BROGNOLA SOUNDED ESPECIALLY WEARY

“On the world stage, meanwhile,” he said, “the Man is worried that we can’t simply hit Ovan and cut this off at the source, because all of the evidence we have is covert intelligence. We can’t afford to point to any more satellite photos of WMD factories that turn out to be anything but…and we can’t afford to move against Turkmenistan in an official capacity, not even as a black operation, unless we can turn public opinion against Ovan and show the world he’s got his hands in the terror attacks in Iran. If his involvement is exposed, the Iranians will scream bloody murder about the interference, and Magham’s fate will be sealed. That’s especially true if his own involvement in the plot is outed.”

“So what are we doing?” Lyons asked.

“A WMD-equipped Ovan would be a nightmare for us all,” Brognola said. “His terror network, at this point, quite possibly rivals al Qaeda. But more years of hard-line rule under Magham does no one any favors, either. We need to expose the terror link in Iran and do what we can to ensure an honest victory for Khan while putting a stop to Ovan’s terror network and removing him from power.”

“Oh, is that all?” McCarter said.

Power Grab

Stony Man®

America’s Ultra-Cover Intelligence Agency

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Power Grab

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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Rochester, New York

“Quiet!” Nargoly Pyragy ordered. “He is coming!”

The three men watched, crouched behind the concrete-and-faux-marble planter from which projected fake trees covered in plastic leaves. Pyragy, painfully thin, his dark hair thinning, was the oldest and smallest of the trio and was painfully aware of the responsibility he bore. The two others, Kanzi Nihemedow and Gandosi Burdimedezov, were still in their prime and only too eager to strike a blow against the Great Satan. Pyragy would have scoffed had he been alone. He had long since seen the emptiness of such rhetoric. The rest was simply a job, a dangerous job, left to him to conduct.

Nihemedow, who was built like Pyragy but much more handsome, saw himself as the dashing hero of some fantasy. To him the dirty, risky business of such raids was something from a storybook he would read his many children one day. Burdimedezov, the big one, thicker by half through the shoulders than even the second-biggest man Pyragy had ever met, was at least more realistic, though perhaps a bit too willing to rush headlong into danger. That would fade, leaving a skillful operator in its place, for Pyragy knew the large man had in him the ability to go far in intelligence services.

Too many underestimated a fellow Burdimedezov’s size, believing him slow-witted muscle. Gandosi Burdimedezov, Pyragy had no doubt, liked it just so. Such a man preferred to be underestimated. Yes, he would go far…and most likely outlive a veteran like Pyragy by decades.

But then, such a thing was never certain in work like this.

Pyragy placed the metal case gently in position. As had been explained to them, the mechanism was perfectly safe until it was armed. Even then, it should not be fully active, as the technicians explained, until they were well clear. Pyragy wasn’t sure how much faith he placed in the pronouncements of men who wouldn’t be in the field, next to the bomb, betting their lives on these assurances. He didn’t have any choice. At times like these he envied those whose religious faith told them a glorious death in battle against the West would guarantee them a path to Paradise. Pyragy had long ago given up on any such fantasies; he had seen too much, done too much and killed too much to believe in anything but the finality of a bullet or the cold touch of sharpened steel.

He pressed the buttons of the external keypad in sequence. There were five, all blank, lined up for the fingers of a man’s hand. He tapped the combination from memory. There was a chirping acknowledgment from inside the box, loud enough for only Pyragy to hear, and he jerked despite himself when he heard it. Glancing left, then right, making sure the two men with him had not seen, he turned his attention back to the case.

The lid opened slowly on small hydraulic pistons, as if the box wished to reveal its contents dramatically. Inside, the flashing lights of the computerized status board blinked slowly as text scrolled across the three backlighted LCD screens in the machine’s face.

At the front of the case, dominating the lower half of the hinged mechanism, three stainless-steel orbs were set half flush with the midline of the case. These were the explosives themselves, the warheads. Each was the size of a baseball and each was staggeringly deadly—a shaped plastic explosive core covered in hexagonal shrapnel plates that were in turn layered with solid toxins. On detonation, the shrapnel would excite the toxic resin layer and produce a poison cloud that would linger over the blast radius.

Knowing that there would be no turning back after he pressed the buttons, Pyragy entered the start-up sequence. The machine hummed. Its status readouts responded immediately. Pyragy moved as far from the bomb as he could, which was not very far. Again he hoped that neither of the other two men noticed his actions.

