INTEL SUGGESTED AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE

“A radical Arab group like Hezbollah and mercenaries of the Germanic Freedom Railroad working together? It almost seems absurd, and yet all the evidence so far points to it,” Price announced.

Brognola shrugged. “We just got the data from the computers at the OME in St. Louis, and one of the deceased that ran up against Able Team earlier was positively identified as not only Hezbollah, but a known associate of the Kadils Tarif bin Nurraji sect.”

“I’d say that’s proof positive,” Price agreed. “So what do you think it means?”

“Because Burke’s operation has always been small, I think he bit off more than he could chew at this time. I think it ended up costing him every dime he had, and he stole the LAMPs either in the hopes of selling them to the highest bidder, or configuring them for use against some target.”

“Yes, but what target?”

Other titles in this series:

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

#81 SKY HAMMER

#82 VANISHING POINT

#83 DOOM PROPHECY

#84 SENSOR SWEEP

#85 HELL DAWN

#86 OCEANS OF FIRE

#87 EXTREME ARSENAL

#88 STARFIRE

#89 NEUTRON FORCE

#90 RED FROST

#91 CHINA CRISIS

#92 CAPITAL OFFENSIVE

#93 DEADLY PAYLOAD

#94 ACT OF WAR

Don Pendleton’s

Stony Man®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Critical Effect

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Jon Guenther for his contribution to this work.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Critical Effect

PROLOGUE

High above the fertile fields of northeastern France—altitude approximately 24, 223 feet—engines No. 1 and 2 suddenly quit and threatened to send the SOF C-141 Starlifter into a nosedive.

Only the quick thinking of the two British RAF pilots prevented the giant special-operations cargo plane from plunging to an unforgiving end. Warning alarms and Klaxons screamed through the cockpit. Every circuit board demanded attention. Lights flashed asynchronously as the shimmies nearly shook the crew to death. The pilot and copilot joined hands on the throttle in an effort to coax more power from the remaining pair of engines. The sheer weight of their cargo testified to the futility of the effort.

Welby Blythe, Group Captain, tuned his radio to the emergency band and issued a Mayday while his copilot, Flight Lieutenant Graham Little, made every effort to control their descent. The joint operations center at NATO’s Northern Command Office had accounted for the possibility of a single engine failure and taken precautions to ensure the plane could still make a “short” hop from Geneva, Switzerland, to Portsmouth. They had never even considered the disastrous consequences of a double-engine burnout.

Blythe received no response to his hails and gave up the radio for the moment. He tried to quell the shock and terror that rode through him with the same intensity and fearsomeness of his charge. Blythe had logged more successful missions than practically any other officer of his rank in the RAF, a record he’d remained quite proud of through his years as an airman. Now, however, it appeared the Devil had stacked the odds against him on this one. Blythe couldn’t recall having faced a grimmer situation in all his time behind the stick.

The captain clenched his teeth. “If we get her down in one piece, boys, it’ll only be a bloody damn miracle!”

A few alarms continued to chatter incessantly, although the first officer and two navigators had cleared most of them to reduce noise and confusion. After all, they knew they were losing altitude and didn’t really need the sensitive instruments to point out the fact.

Both the digital and mechanical altimeters continued to plummet in concert with their descent as the remaining pair of operable Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines groaned in protest. Blythe considered other options. He first thought about ordering the cargo haulers seated in back to dump as much of the payload as necessary to keep the craft airborne, but he knew the risk of such equipment falling into the hands of a potential enemy. Terrorists or other criminal elements might not realize the value of that cargo, but at minimum they could make use of the armament. He also recalled the accompanying detail of Special Air Service operatives assigned to protect that cargo at any cost. Their orders would include immediate termination of even a crazed, military pilot desperate to save his own ship.

With no other real options at their disposal, Blythe and Little continued to guide the C-141 toward its inevitable course.

That course eventually put the belly of the cargo plane just yards above a copse of trees. Blythe engaged the landing lights and then coordinated with his copilot to execute their landing. Above the strain of engines they could feel the vibrations of the nose landing gear as it rolled downward and locked into place. The basso thrumming of engines ceased in favor of the high-pitched whine when they opened the throttle to maximum to raise the nose, followed by immediate dissipation to stall speed. The belly just scraped the tree line but reached a point of long, open field beyond it.

The soft earth proved an almost demonic force, its spongy resilience pronouncing death on the landing gear supporting the heavy aircraft. The tail of the plane performed a violent sashay, uncontrollable from the cockpit with the nose gear still airborne. All four men leaned forward simultaneously in their seats, subconsciously hopeful the additional weight would bring the NLG in contact with the ground. When it finally touched earth, the vibrations became doubly vicious. Blythe felt as if his teeth might literally dislodge from his gums. A wash of mud, grass and weeds instantly coated the cockpit windows and all but eliminated visibility. The plane continued for about another 150 yards or so, then jolted the crew in their seats with a sickening crack to port that could only have been a tree taking out the wing. The sensation of centrifugal force took over as the plane began an almost lazy spin.

The torque nauseated Blythe, made him dizzy and threatened him with total blackout.

The landing ended suddenly with a bone-crushing stop as the aft section of the plane came into contact with something hard and unyielding. The impact slammed the flight crew against their harnesses and back into their seats. One of the navigators emitted a short yelp, and Blythe saw something sail past his shoulder and strike the main panel. The object performed a flip-flop dance down the front of the instrument panel with wet, smacking sounds, and in the half light of a gauge Blythe could see it was part of a human tongue.

For a minute or two Blythe didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to deal with the whimpers of a nearly tongue-less navigator, the hushed reassurances of the other men for his friend. Blythe looked slowly to his right and averted his eyes when he saw the gross dangle of Little’s head against a restraint. Blythe reached out slowly. Bile rose in his throat when he touched his fingers to the soft cleft of Little’s throat where it met with his jawline. No pulse.

Sanity took hold quickly then—almost as if Little’s demise had confirmed Blythe’s continued existence—and after a wiggle of fingers and toes to verify all his body parts were still attached, Blythe disengaged the restraint harness and squeezed out of his seat. He watched as the navigator held his injured comrade’s head against his shoulder. Blood ran freely from the other man’s mouth onto the sleeve of his friend, but the navigator didn’t seem to notice.

“Get the first-aid kit and see if you can stop that bleeding,” Blythe instructed. “I’m going to check on the hold.”

The navigator nodded. “Aye, sir. How is Little?”

“Dead,” Blythe reported plainly. He could see the pain in the navigator’s expression and softened the tone in his voice. “Friend?”

“School chum, sir.”

“I’m sorry.”

With that, Blythe continued to the rear hold before the navigator could see the tears well in his eyes. He had to use all his body weight to open the door enough that he could squeeze through it. Stacks of boxes, some of them containing survival gear, had dislodged from their bins and wedged open the door. Blythe managed to get to the hold.

At first glance in the damp, red-orange glow of emergency lights, he assessed the special titanium-alloy containers that contained their ultrasecret cargo that appeared intact. Miraculously, they had somehow maintained their position in the center of the hold, held in place by thick canvas moorings, a testament to the skill of the loading crews. Blythe moved around them to the passenger bench on the starboard side of the craft and stopped abruptly.

Bodies were strewed everywhere. It appeared that a large part of the jump bench had completely dislodged from its moorings and been tossed every which way. Acting as a lever, it had obviously tossed around the SAS team members secured to it like so many rag dolls. The unforgiving metal edges had dismembered a couple of the men, the impact had been so great, and something that flew through the hold had even decapitated one man. Only two of the nine men who had been seated there even moved, and on closer inspection Blythe could tell one man was on his way out just by the way he breathed.

Blythe stepped past the grisly scene and moved rapidly toward the back, hopeful at least some of his loading crew survived. He found he could not squeeze past the last container in line. The entire rear of the Starlifter C-141 had folded into itself, crushed by some unseen force, the same force that had stopped the cargo ship cold. Blythe ducked to see if he could detect movement, cupped his hand to his mouth and called out, but only the echo of his voice in the cavernous hold returned—it seemed almost as if the echo answered of its own life to mock him.

Blythe turned and started toward the fore section when he heard the clang of metal followed a moment later by a hissing noise. Blythe turned his eyes for the ceiling, attempted to determine the source of the noise, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. It grew more pronounced and familiar, and Blythe stood still for several minutes as if bound in some sort of suspended animation. He felt tired, more tired than he ever had before in his life, and he couldn’t imagine how this whole situation could become worse.

Blythe shook off the weariness and marched toward the front of his plane with renewed purpose. As he reached the section beyond the foremost cargo container, he saw the remainder of sparks spitting through the wall of the fuselage just a moment before an entire section of wall fell inward. Men dressed in camouflage, weapons held at the ready, charged through the glowing rim of that gaping hole.

Blythe didn’t bother to try reaching for his sidearm. He knew how it would end if he attempted to resist the shadowy figures. They continued to pour through the hole, one upon the other, like locusts invading the harvest.

Somewhere in that outpouring a man stepped through the opening who possessed the regality of a monarch and wore a presence of exclamatory command authority. Blythe guessed the man’s height at about six and a half feet. Muscles rippled across his abdomen, for all intents appearing they might tear through his black T-shirt. Equally sculpted pectorals, biceps and triceps formed mountainous lines that reached to a bulging neck and strong, chiseled face. Shoulder-length brown hair and a trimmed beard framed that face. A patrician nose jutted from jade-colored eyes masked behind the yellowish tint of bifocals. The man rested his sledgehammer-size fists on a narrow waist that veed straight to hips and legs in camouflage fatigue pants. The man wore midcalf paratrooper boots with steel toes polished to a mirrorlike glisten. A military web belt encircled his hips, and he wore a sidearm in quick-draw fashion on his left thigh.

“You are now a prisoner of the Germanic Freedom Railroad,” the man announced. “Your life, as your cargo, is now forfeit at my discretion.”

Blythe could barely contain a squeal of outrage. “Now look here, I don’t give a goddamn who you are! You have seized an aircraft belonging to Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force under the command of NATO forces. And I can guarantee they’ll come quickly looking for us! You would be best to leave things be!”

The man stepped forward and leaned close to Blythe’s ear, his breath hot on the officer’s neck as he whispered, “I know exactly what I have seized, Group Captain. In fact, we’ve been expecting you.”

CHAPTER ONE

David McCarter sat on a large rock, a Player’s cigarette in one hand and a sweating can of Coca-Cola in the other.

The Phoenix Force leader chewed absently at his lower lip while he studied the lush foliage that ran along the base of Monti Sirino, about twenty miles from the Golfo di Policastro, Italy. A mission from Stony Man, the ultracovert operations unit of the United States government, had brought them here less than forty-eight hours earlier. With their mission complete in record time, McCarter and the other members of Phoenix Force could look forward to a long-needed week of R & R.

McCarter glanced over his shoulder as the turbofans on the twin Rolls-Royce engines of the C-20 Gulfstream whined into preflight action. The time had come for them to get the hell out of there. He took a last, long drag before he crushed the cherry against a rock, field stripped the remainder and dropped the butt in his pocket. It wouldn’t do to have someone find the thing and extract his DNA.

The fox-faced Briton’s boots crunched on the refined gravel of the makeshift airstrip. The running lights glowed faintly in the half light of dawn, most of the sunlight peeking over the horizon still obscured by trees and tall grasses at the base of the mountain. McCarter glanced at his watch before rushing up the narrow steps and into the plane. He looked toward the cockpit, wishing he would see the familiar figure of Jack Grimaldi there, although he knew he wouldn’t. Grimaldi, Stony Man’s top gun and usual pilot for Phoenix, was back in Washington recovering from a hell-raising mission in Afghanistan.

