Killing Ground by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

“I’d hate to see the other guy,” Jack Grimaldi said, eyeing the swollen facial bruises Bolan had sustained during his hand-to-hand skirmish with Shah a few hours earlier.

“For the time being, you won’t have to worry about that,” the Executioner said as the two men shook hands. “He’s still MIA.”

Grimaldi had just disembarked the Eclipse 500 jet that had whisked him from Srinagar to Kabul in a little less than three hours after he’d received his flight orders from Stony Man. The ace pilot had touched down at the capital’s international airport and taxied to a remote hangar purportedly leased by a commercial delivery outfit called Eurasia Air Cargo. The facility was, in fact, one of the CIA’s primary nerve centers in Afghanistan.

“You managed to shake your Bagram buddies?” Grimaldi asked as they circled the hangar.

Bolan nodded. “They think I’m doing a follow-up on some of the demonstrators from the trucks we intercepted. I told them I’d be back later to go over plans for an insertion into Balqhat.”

“They’re in for a long wait,” Grimaldi stated.

“It’s better this way,” Bolan said.

“Anything come out of the interrogations?”

“Not really,” Bolan confided. “Half of them clammed up and the rest either played dumb or threw out red herrings hoping to send us on a wild-goose chase.”

“I love those,” Grimaldi deadpanned.

There were a handful of cargo planes parked behind the hangar along with a small fleet of delivery trucks. CIA agents doubling as route carriers were loading parcels from a loading dock into several of the vehicles. Standing near them was a clean-shaved, crew-cut man in his late forties. When he spotted Bolan and Grimaldi, he waved them over, then barked a few words into his cell phone. By the time the Stony Man operatives reached the man, the large door to one of the hangar’s service bays had begun to retract, revealing a two-seat Kiowa Warrior. The assault chopper’s weapon pylons were rigged with seven Hyrdra-70 rockets and a .50-caliber fixed forward machine gun.

“Evening, gents.” Agent Zane Anderson’s Texan drawl was as thick as his taut neck. “I’m told you’re in a hurry, so we’ll spare the code words and secret handshakes.”

“Works for me,” Bolan said.

“I was kinda hoping for the third degree myself,” Grimaldi said.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Anderson told him. “I got your security clearance and a no-questions-asked order straight from the Oval Office. I don’t care who you are so long as you kick some Taliban ass and bring the bird back in one piece.”

It was the second time Bolan had heard the phrase “kick some Taliban ass.” He stared at Anderson. “Did you know a Captain O’Brien by any chance?”

Anderson nodded. “Yeah, I knew Howitzer. Poor bastard. I understand part of your mission is to track down his body.”

“We’ll do our best,” the Executioner promised.

Bolan had yet to hear from the Farm regarding his suspicions that the Predator downed over Bagram might’ve once been part of the CIA’s arsenal, but before he could ask Anderson about missing drones, his cell phone vibrated.

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