Nihemedow, who was never truly still, began to peer around the side of the planter. Grateful for the chance to focus on more concrete concerns, Pyragy poked him with two fingers and made a sharp gesture of warning. Nihemedow returned the look with one of dire portent but withdrew his head just as the security guard’s footsteps grew louder. The man had rounded the corner and would soon pass by their location.

In planning this step of the operation, it was of course Nihemedow who suggested the guard be killed. There was a single night guard known to patrol within the shopping mall at night. There were options for dealing with him. They could wait for him to complete his circuit, plant the device while the man was known to take a scheduled break from eleven o’clock to eleven-thirty and escape before anyone suspected. This option carried with it the risk of discovery during any point. The device would have to be tended while it went through its interminable acclimation program, during which it could not be disturbed. If the guard were to vary his routine, which Pyragy and his team had established during the previous weeks’ surveillance, it could ruin everything.

To say he had reluctantly approved the assassination of one fat American would be overstating the case. He didn’t care. He wasn’t the sort of man to leave any detail to chance or to last-minute decisions, however, so the act had been preplanned right to the man who would do it. Kanzi Nihemedow was eager to blood himself—perhaps too eager—and so he would do the deed. It seemed like such a small detail, in the grand scheme of things, but the death of any single man was no small thing. There was great power in death. This Pyragy understood.

The rasping sound of Nihemedow’s knife leaving its sheath set Pyragy’s teeth on edge. It was too loud. His thought had been that their silenced pistols would leave behind evidence whereas a knifing could easily be dismissed as a failed mugging or burglary. Looking at it now, in the split second he had to consider the situation, Pyragy decided it would have been better to shoot the guard.

The guard turned his head toward the three men.

Nihemedow, indeed too eager, screamed in bloodlust, his yell almost an ululation. He rushed forward, the knife coming up, the keen blade poised to strike. The guard froze and his eyes went wide. His hands came up as if he would ward off the charging attacker with his fear alone.

The knife flashed downward.

Nihemedow missed.

Had he not been watching, Pyragy would have thought it impossible. The arc of the knife passed down and through the place where the guard should have been. Some analytical part of Pyragy’s brain understood what his senses refused to acknowledge. Kanzi had been a half step off in his overeager charge. The two men collided and hit the slick, polished floor in a heap.

“Go, go!” Pyragy ordered Gandosi Burdimedezov. “Stop him!”

Burdimedezov hurried…but it was too late. Nihemedow made a sort of retching, choking noise and fell to his knees, clutching at himself. Burdimedezov threw himself into the fray. There was a moment’s scuffling as Nihemedow was knocked flat, then he curled into a ball and screamed in pain and terror. Then it was Burdimedezov yelping, the sound a strange one from so stolid a man. It was a shriek of pain and shock, of surprise. Then Burdimedezov was falling backward, landing painfully in a sitting position, clutching one of his hands. The guard fled beyond him.

Pyragy stood and ripped the Ruger .22 pistol with its attached, handmade silencer from his waistband and began pulling the pistol’s trigger as fast as he could. The bullets raised flecks of colored facade from the walls of the corridor leading away from their position as the guard ducked, dodged and scrambled for all he was worth. Pyragy cursed as his pistol ran dry. He threw it to the floor in rage.

“Why!” he demanded, wheeling on Burdimedezov. “Why have you done this?”

“He had a knife!” Burdimedezov shrieked. It was then that Pyragy saw the blood streaming from Gandosi’s arm and from the hand he clutched tightly in his other palm.

“But,” Pyragy argued, “he is a private security guard! They do not carry combat knives. That is absurd!”

“He had a knife, I tell you,” Burdimedezov snorted, sounding nothing like himself as he paled from the blood loss. A pool of sticky crimson had begun to widen around him on the floor, and Pyragy realized then how severe the damage must be. “He had a knife clipped to the pocket of his trousers. A folding knife. He flicked it open and cut me.”

Pyragy would not have believed it if he had not seen it. Americans were soft. Weak. Everyone knew that. They guarded their airports with soldiers who did not have magazines in their rifles. They apologized to the leaders of nations whose citizens streamed across U.S. borders illegally. They listened to the enemy abroad in their countless wars and “police actions,” and prosecuted their own soldiers for killing those enemies too efficiently. How, then, could one fat American fool have been armed and prepared to resist? It boggled the mind.