McCarter downed the last of his Coca-Cola in a few swallows, crushed the can and tossed it into a nearby waste receptacle.

“Oh, baby!” a voice called from the cabin. “You’re such a stud. Come over here and give us some love!”

McCarter turned toward the sound of the voice. The fresh and eager visage of T. J. Hawkins gazed at him in mock adoration. Thomas Jackson Hawkins was a straightforward guy with a heart of gold and a Texas accent so smooth it could melt the wills of even the strongest women.

“Don’t write checks your body can’t cash, youngster,” McCarter quipped. “I’ve been doing this kind of thing since just about before you were born.”

“You two settle down or I’ll have to separate you,” Calvin James said from beneath the skullcap pulled over his eyes.

McCarter didn’t doubt the streetwise black man from the south side of Chicago could do it. A former medic, Navy SEAL and member of a San Francisco SWAT team, James had proved his skills as a formidable warrior time and again. When the chips were down, McCarter could think of few men he’d want more by his side.

“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rafael Encizo.

McCarter jammed a finger in Hawkins’s direction. “He started it.”

“Shut up! ” James demanded. His lack of sleep was taking a toll.

McCarter took a seat and clammed up. He could see the wisdom in resting. The return flight to the States would be long and tedious. McCarter didn’t like being cooped up that long; he enjoyed stretching his legs, which made it difficult to keep still with all that pent-up energy.

Once their plane got airborne, McCarter’s eyes drooped and he laid his head back, eager for a one-or-maybe-two-hour snooze….

M C C ARTER’S EYES SNAPPED open as he felt his pager vibrate against his thigh. He rose quickly from his seat.

“Get it in gear, mates,” McCarter said. “The boss’s calling.”

Everyone knew what he meant. Stony Man, more specifically Barbara Price or Hal Brognola, was signaling that a secured satellite uplink would connect to the high-tech communications systems aboard the Gulfstream jet. They wouldn’t be calling for an idle chat. McCarter had transmitted his mission report to them more than four hours earlier. They either needed some type of immediate clarification or something had come up.

McCarter and the rest of the Phoenix Force warriors quickly made their way to the lounge at the back of the plane. This area also contained a number of LCD and CRT screens with two-way digital cameras. The sensitive electronics package hardwired into the aircraft’s special systems could transmit or receive microwave signals from any location in the world. These high-amplitude transmissions ensured Stony Man could reach Phoenix anywhere and anytime.

T. J. Hawkins fired up the equipment while Encizo put on coffee to brew. They all sat at the table, waiting for the coffee while staring at one another’s bleary red eyes. Gary Manning, a Canadian who served as Phoenix Force’s chief demolitions expert, seemed to be the only one really awake, but probably his immediate rush to grab some sleep following their mission had a good deal to do with that fact.

Harold Brognola and Barbara Price suddenly appeared on screen. Neither looked happy.

“Morning, boys,” Price began. “Sorry about the rude awakening.”

McCarter waved it away. “It’s our lot in life.”

“I know we promised you some R & R as soon as you finished there,” Brognola interjected, “but we’ve got a serious situation on our hands and the Man wants action yesterday. Barbara, why don’t you lay it out for them?”

Price cleared her throat, tucked a strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear and said, “Approximately five hours ago one of our NSA SIGINT stations in Luxembourg intercepted a distress call from a NATO special-operations flight out of Geneva, Switzerland. Just minutes after the call came through, all transmissions ceased and the plane dropped off radar.

“The operative immediately reported the signal to his station chief, who in turn contacted the British RAF, since it was their plane. What none of us or them knew at the time was the exact nature of their mission. The aircraft has since been identified as an SOF C-141 placed under the command of NATO eighteen months ago.”

“Starlifter,” McCarter said. “And that particular nomenclature would indicate it was on special-operations duty.”

Brognola grunted. “That may very well be the understatement of the year.”

“What was their cargo?” Hawkins asked.

“Top secret,” Price replied. “It took officials in the intelligence agencies of nearly ten countries to get that information. Apparently the entire operation had been classified need-to-know. There are apparently some very angry delegates haranguing Britain’s PM this morning.”

“Any idea where the plane went down?” James asked.

“We have a very good idea,” Price replied, “but we’re apparently the first, and not ready to share the information. The President’s chief concern is to guarantee the cargo doesn’t land in the laps of terrorists or other criminal elements. We’re sending the coordinates directly to your navigational computers. Your pilots will get orders to change course immediately and head for the approximate target area.”

“Which is?” McCarter asked.

“German countryside on the western border shared with France. We estimate it’s about forty klicks east of the Rhine River. At best, it’s heavily forested and navigation is treacherous.”

“Nothing like a brisk walk through the woods to get the blood pumping,” Manning quipped.

“You’re such a ray of sunshine in the morning, Gary,” Hawkins cracked.

“Stow it, mates,” McCarter ordered. “Go on, Barb.”

“You’ll want to look for survivors, of course, but your instructions are to secure the cargo at all costs. All other secondary considerations are rescinded.”

“That comes straight from the Oval Office,” Brognola interjected, the gravity of the situation evident in his tone.

“This plane was carrying six highly experimental vehicles called LAMPs, or Low Altitude Military Platforms. We don’t have all the technical specifications yet, but what we do know is they’re apparently remote-controlled dishes, about twenty-five yards in diameter. Preliminary intelligence leads us to conclude these things are weapons-delivery mechanisms.”

“What kind of weapons?” Encizo asked.

Price shrugged. “Just about anything, we’re supposing. Nuclear, biological or chemical. They might also be used as troop transport. Once Aaron’s finished cracking the CERN systems, we’ll be able to send you a much better idea of what you’re dealing with.”

“Is that CERN as in CERN Laboratories?” Hawkins asked.

“Yes,” Brognola said with a nod. “Does that ring a bell with you?”

“Well, CERN specializes in particle physics,” Hawkins replied. “They’re predominantly concerned with scientific research in that arena. There’s a good reason they’re in Switzerland. They’ve always chosen to focus their efforts on peaceful pursuits. I’m surprised they would become involved with any type of military weaponry.”

“Times change,” Brognola countered. “Although I think this development fell more out of some type of research in radio-magnetism. When CERN couldn’t make any use of the things, NATO stepped in and agreed to buy the research and prototypes to pursue the military aspects.”

“Correct,” Price added helpfully. “Originally, we understood the M in LAMP stood for magnetic. ”

“Whatever the bloody things are,” McCarter said, “it sounds like the Man’s right. We can’t afford for something like this to come under hostile control. What’s the bottom line here?”

“Find the aircraft, rescue any survivors and secure the cargo until we can send in a multinational extraction team for salvage operations. If for any reason you do encounter a threat, you’re authorized to use whatever force necessary to neutralize the aggression.” Brognola tapped the table. “But don’t go overboard, boys. This one’s very political.”

McCarter waved it off. “Yeah, yeah, isn’t it always.”

“Excuse me if I sound a bit paranoid here,” Calvin James said, “but do we have some reason to think there’s the possibility of a terrorist organization at work behind this plane going down?”

“We don’t know,” Price said. “But we’re taking every precaution given the circumstances under which it disappeared, plus the cargo aboard. My contact with the NSA tells me that plane could have maintained altitude even in the event of an engine failure.”

“So we’re figuring either more than one engine crapped out or someone shot the thing out of the sky,” James concluded with a nod. “Gotcha.”

Encizo sighed. “We also have to consider the possibility of a midair explosion. Maybe a bomb on board.”

“It’s another possibility,” Price admitted, “but we figure less so because of the value of its cargo. If a terrorist organization or other criminal element were involved, one would think they wouldn’t expend that much effort to simply destroy the plane. There are plenty of easier, nonmilitary targets that would work just as well in attracting attention and result in a higher body count.”

McCarter shook his head. “No point in theorizing to death. We’ll make contact as soon as we know something. Anything else?”

“Be careful,” Price said. “You’ll be low-altitude parachuting on this one.”

W ITHIN THE HOUR , Phoenix Force received a signal from the cockpit they had reached the coordinates sent to their navigation systems by Stony Man’s secure satellite downlink. The warriors collected their weapons and equipment, donned their jumpsuits and awaited the all clear to indicate they could proceed with the operation. Hawkins’s parachuting experience nominated him for jumpmaster.

The beacon light went from red to amber, the signal for Phoenix Force to test their static lines in prep for the jump while Hawkins opened the door. They’d gone through this same exercise countless times—in training as well as live missions—to the point they could do it in their sleep.

The light went green and Hawkins pointed to James, who was first in line. James stepped up, slid the line to the jumpmaster and went out the plane without a moment’s hesitation. Encizo followed behind him, just as planned. As soon as they reached ground zero, the pair would set up a perimeter. Hawkins slapped the buzzer on the wall to signal the pilots they should continue on for a minute and then perform a 180 so the rest of Phoenix Force could jump.

Phoenix Force’s commander couldn’t have asked for a more perfect timetable. As he neared the ground at a peak speed of thirty-three feet per second, McCarter could see Encizo and James had established their secure perimeter. Both men knelt behind massive trees on opposing sides of the target zone, watchful for any potential threats. McCarter sucked in a breath and let half out as his feet hit the ground, then he rolled, coming to a standing position in time to watch his chute waft lazily to the ground.

The Briton quickly gathered the parachutes. He could hear Manning and Hawkins hit the ground near him, but he didn’t bother to check on them. If they had suffered any injuries, he knew he’d have heard about it right there and then.

Less than five minutes later, all five men were reunited near the edge of the clearing.

“Fall in on me, mates,” McCarter ordered.

They gathered around him as he knelt and spread a topographical map on the ground. McCarter whipped a compass from a pouch secured to the strap of his equipment harness. He shot a quick azimuth and calculated the approximate distance to the crash site based on the coordinates he’d committed to memory.

“We’re about here,” he finally said, pointing to a spot on the map. “That puts us a fair distance from the crash site, if there even bloody is one.”

“There is,” Hawkins said. “I can feel it.”

“Over this terrain, I figure it’ll take us about an hour to get there,” Manning said after an expert look around.

“Agreed,” McCarter said as he stowed the map and compass. He checked his watch. “We should be able to reach it before 1200 hours.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” James said. “Let’s do it.”

CHAPTER TWO

A jangling telephone roused him into semiconsciousness. The second and third rings seemed no less shrill as he turned his face into the mattress and pulled the pillow over his head, intent on ignoring the irritating device. By the sixth ring, he knew whoever had intruded on his slumber didn’t plan to give up. He removed the pillow, lifted his head and glared at the clock.

Blurry green numbers stared back at him.

Dr. Simon Delmico, associate professor of microbiology at Washington University St. Louis, grabbed his glasses from the nightstand, sat up and yanked the phone from the receiver. The coiled cord had become entangled with Delmico’s ceaseless habit of talking and pacing, and he nearly dumped the base onto the floor. He caught it one-handed and dropped it onto the bed as he barked into the receiver.

“Yeah. What? Who the hell is it?”

“Not a very pleasant way to answer the phone,” the caller replied. “Where are your manners?”

Delmico immediately recognized the voice of Choldwig Burke, leader of the Germanic Freedom Railroad. The GFR had a short history, being only a few years old, but it had already built notoriety as one of the finest smuggling operations in all of Europe. Burke didn’t discriminate when it came to his clientele, either. He had a reputation as an intelligent and educated man, and possessed a criminal mastery for aiding and abetting the very worst terrorists in the world. Thus far, Burke’s unit of highly specialized mercenary commandos had smuggled or hidden more than a hundred terrorist members from al Qaeda to the Qa’idat al Jihad.

