Bolan took up the weapon. “Yeah, but the last one was old-school, wooden-stock, Afghan War–style.”

  “You’re going to be our designated marksman on this one. You’ll all get some trigger time both today and tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Ibarra reached into a crate and pulled out a fistful of goggles and a canister. “Gas masks, Hy?”

  “All right!” Yard raised his voice to everyone in the room. “The gas masks are Chinese. I’ve used them before, they work, but I have no idea how they size them, so make goddamn sure you pick one that fits. If you don’t, your face will be swimming in a fishbowl of your own vomit. I shit you not. If things go really bad, you might just end up dead. I’m sure you have questions. You’ll be briefed tonight. Briefing is at 2200. I recommend you be on time.”

  Bolan picked up a gas mask. It was a standard two-lens binocular job rather than a full visor, and sported a filter canister off to the left side so it wouldn’t interfere with shouldering a rifle. In Bolan’s experience, what Yard had just intimated was that they would be deploying Adamsite, or known by its more colloquial name, vomit gas. It was like a very violent form of tear gas except that it often also frequently induced projectile vomiting, and in many cases explosive diarrhea, as well. It almost sounded comical, other than the fact that someone who was already choking on tear gas could very likely die when what they had for lunch backed up into their lungs. Adamsite had a very bad record of collateral death and dying. As far as Bolan knew, only the Russians and the North Koreans kept stockpiles of it.

  Rampart Group intended to suppress some people in one of the ugliest ways possible, and without collateral damage to ship or cargo.

  “Do we need chem-suits?” Bolan asked.

  “Find a mask that fits, Blue.” Yard stopped short of telling him to shut the hell up. “My advice to you.”

  “On it.”

  Yard lowered his voice. “One other thing.”

  “What’s that, Hy?”

  “Dwayne wants to see you, in his office, 2100. I recommend you be on time.”

  * * *

  Bolan pressed the intercom buzzer. “It’s Blue.”

  Dwayne responded across the speaker, and the door buzzed and the lock clicked. “C’mon in!” Bolan entered and closed the door behind him. Dwayne sat at the head of the table. A gleaming Marine Corps .45 pistol sat on the table in front of him. The Colt’s slide was racked open on empty, and a single loaded magazine lay next to it. Ricci and Gein flanked their boss. Both men carried HK MP7s with sound suppressors screwed onto the barrels. They weren’t pointed at Bolan, but the two mercs held the weapons low and at the ready. There was another man in the room, but his chair was turned away to look out a porthole. Even more troubling was the fact that the man with his back turned had his hands zip-tied to the armrests of his chair.

  Bolan snorted quizzically. “What the fuck, Dwayne?”

  “Good question!” Dwayne picked up the .45 and slapped in the magazine. He hit the slide release and the slide rammed forward, chambering a round. He ejected the magazine so that the pistol held a single bullet.

  Bolan had a very credible bad feeling as to where this was going.

  Dwayne shoved the cocked and not locked pistol down the table. The .45 spun across the mahogany and came to stop before the Executioner, pointing at him like a lethal game of spin the bottle. Bolan let his face go cold. “What’s going on, Dwayne?”

  “We have a bit of a problem, and I want you to help me with it.”

  Dwayne nodded at Gein. “Smitty?”

  Jup Gein turned the hidden man’s chair. The occupant had been beaten to the point his face resembled a poorly dressed side of beef. But without doubt, the bound and gagged side of beef was former SAS Colour Sergeant Terry Wellens, presumed lost, along with Lance Corporal Jup Gein and their ship with all hands. The sergeant glared bloody murder at Bolan.

  The big American decided to play it straight. “I never shot a guy on his knees, Dwayne. I shot a couple of guys who were sitting down, but they were all trying to stand up and slap leather.”

  “I believe you, Blue.” Dwayne nodded sympathetically. “And I feel you. I feel for you.”

  Bolan spread his hands to high heaven and put anger in his voice. “You want me to prove myself? How about I fight off the Spanish Armada with ball bearings and liquid soap! How about I pull a crane assault on the bridge and then jump off it so your boy Hyram doesn’t get his head removed!” Bolan glanced around snarling. “And where is the wolf-eyed son of a bitch anyway?”