“See to Kanzi,” Pyragy ordered. “He will call for help. We must make sure they do not find the bomb.” Heedless of the danger, for in truth there was supposed to be no danger yet, Pyragy used a foot to shove the bomb deep into the planter he and his team had chosen for the purpose. He took a moment to arrange some of the plant fronds to cover it. Glancing at his watch, he cursed. The box was not supposed to be moved for another fifteen minutes. He had been told this over and over again: the bomb required a very specific time for preset acclimation to its environment, to ensure maximum casualties when its sensors and processors were triggered.

Well, there was no help for that now. If he did not hide the bomb, its discovery would render the entire mission a failure. He would not have such a waste on his record. He would not allow himself to fail.

So the bomb would perhaps detonate prematurely. No matter. Even if it killed no one, the explosion would have the desired effect. The Americans would see yet again that the safe little world of illusion in which they lived was not so safe at all. They could be touched. They could be harmed. One of their most precious icons of their sick, capitalist, consumerist world, a shopping mall, a temple to greed, would become a killing ground in their minds, even if there were no victims. Each time one of the lazy Westerners set foot in a shop or in any public place, he or she would be wondering if an explosion was imminent. Wasn’t that what a campaign such as this was about?

That was how Pyragy would justify his failure to his superiors, at any rate. With luck, he could convince them that his mission, while not technically successful, was not so horrible a failure as to warrant punishment for him…or for his family.

Burdimedezov dragged Nihemedow up, who still clutched his stomach. “Let me see it,” Burdimedezov ordered. “Let me see it,” he said again, more forcefully. He pushed his partner to a sitting position on a nearby bench.

Pyragy grabbed the heavy duffel bag they had brought with them. His mind began running through what he knew of their situation. They had broken through the glass doors at the rear of the mall, where the periodic parking lot patrols frequently did not come close enough for the drivers to notice such a breach because of the placement of large trash containers and an overgrowth of trees and vines close to the face of the building. The security system’s motion sensors, and other electrical components of the obsolete security devices in this structure, were being jammed by the device Pyragy carried on his belt. All of these measures were supposed to have enabled them to break in, place the bomb and get out, disguising their breach as simple vandalism.

Now the guard would be summoning police, and telling those police that armed, dangerous men were in the building. Pyragy pulled back the heavy zipper of the duffel bag and removed a pair of AK-47 rifles with folding metal stocks. He slapped one 30-round magazine home and racked the bolt of the weapon.

“Gandosi,” he said. “How badly are you hurt?”

“I will live,” Burdimedezov said, his composure returning. Pyragy knew that sensation well. Having temporarily failed, having sustained unanticipated injury, Burdimedezov would be eager to reassert his manhood, to prove that he was no coward and no weakling.

“Your arm looks very bad,” Pyragy said, preparing a second AK-47. “You have lost much blood.”

“Give me the tape,” Burdimedezov said simply. Kanzi Nihemedow sat half crouched on the bench nearby, whimpering.

Pyragy produced a roll of silver duct tape from the bag and threw it to Burdimedezov, who caught it with his uninjured hand. He began using his teeth to break the tape as he wrapped strips of it around his arm and hand. He was still very pale, and his arm and the leg of his pants were stained through with blood, but he showed no signs of slowing down.

“Kanzi?” Pyragy asked.

“He is barely conscious,” Burdimedezov said, looking again to his wounded comrade and placing a hand on either side of the man’s face to peer directly into his eyes. “He clutches his stomach and refuses to let go. He is bleeding everywhere. I think the American pig gutted him.”

Pyragy cursed again. “I do not believe it,” he said.

“Kanzi. Kanzi!” Gandosi Burdimedezov shouted. He shook his head. “He does not respond to me at all,” he said.

Pyragy, his rifle cradled in one arm, went to stand over them both. He slapped Nihemedow hard across the face.

“Operative Nihemedow!” he bellowed. “Report! You are ordered to report!”

Nihemedow’s eyelids fluttered. He finally fixed Pyragy with a sickly gaze, sweat beading on his forehead and cheeks. “Yes…yes, sir,” he finally responded.

“Get him a rifle,” Pyragy said, not removing his eyes from Nihemedow’s.