“What do you want?”

“I’m simply calling to check on an old friend,” Burke replied.

Delmico knew that was crap. “How touching. Now, what do you really want?”

“I thought it might be a good idea to call and advise you of our latest acquisition. We succeeded in liberating the platforms, just as I had hoped. That only leaves me to solicit what you’ve promised me so I may go forward with my plans.”

“That couldn’t have waited until a more civilized hour?” Delmico asked, now able to actually see the time on his clock-radio. “I have to get up and teach this morning, you know.”

Delmico heard something become dark, even ominous, in Burke’s intonation. “Do not presume insolence and belligerence are acceptable to me, Doctor. I would have no qualms about boarding the earliest flight solely for the purpose of coming there and cutting out your tongue. We had an agreement. I’ve proved I can satisfy my end of the bargain. The time grows short for you to capitulate.”

“You don’t have to act like a thug and threaten me,” Delmico recanted, adjusting his glasses on his nose unnecessarily. “I’m merely trying to say I’m still waiting on the final test results. I want to be absolutely certain you’re getting what you’ve paid for.”

Burke sounded more congenial. “Well then, I guess I cannot fault you for a desire to be thorough. Honesty is, after all, the mainstay of our type of work. If we don’t have honor, what do we have? A man without honor cannot even call himself a man, can he?”

“If you say so,” Delmico replied. “By my estimates, I have seventy-two hours before the deadline. You will have the material by then, if not before, assuming the tests are positive. Is that satisfactory?”

“Of course, Doctor. I am a reasonable man.”

“Yeah? Well then, try calling me at a more reasonable hour next time.” He slammed down the receiver. “Fucking kraut.”

Delmico whipped back the sheet covering his nude body and swung his legs to the floor. He stood and then carefully limped his way through the semidarkness to the bathroom. Practically every time he walked, Delmico thought of his impairment. The skin on the nub of his left leg—the only remaining evidence of his foot—had grown callused with use. Delmico had undergone complete amputation after the accident in Washington, D.C.

Yes, once upon a time, he’d been a respected microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Defense, BioChem Counter Warfare section. A single mistake had cost him a foot as well as his job. That pompous board of safety directors hadn’t even bothered to look at all the evidence. They only took into account Delmico’s decision to disobey the orders of his supervisor, and terminated him for violations of a half dozen safety regulations. While Delmico had been the only one injured, the character references from half a dozen colleagues saved him from permanent exile. Instead those arrogant assholes at the Pentagon, he recalled, decided they would make his infraction part of his sealed file, call the loss of the limb an accident—although he would receive no federal disability for it—and recommend him to a teaching post in some out-of-the-way school.

The salary he received being an associate professor at Washington U had proved little more than a meager stipend for the bare necessities of life. To a man who had made nearly $150,000 a year working for the government, his present rate amounted to a pittance. And then during a guest lecture in Bonn, an impressionable giant of a man approached and offered to buy him a drink. That’s when fortune struck him like a blow to the back of the head. What Simon Delmico didn’t know at the time was he’d be selling his soul to Satan’s archangel.

Delmico agreed to hold up his end of the bargain only after making Burke promise not to use the chemical agent against American targets. Burke agreed, a bit too readily Delmico thought, but the deal got made. Through the course of the past year, Burke had funded Delmico’s research and the microbiologist’s efforts finally came to fruition. He christened his formula Shangri-La Lady, a mnemonic of sorts for the compound’s chemical makeup: solanine-lithium liposome.

Now the only task remaining would be a test on live subjects; Delmico had already chosen them. He’d agreed to let three of his present Chemistry I students—obnoxious jocks who wanted nothing more than a free ride through college simply because of their athletic prowess—improve their failing grades by conducting experiments at the campus after hours. Delmico had given them enough information that they’d actually created the delivery mechanism for Shangri-La Lady. The microbiological spores did the rest.

Already, he’d noticed the youths begin to look increasingly unwell when they arrived at class. Their condition began to worsen on almost a daily basis, and Delmico had even heard talk of one of them collapsed in the locker room after evening practice. A visit to the team nurse left everyone assured their star linebacker had merely suffered from a case of dehydration and exhaustion coupled with a lack of adequate rest. Delmico had lied to Burke. He had more than enough positive results to know the poison would work. At the moment, he simply took satisfaction in making the pedantic bastard wait as long as possible. Wake him up at this fucking time of the morning and expect Delmico to act like Susie Sunshine….

Two of the boys had been taken away by ambulance and admitted to the infectious ward of a local hospital. The third had taken a sudden leave of absence to attend his sister’s funeral, so the scientist had no idea of the youth’s present condition. Delmico hadn’t told anyone about the extra-credit project at their request. After all, such publicity would not only threaten their scholarships but it might make their coaches consider suspension of activities until they got their grades up. Nearly a week had passed since the original experiments and Delmico doubted the boys would draw any connection between the two.

That was, of course, if they lived long enough to tell anyone at all. Delmico took great satisfaction in thinking about the shocking repercussions that would soon come. He chuckled at the thought, in fact, as he relieved himself and then returned to bed. He removed his glasses, fluffed his pillow and lay down. He still had a few hours before having to rise again.

Within minutes the world around him faded to black and he drifted into peaceful slumber.

CHAPTER THREE

Carl Lyons wiped the sweat from his brow with a white towel that encircled his neck and picked up the pace. He turned to check the progress of the two men behind him, surprised to see they had fallen back a bit. Lyons wanted to shout a jibe at them, but he reconsidered. It was better to not pick on the ladies.

The sudden incline of the road signaled the final stretch to Stony Man Farm. Lyons had made this trip more times than he could count. The Farm served as haven and headquarters for the Stony Man operations, but through the years Lyons had also come to call it home. When he or one of his partners said they wanted to go home, the others knew it really meant Stony Man Farm. The farmhouse, Annex and grounds lay deep in the conifer-thick terrain of the Blue Ridge Mountains, approximately eighty miles from Washington, D.C., by chopper. Lyons couldn’t think of a nicer place to rest, as little as he got, but he took more stock in the bonds forged with his colleagues. Those relationships built from fighting side by side with others sworn to the same call of duty had grown stronger than most family ties.

Lyons really poured it on at a final bend in the road, which opened onto the Stony Man property. Directly ahead, the two-story farmhouse greeted him. The warm earth tones of its wood-and-brick exterior seemed to reach out to him as if extending arms of welcome. Lyons slowed to a walk when he reached the perimeter of the front lawn, and breathed deeply to slow his heart rate and allow his body to cool down. He walked in circles a bit, hands extended to his sides to permit maximum expansion of his chest. The “Ironman” moniker—earned by not only his record in that event but also his personality—fit him well. He’d proved a formidable ally for Stony Man through the years, and a capable leader in spite of his flammable temperament and sarcastic humor.

Neither of the men who had lagged behind and now joined him would have traded Lyons for the ten best commandos in the world, primarily because that wouldn’t have been enough.

“Looks like Ironman has been eating his Wheaties,” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz remarked.

Droplets of sweat rolled from his hairline, traveling down Schwarz’s swarthy face and glistening like rain dew on his mustache. He broke into a grin when Lyons flipped him the bird, but he didn’t take a bit of the ribbing personally. He’d come to know his teammate too well.

“I would just like to die,” said the other man, hardly able to respond through all of his heavy breathing.

Rosario Blancanales had always carried a slight paunch—many a foe had underestimated him for that, much to their dismay. Not that it mattered. They called him “Politician” due to his gregarious mannerism and ability to charm his way out of just about any confrontation. Only hostilities against the enemies of America were nonnegotiable, and Blancanales minded his business well.

The men of Able Team turned toward a voice calling them from the farmhouse. Sun rays danced off the golden highlights of Barbara Price’s hair. She beckoned to them with a wave, and the three men immediately double-timed it to where she stood on the front porch.

“Sorry,” she said, smiling as they filtered past her and through the open doorway. “We’ve got a situation and Hal needs you guys to hoof it over to the Annex ASAP.”

“We got time to clean up?” Blancanales asked.

“After.”

“Okay,” Lyons said, “but I don’t want to hear any complaints about how we left the place smelling like a used gym sock.”

“I’ve been told you do that without P.T.,” Schwarz cracked.

“Up yours,” Lyons grumbled.

The three men made their way through the farmhouse to the elevator, then stood and waited expectantly for Price to join them.

Price flashed a wicked grin as the door began to close. “Um, I’ll wait for the next one.”

They rode the elevator to the basement in silence, crossed through the War Room to the hallway, and continued on to the end until they reached a wide corridor perpendicular to it. A walkway ran parallel to an electric rail car that could take them the 250 yards to the Annex, but Able Team opted to walk. They reached the end of the tunnel in no time flat and gained entry to the Annex via a coded access panel. Built beneath a wood-chipping facility, the Annex had become Stony Man’s operational nexus. It warehoused the most advanced cybernetic and communications systems available—under constant monitor and upgrade by Aaron Kurtzman’s unit—as well as an operations center for Stony Man Farm security.

Able Team took concrete stairs to the Computer Center, where they found Brognola and Kurtzman staring at a screen. The Stony Man chief turned at their arrival, greeted them with a nod and a grunt, and then returned to perusing the data on the screen.

“What’s up?” Lyons asked.

“Whew!” Brognola said, whipping an unlit cigar from his mouth and wrinkling his nose. “Couldn’t you guys have showered first?”

Lyons tossed a bland look at his cohorts, who shrugged, and then returned his attention to Brognola.

“Never mind,” the big Fed stated, directing their attention to a large screen that spanned an entire wall of the center. “Bring it up there for them, will you, Bear?”

Kurtzman nodded and punched a couple of keys.

As the three Able Team warriors turned, a man’s face filled the screen. He had pale skin and wide blue eyes that looked magnified behind his large glasses. A hawk’s-beak nose protruded from between puffy red cheeks. Lettering below his named read: U.S. Department of Defense, CL: Q, DoDID#: 176243-SD.

Lyons emitted a low whistle and remarked, “Geek city, gents.”

“Maybe,” Brognola replied, “but I wouldn’t underestimate him for a moment. His name is Simon Delmico. Age, forty-three. He was one of the youngest and brightest in his graduating class from Stanford. He holds a doctorate in medicine with a specialty in microbiology. Up until five years ago, he’d served with the DOD as a specialist in countering biochemical warfare agents. Since then, he’s worked as an associate professor with Washington University in St. Louis.”

“He left voluntarily?” Blancanales asked.

Brognola snorted. “Hardly. Against orders from a superior, he violated experimental protocols and damn near blew up part of ST-2 at the Pentagon. As it was, he lost a foot. To keep things quiet, the government decided not to charge him criminally. They set him up at WU and that was that.”

Schwarz raised his eyebrows. “Until now?”

“Precisely,” Brognola said. “A few hours ago we had to divert Phoenix Force to search for a plane that went down somewhere over the Federal Republic of Germany. We’re still waiting for them to report back. But before that, there were some interesting outbreaks of a mysterious illness in St. Louis, which has local physicians puzzled enough to call the CDC. That sent off all kinds of alarms for us, given Delmico’s background in microbiology.”

Schwarz chuckled and looked at Kurtzman. “Why, I’d say your new program’s doing a heck of a job, Bear.”

“I can’t take all the credit for it,” Kurtzman replied in his deep, booming voice. “My crew certainly did their part. It’s amazing what they’ve accomplished in these few short years.”