  “He’s busy at the moment.”

  Bolan glared while another part of his mind considered what he might be busy doing.

  Dwayne ignored Bolan’s fury. “Smitty?”

  Gein pointed his weapon at Wellens. “This man? I fought beside him. We took a ship together. I saved his life. Then he tries to send out a private message! He’s undercover! Working to bring us all down! Fuck him! He’s the enemy!”

  Dwayne raised a calming hand. “And no, Blue. You already proved yourself. Amply, in fact beyond all expectations.” Dwayne gestured at the gun and then at Sergeant Wellens. “This isn’t a test. It’s an insurance policy. I have one, in one form or another, on all my inner circle people.”

  Bolan stared at Dwayne. “You want an executioner?”

  “I just want you to do this for me. I know you don’t like it. I know you’ll hate me for it. But do it and survive this next mission, you are a millionaire, guaranteed. But I need you to do it.”

  Bolan picked up the .45.

  Wellens’s eyes flared wide. Gein and Jacopo shouldered their MP7s. They clicked on their laser designators, and two green dots manifested themselves on Bolan’s chest. The Executioner tossed the pistol back on to the wood.

  “No can do. Got anything else?”

  Jacopo sneered. “Pussy.”

  “No, he’s not that.” Dwayne shook his head sadly. “And no, this is a one-shot deal.”

  Bolan lowered his head slightly, but he still glared defiantly. “Don’t hurt my people.”

  Dwayne nodded slowly. “They’ll each have their chance, one way or another.”

  “So what happens now?”

  Dwayne glanced at the chair at the foot of the table. “So you’re going to sit in that chair, and when Hyram gets back we are going to learn a whole lot more about you.”

  Bolan looked long and hard at the .45 and sighed.

  “Blue?” Dwayne stabbed a finger at Bolan. “I changed my mind.”

  “What? You’re going to let me and Hy go for it on the helideck?”

  “No, I’m going with my instincts on this one. Your kind of balls cannot be begged, borrowed or sold. I appreciate everything you’ve done, and I know this situation is jacking you up. So I’m going to do something I have never done before. I’m going to give you a second chance, and I’m going to give you exactly five minutes to change your mind. You don’t? I am going to invite B.B. up here and give her the opportunity to shoot James Bond here in the face. Then I’m afraid I am going to have to offer Sifu the opportunity to shoot you.”

  “What about Eise?”

  “Oh, I think I can bend him to my will without all this, but I’ll make him watch. You want to hear the good news?”

  Bolan regarded Dwayne calmly. “Sure.”

  “I want you to think about what is going to happen to you. I want you to think about what your people will do when they’re given the same choice. I want you in, all the way in, and I want it win-win all around. But you’re going to have to shoot that limey son of a bitch. I want you to win. I want all of your people to win. Blue, I want you to rise.”

  Bolan dropped.

  It was a straight judo back fall. It was like the Japanese merc’s fall in Pirate Cove but better, and Bolan was below the level of the table in an eye blink. Ricci’s and Gein’s MP7s erupted, and bullets tore into the tabletop. Bolan shoved his hand down the front of his pants and pulled the Malysh as he rolled back over his shoulder.

  “Kill him!” Dwayne snarled. “End the bastard!”

  The two Rampart killers advanced, firing.

  Bolan ducked under the table. He rammed the Malysh out and shoved it against the Italian’s knee in passing. The tiny pistol twisted in his hand with recoil. The Italian screamed as his knee exploded.

  “Get him! Get him!” Dwayne roared.

  Bolan saw the lower half of the CEO’s body as he pushed away from the table. Ricci fell flat on his back, and Bolan gave him one point-blank in the temple.

  “Jacopo!” Gein screamed. “Jacopo!”

  Bolan put a shoulder under the table and surged upward. He could see Dwayne trying to pull something out of an ankle holster. The Executioner dropped the table as quickly as he had lifted it, hearing Gein’s silenced weapon click back on empty.

  “Scheisse!”

