Bolan did not try to swim out from under the fast-descending tonnage of the Harrier.
He reversed his course and dived back down the way he had come. He gained cover within the sunken hulk of the Liberian freighter.
He made it with one heartbeat to spare, still gripping the nuclear device.
The tips of his fins cleared the entranceway to the tilted superstructure of the ship just as the heavy weight of the Harrier impacted the submerged vessel. Bolan was socked by the nearest wall of the companionway as the ship jarred.
He reversed himself and swam out of the companionway to find the Harrier lodged against the superstructure and the ocean floor.
The downed fighter plane was still making strange little underwater sounds as it settled into its new environment. The Harrier had sustained a serious hit to its tail section.
Bolan's gut constricted with apprehension.
Grimaldi!
He approached the plane with extreme caution despite his concern for Jack. He raised the shark gun, which was slung around his shoulder by its strap. He now scanned the vicinity of the wreckage for terrorist divers he might have missed.
There was no one.
Bolan found no sign of Grimaldi in or around the Harrier's cockpit. The pilot was not strapped into his seat. Jack had not sunk with the plane.
The tanks strapped to Bolan's back were almost empty. Any more time spent down there would be suicide.
Once more Bolan began to swim toward the surface, the shark gun again strapped across his back. Using his free arm and both fins, he propelled himself up and away from the ship toward the first glimmer of dull sunlight that drew closer and closer overhead.
Bolan broke the surface on the swell of a cresting wave. He bobbed like a cork on the endless expanse of rough ocean. His face mask cleared water, and he looked around to get his bearings.
There was no sign of Jack.
A jet turbine Bell chopper, boasting 5.56mm mini-guns and 40mm cannons mounted externally on turrets, hovered clearly against the low grim cloud ceiling.
A cable hung from the open door of the Huey. The cable was pulled taut by the weight of Jack Grimaldi, who was being winched up toward the aircraft.
Bolan could make out four members of Phoenix Force crowded in the side opening of the Huey: Gary Manning, the Canadian explosives expert; Keio Ohara, the Japanese martial-arts master; David McCarter, the British brawler; and Rafael Encizo, the Cuban underwater demolitions specialist.
That meant it was Yakov Katzenelenbogen, the Israeli-French intelligence vet, topkick of Phoenix Force, who was flying the chopper.
Bolan glimpsed the smoldering debris of what had been another helicopter on the surface of the water. The wreckage was slowly disappearing into the hungry rolling waves.
The boat that marked the site of the terrorist salvage operation bobbed on the stormy Atlantic.
Bolan knew he would need decompression time aboard that boat.
He saw the men of Phoenix hoist a very wet Grimaldi into the safety of their gunship.
Bolan lifted a victorious thumbs-up sign to the guys.
He punched into the tac net as he swam.
"Is that you, Yakov?"
"You were expecting Jacques Cousteau?" grumbled the Phoenix Force honcho from behind the chopper controls. "Get yourself onto that boat and into decompression, Striker. Then we talk."
Bolan fought the sea toward the boat and the DC. He tugged along the nuclear device that had gotten so many men killed this day.
There were still too many things left unexplained. They chewed at him inside, demanding action. Like a communications screwup that could only mean more trouble...
"Yeah,'' Bolan replied grimly as he swam toward the wind-tossed boat on the rough sea. "Then we talk.''
One hour later, Jack Grimaldi was still wearing the widest ear-to-ear grin that Bolan had ever seen.
"Man, I'm here to tell you," the ace pilot was telling Bolan and Yakov, "I must've aged ten years in the ten seconds it took those terrorist bastards to shoot me into the drink. I was never so glad to see one of these big Hueys coming to the rescue. Not even in Nam."
Grimaldi was now at the controls of the Huey.
The helicopter was in the same stationary hold it had maintained while Bolan did his time in decompression.
Then Colonel Phoenix was pulled aboard the chopper by the same winch that had rescued Grimaldi from an Atlantic death.
Two vessels now rode the ocean beneath the Huey. The terrorists' boat had been joined by another trawler while Bolan was in DC; a trawler that was in fact a well-disguised U.S. spy boat sailing with computerized eavesdropping capability and armed with torpedoes and missiles.
The spy ship had been ordered from its regular course for this "accidental" rendezvous with the chopper.
"After all the times you've airlifted this guy out of hotspots," said Katz to Grimaldi, with a nod to indicate Bolan, "I'd say you've damn well earned yourself some luck, my friend. It was our pleasure, Jack."
"Where are the others?" Bolan asked Katz.
