Day of Mourning

thought Miller — and he knew Phoenix had evaded the ambush Jones had so sloppily arranged. If Phoenix hadn't killed that uppity bastard, I would've.

So where was Phoenix right now?

Miller brushed aside the concern.

The merc topkick replaced the glasses in the leather case strapped around his neck. He gripped the Uzi in preparation for action at the sounds of Jeffcoat's attack at the airstrip.

Sprawled on the knoll overlooking the dark Farm, ready for action, Al Miller experienced a sensual anticipation that was almost sexual.

He would kill people tonight. He would pull the trigger of the Uzi and listen to screams of fear and pleading dissolve as bullets shredded flesh and sprayed brains. Somehow the thought of death weirdly excited him for the woman at the house in Potomac. The bitch. Tied to a chair, waiting to take what he wanted before he quit that house and his country forever.

Where is Phoenix?

It didn't matter. Not one goddamn.

Phoenix was already too late to save Stony Man Farm.

* * *

Where is Mack Bolan?

It meant a lot to April Rose.

The mission controller of Stony Man Farm sat at the shortwave console of the command center, checking the load and action of her .44 Magnum for at least the tenth time since Bolan had kissed her at the airstrip before Grimaldi airlifted him off into the night.

April felt the same old concern gnawing her as it always did when her man was in the fire.

The fact that the fight was so close to home gave the concern a coolness that nibbled at the base of her spine.

She had relayed Mack's last message to the men of Phoenix Force, who were now in the com-room.

Yakov Katzenelenbogen and his team hustled out into the night to make last-minute checks and adjustments of the defense perimeter of the Farm.

Mack's initial assessment of the computer sabotage had been correct, as usual.

Stony Man Farm was about to be attacked.

That was something else that made a difference. So many times April sat and waited at this very console, giving Bolan intel support and coordinating the various Stony Man units. Most of the time April was out of action. But not tonight.

Not tonight.

She holstered the .44 and swiveled in her chair to face the array of hi-tech electronics just as Katz and David McCarter returned.

Both Phoenix Force members had procured M-16s to supplement their holstered side arms.

'Manning and Ohara are beefing up security around the airfield,' Yakov told April. 'Encizo is covering Kurtzman and his men.'

'Any news from Bear?'

'A matter of minutes,' McCarter reported.

Yakov set down his rifle and leaned against a nearby wall. He shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit it.

'That might be too long if Striker is correct about the hit coming down anytime. The hours right before dawn; the best time for a hit.'

McCarter straddled a chair backward.

'Too bad the patrols we sent out didn't find anything.'

'We couldn't afford to send them too far,' Yakov reminded the Briton.

McCarter's face was taut with the anticipation of violence. 'I hate like bloody hell having to sit here waiting for them to hit us. It should bleedin' well be the other way around.'

'That's the way Mack has always felt,' April agreed.

A strong attack is the best defense. Seek out the enemy and hit him first. Hit him when he isn't ready for you. Hit him hard. Hit him again and again. And be as merciless to him as he is to his victims.

Bolan and Jack Grimaldi, who should have landed at the Stony Man airstrip by now, were late.

They were late.

Where is Mack Bolan?

April Rose had no idea.

She had a funny thought. I'd rather be right here than anywhere else in the world tonight, except for by his side.

April had never felt the restless searching that supposedly guides everyone through their twenties, probably due to the same pragmatic nature that guided her to graduate summa cum laude from U of C at Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering and a master's in solid-state physics by the time she was twenty- two.

Her search had been for a satisfying role through which to channel her knowledge and skills that she hoped, in however small a way, would contribute toward resolving some of the ills of humanity on this mixed-up planet.

She had not been interested in pursuing the high-fashion modeling career that had paid her way through college, though some of the offers seemed like the moon and the stars.

She had found her niche when she accepted an appointment with the U.S. Justice Department's Sensitive Operations Group that led directly to her association with Mack Bolan and her present position code-named Stony Man Two.

At twenty-nine years of age, April Rose was exactly where she wanted to be in her life.

Even tonight.

Especially tonight.

She found her first gray hair two days ago, and it hardly came as a surprise. But the more she put into the Stony Man operation, the more rewarding her life became.

Especially with a good man named Bolan who somehow seemed to give April everything she needed in every department of their relationship without ever crowding or wanting more than she could give.

April respected that more than anything else about her man, and she treated him the same way even though it hurt her more than she cared to admit each time her warrior left on another mission.

April had come a long way since childhood days as a sunshine kid in Modesto. Mom was gone two years now. April always managed to make it home to share Christmas and a week every summer with her father, a retired biology teacher. But beyond that her life revolved around the good souls and everything that mattered so much here at the nerve center of Mack's terrorist wars.

April Rose would go the distance for Mack Bolan.

Where is he? she wondered.

Perhaps he's wrong about the attack scheduled for tonight.

But she didn't think so.