LITMIR.BIZ

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said.

      “I’ll be back in a few,” Seles said, “but I’ve got to go make some calls.” He worked his way back out to the deck, down to the rocks, and from there to his SUV. Once he was inside, he pulled a number up on his list and almost laughed. He’d never thought to call it in a million years. He dialed, waited and a moment later a woman’s voice answered.

      “Office of the Director,” she said. “This is Melinda Harris speaking.”

      “This is Special Agent in Charge Denny Seles, Detroit,” he said. “I need to speak to Director Wallace, please.”

      “He’s in a meeting, sir,” she said. “I can have him call you.”

      “Interrupt him,” he said.

      “Sir, he’s in an important meeting and—”

      “Miss, this is a national-security issue. Put me through right now.”

      She paused for a moment, then said, “Hold please.”

      Seles waited on the line for Wallace’s voice, which he knew from phone conversations and the rare meeting in person.

      “Seles, what the hell could be happening in Detroit that is so important that you pull me out of a meeting with the...never mind. What’s so pressing?”

      “I’ve got a national security matter,” he said. “It’s serious.”

      “In Detroit?” Wallace asked, sounding incredulous. “What the hell’s going on?”

      “Someone, somewhere near here, has weapons-grade uranium. We just found the boat they used to bring it in.”

      Wallace was quiet for a moment, then Seles clearly heard him say, “Melinda, clear my schedule and get me the White House on the other line.”

      * * *

      HAL BROGNOLA SAT in his hot tub simultaneously trying to position his kinked back in front of the jets and keep his cigar stub out of the water. He never smoked cigars, but he enjoyed chewing on them, and his taste in them was far too expensive to lose one in the water. As the Project Director for Stony Man Farm he could arrange for strike teams, clear up a terror threat and avert international disasters, but the day-in, day-out tension would make any man long for a massage. He’d have to settle for hot-water pressure jets, and as he relaxed, it began to work its magic on his sore muscles. He closed his eyes, sighing in relief.

      He dismissed the first ring of his cell phone as a dream. It had to be. The second ring, however, reminded him that wanting something to be a dream often clashed with reality. Only a handful of people in the world had his number. He pushed himself out of the hot tub and reached for his phone, noting that the call was from a secure, blocked line.

      “Hal Brognola,” he said.

      “Hal, this is the President.”

      Brognola felt his tension return with a sudden vengeance. “Mr. President, sir.”

      “Hal, there’s a situation in Detroit,” the President said. “It could be very serious.”

      “Go ahead, sir,” Brognola said.

      “The Coast Guard found a boat run aground in Lake St. Clair. Three dead men and a container that had recently housed uranium. Hal...we have weapons-grade radioactive material on U.S. soil.”

      “How can we help, Mr. President?”

      “All the usual organizations are already doing their song and dance. They’ve activated the Detroit Emergency Operations Center and all the field agencies are coordinating through them.”

      “That sounds right,” Brognola said. “Do you foresee a problem of some kind, sir?”

      “I wish we had foreseen any of this. That’s the problem.”

      “We can only react to what’s in front of us, Mr. President.”

      “All right, Hal, here’s the deal. All our normal agencies are going to be up to their eyeballs in protocol and their little fiefdoms and covering their own asses. I’ve already had the Directors of the NSA and the FBI in here, shouting at each other about whose fault it was. In the meantime, before they get it all together, these terrorists could blow up Detroit. I want you to send someone in to cut through all the red-tape bullshit. If he runs into any snags with the locals, tell him to have them authorize through the Office of the President. I want this found and handled.”

      Brognola knew that sometimes fate put the right man in the right place at just the right time. “As it happens, Mr. President, I have a man in the area already who will be perfect for the job.”

      “Then get him working, Hal. We don’t know what we’re up against or how long we’ve got until these bastards do whatever it is they plan to do.”

      “I’ll contact him immediately, Mr. President,” Brognola said, hanging up with a polite goodbye.

      The man for the job was Mack Bolan. And if there was anyone who could hunt down and stop bad guys, it was Striker. The man sometimes called the Executioner.

      2

      The Military Demarcation Line—the line that divided North and South Korea—was as real as the line 8 Mile Road represented to the residents of Detroit. The road marked the barrier between black and white, rich and poor. It was a boundary in some ways, and in others, it was a no-man’s-land where only the strong survived. The Executioner watched the street below through the cracked glass of his window.

      His room was on the second floor of the 8 Pine Motel, an establishment that let rooms by the hour, day, week or even month, depending on how long a person could pay. Most paid by the day or week, depending on whether their income was from drugs or prostitution. The johns paid by the hour, and the elderly, living on a fixed income and a bit wiser than the others, paid by the month. None of them were particularly happy, but Bolan couldn’t blame them. The 8 Pine Motel was not a happy place.

      Sadly, it was representative of many of the buildings on this stretch of road. Cracked, broken or boarded-up windows, peeling paint, gang graffiti, bad water from lead pipes, and everywhere the smell of fear and desperation. Bolan’s room was little more than a mildew-scented mattress with a broken frame, a scarred bedside table and a bathroom where the only thing that ran were the cockroaches. He’d stayed in worse places, but most of them had been in other countries that were either impoverished or at war. It was little wonder that the major drug smugglers had decided that Detroit was a target-rich environment.

      He’d been in the city for the past two weeks, cultivating information about the now-booming heroin trade that had found its focus here. On the street below him, he watched as a car stopped and the man driving bought some crack and then drove on, while the dealer stepped back to his wall to wait for the next customer. There was little concern about the police in this area—they didn’t want to come near it unless they had to, and when they did, they came in force, giving the street dealers all the time they needed to disappear.

      The next customer turned out to be a kid about thirteen. Bolan watched as the girl obviously begged for more. The dealer stood his ground. He stepped forward and began to grope the girl and then nodded toward the alleyway.

      Bolan slipped out of his room and into the alley just in time to hear a smack resounding off brick walls.

      “I thought I could, I can’t, but I’ll get you the money. I just need...”

      Another slap rent the air and Bolan stepped out of the shadows as the dealer raised his hand high in the air again.

      “I don’t think you want to do that.”

      The dealer turned just enough to see Bolan, but kept his quarry on the ground in front of him. Tears spilled from the dark-ringed eyes of a girl who was growing up way too hard, way too fast. She tried to move, but he pushed her back down.

      “Get the fuck out of here, man. Don’t be

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