LITMIR.BIZ

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smuggling operation. You see, officially the NCF exists as a special interest to protest the treatment of French-Arab citizens and American involvement in Muslim countries. They get financial support from a number of sister organizations. They don’t deny their actions in saving victims from persecution, particularly if they can make it look as if America is behind its perpetration.”

      “What you don’t hear in the papers is many of the people they’ve pipelined into America have a history of violence and known affiliations with terrorist groups,” Brognola added.

      “Fine, so let’s assume Neely’s telling the truth. The million-dollar question is, why did he run?”

      Price nodded at Kurtzman who dimmed the lights and projected a photograph on the screen. “That very distinguished-looking gentleman is Garrett Downing, age sixty-two, born in North Carolina. We think he’s the chief reason Neely’s hiding.”

      Bolan did a double take at Price. “You’re talking about the Downing who’s former deputy director of the NSA?”

      “The same.”

      Bolan knew the name well, as did most anyone involved in covert operations for the U.S. government. Downing had spearheaded most of the projects dealing with electronic surveillance and countersurveillance following establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. His guidance and direction had tipped the scales to America’s advantage and put her well ahead of the game in technical sciences to achieve a superior intelligence community. His passion had saved countless lives, and significantly reduced not only the casualties of terrorist attacks in America but the chances of a repeat attack on American soil.

      “How does Downing fit into this?” Bolan asked.

      “Less than twelve hours ago, we received a report of a slaying of twenty persons in Atlanta,” Kurtzman said. “I wouldn’t have thought much more of it until our systems flagged it for probability scenarios on various algorithms I use to scan all data throughput.”

      Bolan nodded. “Neely believed Atlanta was one of the major areas of operation for the NCF.”

      “What Bear discovered is almost incomprehensible,” Brognola said. “Reports are still coming in, but I got wind as soon as it went down and we sent a team to investigate. It fell into the Justice Department’s jurisdiction when we discovered automatic weapons were used and thirteen of the victims were of French-Arab descent.”

      “Looks like maybe someone beat you to the punch on this underground operation, Striker,” Price remarked.

      Bolan nodded. “So how does Downing fit into this?”

      “He’s taking credit,” Price said.

      “Come again?”

      “Downing claims the people who executed this operation were a special team of commandos operating under his orders. He also said this was the first official act of what he’s calling the Organization for Strategic Initiative.”

      “Great,” Bolan said.

      Brognola cleared his throat. “He issued a very heartfelt apology through all the major networks, as well as the press, for the families of the innocent people who died. He said while tragic, the losses were acceptable when we consider the costs of battling terrorists. He promised the next operation would be on a much larger scale, which signals there may be more, and I quote, ‘casualties of war’ before it’s over.”

      “Sounds like a real lunatic,” Kurtzman remarked.

      “Hardly,” Bolan replied.

      “Mack’s right,” Price agreed. “Downing might sound fanatical but he’s not crazy. He views himself as a patriot.”

      “An idealist,” Bolan added. “That makes him more dangerous.”

      “Whatever his reasons, we obviously can’t let him continue,” Brognola said. “The President had suggested we use one of the teams to handle it, but I told him since you were here and already pursuing a lead we should ask for your intervention. He agreed.”

      “Fine,” Bolan said with a nod. He looked at Price. “You mentioned Downing was the reason you thought Neely split the States. What’s the connection there?”

      “Everything we have on Roger Neely says he’s a straight shooter all the way,” Price replied. “There’s no middle-of-the-road with this guy. His psychological profiles suggest he’s fiercely loyal, and his past performance reviews indicate he does everything strictly by the book. For a guy like that to suddenly give it all up and run tells us he’s afraid.”

      “And with good reason,” Kurtzman interjected. “Barb, may I?”

      Price inclined her head and Kurtzman keyed the projector to project a new photograph. “This man is Peter Hagen, fifty-nine years of age, born in Sarasota, Florida. He’s an MIT graduate who served as senior technology officer during Downing’s tenure at the NSA. He resigned the same year Downing did, but at the time he was working on a secret project to develop a comprehensive assault platform with Multi-Geo Transversal capabilities.

      “MGT is a relatively new concept the U.S. military has only been inclined to pursue over the past six years or so. In essence, the concept is centered on small-scale assault mobility operations, like those conducted by elite military teams or antiterrorist units. Multi-Geo Transversal is actually the shorter version of Multiplied Geographical Transportation Universality.”

      “Sounds like something out of a science-fiction novel,” Bolan said.

      Kurtzman chuckled. “Simply put, MGT theory theorizes effective first-strike scenarios by small, specialized teams mobilized through some mechanism capable of traveling by sea, air or land.”

      “A multiterrain vehicle, then,” Bolan said. “Is that all we’re talking about here?”

      “MGT is a wee bit more than that. A core group of military scientists first toyed with this idea toward the end of the 1990s. The thought was that if they could create a transport with MGT abilities, it would allow them to cross-train smaller units more effectively. This, in turn, would reduce the cost of special operations, and by eliminating the coordination of multiple branches during insertion and extraction operations, secrecy stood severely reduced chances of compromise.”

      “You see, we think Downing diverted enough funds from government surplus and project remainders to actually come up with a prototype,” Price said. “Peter Hagen was the brainchild of the operation at the time, but he’s now supposedly working in the civilian sector with a government contractor.”

      “And guess where he’s currently residing?” Brognola asked.

      “Atlanta,” Bolan said with a nod. “Okay, that’s enough evidence for me. What’s the plan?”

      “We’re inserting you as a last minute add-on with the federal task force Justice sent to investigate the slayings down there,” Price said. “You’re cover will be Matt Cooper, a weapons specialist with the ATF. We have the full credentials ready.”

      “You should have no trouble fitting in there,” Brognola added.

      “Right,” Bolan agreed. “I’ll have to find some way of getting in touch with this Hagen. What do we know about him?”

      Price handed him a personal digital assistant and smiled. “That contains all the information we have on Hagen and Downing.”

      “It also has the ability to access our mainframe data systems through a cable network or wireless connection,” Kurtzman added. “You can even plug it into a phone line and get to us by dial-up.”

      “Understand, the information on that device is encoded and will only unlock if you place your thumbs simultaneously on the back of it,” Price said. “If anyone other than you attempts to access the information or tampers with it in any way, the thing will instantly melt its circuits.”

      “A little extra fail-safe we added at Hunt’s suggestion,”

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