Lyons knew the men were referring to Kurtzman’s new cyberscanning application, codenamed Postulate. The Able Team leader didn’t even begin to pretend he understood it all, but he did have some idea of how it worked. Rather than query specific data sets through the use of keywords, Postulate would search for situations based on an incalculable number of different scenarios, partly through the use of key phrases, partly through mathematical theorems and hypotheses. In short, Kurtzman and his team had spent years programming different scenarios based on everything from mission reports and briefs to the core intelligence of foreign nations. Then, Postulate had begun to rework the scenarios on its own and built a dictionary database with millions of terabytes of information.

During a briefing of the entire Stony Man group, Kurtzman had explained it this way: “For the most part, the data remains static until Postulate acts on it. Then it becomes dynamic, the computers start to hum and it starts to search around the world for incidents that could fit that scenario. This information might be anything from newswires and insurance claims up to police reports and military statistics. Whatever the information, Postulate will use it if she can, and over a period of time she grows smarter by dismissing what seems irrelevant in place of facts that fit the highest degrees of probability.”

The door opened and Price strode into the room.

Lyons shook his head. “Okay, I’m still not following. What the hell do sick students and one-footed scientists have to do with Phoenix Force?”

“Less than an hour ago, we logged a call placed to Delmico’s home from a public phone in Wiesbaden. The call was too long to be a wrong number. And twelve months ago, Delmico was in Germany as a guest lecturer on microbiology.”

“Too much to be coincidence, maybe,” Blancanales admitted. “But it’s hardly enough proof of collusion with terrorists by Delmico.”

“I’m with Pol on this one, guys,” Lyons said. “It sounds like you’re grasping at straws.”

“Are we, now?” Brognola asked. “You may not think so when you hear what was on that plane.”

“The information just came through,” Kurtzman said. “The plane that went down was a special operations cargo plane carrying six large dishes with magnets attached to them.”

Lyons made a show of yawning. “Magnets, eh? That’s what has our panties in a bunch? Magnets?”

Kurtzman shook his head. “I know magnets don’t sound like any great threats to you, Ironman, but given they’re attached to what the British are calling Low Altitude Military Platforms, you might want to reconsider. These dishes were being shipped from the CERN Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland. The magnets were remnants of pieces being assembled for their flagship project, the Large Hadron Collider.

“You see, elementary particles of matter are typically studied through the use of magnetism. The larger the magnet, the deeper the matter and energy can be probed. These magnets are particularly important because they operate under the magnetism between Earth’s polar opposites.”

“Basically,” Brognola cut in, “it means they can operate under self-propulsion for the most part. We now have evidence the plane that went down with these things aboard might have been sabotaged. Moreover, we think it wouldn’t be unlikely for a terrorist organization or other element to use these platforms to deliver chemical or biological contaminants to a large populace.”

“Or at least threaten to do so if their obligatory list of demands isn’t met,” Price said.

Schwarz looked at Blancanales and Lyons. His furrowed eyebrows chiseled lines of seriousness across his face. “What they’re proposing sounds damn plausible, guys. I think we ought to check it out.”

“All right, all right,” Lyons said, visibly irritated. “But if this turns out to be some wild-goose chase—”

“Then we bought you a wonderful two days of fun and sun in scenic St. Louis,” Price finished for him. “Jack’s on his way here, so you’ve got about an hour to clean up and gear up.”

“Jack’s feeling up to getting back into the game already?” Blancanales asked in a surprised tone.

Price smiled. “You’re kidding, right? Wild horses couldn’t hold him back.”

“I think he’s been chomping at the bit to get back into action,” Brognola added. “And since the doctors have cleared him for flight duty, I see no reason why this wouldn’t be the perfect job.”

“So what exactly do you want us to do out there, boss?” Lyons asked.

“Get to those kids and see if you can find any commonality between their illnesses outside the fact they go to the same school,” Brognola said. “I don’t think the doctors are looking hard enough for it. That’s part of your mission. The more important part will be to get close to Delmico and stay close.”

“You’ll be operating as FBI agents,” Price said. “You’re just there to look things over and ensure this isn’t an anthrax-related issue or something else that could evolve into a pandemic.”

“How clever,” Lyons grumbled.

“Aw, cheer up, Ironman,” Blancanales said, punching his friend in the shoulder. “It’s St. Louis, home of the Gateway Arch and Anheuser-Busch. You’ll have a great time!”

“Yeah,” Schwarz added. “What could possibly go wrong?”

CHAPTER FOUR

David McCarter knelt in a large, mushy patch of moss that had started life on a nearby large rock and spread beneath the shade of a massive pine. Dry breezes rustled the leaves in the upper branches of the tallest trees, causing sun spots to reform and reshape themselves.

Phoenix Force had come to a stop on a precipice that overlooked the crash site. The plane lay about fifty yards below them in a massive clearing with its port side visible; its jagged, broken hull jutted silent and still from the ground. The entire T-shaped tailfin had been smashed inward against one of the largest trees McCarter had ever seen. The port wing had been snapped from the plane, probably on impact. The deep gouges in the soft terrain of the clearing bore evidence of exactly where the plane had come down and how it had ended up in such an odd position.

McCarter brought a pair of binoculars to his eyes, although he didn’t really need to see it up close to know they had found the missing bird. Markings all along the plane clearly identified it as a NATO aircraft. McCarter squinted to make out the large, white writing just below the cockpit windows obscured by mud and grass: GpCpt W. M. Blythe, RAF.

“W. M. W—” McCarter lowered the binoculars. “Welby Blythe? Aw, bloody hell.”

Encizo immediately noticed the faraway look in the Briton’s eyes. “What is it, David? Look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“Nothing,” McCarter said, shaking himself back to the present. “It may be nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing, Chief,” Hawkins pressed.

“Let’s just drop it for now, okay, mates?” McCarter snapped.

Manning broke the uncomfortable silence that followed McCarter’s uncharacteristic reaction and nodded toward the plane. “I’d say the fastest way to get there would be to rappel straight off this overlook.”

“Agreed,” McCarter said. “Set it up.”

The five men shrugged out of their day packs and immediately began to prepare for a rappelling operation. Manning and McCarter had the most experience with it, so they would take belay man and safety positions, respectively. Manning quickly retrieved two ropes and tied them to the base of a thick trunk nearest the knoll in a double figure-eight knot. McCarter and Hawkins nailed in pitons while Encizo and James cinched themselves into rappelling harnesses.

When they were ready, Manning donned his own harness and went down the side of the treacherous rocky outcroppings. Despite the danger of sharp and jagged rock protrusions, Manning made his controlled descent in as carefree a fashion as if he’d been sipping cocktails beneath a poolside cabana. The Canadian was about as rugged as they came.

McCarter assisted James as he straddled the ropes and prepared to go down next. The fox-faced Briton put his hand to his mouth. “On belay!”

“Belay on!” Manning echoed.

“On rope!” James shouted.

“Rappel on!” Manning replied.

“Rappelling!” James called, and he pushed away from the cliff.

The Phoenix Force warriors continued in this way: next came Encizo, then Hawkins and finally McCarter. One by one they went down the ropes, and soon all were reunited at the bottom. The Phoenix Force commander ordered the team to fan out as they approached the plane. While he couldn’t exactly have called their rappelling operation stealthy, he didn’t think it safe to assume the plane crash had been the product of an accident. Given its cargo, McCarter could understand Stony Man’s reservations in leaving this to outside agencies. It would either turn out to be something or it wouldn’t, and if they relied on foreign powers to deal with the situation, it could turn out to be a huge public embarrassment.

Encizo and Hawkins approached on the starboard flank, Manning and James on port and McCarter up the center. They emerged from the brush after a low-pitched whistle from the Phoenix Force leader, and converged rapidly on the plane. McCarter reached it first. He knelt just aft of where the shattered wing had broken away, and swept the area with the muzzle of his MP-5 SD-6. Nobody rose to challenge him.

McCarter watched with interest as Manning and James approached the plane roughly parallel to its nose cone. They moved silently, dwarfed by the hulking shell of the Starlifter’s fuselage. McCarter signaled them to skirt the nose of the plane while he moved in a crouch beneath it and came up on the side of the Encizo-Hawkins team a moment later. What he saw at that moment caused his jaw to drop. A better portion of the plane’s body had been completely cut away by torches. The charred remains of humans were scattered throughout the plane. Some of them were unrecognizable, but McCarter quickly spotted one body attired in clothing that had partially survived the scorching. The sleeve of the corpse’s shirt bore the patch of the Special Air Service.

The remainder of the carnage sickened the Phoenix Force warriors. They had seen such things many times, but none of them could ever say they had grown accustomed to it. Flies and other insects buzzed lazily around the bloated bodies. They could see dried patches of blood on the interior of the port-side fuselage. The back end had been mangled, twisted and mashed into an unrecognizable collage of metal and fiberglass. The cargo, if there had been any, was long gone.

James whistled softly. “Looks like something out of Hotel Rwanda. ”

“I’d say this was no accident,” Hawkins said.

“Yeah, but what the hell did happen?” Manning wondered.

“Whatever’s happened here, it was no bloody accident,” McCarter replied. “And whoever’s behind it is damn sure not friendly.”

Encizo walked away for a minute as James and Hawkins climbed up and into the fuselage to make a more thorough inspection. Hawkins brought out his digital camera and took shots of the most important elements. Stony Man would need that as proof positive for the President and his advisers. Kurtzman would also be able to use it as evidence in detecting who had committed such an atrocity.

Encizo returned a minute later. “I looked at the other side of the plane, and also went to study that broken wing. It’s clear they went down due to a double-engine failure, but there’s little doubt as to why. There are unoxidized cordite burns on both the port engines.”

McCarter looked straight to Manning. “Explosives?”

The Canadian nodded and in a matter-of-fact tone replied, “Probably.”

“Plus, let’s consider the fact the other side of this plane is intact,” Encizo continued. He stepped up to the edge of the massive opening and ran the edges carefully between his fingers. “This puppy was cut, probably with an acetylene torch. There’s no way this happened as the result of the crash.”

“David,” James called from the plane. McCarter looked up and the medic jerked his head in the direction of the cockpit. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”

McCarter hoisted his body up and into the plane, moving past James in the direction of the cockpit. He stuck his torso through the cockpit door and studied the interior. The copilot’s head dangled awkwardly from his neck, and a safety harness suspended his slumped body. Both men in the navigator’s chairs were dead, one with a considerable amount of dry blood on and around him, which made it damn difficult to determine cause of death. A quick inspection of the other man revealed a bullet hole between the eyes. The whole enclosure smelled of death. McCarter turned and walked back to where his comrades stood and waited for him.

McCarter jumped to the ground and said, “Captain’s missing.”

James nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“You’re sure?” Hawkins asked.

“I was serving as crew and mission specialist aboard these puppies while still working with the SAS, T.J.,” McCarter said. “Crew complement for these birds is four. There are three bodies in that cockpit, and none of them is wearing the rank of a group captain.”

“I saw one had been shot execution-style,” James noted. “You think the pilot might have been in on this?”

McCarter shook his head. “No bloody way, mate. He’s either among the burned bodies there, or whoever took the cargo took him, as well.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Encizo said. “We’d better get Hal up to speed on this pronto.”

The air suddenly filled with the whip-crack reports of automatic weapons fire, and the Phoenix Force warriors wasted no time getting bellies to the ground. Bullets buzzed over their heads, a few burning the air with a whine as others ricocheted off the broken skin of the aircraft. McCarter and Manning crawled beneath the plane for cover while Encizo, James and Hawkins rose and sprinted for the shelter of the wood line. A fresh salvo of rounds took out tree limbs and zinged overhead, raining leaves on the warriors.