  Bolan popped up with the Malysh in both hands. The weapon whipsawed like a rabid animal in his hands as he pulled the trigger twice. One bullet shattered Gein’s jaw, and the other exploded his right eye socket. Bolan trained the smoking weapon on Dwayne. The Rampart Group CEO froze.

  “Just drop it,” Bolan advised. “You can live through this. In fact I want you to live through this.”

  A Walther PPK thudded lightly to the carpet. Bolan nodded. “Have a seat.”

  “Okay.” Dwayne sat down. “This has gone really bad.”

  “Better than expected.” Bolan took out his knife and cut the zip ties on Sergeant Wellens. The SAS man spit. “Bloody hell...” He rose and took up Ricci’s weapon. He promptly sat back in his chair again woozily.

  “Can you walk?”

  Wellens had a thick Northern England accent. “I’ll walk out of here, mate! Swim if we bloody have to.”

  The SAS sergeant was a bloody mess.

  “Check your weapon.”

  Wellens ejected his magazine and scowled at it before slapping it back. “Seven rounds. One in the pipe.”

  Neither Gein nor Ricci had a spare magazine, but they’d been expecting to attend an execution, not a firefight. Bolan picked up the fallen .45 and its magazine from the floor and reloaded it. The firepower he and Wellens had would have to do.

  Dwayne stared heavenward for strength. “You two think you can fight your way off this ship?”

  Bolan glanced at the door to Dwayne’s stateroom and the electronic lock. It appeared to be a thumbprint reader. “Dwayne, you can put your thumb on that reader, or I can cut your thumb off and you can watch while I do it.”

  Dwayne slowly rose. “Okay.”

  Bolan picked up Dwayne’s hideout gun from the floor and filled his other hand. “Key the lock.”

  Dwayne thumbed the reader, and the lock clicked. Bolan lunged and brutally rammed the muzzle of the .45 into Dwayne’s right kidney. The Rampart boss groaned and went as stiff as a board. The soldier followed up with a shoulder block that blasted the man through the door and sent him sprawling onto a bearskin rug. Bolan dropped down and pressed his knee between his prisoner’s shoulder blades and looked around. He was pretty sure it was the plushest bachelor pad on any arsenal ship afloat. Bolan ignored the round bed with satin sheets and handcuffs, and zeroed in on the stainless steel monolith behind the wet bar.

  “Is that a gun cabinet?”

  Wellens cleared his throat. Bolan didn’t need the mirror behind the bed to know the sergeant’s weapon was pointed at his head. “Sorry, mate. But who are you again?”

  “What if I said that if we get out of this alive, I’ll buy the first pint?”

  “Right.” Wellens lowered his weapon. “Let’s get on with it, then, and first pint’s on me.”

  Bolan hauled Dwayne up and hurled him across the bar face-first into the steel cabinet. Dwayne had time to fall among the broken bottles before the Executioner was on him, dragging the man to his feet again. “Key the lock, Dwayne. Or I give our English friend here a turn.”

  The Rampart Group CEO pressed his thumb against the tiny reader and a lock clicked. Bolan coldcocked the man, who collapsed unconscious to the floor.

  “I want him alive,” Bolan advised. “But if he moves, stomp a mud hole in him.”

  “Right, then,” Wellens agreed. The SAS sergeant kicked Dwayne in the groin to keep him honest, but other than a groan he didn’t move. The Brit patted him down and tossed Bolan the man’s phone.

  The soldier caught it and scanned the icons. “Thanks.”

  Wellens shouldered Dwayne and heaved him onto the bed. He cuffed him spread-eagled from post to post and sat down heavily.

  Bolan opened the gun cabinet.

  The contents were pretty exciting. Bolan had been hoping for a squad automatic weapon, a bucket of hand grenades and some high explosives, but those were all down two decks and locked in the armory. The contents were much appreciated nonetheless. They appeared to be personal/trophy guns from Dwayne’s past ops. Bolan handed Wellens a British Sterling submachine gun that was gold plated from butt to muzzle, and almost had to have been taken off one of Saddam Hussein’s personal guards. “You must know your way around one of these.”

  “Ah well, back in Horse Guards, not as fancy as this, but...” Wellens sighed happily as he checked the weapon.

