Contagion Option. Don Pendleton

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      CHAPTER FIVE

      Salt Lake City, Utah

      “Now take it easy, Stretch,” Kirby Graham admonished as Stan Reader pulled on his shirt. “You took a good clobberin’ when that bank fell on you. You’re lucky to have had such a short hospital stay.”

      Reader glanced at his old friend. “You know I bounce back pretty well. Once you showed me that a few knocks won’t kill me…”

      He stood and fought off some momentary dizziness. “Lieber still mad at you?”

      “He’d take a potato peeler to my ass and dip what’s left over in lemon juice if he could,” Graham replied. The Fed smirked.

      “So what’s so funny?” Reader asked.

      “Seems I had an old boss call in some favors to cover me,” Graham stated.

      “An old friend? Wasn’t me, Kirby,” Reader said.

      “No, not you,” Graham replied. “I did a little hush-hush security work at an installation a couple years back.”

      “CIA?” Reader asked.

      Graham shrugged. “Never really could tell. But I know I have the Justice Department watching out for me. Even though Lieber has me and Rachel in the dog house, there’s nothing they can really do to us with my guardian angel.”

      “So you really don’t need me to bail you out?” Reader concluded, looking a little crestfallen.

      “Aw, come on, Stretch, you know I’d join you in a heartbeat,” Graham stated. “Even if we were just running a garage or a greasy diner.”

      “Kirby, you’re sheep-dipped. Maybe by the CIA, maybe by someone a little more covert. You think they’ll let you gallivant all over the world with me?” Reader asked.

      Graham shrugged. “They gave me a ring while the doctors were still running X-rays on you. They’re interested in having you pitch in here.”

      “Me?” Reader asked. “And you told them I’d help? You know, I have some morals, Kirby.”

      “Yeah. These guys that have me sheep-dipped, they’ve got some morals, too.”

      Reader frowned. “What do they want?”

      “To keep them informed of our progress in this investigation,” Graham said. “Their usual resources are busy, but one will be here soon enough.”

      “Resources,” Reader repeated. This time it wasn’t dizziness, but nauseous dread. “Is that what they call ‘assets’ now?”

      Graham looked defeated at the implication. “This isn’t the Company, Stretch.”

      “And whoever we catch isn’t going to be outsourced to Egypt to be tortured?” Reader asked.

      “No way,” Graham stated.

      Reader’s lips were drawn into a tight line as he considered the identity of Graham’s mystery controllers. There had been a few cues in what his friend had told him that they were of a covert nature, and extralegal. The Justice Department wouldn’t bypass Special Agent in Charge Lieber to tap a low-level agent to get all the dirt on an investigation. And Lieber would tell the Justice Department whatever it wanted to hear.

      It also had to have been a small organization from the mention of its resources being previously occupied. If that was the case, then it couldn’t be the CIA, since the Company had thousands of agents and operatives inside and outside the United States that they could call upon for assistance. Graham pinned his involvement with these people as stemming from a covert security posting a few years back, so they had the resources to legally employ law-enforcement operatives, but not use them as these “resources.” He regarded Graham for a moment.

      “All right, Kirby. I’ll help out,” Reader stated.

      A small organization, utilizing a network of law enforcement, and perhaps even ex-military men to supply it with intelligence and information outside conventional channels intrigued the polymath. It was one way to slip the fetters of interagency petty rivalries, without being a form of monolithic bureaucracy such as the Department of Homeland Security had proved itself to be. Perhaps he’d have an opportunity to learn more about these mystery men. If they were behind similar skullduggery as the “School of the Americas” or the “Air America” torture transports to Egypt, then Reader would bow out and try to salvage his friend Graham from their dark ways.

      Either way, Reader already had one mystery to solve, and there was no way his intellect would allow such a puzzle to remain unanswered.

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      HAL BROGNOLA RUSHED into the War Room as fast as he could, out of breath thanks to his race from the helipad.

      “Has he crossed yet?” he asked.

      Barbara Price shook her head, watching the transponder on the enlarged map. Grimaldi was still some distance away from North Korea. “They aerially refueled Dragon Slayer just a few minutes ago when they hit the Tushima Strait.”

      Brognola inhaled deeply and watched as the helicopter wended its path slowly north. “If the Koreans or the Chinese catch wind of this…”

      “Mack sanitized Dragon Slayer, and we have his and Jack’s cover identities ready for a system purge if anything goes wrong,” Price explained.

      “I know procedure,” Brognola grumbled. He took out a cigar and clamped it between his teeth, working out tension as he ground the butt. “We’ve gone over it too many times before.”

      Price let her boss blow off some steam. When it came to Brognola’s friendship with Mack Bolan and Jack Grimaldi, there were few ties stronger in the world. The thought of having to sever all ties with the men and allow them to fall into enemy hands galled the head Fed. She knew that all three of them would move Heaven and Earth should the others fall into trouble. That kind of loyalty could become a liability to the Sensitive Operations Group at Stony Man Farm, but so far, they had weathered every storm.

      “It’s just a routine invasion of a hostile, sovereign nation, Hal,” Price said, ignoring the irony of her own statement. “Jack and Striker have done this hundreds of times before.”

      Brognola’s jaw clenched, and Price knew that he was remembering every time the warrior and his pilot had been captured or injured. Price did everything in her power to keep such memories at bay, but even though she had been the mission controller at the Farm for years, there was no way she could match the depth and breadth of Brognola’s relationship with Bolan.

      “Why are they approaching from СКАЧАТЬ