Hawkins happened to grab the cover of the same giant fallen log as Encizo. “Guess this removes any doubt about hostiles involved.”

“I’d say so,” Encizo retorted as he unslung his MP-5 and put the weapon in battery with a quick jerk of the charging handle. “Well, we can’t afford to sit here and wait. They still have David and Gary pinned down.”

“Agreed. I’m open to suggestions,” Hawkins replied.

“We should head along the tree line, see if we can outflank them.”

“Roger that.”

Encizo looked a few lengths over and spotted James, his back to a tree trunk, readying his own weapons for action. He managed to get the warrior’s attention and, using a series of hand signals, communicated the plan. James returned it with the okay signal and indicated he’d provide covering fire. It would require time to get into a flanking position, and James couldn’t afford to expend all of his ammo, even if Manning and McCarter could provide additional support. Still, he only had to keep them occupied a few minutes.

Encizo and Hawkins got to their feet, moved deeper into the darkness of the woods, then set off at a furious pace. James watched them go, counted to three and dashed from the cover of the tree to the back of the plane. He happened to be carrying Phoenix Force’s squad weapon, the Colt M-16 A-2. While it used the gas-driven, rotating Stoner bolt, it had a loaded weight nearly three pounds lighter than an empty M-60 E-3 machine gun. Its high-capacity box magazine, wrapped beneath the magazine well just aft of the heavier barrel and thicker hand guards, held a hundred rounds of 5.56 mm NATO ammunition.

James dropped to his stomach, flipped down the bipod and steadied the weapon by locking the butt against his shoulder and pressing his cheek to the stock. He set his sight post on the general area where he spied an occasional muzzle-flash and returned fire. The reports hammered in his ears as the weapon dispensed a cyclic fusillade of 700 rounds per minute at a muzzle of velocity of 900 meters per second.

The intensity of fire decreased with James’s assault, and during two sustained bursts he called for Manning and McCarter to get out of there. The pair didn’t have to be told a second time. James continued to lay down covering fire while his comrades jumped to their feet and rocketed for the edge of the woods.

McCarter crawled up on James’s six and slapped him on the back. “Thanks for that, mate.”

James stopped long enough to say, “Don’t mention it.”

“What’s the sitrep on T.J. and Rafe?” Gary Manning asked.

“They split off, headed out to greet our new friends from the back end.”

McCarter nodded. “Nice thinking. But I wish to hell they would have checked with me first.”

James cast a sideways glance at McCarter. “You were a little busy right then.”

“Excuses, excuses,” McCarter said, but the grin told the real story.

The Briton turned to Manning. “Let’s spread out along this perimeter to see if we can keep them occupied long enough to buy our boys the time they need.”

Manning nodded as he produced his Galil 7.62 mm sniping rifle. Through the years, Manning had come to appreciate the IMI-made weapon for its versatility. It chambered the 51 mm NATO round, but the four-groove rifling provided optimum stability and made it one of the most accurate sniping rifles of its kind. Manning had found this a chief advantage since the weapon could double as a standard assault rifle, formidable at 650 rounds per minute.

Manning sprinted through the woods until he was about a hundred yards from his friends. He crouched and reached the wood line, settled in and set up the rifle on a bipod. Manning removed the covers protecting the Nimrod 60-power scope and brought his eye within inches of it. He watched carefully, pushing the sounds of autofire from his mind. Manning scanned the trees, high at first and then low to the ground.

The first target came into view.

The big Canadian put the green crosshairs of the reticule on his target’s skull. He could almost make out the color of the man’s eyes through the powerful scope. The guy kept ducking his head, moving it up and down in an attempt to find a target. He appeared to be fixated on McCarter’s and James’s positions. Manning figured he’d get maybe three or four of them before they’d pinpoint his position. He took a deep breath, counted to four, let out half and squeezed the trigger. The enemy gunman’s head exploded in a crimson cloud that seemed to erupt from his neck as the guy’s skull caved under the impact.

Manning swung the muzzle to the right and left in search of his next target.

R AFAEL E NCIZO AND T .J. Hawkins made excellent time.

In just eight minutes, the Phoenix Force commandos had managed to flank their enemy. Eight minutes could turn into what seemed like hours under heavy fire, but Encizo could only hope his friends had maintained a foothold on their area. In another moment or two, they would hopefully turn the tables on their attackers. The ever-increasing sounds of autofire signaled they drew nearer to the enemy’s position. Encizo called a halt and the two came together to confer.

“I’d say maybe twenty meters ahead?” the little Cuban said.

Hawkins nodded. “Sounds about right. It’s your show. How do you want to do this?”

“I’ll go right and you go left. About a hundred meters. If you catch them bunched up, use grenades. Otherwise, we’ll have to pick them off one at a time.”

“Cool,” Hawkins said.

Encizo flashed him a grin. “Good luck, amigo.”

“Same to ya’ll,” Hawkins said, and he whirled and disappeared into the deep brush.

Encizo made distance to the agreed point and then swung around at the sounds of weapons fire, carefully estimating approximate positions. He could really hear the shooting now, and the woods had started to thin, growing lighter as he drew near the wood line. The smell of gunpowder tickled his nostrils, and a moment later Encizo stopped dead in his tracks. Directly ahead lay the first target, planted on his belly behind a bipod-mounted machine gun. The Cuban grimaced, cursing himself for not being more alert.

He’d been closer to the wood line than he originally thought.

Encizo reached to his equipment harness and withdrew a Cold Steel Tanto combat knife as he quietly slung his weapon on his left shoulder, barrel down. He crouched, looked around one more time, then charged his opponent and threw himself prone. The enemy gunner detected something was wrong, but he did so a moment too late. Encizo was on him. The man tried to resist, but his attempts died with him as Encizo plunged the combat knife deep into the side of the man’s neck, slicing through tendons and arteries.

Encizo waited until the man stopped struggling beneath him and then removed the knife and wiped it clean. He stowed it back in its sheath and rose just a moment before he heard the slap of footfalls crunching leaves and sticks. Encizo whirled and whipped up his MP-5, bringing the weapon to bear just in time to prevent his opponent from cutting him in two.

The machete glanced off the barrel of the SMG with a loud metallic clang that seemed to reverberate through the woods. Encizo whipped the stock around and caught his opponent with a blow to the temple. He followed up with a front kick to the knee. The man’s leg gave only partially and yet the distraction proved enough to grant Encizo the advantage. The MP-5 would not be viable in such close-quarter combat, but that didn’t stop Encizo from reaching to his thigh and unleathering his Glock 21.

Encizo squeezed the trigger at point-blank range and put a bullet through the man’s upper lip. The impact ripped away a good part of his jaw and punched him backward to the ground.

T HE SINGLE PISTOL SHOT from the enemy’s area of operation seemed out of place enough to draw their attention in the direction Encizo had gone.

Hawkins knew he couldn’t worry about that, however—he had his own battle to fight. That battle started off all wrong as he somehow managed to get bushwhacked by a treetop observer. He hadn’t thought to look for such a trap, and the force with which he’d been knocked to the ground and set upon clearly demonstrated his mistake.

Still, Hawkins had survived worse experiences.

The Phoenix Force warrior seemed to have two things his opponent did not: speed and experience. Hawkins quickly recovered the initial blow by bringing his head back and catching his adversary square on the nose. Hawkins felt the warm blood pepper his head and ears as he came away, and the arm wrapped around his throat loosened its hold considerably. Rising to one knee, Hawkins bucked his lower back and sent his opponent sailing over him. He immediately executed a somersault and came down on the man’s chest with the heel of his boot. All remaining fight in his opponent dissipated.

Two men who had been up on the wood line firing toward his friends left their positions and swung their weapons toward him. Hawkins responded with catlike reflexes, rolling to his left in time to avoid a hail of gunfire. He came out of the roll on one knee. The muzzle of his Colt Model 635 flashed as 9 mm Parabellum rounds punched holes through the pair of enemy gunners. One took a full burst to the belly, which ripped out his guts. The second gunner caught two rounds to the head, which nearly decapitated him.

A sudden, violent explosion erupted nearby, and Hawkins hit the ground in anticipation the next one would be closer. All at once, it seemed as if all sound ceased—as though someone had stopped the world via remote—and Hawkins didn’t move for a full minute. He waited and listened, watched for additional enemy, but there were no further outbreaks of autofire.

It looked like the battle had ended.

Hawkins rose and went to the side of the man who’d jumped him. He felt for a pulse at the man’s neck and quickly determined he’d live. Hawkins raised his rifle at the crunching approach of feet but Encizo quickly came into view.

“It’s me, Rafe,” he said loudly and clearly. “Don’t get itchy.”

Hawkins pointed downward at the unconscious form.

“Looks like you managed to take one alive,” Encizo said. “That’ll make the other boys real happy.”

“If he talks,” Hawkins said.

Encizo’s smile lacked any warmth. “Oh, he’ll talk. Cal will see to that.”

“How many did you get?”

“Two under small-arms, three more by grenade.”

“I took out those two over there,” Hawkins replied, gesturing in the direction of the deceased. “Including this one, that puts the count at eight. That’s not many.”

“Enough for an ambush. Any ID on them?”

Hawkins shook his head. “Haven’t had the chance to check yet.”

“Well, I’ll go gather up the rest of the boys while you do that.”

As Encizo turned to leave, Hawkins called, “Hey, Rafe?”

“Yeah?”

“Hell of a good call you made here.”

The Cuban warrior just grinned, nodded, then headed off to give his teammates the all-clear signal.

CHAPTER FIVE

Calvin James studied the prisoner intently as Phoenix Force trudged through the woods in the direction of civilization. They had bound the man’s hands behind his back with plastic riot cuffs, then attached those to a thin rope. Manning agreed to take the first watch duty and tied the rope securely to his harness. They now strode side by side, with James, McCarter and Encizo to the rear.

The prisoner had stared defiantly at them for a while, but once they set off on their hike across the German countryside, he’d dropped his gaze and held his tongue. James had tried more civilized methods to get the man to speak but he adamantly refused, apparently convinced it was better to remain utterly silent. In most other scenarios his actions would have been impressive, even commendable, but in this case it would only prove to make things more difficult for him.

David McCarter fell into step beside James and scratched his sandpaper chin while looking at their prisoner. He needed a shave—no opportunity had presented itself aboard the plane—which also reminded him his crew could all use a clean-up and a few hours’rest. Hungry, weary and unkempt warriors weren’t exactly a team morale booster, and the fact they had just come off one difficult mission without a respite didn’t make it easier. As it was, they still had a ways to go before they reached the village town of Rodenbach.

“Has he said anything else?” McCarter asked.

James shook his head. “Not a peep. What outfit you think he’s with?”

“No telling,” McCarter replied with a quick shake of his head. “Could be any one of a dozen organizations I can think of, and we’ve tangled with just about all of them.”

Hawkins had been eavesdropping on their conversation and interjected, “Just as long as it’s not another one of those resurrected neo-Nazi groups. I’m getting plum tuckered out shooting at skinheads and anti-Semites.”

“Ditto,” James replied.

“You guys get a first-class ticket to Germany, a tour through some of the greatest woodlands in all of Europe, free of charge, mind you, and lodgings in a first-rate gasthaus, ” Manning taunted. “And what do you do? Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

James saw an opportunity and decided to exploit it. “Well, I’d say we shouldn’t let this prisoner slow us down. He isn’t going to tell us anything, so why not just do him right here and get it over with?”