He was referring to the other members of Phoenix Force. They were not aboard the Huey.
Katz pointed down at the raging sea.
"Rafael is supervising the cleanup inside the sunken ship," the Phoenix Force leader told the Executioner. "It's ours in accordance with open-sea salvage regulations."
Bolan fired a cigarette. He felt good to be above water again.
"Any idea where those Cobras were from?" he asked Katz.
Katzenelenbogen shook his head.
"The spy trawler down below has a far wider radar range than this Huey, or the Harrier Jack was flying."
"Don't remind me," groused Jack from behind the Huey's controls. "I feel terrible losing that plane."
"Like hell, Jack," said Bolan. "You did everything you could. You nailed two of them before they hit you." He nodded to the nuclear device at their feet. "And this mission is a success." He looked again at Katz. "What did the trawler's radar turn up?"
"A few maybes. The choppers could have come from a modified trawler like the ones below, fixed to handle the salvage crew and the choppers to ferry them around without drawing attention to the actual site. No way to check them out, though, unless you want to take the time now."
Bolan grimaced.
"Damn. I'd like to. But this device has got to be delivered. And there's that other thing."
Katz stared down at the nuclear bomb.
The hell bomb was still sealed in its innocent-appearing suitcase disguise.
"Hard to believe that something so inconspicuous could be worth so much killing."
"Keio might be the only one among us who can truly appreciate the horror of this little baby," said Bolan. "He lost members of his family at Nagasaki."
"That's what makes Keio so intent on these missions," Yakov said, nodding. "He reminds us all that what happened before must never happen again."
"Set a course for home, Jack." Bolan turned to the Phoenix Force leader. "We'll lower you now, Yakov. Thanks for flying-in this Huey."
Katzenelenbogen shrugged off the thanks. He moved toward the open doorway, to the winched pulley rope.
"This helicopter is modified with auxiliary fuel tanks, Striker. You'll make it to that carrier for refueling easy enough. There's a jet waiting outside Miami to take you back to Stony Man."
Then Katz got a grip on the thick rope.
"The trawler will see you away when you're done here," said Bolan. "Others besides those terrorists will be on their way here soon, Katz."
"Like the European end of the deal?" asked Katz. "Able Team is working that angle right now. They could have something on it already. And there could be something more than a bomb aboard that sunken freighter. Rafael has them going over the captain's quarters, Striker. The safe, that kind of thing. If there's anything salvageable down there that we can use from an intel standpoint, we'll bring it home with us."
"See you at Stony Man, then. Good luck," said Bolan.
He activated the winch.
It began lowering Katz toward the U.S. spy ship below.
"Mack, find out what the hell went wrong on that communications blackout."
"I intend to," said the big blitzer grimly. "That's a promise."
When the Phoenix Force team boss was aboard the deck of the U.S. trawler, Bolan slammed shut the door and shouted to Grimaldi above the constant, high-pitched whine of the chopper.
"Home, Jack."
"You know it, bossman," said the flyboy, grinning.
The pilot eased them away from the site with a gentle increase of power. The bobbing trawlers became specks on the choppy Atlantic. The Huey lifted off into the gray sky in a northwesterly course for home.
America.
The U.S. of A.
A place Mack Bolan was seeing less and less of these days.
What would he find waiting for him at Stony Man?
The mission was successful. There were no casualties for the Stony Man soldiers and the hell-bomb device, whether it survived the ship's sinking intact or not, was on its way to the proper authorities.
Any other time, Bolan's pulse would have slowed down by now from the adrenaline rush of that underwater action. Now he thought of home and those good people who shared the burden of these terrorist wars every step of the way: Hal, Kurtzman, Konzaki. And of course his lady, April, who made the wheels turn and was always there for Bolan with a candle in the window.
Stony Man.
Right.
Everything this big warrior held near and dear.
His thoughts were on these people now, sure. But it was not the warmth of a reunion to be anticipated. It was the nagging concern he had felt since they had first lost connection with Stony Man prior to the undersea hit.
Bolan's adrenaline was still pumping.
The spy trawler's computers had their own satellite linkup. An operator aboard ship had worked on the problem while Bolan was in decompression. When a connection with Stony Man Farm was finally achieved it was via a communications patch into an unscrambled phone line at the Stony Man command center.
Bolan spoke briefly with Hal Brognola. The head Fed did not mince words or tip anything that would breach security.
Hal spoke seven words over the staticky connection, saying nothing to ease Bolan's concern or slow the adrenaline down.
"Come home, Striker. ASAP. There's big trouble. "