Interception. Don Pendleton

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      SIX HOURS LATER the Stony Man cybercrew cracked the encryption security on the laptop and things really began to roll.

      The first of the hijacked information was the most important.

      Under Kim Su-Kweon’s control, his intelligence agency had forged an alliance with the Hong Kong triad known as the Mountain and Snake Society. Mostly the deal had involved the laundering of forged American money and as a secondary outlet for North Korea’s prodigious methamphetamine production operation. But Stony Man had discovered that the use of the triad cutouts extended far beyond that.

      The Mountain and Snake Society had aggressively expanded its influence, most commonly by brute force, into any area on the global stage where there was a Chinese population presence or criminal activity already in existence on an international scale. The waterfront areas of Split, Croatia, had certainly qualified on the latter if not always on the former, and North Korean intelligence had entered into an arms trafficking enterprise with Russian oligarch Victor Bout through intermediaries of the Mountain and Snake Society triad.

      The triad subsidiary had then taken it upon itself to expand its own business interests and began performing mercenary criminal functions for Chechen, Russian and Azerbaijani mafia-style organizations. Most significantly to Stony Man had been the triad’s agreement to provide a safehouse for and act as intermediaries to, the kidnapping of the daughter of an American official in Split.

      The disappearance of Karen Rasmussen had baffled American security services who had focused their resources on known terror organizations in the area, leading them up one blind alley after another. Kim had known exactly where the young woman was being held and what was to become of her.

      Now the Executioner did, as well.

      CHAPTER THREE

      The long-range helicopter dropped out of the Eastern European night and hugged the ocean surf. Bolan looked out through his door on the copilot side and eyed the waters of the Adriatic Sea. It was even darker than the night, its water black and disturbingly deep. On the horizon in front of them a mile or so out, the brilliant lights of Split flared with near blinding intensity.

      Bolan looked over at the helicopter pilot, his old friend Jack Grimaldi. The man, dressed in aviator flight-suit and helmet offered him a thumbs-up and pointed at the GPS display on the helicopter dashboard.

      “One mile out,” Grimaldi said.

      The pilot’s face was cast in the greenish reflection of his dome lights, making his features stark and slightly surreal. Bolan reached down between them, then secured his dive bag across his body, which was sheathed in a black dry suit of quarter-inch neoprene against the chilly water below them.

      Grimaldi banked the helicopter and lowered into a hover above the rough sea. A sudden gust of wind hammered into the side of the aircraft and threatened to send it spinning into the waves. Reacting smoothly, the Stony Man pilot fought the struggling helicopter back into a level hover. The wind gust carved a sudden trough in the ocean beneath them, turning a three-yard drop to nearly ten in the blink of an eye. If Bolan had leaped when that gust had hit, his amphibious insertion would have shattered bones and left him crippled and helpless in rough seas.

      “I don’t like this, Sarge!” Grimaldi yelled.

      Looking up from the increasingly violent water, Bolan nodded his agreement. “We’ve been over this before,” he shouted back, pulling the hood of his dry suit into place. “It’s the most expedient manner to infiltrate Azerbaijani custom controls on such short notice.”

      “Ten to one Karen is already dead and buried so deep in a hidden grave we’ll never see her again!” Grimaldi argued. “There’s too much about this we don’t know. We should pull back now before we lose track of two Americans,” he said pointedly. But he also said it like a man who didn’t quite believe the story he was pushing.

      Bolan tugged his snorkel and facemask into place. “If there’s even one chance of getting her out, I’ve got to try.” He snapped his swim fins onto his belt and reached for the handle of the copilot door. He grinned at the frowning Grimaldi. “Try not to splatter me all over the Adriatic.”

      “No promises, Sarge,” Grimaldi answered. But he nodded and worked his controls, fighting the helicopter into position.

      Bolan opened the door and stepped onto the landing skid. Instantly sharp wind and needles of sea spray slapped into him. His dry suit kept him warm, but the exposed flesh of his face felt raw and brutalized. Though technically Mediterranean, the water still held a bite this time of year. He squinted hard against the spray and slammed the door of the helicopter shut.

      Despite his joke about splattering on the water, Bolan knew he had to move as efficiently as possible to minimize the hovering helicopter’s exposure to the variables of the weather and sea. He looked down, saw a swell rise up to greet him and pushed away from the aircraft. He stepped off with one foot to clear the helicopter.

      His grip in his clumsy dry suit mitten slipped on the rain-slick handle of the door as an erratic blast of air slammed into him like a subway car. His feet were knocked clear of the landing skid as Grimaldi frantically fought the helicopter back under control and Bolan tumbled out into space.

      Cursing to himself, he tried to twist as he dropped as below him the path of the wind cupped out a depression in the churning sea and ten feet became fifteen and then twenty. He got one hand up in time to secure his mask and snorkel, then hit the water hard along one side with enough force to drive the wind from his lungs like a gut punch.

      He plunged through the waves and into the deep, cold embrace of the water. The ocean closed like a black hole around him, sucking him into chilly brine and foam. He turned in the water, briefly disorientated by the fall, and he could no longer discern the surface.

      His hands went to his chest and he fumbled for a moment, slapping himself, searching for the release. Just as his lungs felt as if they were going to burn to a cinder with the pain of his asphyxiation, he found and jerked the activation handle.

      The compartments in his life vest popped open and jerked him chest-first toward the surface. He rose through the cold black like a buoy and broke the surface, gasping for breath, and began to kick. Above him he heard the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead. He kicked hard and waved a hand to show that he was fine.

      Grimaldi pulled up and away, taking the helicopter out of danger. A wave broke over Bolan’s head, pushing him down, and when he got to the surface again he was alone.