“Put it down, Jimmy,” the man’s partner whispered urgently.
Reluctantly, the first officer lowered his weapon. The second breathed a noticeable sigh of relief as he did the same.
“How many are you?” Bolan asked. It was only a matter of time before the safe house was swamped with law enforcement and emergency response personnel. He would need to move quickly if he was to find anything useful amid the debris before the place was overrun with competing administrative concerns. The crush of jurisdictional red tape would make Bolan’s job more difficult no matter how well-meaning the cops themselves were.
The officers exchanged glances, probably trying to decide if it was safe to tell Bolan anything sensitive. Stepping toward them and lowering his own weapon, the Executioner removed the Justice Department identification from his web gear and waved it under their eyes. That seemed to mollify them, though the cynical part of Bolan’s mind told him that it shouldn’t have. Were the soldier some sort of assassin or other well-equipped hostile operative, forged credentials would pass such a quick inspection.
“Backup is on the way,” Jimmy said. “We’re it for now. What happened here, Mr.…”
“Cooper,” Bolan repeated. “Agent Matt Cooper, Justice Department.” He leaned on the last two words heavily. It wouldn’t hurt for these men to know he had the authority of Washington, D.C., behind him.
“I’m looking for this man,” Bolan said. He held up his satellite phone and called up the most recent mug shot of Hyde. “Shane Hyde. A wanted extremist with ties to several domestic terror organizations.” That simplified the issue quite a bit, but it would be enough to get his meaning across.
“You thought he might be here?” the second officer said. “Did you…did you kill all these people?”
“Negative,” Bolan said. He pressed his lips together. Even the implication was disturbing. “This location has been assaulted by a force of armed operatives, size unknown, affiliation unknown.”
“You don’t talk like a Fed,” Officer Jimmy said.
“You talk like a military man,” his partner stated.
Bolan ignored that. He gestured toward the kitchen. “Everything around you is potential evidence. Don’t touch anything. There’s a basement. I intend to investigate.” He turned to leave them. Over his shoulder, he said, “Stay out of my way.”
He didn’t enjoy being brusque with police, who were just trying to do their jobs. He simply didn’t have time to be diplomatic. Hyde wasn’t here and, if he had been, the assault on the safe house opened multiple worrisome possibilities. Had he already been taken out, possibly by one of the terrorist organizations to which he was connected? Had they mounted a daring coup, hoping to silence the security threat Hyde represented to them?
Bolan rejected that idea. Until his strike at the first of the pair of safe houses, Hyde and Twelfth Reich would have no reason to believe they were being targeted. Hyde’s allies, then, would likewise have no reason to be any more concerned than they already were about working with him.
Unless there was something else at ploy here. Some kind of leak, possibly within the web of law-enforcement agencies already homing in on Hyde. The man had, after all, been previously targeted, with disastrous results for the agents involved.
The Executioner dismissed this speculation. There was little value in it. He would simply have to keep moving forward through the priority list until Hyde, or some sign of him, shook loose. Until he could uncover new intelligence, there were no other options.
The temperature dropped to comfortable levels as he descended the open stairway to the basement, flicking on the combat light attached to the FN P90’s rail system. He was ready to fire through the stairs, if need be; he had ambushed plenty of men himself from such a position. The basement was largely empty, however. There were a few cardboard cartons of what appeared to be trash, a water heater, what looked to be a nonfunctioning furnace and several empty metal garage shelves.
Satisfied there was nothing here, Bolan started back up the stairs. It was then that he heard the sound of a thump in the living room.
He hurried back in that direction to find the police officers had ripped a heavy-metal band poster from the plaster wall, ignoring his instructions. They had uncovered a cavity into which a small but sturdy-looking safe had been set. Officer Jimmy and his partner had apparently removed the lockbox and dropped it on the floor of the living room. The safe was oblong, painted black, covered in deep gouges where its paint had been scraped away near the lock and handle lever.
“Don’t touch that,” Bolan ordered. Jimmy looked up, annoyed.
“There was a tear in the poster,” Officer Jimmy’s partner offered. He appeared embarrassed. “We weren’t intentionally—”
“He’s a Fed,” Jimmy said. “He’s not God, Gray. Relax. We’ve as much jurisdiction as anyone until—”
“And what happens when everyone else gets here?” Gray asked.
“How many times you going to try to call it in?” Jimmy said, irritated. He reached for the safe.
“I said,” Bolan interjected, “don’t touch that.”
Jimmy looked up. “Listen, Agent Cooper—”
He held up a hand. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Jimmy asked.
“Oh, crap,” Gray said. “I hear it. Metal moving. Like a spring uncoiling. A rasping sound.”
Bolan pointed. The sound was coming from the safe.
The soldier went to the wall and examined the cavity. There was a piece of simple, light gauge wire jutting from a hook screwed into the hole in the plaster. Removing the safe had torn something free and snapped the wire.
Bolan looked past the two cops and through the damaged bay window. Despite his warning, civilians had begun to gather before the house, milling about and craning their necks for a better look. The squad car belonging to the police sat in the drive, its LED light bar cycling red and blue.
“We’ve got to move this fast,” Bolan said. He suspected a bomb. The safe was booby-trapped. Whoever had hit the house had missed it during their assault. Now the two police officers had triggered some deadly insurance left in place by the skinheads, probably to prevent their secured information from falling into law-enforcement hands.
There was no way to tell how big the explosion might be. Containing even a moderate charge, the safe would become a huge pipe bomb. Pressure would build within it until the safe itself became shrapnel. They had to get it away from the bay window and the civilians beyond.
“Basement,” Bolan ordered. The police officer complied and the three of them managed to lift the safe and shuffle through the corpses and debris toward the kitchen.
“It’s speeding up,” Gray said. “I can feel it vibrating faster.”
“Move, move, move,” Bolan urged. They reached the kitchen. “Dump it down the stairs, then take the back door! Get out!”
The cops shuffled with him as far as the dead man at the top of the basement stairs. Then Bolan used one hand to shove the door all the way open before he put his shoulder under the safe.
“Go!” he commanded.
The cops backed away, through the rear doorway. Bolan heaved with all his strength, feeling the muscles in his shoulders burn, sensing the tipping point as the bomb started to fall down the stairway.
He was framed in the basement doorway, his arms outstretched, his hands open before him as he released the heavy, booby-trapped metal box—
The world burst into blinding flame.