James looked back at Encizo on rear guard, ensuring the prisoner couldn’t see his face, and winked. The Cuban nodded almost imperceptibly to indicate he understood where James was headed. The badass warrior from Chicago figured if he could turn the conversation into an issue of racism, maybe it would prompt their German friend to start talking.

“Ease up there, soldier,” McCarter said, also alert to James’s plan. “We need him for interrogation, and we’re going to stick with that.”

James came to an immediate halt and the others followed suit. Everyone knew their part and they would just follow James’s lead. It wasn’t the first time they had pulled a stunt like this, and given its past effectiveness it wouldn’t hurt to try it again. McCarter had agreed to defer to James’s approach beforehand but kept it from the others so things would unfold in a more spontaneous way. The only thing that would make the whole thing pointless would be if their captive didn’t speak English. James had decided to play those odds.

“What difference does it make?” James demanded of McCarter.

“What?” the Phoenix Force leader asked, putting some edge in his voice.

“I asked you what differences it makes.” James gestured at the prisoner with the muzzle of his M-16 A-2. “He doesn’t look to be in real good shape, which means he probably won’t survive the effects of the drugs I gave him during the interrogation. Since it could be a while before we get to where we’re going, why not just take the time now to question him?”

James turned and looked straight at the prisoner now. “We could just beat it out of him, you know. I think that would be faster. He doesn’t like my kind, anyway. And since there isn’t a soul in sight, we could do it all right here and nobody would ever be the wiser.”

Hawkins emitted a laugh. “You know something, he’s right. Why not just get what we need and then move on? Leave his corpse here for the bears to pick clean. He’s just slowing us down, anyway.”

“Look, both of you,” McCarter said. “I’m in charge of the squad, and I’m telling you we’ll do this the right way. And that’s all the discussion it needs. Get me?”

“I’m with them,” Manning said. He looked at the prisoner and then got up close, towering a few inches over him. He pulled the rope taut and added, “He’s probably just another German warmonger, hates anything or anyone that’s not part of his alleged superior race. He’s not going to talk, especially not to a black man.”

Encizo stepped up to join the production. “He probably hates Spanish people, too!”

James looked McCarter in the eyes and shrugged, then broke into a broad smile. “Looks like maybe you’re outnumbered on this one, pal. Nobody likes this guy and nobody wants him around.”

McCarter exchanged glances with each of his comrades and then made a dramatic show of reaching to his holster, thumbing away the safety strap and drawing his 9 mm Browning Hi-Power. A wicked glint flared in his eyes as he held the pistol high for all to see, then pulled back the slide. McCarter paused a moment for effect, then chambered a round. He extended his arm and aimed the pistol straight at the prisoner’s head.

“You guys are bloody well nuts if you think I’m going to let you beat this guy to death,” McCarter said. “I’ll just blow his brains out before that.”

“No!” the man cried. “Please don’t kill me. I will talk. I will talk to you! See…see how good English I speak?”

“I don’t believe him,” McCarter said.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” James said, and he raised his M-16 A-2. “Maybe we should just get this done and over with. Not risk it.”

“No!” The man began to plead with them.

“Now wait a minute,” Manning said, raising his hands. “Let’s be reasonable, gentleman. If the guy’s willing to talk, maybe we should hear what he has to say.”

“Yeah?” Hawkins queried. “Well, how in the world can ya’ll be sure he’ll tell the truth?”

“Aw, I don’t think he’d lie to us,” James said, lowering his rifle. McCarter had holstered his pistol, as well. James turned to their prisoner and smiled. “Now, would you?”

T HE MEN OF A BLE T EAM touched down in St. Louis, Missouri, just after noon, and took the Ford Expedition arranged by Stony Man straight to Our Lady of the Resurrection Hospital near the Washington University campus. The OLR physicians who’d been caring for the two ill college youths had immediately consulted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when they determined no potential causes for the illness, and the fact that both patients had come from the same school.

“It’s going to be hard to keep this under wraps for long,” Schwarz said from behind the wheel.

“Yeah, well, we’d best act fast, then,” Lyons replied.

The three men arrived forty minutes later and headed right to the second floor. Their credentials as agents with the FBI would only buy them so much latitude, but that didn’t bother Able Team. They were really there on more of a fact-finding mission than anything else. The place and time to be tough wasn’t the hospital; they had planned to save that for Delmico if their investigation revealed any foul play.

Able Team reached the third floor of the MedSurg ward, infectious diseases section. A pert young woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail buzzed them through the access doors. A large red strip with a sign warned all unauthorized personnel not to advance past the desk without being fully protected by isolation equipment.

“Agent Irons with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Lyons said, flashing his credentials at the dark-haired woman whose tag identified her as the charge nurse. He whipped out his mini notebook, made a show of flipping through it and said, “Um, we’re looking for…Just one moment, got it here somewhere…Uh, hmm. Ah! Here it is, yes. We’d like to speak with Dr. Kingsley or Dr. Corvasce. Is either of them available?”

The charge nurse eyed the three men warily. “Dr. Kingsley’s off today and Dr. Corvasce is in with a patient right now. Is there some way I can help you?”

“Nope,” Lyons said shortly. “I doubt it.”

Blancanales smiled and immediately wedged himself between Lyons and the counter. Clearly this would take something with less frostiness and a bit more tact, the former of which his good friend possessed plenty and the latter almost none at all.

“Good day, Nurse…Bluesilk.” Blancanales smiled. “That’s a very nice name.”

The nurse’s demeanor changed almost immediately. In fact, she appeared to melt under the twinkling dark eyes of the Politician. “Thanks. It’s Native American, actually.”

“Interesting,” Blancanales replied. “Actually, it’s very important we speak to Dr. Corvasce as soon as possible.”

“I can certainly see if he has a moment. Would you be able to maybe tell me what it’s regarding?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s confidential.” Blancanales looked around and then leaned over the counter and gestured with his head for her to come a bit closer. “Although I can tell you it’s about the college boys who came in here ill. You see, Atlanta contacted us and we’re just making sure this isn’t related to any, well, you know…We don’t want some major scare on our hands. We’d prefer someone not go off the deep end and start guessing wildly about how this might be anthrax or some other terrible thing. Since Katrina, we’ve uh, well, we’ve had to change the way we do things.”

The nurse looked for any sign of tomfoolery in Blancanales’s expression, but obviously she could only detect altruism in those legitimate lines.

“Why don’t you gentlemen have a seat in the lobby, and I’ll see if I can get Dr. Corvasce to come talk with you.”

“That would be great,” Blancanales said. As his cohorts turned and headed for the door, Blancanales gestured toward Lyons’s retreating form and added quietly, “Don’t mind Irons there. They don’t let him out much.”

She smiled, giggled and quietly replied, “I can see why.”

Blancanales winked and then retreated to join his friends.

A LMOST AN HOUR HAD PASSED before a tall, distinguished man exited through the double set of hermetically sealed doors leading from the infectious disease ward. His lanky form strode toward Able Team in confidence, the gray eyes studying them resolutely on approach. The three men got to their feet as the man reached them. After handshakes and introductions all around, Dr. Michael Corvasce led the trio to a nearby coffee bar with an outdoor veranda.

Gray afternoon clouds had rolled in and brought the smell of rain with them. It felt as if the humidity levels had doubled in just the few short hours since they had arrived, and it had only served to sour Lyons’s mood. He’d decided to let Blancanales and Schwarz do most of the talking, content to just sit back and listen.

“I’m a little surprised to see the CDC got you boys involved,” Corvasce said pleasantly as they sat at an umbrella-covered table.

“It’s not really such a big surprise,” Schwarz said. “We understand they didn’t seem too interested.”

“You can say that again,” Corvasce replied with a frown. “Hence why I can’t understand your interest in the case.”

Blancanales cleared his throat. “Listen, Doctor, we realize you’re probably not at liberty to tell us a whole lot about the condition of either of these patients. But we would appreciate any latitude you could show us.”

“Well, between us, I’ll save the politics for Dr. Kingsley. We’ve been trying to contact my patient’s parents since he arrived, but apparently they’re on vacation somewhere in South America and their housekeeper barely speaks English. I’ve had to pull in the hospital administration and work through an interpreter, who is now calling all over the Western Hemisphere trying to locate these people. So, I’m not going to worry about patient confidentiality at this point if you can assure me you’re here strictly in the best interests of the public health.”

“I can promise you that is definitely one certainty,” Blancanales said.

Corvasce nodded. “That’s good enough for me. Basically, Willis Mallow is a twenty-year-old male who came into the emergency room night before last almost unconscious after complaining of a stomach ache and then collapsing. At first we thought your standard, run-of-the-mill frat party, but we quickly realized something else was going on when his tox screen came back negative. Not that that means anything. These days, kids are into all kinds of stuff, including a combination of legitimate pharmacological agents that produce a short and intense euphoria just before they kill you.

“Dr. Kingsley was actually on call that night, but I got involved because it was right during shift change report and I was the oncoming attending. We went down to the ER and I agreed to examine Willis because a second emergency had been brought in and they were immediately calling for Kingsley, stating the patient was exhibiting many of the same signs and symptoms as Mallow. By the time we got done stabilizing both boys, we’d come to the conclusion they were suffering from the same problem. What we didn’t know was exactly what the hell that problem was.”

“Are you any closer to a diagnosis?” Schwarz asked.

Corvasce shook his head and took a sip of coffee before continuing. “Frankly, both of us are completely stumped. Once we’d ruled out drugs or alcohol, we obtained thorough histories. Both kids were athletes in good health, and neither had traveled recently to any foreign countries. They’re regularly screened for steroid use, so coupled with their negative drug testing, we were able to rule that out immediately. Tell me, are you guys at all familiar with cholinesterase poisoning?”

All three nodded. They had once faced a terrorist group bent on launching poisonous chemicals against targets all over the world simultaneously using stolen missiles. They had nearly failed in that mission, and none of them had ever forgotten the effects that would have impacted millions of people if they hadn’t stopped the terrorists in time.

“Ah.” Corvasce shook his head. “Acetylcholine is produced from nerve endings to stimulate smooth muscle and parasympathetic nervous response. In cholinesterase poisoning, the patient suffers from excessive vomiting, diarrhea and profuse sweating. Body temperature and blood pressure fall rapidly, heart rate increases. If the condition goes untreated, the patient will suffer a condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation. Third-stage shock in simplest terms. Multiple organ failure usually follows shortly thereafter.

“In both of these cases, that’s the way they acted, except there were some opposite signs I’d never seen before. Urticaria, high fever and polycythemia vera, which is typically an idiopathic condition only seen in patients suffering from congenital heart disease. Neither youth has such a disease, and right now they’re both at very high risk for clots or severe hemorrhaging. That’s why we’ve had to admit them to the ICU wing.”

“If you could put your finger on this at all,” Blancanales interjected, “would you say these kids were poisoned?”

Corvasce shrugged. “Possibly, but if so, it’s unlike any poison I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as if they’re suffering from part cardiac disease, part allergic reaction. But the sudden onset and other environmental factors, coupled with their age and unremarkable past medical histories, does certainly suggest exposure to some type of pathogen.”

“Would somebody with experience in microbiology have the expertise to concoct a pathogen of this nature?” Lyons queried.

“Oh, most certainly,” Corvasce replied immediately. “Why? Do you think this was purposeful?”

“I never said that.”

“But we have to consider it a possibility,” Blancanales added quickly, throwing his blond friend a furious look. “For the good of the public health, you understand.”

Corvasce rendered a thin smile. “Yes. I understand.”

