pay.

“That is excellent,” he said. “And not unexpected.”

“How did you know, sir?” Indio rumbled. He had the deepest voice of any man Klaus had ever encountered. “How could you be certain the authorities wouldn’t simply pluck us from the sky, force us down?”

“For the same reason that I should have anticipated the interference of that wretched bounty hunter,” Nitzche said, spitting the last two words. “On whose shoulders rest the blame for this entire miserable affair.”

“The Berwalds?” Indio asked.

“The very same.” He nodded. “No one among the Jewish Nazi-hunters has more tenacity than Berwald, except perhaps his bastard son.” Klaus paused to take a long puff from his pipe. “And who among our enemies, who have for so many years rooted out our fellows, would have the political clout to make sure the police didn’t simply shoot us down or somehow make us land? I sense the Berwalds know that, free of the fools who would jail me, I will not be caught twice.”

“They wish you free… .” Indio began.

“Yes,” Nitzche said. “They wish me free so they may deal with me themselves. They will not trust the courts to do it a second time. We have amassed as much information about the Nazi-hunter groups as they have amassed about us. We knew almost everything there was to know about Lantern before they ever had me in their clutches. Doubtless I have few secrets from them, either. That is how they knew where to send the bounty hunter to take me. How goes that operation, incidentally?”

“Our men in Hawaii are closing in,” Indio said.

“I want him killed,” Nitzche stated, nodding, “but slowly. Make him suffer. Record it, so that we may distribute the video online. I wish it known what happens to all who presume to make a fool of Klaus Nitzche.”

“Of course, sir,” Indio said. “My leader, I have taken the opportunity of…disciplining the men assigned to guard you the day the bounty hunter captured you. Had they followed protocol, they would never have been separated from you.”

“Such,” Nitzche said, “is the price of one’s appetites.” The old man had, in fact, been visiting Buenos Aires’s most exclusive brothel the day the bounty hunter captured him. Nitzche had grown somewhat complacent in his later years, making a habit of visiting the establishment every Sunday. This practice had no doubt become known to Lantern’s intelligence network. He’d made such trips with minimal guard for the sake of discretion, something he would know better than to indulge in again.

Nitzche knew, too, that Indio’s idea of “discipline” was to gouge out a man’s eyes with his knife before killing him. It was one of the things that made his assistant so valuable. A fit of rage on the big man’s part made it possible to extract the harshest penalty for failure, while maintaining the fiction that he cared deeply for all his men and would never treat them so harshly. What was it that old Italian had said? “It is better to be feared than loved when one of the two must be lacking.” Yes, it was something like that.

Nitzche understood the value of creating both emotions in his followers.

Feeling his belly full at last, he handed the thermos back to Indio and gestured with his pipe. The rear portion of the large transport helicopter was full of the kneeling hostages and their armed guards. Among those Nitzche had captured was the judge, one Amy Ballard. She was a gray-haired, severe woman with a matronly demeanor and a miserable tongue. During his preliminary appearances before the court, she had grandstanded from the bench more than once, expressing her contempt for Klaus Nitzche and everything she believed he stood for.

Also present were the court reporter―a fairly attractive young woman—and a handful of other court functionaries and spectators. The prosecutor, an older man named Lars Kinsey, was there, as was Nitzche’s own sniveling court-appointed defense counsel, Kevin Orwin. There were also two bailiffs. Their weapons had been taken from them.

“Have you heard from the men we stationed to cover our departure?” Nitzche asked.

“No, sir,” Indio said. “There has been no call. Each man had a prepaid wireless phone, but they may have fallen to the operative in black.”

“That wouldn’t explain why the men stationed in the courthouse itself also fail to report,” Nitzche said. “But no matter. There are two court guards among the hostages.”

“Yes, my leader,” Indio said.

“Bring them to me. Separately.”

“Yes, my leader.” Indio produced a shoe box from under his crash seat and opened it. Inside, swathed in a soft cloth, was a beautifully maintained presentation-grade Luger pistol. As Nitzche watched, Indio checked the magazine and chambered a round, operating the toggle action. He reversed the burnished, heavily engraved weapon and handed it over almost reverently, bowing his head.

Nitzche felt the grip of the familiar weapon fill his hand. The sensation of the steel and wood against his palm chased away the pain of his arthritis.





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