  It was an exciting assortment. Bolan removed a very well-worn but lovingly maintained Uzi and what had to be a Mossad-issue .22 Beretta pistol. On the other end of the range hung a huge Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum revolver, mounting a long-eye relief scope with a custom leather shoulder holster. Dwayne also had a mint German Luger with Nazi proof-marks and a War on Drugs vintage Mossberg 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun. He also had what looked like a pre-Taliban Afghan Mujahedeen folding stock AKM complete with a mini fringed prayer rug around the forend with a pouch for written prayers in it. All the weapons had at least six spare magazines, and the shelves of the cabinet contained boxes of ammo.

  On the lowest shelf lay neatly banded stacks of euros. If each bundle contained the same denomination, the stash could add up to a couple of million.

  Bolan checked the other weapon in the arsenal. He regarded Dwayne’s phone like a very dangerous Golden Wonka ticket. Dwayne hadn’t seen fit to lock it for Wellens’s execution. He’d most likely intended to record it. “Do you know the chopper pilot’s name?”

  “Only one I worked with was Harris. A Yank. Big dark, dangerous-looking bastard, like you. But that was more than a month ago.”

  Bolan flipped through Dwayne’s contacts. A hell of a lot of them were just passwords consisting of letters, numbers and symbols. There was a Harris, but it was Harris, Jeanine, and she had four stars by her name. There were a lot of women’s names with all sorts of exotic area codes. Most of the women’s names had between one and five stars associated with them, and a link to photos. Bolan was most intrigued with a contact that simply read “Hy.” Bolan tapped it and a text window came up. There was no phone number. Those were probably all in code and considered the risks. He knew he couldn’t trust Dwayne not to give him away, no matter what he threatened him with. There were thirty top-of-the-line Rampart Group mercs on this boat, not including presumably at least a dozen loyal ship’s crewmen.

  Wellens looked on hopefully. “We have a plan, then?”

  “I think I’m gonna text Hy.”

  “Well, bugger me.”

  Bolan rolled the dice and texted.

  Hy

  Half a minute passed. Dwayne’s phone “blooped.”

  What?

  Bolan’s thumbs flew.

  Send the Viking assholes up to the conference room.

  The answer came back almost instantly.

  What the fuck, Dwayne?

  Bolan grimaced. He was hitting wrong notes and was a few heartbeats away from a full assault on the conference room. Bolan went for the Hail Mary. He considered Dwayne’s style, and in particular his recent lapse of judgment.

  One every five minutes. Start with B.B. Then Sifu.

  Dwayne’s phone blooped after a slight pause.

  Eise?

  Yard was still on Rampart One. Bolan’s thumbs flew as he tried to method-text Dwayne across the ether.

  He’s a goddamn pet but send him anyway. I want him to see this.

  Bolan waited long seconds. Yard answered.

  You Machiavellian son of a bitch... On it.

  Bolan shrugged into the Magnum rig and took up the .45. “I give it fifty-fifty I fooled Hy.”

  Wellens’s brutalized face said it all. “So, you’re one of those optimistic-type Yanks, are you?”

  “We try.”

  Wellens swayed on his feet and sat down on the bed. “Bugger...”

  Bolan eyed the SAS man critically. “Can you fight?”

  “Bit knackered.” Wellens grabbed a handcuff post to steady himself. “Don’t suppose you can fly a chopper, then?”

  “I can get by.” Bolan went to the mini fridge and cracked Wellens a bottle of water. “Better yet, I can make someone fly a helicopter. Done that before.”

  “Well, that’s good news.” Wellens’s eyes rolled back in his head as he gulped water. He nearly choked, and lowered the bottle gasping. “There’s always the launch.”

  Bolan had already given that serious consideration, but Rampart One didn’t have a well deck. The launch had to be lowered by a crane.

  “Don’t much fancy doing that under fire, then.”

  “Me neither.” Bolan went to Dwayne’s work desk. His computer was locked in sleep mode, and Bolan had no time to fiddle with it. The good news was there were three large flat-screen monitors on the desk. One was split into nearly two dozen screens all of which were devoted to security camera feeds from around the ship. “So we’ll get the gang together and play it by ear.”

  “We have a gang?”

 

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