Something in the physician’s eyes told Able Team he understood all too well. While Lyons had played a good game with the nurse—passing himself as more of a fumbling bureaucrat than a highly trained antiterrorist—he’d studied the files of both doctors thoroughly during the trip to St. Louis. All of Able Team admitted they would have expected more cooperation from Corvasce than Kingsley. Of the two doctors, Corvasce had attended medical school at a university of significantly lesser prestige, and had not nearly as many awards and credentials. It was always easier to get the down-to-earth folks to spill their guts than some stuffy, high-brow type who wore monogrammed shirts and drove a BMW with vanity plates. For now, they had enough information to go on. The four men made a little small talk before thanking Corvasce and leaving the hospital. As they drove toward the college, they talked over what he’d told them.

“Sounds like this would be right up the alley of a schizoid like Simon Delmico,” Lyons began.

“Now, Ironman,” Blancanales chided him, “you know better than to believe everything you read in a person’s psych profile. I mean, we never believed any of the stuff the shrinks at Stony Man Farm have said about you.”

“Ah, yes, that did make for some fun reading, didn’t it?” Schwarz quipped. “Besides the fact, they said they thought Delmico was more of a paranoid-delusional.”

Lyons threw up his hands with a scoffing laugh. “Now you’d think the guys in the government who know this kind of stuff would lock up somebody like that instead of letting him run around on the streets. And with college students, no less.”

“They probably didn’t think a guy with one foot could be much of a threat,” Schwarz said.

“There are a lot of dead terrorists I know who thought the same thing about a sixty-something Israeli with one arm,” Lyons countered.

The other men fell silent for a time, more out of respect than anything else. The Ironman’s reference to the former leader of Phoenix Force had hit close to the mark. Katz had lost his life battling the heinous Abu Nidal Organization. Although he’d gone like a true warrior, the loss of such a man was still felt.

“Whatever’s going on here,” Blancanales said after a time of silence, “I’d have to agree with Carl. It seems highly probable Simon Delmico’s involved in this somehow. It begs the question of why, though. What’s the motive?”

“Maybe Phoenix Force’s mission into Germany will uncover some answers,” Schwarz replied.

He brought the vehicle to a halt in the parking lot adjacent to the Natural Sciences building on the campus of Washington U. It had started to sprinkle minutes before they arrived, which would make it more difficult to spot Delmico when he came out of the building. Lyons checked his watch as he removed a piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it and spread it across his left leg with a noisy crinkle.

Schwarz looked at it. “What’s that?”

“Class schedule. I had Bear hack it out of the school’s computer mainframe. Looks like there’s still about ten minutes to go in Delmico’s last class.”

“Hey, um, fellas?” Blancanales said from the back seat.

The pair turned to see their friend staring through the right rear window. “I make about six guys in a Lincoln SUV parked over there near the fire lane. You see them?”

Lyons turned and cracked his window enough to see over the top. “I got them, too. What do you make of it?”

“They’re a bit old to be local fraternity just looking for a place to happen on Friday afternoon.”

“Yeah,” Schwarz agreed. “Something about the headpiece that driver’s wearing just doesn’t add up.”

Lyons reached beneath his windbreaker and withdrew a stainless-steel .44 Magnum Colt Anaconda. He flipped out the cylinder and checked the action, then locked it in place and holstered the weapon. Blancanales and Schwarz performed similar action checks on their SIG P-239 and Beretta 92-F semiautomatic pistols. And they waited.

CHAPTER SIX

They didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later Simon Delmico emerged from the building, and the SUV left the curb at a crawl.

“It’s going down,” Schwarz said slowly and evenly.

“Stay sharp!” Lyons told him. “Pol, with me!”

Lyons and Blancanales bailed from their vehicle and sprinted toward Delmico. At the same moment, the Lincoln increased speed and reached the scientist first. Students were crossing the walkway, chatting and laughing, or hanging around shelters to avoid the risk of getting drenched in another sudden torrent of showers. Lyons shouted for everyone to find cover as he withdrew his Colt Anaconda on the run.

Blancanales saw the barrel of an SMG protrude abruptly from a slit in the rear passenger window, Lyons apparently oblivious in his focus on Delmico. Blancanales shouted a warning and pushed his friend out of the line of fire as flame spit from the muzzle. A Kalash-nikov cut loose, one of the rounds intended for Lyons ripping through Blancanales’s forearm.

The former Black Beret went low and rolled to avoid certain death. Lyons staggered but kept his feet, then raised the Anaconda. He snap-aimed just above the muzzle of the barking assault rifle and squeezed the trigger twice. A pair of 300-grain slugs punched through the glass of the window. A head exploded as the slug rounds punched through the gunner’s skull in a spray of blood and brain matter.

The tail door swung upward and two men in turbans, blue jeans and black leather jackets jumped from the back. They swung their vehicles toward Lyons and Blancanales, but then something roared between them in a blur of smoking rubber and dust. The front of Able Team’s Ford SUV T-boned the Lincoln, effectively pinning it to the curb. Autofire resounded through the air as the driver’s door shot open and appeared to vomit Hermann Schwarz. The lithe warrior landed on his hands and knees as glass shards, vinyl and cushion filling sliced through the air like ticker tape at a Macy’s parade.

“Perhaps we were a bit rash,” Blancanales noted.

Schwarz looked at his friend in amazement. “Ya think?”

“Split up!” Lyons commanded.

The trio did as ordered. It would be difficult for their opponents to take all of them at once if they headed in different directions. The time it took the pair of gunners to clear the Ford bought Able Team what they needed to find adequate cover. Lyons secured safety behind a purple PT Cruiser, while Schwarz charged in the direction of a metal bus shelter.

Blancanales opted to skirt the front of the Lincoln, keeping below the driver’s line of sight until he reached the curbside fender. He arrived in time to see another pair of gunners trying to hustle Delmico through the rear passenger door. Blancanales stood, raised his SIG P-239, aimed directly at the driver and squeezed the trigger three times. The man’s eyes widened as a trio of .40 S&W hardball rounds first made short work of the windshield and then his face. The impact slammed what was left of the man’s skull backward and the reciprocal force drove it forward to rest on the steering wheel.

Blancanales turned the pistol on the pair just as they got Delmico inside the SUV in time to realize their enemy had them dead to rights. The pair foolishly pawed for their weapons, but they were too late. At that range, the Able Team warrior couldn’t miss. Blancanales dispatched the closer man with a single round through the chest. It perforated his heart and exited his left shoulder blade. Blancanales swung into acquisition on the second gunner as the man brought his weapon to bear, and ended the face-off with a double-tap center mass and number three to the head. The impact lifted him from his feet and slammed him against the open passenger door.

The door swung backward as Delmico burst from the rear seat. The scientist’s suit snagged on the catch and the door pinned it there. He slid from the jacket and started to run. Blancanales started after him but suddenly went prone when a second Lincoln crew wagon pulled up.

Blancanales rolled as their weapons opened up.

H ERMANN S CHWARZ REACHED the bus shelter, got behind the corrugated metal and crouched. A screech caused him to turn and he found himself staring at a pair of wide-eyed college girls.

He gestured in the opposite direction with his pistol. “Get out of here! Run! ”

He didn’t have to tell them twice. They burst from the shelter like a pair of spooked gazelles.

Schwarz returned his attention to the matters at hand. Two gunners appeared at the rear of the Expedition and swept the area with their weapons. The Able Team commando braced his right wrist against the shelter post, steadied his Beretta 92-F in a Weaver’s grip and squeezed the trigger twice. Twin 9 mm Parabellum rounds struck one of the gunners’ weapons and knocked it from his grasp. A lucky ricochet grazed the man’s neck, and his hand slapped at the spurting blood as if he’d killed a mosquito. Schwarz swore under his breath as he reacquired and sent a third round booming from the pistol. This one drilled through the terrorist’s chest and drove his back against the Ford. The man slid to the ground as the light left his open eyes.

The other terrorist never stood a chance under the crack marksmanship of Carl Lyons. The Able Team leader got it done with a single squeeze of the Anaconda’s trigger. The .44 Magnum weapon reported thunderously, even from that distance, its message to the hardman plain and simple: game over. Lyons’s round caught the guy square in the chest and dumped him on the pavement next to his deceased partner.

Schwarz turned in time to see Blancanales had bought himself some fresh trouble. He broke cover and beelined to help his friend, signaling Lyons with a loud whistle between thumb and forefinger on the move. Lyons waved and burst from behind the PT Cruiser. Schwarz came up the sidewalk on the passenger side of the smashed Lincoln in time to see Blancanales find sanctuary behind a small brick alcove near the building entrance.

The electronics expert reached the rear bumper, dropped and squeezed off a volley of rounds in the direction of the new arrivals. He didn’t have anywhere near the firepower of the enemy, but what he lacked in quantity Schwarz made up in quality. The combat veteran put two rounds in the chest of the closest gunner. The 9 mm slugs ripped through the tender flesh of lungs and pink, frothy sputum erupted from the man’s mouth. The impact spun him into a second gunner who had been a bit too close. The falling corpse tied up the second man long enough for Schwarz to draw a bead. He finished their dance with a single skull-buster to the forehead.

Lyons got one at the front left fender with a single shot to the hip. The bullet shattered the man’s thigh and his weapon fell from number fingers. The guy fell. Schwarz got to his feet and rushed for Blancanales, sending a few more rounds at his enemies for the sole purpose of keeping heads down.

It did little good. The next ten seconds seemed to run through Schwarz’s head like a slow-motion replay.

Two other gunners got Delmico into the SUV.

The Lincoln’s driver leaned out the window and pumped a volley of rounds into the man Lyons had wounded.

The Lincoln jumped into Reverse with a roar, churning up a cloud of smoke, dust and bits of gravel.

Schwarz reached Blancanales just as Lyons pumped out his last two rounds at the retreating SUV.

Everything after seemed to return to normal time.

Lyons trotted over to his friends. He crouched, nodded at Schwarz, then looked at Blancanales with mild concern. “You okay?”

“Got winged,” Blancanales said, breathing a bit heavily as he gripped his arm to stanch the flow of blood.

Schwarz jerked his head toward the Ford. “There’s a med kit in my satchel. Why don’t you grab it.”

Lyons rose and trotted for the bag.

“Hang tough, partner,” Schwarz said. He showed Blancanales a reassuring grin. “You’re going to pull through just fine.”

‘Thanks, amigo,” he replied. “But I sort of already figured that. Really, there’s no reason to get all mushy on me. People will talk.”

I N THE W AR R OOM of Stony Man Farm, Brognola and Price sat and listened as Carl Lyons relayed his report of the past few hours.

“So Rosario’s going to be okay?” Price asked when Lyons finished.

“Fine,” Lyons replied.

“We thought there might be a connection between yours and Phoenix Force’s mission,” Brognola said. “But we sure as hell didn’t expect you to walk into a firestorm like that.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Lyons said. “That’s why you pay us the big bucks.”

“The only question now is how this relates to what went down in Germany,” Price said. She directed her voice toward the speakerphone receiver in the center of the conference table. “Carl, we have a theory based on some leads we’ve been pursuing here. It’s still a bit thin, but it may be enough for you to move forward. And we can always fill it out once David checks in.”

“We’ll take anything you’ve got,” Lyons replied.

“Well, we started looking into Delmico’s recent activities,” Price said. “We have it on reliable word that while he was in Germany giving that lecture, he became acquainted with a man named Choldwig Burke. Other than a sheet of misdemeanors, Burke seems clean. However, about seven years ago he did an eighteen-month stint in jail. He didn’t have any more run-ins with the authorities, successfully completed his six months of parole as required by German law, so he fell off the radar.”

