The Libya Connection

"Ask the boys in the NCB outfit," grunted the fed. "As chief of security at the base where the virus was being stored, Thatcher was able to divert the junk to Houston under military guard. It was loaded on a private jet — Jericho's jet, we now know — and Jericho's merc security force was standing by to take it over when that jet landed in Libya."

April felt a sense of terror.

"God help the Mideast if that virus falls into Libyan hands," she murmured. "God help us all."

"You can see why Mossad has an interest in this," said Hal. "Jesus Christ, sometimes I wish I only knew enough to be chasing street hoods like in the old days."

April turned back to the communications console.

"I'm going to contact Jack Grimaldi," she said, "and see if there's any possible way to reach Mack with this."

Hal's stogie was in need of a light again, and again he forgot about it. "We have nothing on Eve Aguilar to pass along to him, right?" he said.

"Right," replied April as she activated the sending unit. "The Traveler was the last we know for sure that Eve was alive."

Jack Grimaldi stood at the rail along a deserted stretch of flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Fearless. The supercarrier was cruising Mediterranean waters, 130 miles off Libya's Gulf of Sidra, on White House sanctioned maneuvers. The Fearless glided as smoothly as a skater on ice. The dark sea, far below Grimaldi, was a choppy panoply of sparkling wet stars and moonlight that mirrored the night sky overhead.

The Fearless was a floating city. The warship was home to five thousand sailors and airmen for months at a time. The five-deck seagoing airport was a warren of passages, offices, shops, mess halls and crew quarters; a numbering system had been devised to keep people from getting lost. Someone had mentioned to Grimaldi that the Eiffel Tower, if laid on its side, would overhang the flight deck by only five feet.

The Stony Man flyboy was smoking a cigarette, trying to relax.

The angled black flight deck was quiet at this hour. The big flattop's two-hundred-thousand horsepower engines, turning her four shafts with their seventy-thousand-pound propellers, could not be heard up here. The incessant roaring, banging and hissing of steam catapult launches and the thumping and snapping of cable-arrested landings, which had been going on since Grimaldi's airlift to the ship from Tunis via a Sikorsky 70L shipboard helicopter, had only minutes ago been called to a halt until more exercises tomorrow morning.

Grimaldi experienced a momentary sense of oneness with the Med, the alluring but historically much fought-over sea.

He could not relax.

That moon overhead, that same panoply of stars, shone down on Mack Bolan at this moment, wherever he was.

If he was still alive.

No way could Grimaldi relax, knowing what he did.

Grimaldi was joined at the rail by an admiral named Fieldhouse. The task force commander was the only man onboard the Fearless who knew what Grimaldi knew.

"They told me in Communications that you had to speak with me, Mr. Grimaldi."

Jack did not take his eyes away from the panorama of Mediterranean night.

"What are my chances of violating Libyan airspace without detection? I've got to reach him."

Fieldhouse paused to frame a reply, balancing the odds in his mind. He nodded at the moonwashed expanse of sea.

"The Gulf of Sidra is where two of our planes made hot contact with two of Libya's Su-22s a while back. Soviet-built fighter planes. Those Sus are at the bottom of that gulf right now. Our intel is that Khaddafi's training program hasn't kept up with the technology he's been acquiring. Yes, his army and airforce do have the equipment to spot you coming in. But whether they actually spot you, and how quickly they respond... well, I'd say you stand a chance of getting in and out again if you fly low. Not a good chance, but some chance. What do you need?"

Grimaldi tossed his cigarette butt over the rail.

He had needed some few minutes alone after receiving the communique from Stony Man Farm. He came up here from the ship's communications room, had filled his lungs with gulps of ocean air and half a cigarette. It was enough.

He could handle it.

"What have you got that will get me in fast under their radar grid and punch hard when I get there, Admiral?"

"My recommendation would be our new Boeing 1041 multirole V/STOL," said Fieldhouse. "We have two of them below, on twenty-four standby-one of them without markings.''

"What kind of armament?"

"The 1041 has air-to-air and air-to-surface missile capability. Unfortunately it's not equipped with ca

Grimaldi grunted grim acknowledgment. "It's a bizarre world, Admiral. I'll take your advice. The 1041 it is. Lead the way, please."

Fieldhouse moved down to the principal hangar belowdecks.

Grimaldi tossed one last look over his shoulder at the dark beauty of the Med. He wondered if the sea would still sparkle in the moonlight and reflect those stars the way it did right now — after everyone was dead.

Yeah. Everyone.

Strain-7 — No one knew for sure exactly what it was capable of. The worst possible guess, of course, was that it had the capability of killing off every human being on the face of the earth...

It was very literally a matter of life and death for most of the planet that Mack Bolan now held in his hands.

And Mack did not know it.

Ah, friend, soldier, go carefully in this night. This dark night in your endless war.

Jack Grimaldi knew that his best friend was walking a lonely trail now, and that he was risking all because he did not want to further endanger Eve Aguilar's life; and yes, Grimaldi could identify with that. The pilot was a man of well-defined, fiery Italian temperament who appreciated completely the powers of love and caring that were the lifeblood of his race and the driving force of a bigger-than-life dude named Mack Bolan. The guy would've made a damn good Italiano.

Grimaldi and Fieldhouse entered the cavernous hangar of the Fearless. Planes, men, activity, the smell of grease and oil were everywhere. Noise echoed off the towering steel walls.

Fieldhouse angled off to make arrangements for Grimaldi's briefing and takeoff.

Grimaldi walked over to the plane he would be flying into Libya. He checked out the aircraft with a growing sense of approval.

The two-passenger V/STOL boasted a forty-one-foot wingspan, and a fuselage length of about forty-eight feet. The aircraft was shiny and new, without markings, and Grimaldi hoped he could bring her back in the same condition. The Boeing 1041 was excellent. It would do, hell yeah.

Jack Grimaldi was finished sitting on his tail.