'Hold it right there, sir,' the man ordered, snapping his .45 automatic out of its side holster and aiming it at Mack Bolan.
'Easy, son,' Bolan said from behind the wheel of the jeep. He kept his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel.
'May I see your identification, sir?'
'Sure thing, Corporal. Okay if I reach into my shirt?'
'Yes, sir,' the young man said evenly. 'But slowly, sir.'
In the darkness, Bolan noted the other soldier standing inside the bulletproof checkpoint booth behind the corporal, grimly watching the action. The soldier's hands were below the booth's window. Without a doubt they were wrapped around an M3AI submachine gun. Bolan pulled a laminated slip of plastic from his pocket and handed it over. The corporal glanced back and forth between the photo on the card and Bolan's face several times before handing the card back. 'Sorry, Sergeant. Thank you for cooperating.'
Bolan smiled. 'What the hell's going on here tonight? You fell as are edgier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.'
The corporal shrugged. He returned his .45 to his holster, but left it unsnapped. 'All I can tell you, Sergeant, is what they told us. That all guards are to be doubled until further notice. No one got in or out without a thorough check of ID, no matter how well we know them. Even General Wilson.' The corporal motioned to his partner in the booth.
The metal guardrail in front of the jeep rose automatically and Bolan drove through with a wave of thanks.
Immediately he pulled the jeep around the corner of an old barracks building and parked in the dark shadows. 'It's all clear,' he whispered, quickly flipping back the rear seat. Tanya Morganslicht took a deep breath, shook her long black hair over her shoulders, climbed out of the hidden compartment of Sergeant Grendal's jeep.
'I heard what that soldier was saying to you.' Tanya climbed into the front seat, her thigh brushing against Bolan's shoulder. Once seated, she turned to face him with an intense expression of controlled anxiety. 'It is never wise for me to come here, you understand that,' she said.
Bolan shrugged. 'Suit yourself, lady. I can take you out again right now, same way we came in. But this is where I keep my goodies stored and I ain't risking sneaking them all out of here on your maybe. If you want to buy them sight unseen, that's okay by me, too. But make up your mind.'
Tanya's face twitched angrily. Bolan was out of the jeep before she could say anything. 'This way,' he whispered, motioning with his head. She stayed close to him in commando formation, creeping forward or flattening herself against a wall at the instant that he did. She was good, he realized, maybe too good to make this next part work. He shook the thought from his mind and continued forward. It had to work.
Everything depended on it.
'It's huge,' she said at last, looking up at the massive metal building at the back of the army compound.
'It used to be an airplane hangar,' Bolan told her, whispering in the darkness as she marvelled at the shadowy form that they approached. 'But it was converted into a storage building about five years ago. I have my own private little corner in there that no one else even knows about. Come on.' They jogged quickly across the paved street, Bolan in military uniform, Tanya in black jeans and sweater, then they crept toward the armed guard who stood semialert in front of the entrance. As the guard saw them he swung his rifle and took aim.
'Relax, Bendix, it's me.'
'Sarge?'
'Who else?' Bolan looked around. 'I heard the guards had been doubled, where's your shadow?'
Bendix pointed with his rifle. 'Leadline's over there someplace taking a leak. Jeez, Sarge, I don't know, when Cottonwood offered a cut of this action, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.'
Bolan took a step toward him, his Beretta gripped firmly at his side. 'Now you know, wise guy. Any problems?'
Bendix swallowed hard and shook his head. 'No problems, Sarge. None at all.'
Bolan smiled menacingly at the stranger.
'I'm sure Cottonwood filled you in on the whole operation, right?'
'No, sir. He just told me I was to let you in.'
Bolan lifted the Beretta and tapped the soldier on the chest. 'Good. That was the right answer, son. You don't need to know anything more. Now let's get moving.'
'Right, Sarge.' PFC Bendix unlocked the small metal door inset into the main hangar doors and let Bolan and Tanya enter. He closed and locked the door behind them.
'Over here,' Bolan said, aiming a small pocket flashlight, leading the way down huge aisles of stacked goods.
'My God,' Tanya whispered, 'this building must have everything. The things we could do with such equipment.'
They came to a dark corner piled high with hundred-pound bags of what the powerful odor indicated to be fertilizer.
'Right here,' said Mack Bolan.
'Here?' She surveyed the stacks of bags, piled to a height of fifteen feet on pallets.
She guessed there were at least ten wooden pallets up to the back wall.
''Watch.' Bolan grabbed a hand-operated dolly, slipped the metal prongs into the slots of one of the pallets, then dragged the wooden platform back. Behind it was pitch blackness.
'Generally the smell keeps most people away,' Bolan told her as he started into the entrance.
Inside was wooden bracing separating and supporting walls made up of hundreds of bags of fertilizer. The stench was staggering.
'It ain't much,' Bolan said, 'but I call it home.'
She sighed wearily. 'Can we get to business, Sergeant Grendal?'
Bolan handed the woman the flashlight, then hefted a crowbar and pried off the lid of a nearby crate. He reached in, pushed aside some packing material, pulled out a .45 MW submachine gun. He held it at chest level for a second, smiled, then tossed it across the space at her. She caught it with one hand, nearly dropped it, regained her grip with both hands and examined it.
'This is different than the ones we have,' she said, fumbling with the flashlight.
Bolan shrugged. 'You might have some of the old M3's. The MW is an upgraded version. It's a superior weapon.'
She looked up from the gun and stared at Bolan in tire fragmented gloom. 'How so?'
He had a feeling she damn well knew the difference, was just testing him out. 'First you'll notice the larger ejection port here. The old retracting handle's been eliminated. Also, this piece has got a finger hole for cocking and a larger oil can inside the grip. It's got a stronger cover spring, a guard added for the magazine catch, a stock plate and magazine filler added to the stock. She weighs eight pounds but can fire three-fifty to four-fifty rounds permin was ute at approximately nine hundred and twenty feet per second. Quite a handful. In the right hands.'
'It's nice,' she said simply, laying the gun aside on top of a crate.'
'Nice? You have a flair for understatement, lady.'
'What else do you have?'
'Pretty much what I told you before. Two crates of these M3Als, a couple of the M1911AI.45 pistols. I can get you grenade launchers within the week and probably some 7.62mm NATO machine guns by the end of the month.'
She shook her head impatiently.
'Let's just talk about what you have right now, Sergeant. Here and now.'
'Well, I do have one particular item you might like.' He disappeared behind two monolithic crate's and came up with what looked like a laser gun out of some science fiction epic.
She gasped.
'Yeah, I knew you'd feel that way,' he nodded, stroking the weapon. 'It's a Heckler and Koch G-11
