Rivers heard Jennings yelp and turned back, his Glock 17 in his hand. Jennings looked terrified as his captor wrenched his head backward.
“Drop it,” the man said.
“I don’t think so,” Rivers replied.
The shot from the Glock was smooth and the look of surprise was etched on the captor’s face for a small moment before the bullet in his skull killed the lights. Rivers barely broke stride as he grabbed Jennings and pulled him in his wake.
It looked like the illegals were assessing the situation, so Rivers took advantage of the delay and lobbed one grenade into the dune buggy and the second into the jeep. The explosions lit up the night—and the two vehicles—ensuring that, at least for the moment, everyone was on foot. The thugs who had been pressing closer ran for cover.
“Rivers,” one of the other agents said after the echoes faded away. “I called for support before it all went to hell, but I don’t know how long it will take to get here.”
As if on cue, they heard a helicopter making its way toward them. Rivers popped a flare from his vest, the trailing orange smoke showing the agents’ location. The gunship moved in for a strafing run, giving the agents time to fall back to one of the other vehicles. They piled inside as the chopper moved in sweeping patterns, keeping them safe. The rest of their assailants moved back into the desert, disappearing almost as quickly as they’d appeared.
The chopper landed and Rivers moved back in for a closer look. The paperwork on this would be tremendous, and he was still very uncertain how the hell they ended up in this mess in the first place. Where had the illegals all come from, and how had they gotten their hands on those kinds of weapons and vehicles?
He walked over to one of the wrecked dune buggies. There would be no questioning the mangled bodies that littered the area. He ran his flashlight beam across the wreckage, then paused as he came upon the .50 caliber machine gun. It was a Browning all right and carried U.S. Army serial numbers and badging. He ran his hands along the raised lettering.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “I don’t believe it.”
“What is it?” Jennings asked.
Rivers ran his light across the letters again. He nodded at Jennings’s indrawn breath.
“Those are Army weapons,” Jennings said. “Now what do we do?”
“Now we get some help,” Rivers replied. “Because if this means what I think it does, we’re going to need it.”
From the top of Holtanna Peak in Antarctica, Mack Bolan took a deep, cleansing breath. The landscape was pure, white snow, broken only by jagged shards of brown rock. Here, there were no human enemies to fight, no wars to win. The cold, the wind, the challenges of climbing, skiing and BASE jumping in this region were daunting, but for a man known as the Executioner, this kind of activity was his idea of rest and relaxation.
The tall pillar of Holtanna topped out at almost nine thousand feet. Standing alone in the middle of the Antarctic, the “hollow tooth” was an obstacle meant to be conquered. Bolan and his climbing companion, Gerard Casias, led the way, setting ropes for the other two climbers. Even with his winter gear, the cold penetrated deep into his bones. Each time he pushed in with the ice spikes on the soles of his boots, sharp pins of pain radiated through his frozen skin and up his leg. He wiggled his toes to increase the circulation before he looked for his next foothold. The chimneys within the rock were choked with snow, making the climb slow and arduous. Bolan paused to look out over the pristine white landscape. The sheer beauty of the environment pushed him onward. He placed the next piton to hold the permanent rope for the rest of the crew to climb behind him.
At two a.m. in Antarctica, the sun was high, but the temperature was not. The light beard Bolan had grown to help protect his face was frozen. The trek had taken them twenty-four hours of straight climbing.
Standing now on top of the bottom of the world, Bolan saw an incoming aircraft and pulled out his field goggles to identify it. A P3-K Orion, which meant that his time off was about to be cut short. Someone was using U.S. Naval resources to find him.
He took one last look at the beautiful surroundings, then zipped the last of the closures on his wingsuit. The material created the illusion of wings and a tail.
“Who will count it off?” Gerard called out.
“I will,” Bolan said.
He waited by the ledge, took two strides and launched himself into the abyss. The wind rushed past him, but the edges of his suit broke the speed and created a nice glide through the air. Bolan experimented with the directions of his arms and the angle of his body as he played on the breeze. Closing in on his mark, he deployed the parachute and glided safely to the ground. The others were right behind him. He unclipped the parachute, waved to the other climbers and sprinted off toward the plane as it taxied to a halt.
Gerard would see to it that the others got back to camp and would most likely stay for another few weeks, enjoying a life of adventure that didn’t involve the kinds of dangers the Executioner faced most every day of his life.
The cabin door opened on the aircraft and a ladder was tossed through the opening. Bolan stopped and looked up to see a grizzled E-7 staring down at him. “Colonel Stone?” the man shouted, trying to make himself heard over the props.
“That’s me,” Bolan yelled. “You must be my ride.”
“Yes, sir! We’ve got orders to get you back to the States as fast as possible.”
Bolan started climbing the ladder, and after a couple of minutes, he stepped on board. The chief petty officer gave him a quick once over. “You don’t look like a colonel,” he quipped.
“I’ve been off-duty,” Bolan replied. “Let’s get moving.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, pulling in the ladder and slamming the cabin door shut.
Bolan moved to the cockpit and opened the door. Two officers—the pilot and the copilot—were inside. “Gentlemen,” he said.
“Colonel Stone,” the pilot said. “I’m Captain Sikes, and this is Lieutenant Commander Olsen. Glad we were able to find you so quickly. We’ve got orders.”
“I figured as much,” Bolan replied. “What’s our route back?”
“We’ll go via South America,” Sikes said. “We’ll take on a new crew there, and then get you home.”
“Sounds like a long, boring flight,” he said.
“That’s just how we like them, sir,” Olsen replied.
“Go ahead and make yourself comfortable in back,” Sikes added.
Bolan nodded and headed to the cabin, where he found the other man already seated in the front row. He stopped in the galley long enough to grab some hot coffee, then moved to the back of the cabin and took a seat. The props began to spin faster and the plane completed a long turn, then started down the rough landing strip before heading into the sky.
From his inside jacket pocket, Bolan pulled out his handheld and powered it up. It took a good minute for it to sync with the satellite system it used for communications. As soon as he had a good signal, he put his thumb on the screen and unlocked the device. He opened his contacts and hit a speed-dial number. It took several seconds for the call to connect but only one ring before Hal Brognola, the director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, to answer.
“Tell me you’re on the plane, Striker,” he said, skipping any formalities.
“I’m