“I’ve heard this story,” Lyons cut in. “Suddenly he shows up at a seminar and befriends a microbiologist formally employed by the DOD.”

“Right,” Brognola said. “We think he was working with inside information. Somebody told Burke who Delmico was and how to contact him.”

A low buzz sounded for attention from an overhead speaker, followed by Kurtzman’s voice. “I’ve got David McCarter on our secured satellite line.”

“Conference him in, won’t you, Aaron?” Price asked.

“Your wish is my command,” Kurtzman replied.

A moment later McCarter joined them.

“David, we have Carl on with us,” Brognola said. “What do you have to report?”

“We found the plane,” McCarter replied. “Cargo was gone, and the entire crew dead except for the captain. We also ran into some friends.”

“Terrorists?” Price inquired.

McCarter snorted. “Hardly, although they’d probably like to think they are. We took a prisoner and he did some talking. We got all we could from him, so now we’ll probably need a way to unload him on local authorities.”

“We’ll make the arrangements,” Brognola said. “I’ll have someone get with Interpol and take him off your hands.”

“Thanks,” McCarter said. “He’s starting to get on our nerves.”

“What did he tell you?” Price asked, steering the conversation back to topic.

“He said he’s a member of some bloody outfit calling themselves the Germanic Freedom Railroad. He alleges to know nothing about any operations there in the States. Apparently he’s just a grunt and has only been with this group for about six weeks.”

“Aaron, are you still on?” Brognola asked.

“You bet, and I’m looking it up now,” Kurtzman replied.

“Go ahead, David,” Price urged the Phoenix Force leader.

“There were eight men in the squad behind to see who came to find the plane. They were apparently expecting military or police agencies, but when the leader of the squad saw us he panicked. From what we can gather, they thought we were competitors instead of a legitimate agency. That’s when this brilliant lieutenant of theirs gave the order to open up on us.”

“Big mistake,” Lyons cut in.

“You said it, mate,” McCarter replied.

“What’s your current status?” Brognola asked.

“We’re holed up in Rodenbach. Our ammunition and weapons situation is fine. I’ve got the team cleaning up now, but we could use some food and duds that are a wee bit less, say…conspicuous.”

“I’ll make it happen,” Price assured him, and she immediately excused herself from the room.

“Barb’s going to see you get everything you need,” Brognola said. “What about the leadership of this Germanic Freedom Railroad? Did he give any names?”

“He claims he doesn’t know any, and Calvin’s said he thinks the bloke’s telling the truth about that.”

“You concur?” Lyons asked.

“I’d say so,” McCarter replied quickly. “I trust his judgment, and it doesn’t seem like the guy would benefit from telling us lies at this point. I figure with at least the name of this group you can get more information.”

“What do you guess is their main angle?” Brognola asked.

“Supposedly they’re smugglers for VIPs in the terrorist network. Mostly, they handle al Qaeda and other affiliates with strong ties throughout most of the ECU.”

“Well, it’s no secret Germany’s always been somewhat of a terrorist sanctuary,” Brognola said.

“Right.”

“That would also fit the guys we tangled with,” Lyons added. He quickly brought McCarter up to speed on Able Team’s activities.

“Does anybody have a plausible theory on what this all means?” McCarter asked.

“I’m wary about speculating on this thing,” Brognola said. “The situation has obviously grown more complex. And you guys need hard intelligence. Facts. It’s up to us to get them to you in the best and most efficient way possible. I don’t want either of your teams acting on conjecture. Give us a little time to put together some reasonable data and we’ll get back to you within…I don’t know. Aaron?”

“Two hours should be more than enough time,” Kurtzman said. “We’ll definitely have something solid by then.”

“Fine,” Brognola said. “In the meantime, both of you sit tight and try not to get your asses shot off until I can get back to you.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice, Hal,” McCarter replied.

“Ditto,” Lyons said.

Brognola sat back with a deep sigh once his men disconnected. The information about the Germanic Freedom Railroad had proved interesting. The big Fed searched his memory and couldn’t recall hearing of them before now. Apparently they had been operating in relative secrecy. Had he been a betting man, Brognola would have let it all ride on the odds Choldwig Burke was the number one guy in the GFR.

The man from Justice got to his feet and headed for the Annex. He didn’t plan to breathe down Kurtzman’s neck—or maybe he would and just wouldn’t make it seem like that—but he wanted to be involved with the process.

He reached the Computer Center and found Kurtzman hunkered in his chair and focused on a wide, flat-panel computer screen.

“What do you know?”

Kurtzman looked at Brognola with a cocksure grin. “You mean, since ten minutes ago? What makes you think I’d have something that fast?”

Brognola grinned as he dropped into a nearby chair. “Come on, Aaron. We’re talking about you here.”

“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” he replied, his normally booming voice rising in tone. Somehow the higher pitch sounded funny on him. Kurtzman made a production of looking at his nails, exhaling on them and then rubbing them against his shirt. “But as it just so happens, I do have something for you.”

“Shoot,” Brognola said, settling back in his chair.

“The GFR apparently has a reputation in certain circles. We haven’t picked up on it until now because they’ve made a point of never referring to the organization by name.”

“Any idea on the hierarchy?”

“Pretty much what you’d expect from your run-of-the-mill smuggling operation,” Kurtzman replied. “It’s been proposed by the international law enforcement community that the secret of their ability to remain virtually nonexistent is because they operate in teams of no more than three to four on any given job. Additionally, they deal strictly in cash and all up front.”

“Makes for a good way to keep your clients silent,” Brognola said.

“Sure. Collect the entire advance and your customers will do just about anything to make sure they get their money’s worth.”

“What else?”

“Well, I’m just spit-balling here, but it seems a little interesting that a group like this would risk blowing it for these LAMPs. The technology hasn’t been completely researched and is relatively untested in any kind of legitimate trials. They haven’t even been retrofitted with delivery systems. And insofar as I can tell, the GFR’s never been into actual commission of terrorist acts. It seems they’ve stuck to smuggling, hiding and criminal acts that meet those ends.”

Brognola nodded. “I agree. They make their money by optimal discretion, not drawing any attention to themselves. Why risk that on a major operation like bringing down a military plane so close to their home turf and stealing untried technology?”

“Maybe it’s a special job,” Kurtzman proposed. “Maybe, just maybe, the hostiles Able Team encountered are part of the deal, and that’s why they grabbed Delmico.”

“It fits. The GFR gets approached about this job. It’s so big, bigger than anything they’ve ever done before, they spend nearly a year planning it. Then they make their play, but things don’t go quite right.”

“Then their clients get nervous when Phoenix Force shows up at the plane, and Able Team lands in St. Louis and starts asking a whole lot of uncomfortable questions.”

“So they decide to take over the operation before it gets out of control,” Brognola finished. “It all seems plausible.”

“Well, as it stands now, that’s about the extent of our facts. Other than the fact it’s become plainly obvious these are some tough customers we’re up against.”

“A band of overachievers,” Brognola mused. “Marvelous.”

“Where do you want to go from here?”

“Keep plugging away at it, Aaron. We’ll need a bit more to give Phoenix Force and Able Team something to act on.”

“Oh, you’ll get it,” Kurtzman said as Brognola rose. “Or your money back.”

Brognola chuckled. “Aren’t you the same Aaron Kurtzman who’s always complaining I don’t pay you enough?”

“Why, Hal, don’t you get it? That’s just my little way of endearing myself to you.”

Brognola shook his head and quipped, “Glory.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Choldwig Burke quietly placed the cordless telephone handset on his makeshift metal desk and swiveled in his chair to look upon the dusk cityscape of Wiesbaden. He had a perfect view of it from the abandoned automobile factory on the south side of the city, and it calmed him. He had purchased the factory a mere six months earlier for a song under a deal he’d worked out anonymously through a third-party agent.

Burke considered the recent news. He opened and closed his hands, clenching his jaw in tandem with the movements, as if keeping time with an orchestral piece. The detachment he left behind to observe the plane failed to check in at either of their scheduled times, and then he received the message that most if not all were probably dead. The informant didn’t have much more information than that, but she had noticed one of his men in the custody of five strangers of various ethnicities. He’d instructed her to call back as soon as she had more information on their current whereabouts.

The other issue weighing on Burke’s mind was the unsteady alliance he’d formed with the Palestinians. Mukhtar Tarif, leader of the Hezbollah unit under sanctuary provided by the GFR, had proved himself totally unpredictable. Such men were not trustworthy to Burke’s way of thinking, and he didn’t know how much longer they could maintain a credible alliance. Burke hadn’t wanted this whole thing to begin with, but the people he employed expected payment for their services, and being they were very good at what they did, they didn’t come cheap, either.

When Burke’s operation had still been small—with just a couple dozen men able to handle the business in the way it needed handling—these kinds of troubles hadn’t been an issue. But with growth came greater risks, and greater risks demanded upping the ante for certain types of services. Tarif had stepped forward and made an offer Burke resisted at first. But Burke’s second in command, a brilliant ex-military strategist named Helmut Stuhl, convinced him to accept the deal. He regretted every minute of it. It had turned out to be very risky and expensive for the GFR, which meant it hadn’t resulted in as much profit.

Burke planned to change all that with their successful theft of the LAMPs. He had supreme confidence in them to do the job necessary, and once he sold them out to the highest bidder, Burke could rid himself of Tarif and his band of fanatics forever. First, however, he needed to deal with the incident in St. Louis.

A knock sounded at the door of his makeshift office. “Come in.”

The door swung open to admit Mukhtar Tarif and his pair of bodyguards. He never seemed to go anywhere without them. The bodyguards tried to look imposing, menacing, but to a man of Burke’s size and physical prowess they were a joke. Burke possessed the physique of his father, but he’d inherited his brains from his late mother. Liesl Burke had served as a nuclear power engineer and consultant to the government of Luxembourg. She’d held a degree in nuclear physics, and many colleagues had considered her one of the most innovative and brilliant scientists in her field. Then cancer took hold and ravaged her body, eventually overtaking not only her life but her beloved career.

Liesl Burke also left behind a saddened ten-year-old boy.

Sworn to model his life after that of his mother’s, Burke excelled in his studies. By sixteen he’d been wooed by the finest universities in Germany but eventually he set his heart on the study of particle physics. He spent several years at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva. That later proved extremely valuable in gaining knowledge of the Hadron magnets used in the LHC project, and ultimately proved instrumental in understanding the Low Altitude Military Platform brainchild of the British RAF.

Mukhtar Tarif dropped into the straight-backed metal chair in front of Burke and propped his feet on the desk. Young and impetuous, the terrorist leader had treated Burke with impunity and disrespect nearly from the beginning of their relationship. Burke had only tolerated it because of his belief in the GFR and his steadfast ideology that the needs of his organization far exceeded those of any individual, including its founder. Such idealism had earned him the respect of every member in the organization, and he didn’t intend to sacrifice their loyalty on what amounted to little more than ego.

“I’m told you needed to speak to me,” Tarif announced in flawless German. He’d mastered the language in one of the terrorist training camps sponsored by al Qaeda deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. “What do you want?”

“I want to know exactly what kind of a fool you think I am,” Burke replied in a no-nonsense tone. “You didn’t actually think I wouldn’t find out about Delmico?”

“On the contrary, I knew you would find out. He is no longer of any concern to you.”

“I will judge what’s of concern to me and what isn’t.”

The effect of the implicit warning in Burke’s voice became evident with the dangerous hue visible in Tarif’s expression. “That sounded much to me like a threat, Mr. Burke.”

“Take it as you like,” Burke replied with a smile. “But Dr. Delmico is my contact, and I want him released unharmed. Immediately.”

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