"Monitor for the optics capability," Bolan explained. "Watch, now, and I'll give you a look at that guardshack."
He punched a button and made a lever adjustment. A resolution of focus resulted, then a small reddish beam appeared at center screen. After another minor adjustment, the front wall of the warehouse appeared in a weirdly red-tinged circle, then the guardhouse leapt into resolution.
"Be damned," Turrin muttered. "Infra-red."
"Laser-supplemented," Bolan said.
"How far can you see with that thing?" Brognola wondered.
"In this atmosphere, that's about maximum range. I can get a mile in reasonably dry air."
"I've heard of these," the official said. "Some police agencies are getting into it. On a smaller scale, I would imagine — nothing this elaborate."
Turrin said, "People out there don't even know you're spotlighting them."
"Not unless they have receptors," Bolan said. He was busy at another set of controls. "Seeing's nice, but it's not always enough. I'm going to — Hal, you may not want to be around while this is happening. Step into the toilet if you'd rather not."
"To hell with that," Brognola growled. "I'm staying."
The JD official was "staying" for a rather mind-boggling demonstration of the warwagon's combat capabilities.
A rocket launcher was built into the roof of the vehicle — normally retracted and concealed from view beneath flush-fit panels. Upon command from below, the motorized swivel-platform raised and locked into position for firing.
Targeting was entirely controlled from the command position below, operating through electronic circuitry tied into the regular optics system. A floor-mounted, foot-controlled device which Bolan labeled "a rock-and-press trackfire" provided control of both targeting and firing without using the hands.
Reloading, Bolan explained, was not practicable during the heat of combat, though. It was a "four-shot system." Within that limitation, however, a guy with a supple ankle and a steady foot could unleash considerable destruction.
Bolan brought the system on line by depressing the "Fire Enable" button on his miniconsole. A small amber light began flashing, in an indication that the launch platform was being raised. As it locked into place, a green light signalled that event and immediately the optics were taken over by the Fire Control System. Rangemarks then became superimposed on the viewscreen, and the system was "Go."
Explaining the operations in terse reportage to his companions as he went through the steps, Bolan rocked the floor control into azimuth and range corrections, centering the rangemarks on the warehouse door.
"Last chance to tell it goodbye," he said quietly.
Turrin muttered. "I will be damned. How do you fire it?"
"Like this," Bolan replied. He banged his knee with a fist. A "whoosh" and momentary brightness signalled the departure of the "hot bird." It flashed into the foreground of the viewscreen and whizzed straight along the horizontal beam on a tail of flame to impact almost immediately on target with thunder and considerable lightning. That heavy atmosphere out there was momentarily torn by a flash that briefly illuminated the mists with white-hot incandescence and set the night trembling into retreat.
Brognola growled, "I'm impressed." It was an understatement. He could not look away. As viewed through the optics, great puffing flame-lined clouds had replaced the warehouse door as well as substantial adjacent areas.
And the "picture" was changing rapidly now as Bolan realigned targeting on a starboard scan — halting suddenly, correcting and centering on the nose of a vehicle just then emerging at high speed around the corner of the building.
Bolan thumped his knee again to depress the foot-control, and another whizzer streaked along that tunnel of red light. With the resultant flash in the target zone, electrified faces flared into high resolution for perhaps one flashing impulse of electronic vision beiore disappearing into eternity behind another firecloud.
Leo Turrin wheeled away from that with a queasy, "My God!"
"Their God," Bolan growled fiercely. "Let it eat them."
A martialing area, sure. Also, if the evidence could be correctly read, some sort of an assembly plant.
Empty crates and cartons were stacked almost to the ceiling at one end of the building. At the other end were greasy work benches, heavy tools scattered about, chain lifts, equipment dollies. Elsewhere scattered throughout the building were unopened crates of various sizes, all stacked in neat rows, each of which were identified by crude, hand-lettered signs attached to the end cases.
Brognola was poking about the "unopened" area, taking notes.
Turrin had gone with Bolan to the "trash area" for an assessment of the empties.
Bolan remarked, "I'm more interested in what has already moved through here."
Turrin agreed with that and pointed to a heavy crate near the bottom of the pile. "Air compressor," he noted. "What the hell would they want with a compressor that big?"
Bolan shrugged and said, "Maybe they're planning some underwater work," and continued on with a systematic visual scan of the evidence. Not all the boxes were marked, but enough were that a pattern began very quickly to emerge. He took Turrin by the arm and growled, "That's enough for me. Let's go."
As they rejoined, Brognola kicked a large, flat crate on the floor beside him and remarked, "Here's our bank. Or part of it. That one box must weigh a ton or more. Know what it is? Door for a vault." "Bingo," Turrin said solemnly. All three men seemed a bit awed by their discoveries. They were standing beside a handmade placard which had been thumbtacked to a shipping skid, identifying "Security Components."
Brognola said, "Looks like you're batting a thousand, Striker. They're building something, somewhere, that's for sure."
Bolan replied, "They're building Langley Island."
"Where is that?"
"Within a rifle shot of here," Bolan said. "Let's go back into the wagon. Want to show you something."
He took the men to his plot table and first showed them the chart of Puget Sound, relating the island to the overall area — quite insignificant, really. Then he showed aerial photos taken from Grimaldi's first overflight and, finally, the sketches he'd made during the soft penetration.
Bolan did not ordinarily work this way — in cahoots with the law. He'd made occasional exceptions to that rule, of course, and this time was a very important exception. Too much was at stake here to stand on personal game rules.
"They're still excavating over there," he pointed out. "The room I was in is obviously a command bunker of some type. I should have looked further while I was there. There could be a dozen rooms completed and ready for use. These tunnels go off from there like the spokes of a wheel. If you'll note some of the angles they make, it would certainly suggest more vaults either completed or planned. They've moved a lot of watertight stuff, air compressors and the like that could even suggest airlocks for tunnels out into the Sound!"
"I wonder ... I just wonder," Brognola mused. "Could they use subs to make underwater transfers?"
Bolan shrugged. "Why not? It sounds wild, I know — but the whole damn idea is wild, so why pose limits?"
Turrin said, "Right. For that matter, they could be putting vaults right out there under the water.
Why not, eh? What could be better than a secret bank beneath the waters of Puget Sound?"
Brognola muttered, "How much of a work force do they have out there?"
Bolan shook his head. "I don't know, Hal. The only people actually staying on the island are the hard force. I did get a bit of intel that leads me to believe that they've even brought their workers in from somewhere outside the country."