“But, sir,” Burdimedezov said.

“We have moments,” Pyragy said. “Unless the guard has decided he fears the legal repercussions of his actions, he will have gone straight for help. We have but one choice, and that is to make the Americans believe we came to attack the mall directly. If we sell our lives dearly, perhaps they will not investigate too thoroughly. They may not find the bomb. It may still do its job.”

“Have we no chance to fight clear?”

“There is a chance,” Pyragy said. “A slim one. We could, of course, leave now…but the Americans would wonder what we did here. Their authorities would search this place for clues. We must give them an obvious answer, prevent that search from taking place.”

“They may still search,” Burdimedezov said.

“Perhaps,” Pyragy agreed. “But do we dare do less for the cause?”

Burdimedezov thought about that for a moment. “No, sir.”

“Then it is agreed,” Pyragy said. “Now get Kanzi a rifle.”

Burdimedezov brought the third Kalashnikov from the duffel bag, loaded it, racked the bolt, and moved the selector switch to full-auto. He set the rifle aside for a moment and looked up at his leader.

“Help me with him,” he said. “I must tape him up.”

Understanding, Pyragy managed to lift Nihemedow’s arms. The man’s resistance, and his strength, were fading fast. Soaked in blood and gore, Burdimedezov managed to wrap layer after layer of duct tape around Nihemedow’s stomach.

“Tape his hands to the rifle,” Pyragy said.

Burdimedezov looked up at him, then back to his injured colleague, but did as he was instructed. At his leader’s direction, he propped Nihemedow up on the bench facing the corridor down which the guard had disappeared.

“They will come from that direction.” Pyragy nodded. They could hear the faint wail of sirens in the background now, and knew that the battle was coming. “Take position over there, by that archway. I will conceal myself near the planter once more. Our enemy may be police, and may be their special weapons and tactics personnel. If it is the latter we have much less chance…but if the former, we can shoot our way through them. Be certain to shout slogans. Tell them that God is Great. Tell them you strike a blow with your rifle against the hated West. Anything you think they might overhear.”

“If we kill them all, such a tactic does nothing.”

“If we kill them all,” Pyragy said, “God truly is great. Is Kanzi even awake?”

“He may be dead,” Burdimedezov said quietly.

“Then he will draw their fire and do his part anyway,” Pyragy said grimly. They could hear the sound of glass and metal crashing, echoing down the empty mall hallways. “They have entered the building. Make ready.”

When he saw the AR-15-pattern rifles, the helmets and the body armor, Pyragy knew that their chances were not good. He had hoped the first line of response would be city police officers, but this was a tactical response team. They were better armed and better trained, and they far outnumbered Pyragy’s team.

Burdimedezov, from his position in the arch, opened fire.

The hollow-metal clatter of the Kalashnikov filled the hallway. The first of the charging law-enforcement officers was stitched across his chest, the rounds knocking him down with a grunt. Burdimedezov began spraying the floor around the man, raising churning debris from the polished floor, trying to finish his enemy. It was possible the 7.62 mm rounds had penetrated the man’s vest, but this was not ensured, and thus Burdimedezov hoped to hedge his bets.

The distinctive sound of the lighter 5.56 mm rounds fired from AR-15s filled the corridor, deafening in their overlapping thunder. Pyragy was driven back behind his planter as several rounds found him and chipped away at his dubious cover. He looked around the corner of the planter with one eye, squinting against the dust and grit flying through the air, and saw Burdimedezov leave his place. Fate bless the man, he was screaming about God and capitalists and even the United States President. If they were not all going to die doing this, Pyragy would want to put the man up for a commendation.

Burdimedezov charged the enemy, heedless of the danger. He was shot in the stomach and doubled over, falling to his knees. Struggling to bring up his AK-47, he managed to trigger a final burst from the kneeling position.

Someone shot him in the head.

The big man’s forehead opened up and his head snapped back, folding him over awkwardly, still kneeling. He looked, to Pyragy, as if he might be praying.

Kanzi Nihemedow had not moved during all of this. Several bullets had found him. He had jerked in place as his body was hammered this way and that, never once making an attempt to raise the weapon taped into his fists. Pyragy closed his eyes for a moment, crouching behind the planter. There had been in his mind the dim hope that Nihemedow might yet live, at least long enough to die heroically. Instead he had died before the fight had begun…his entrails leaking from him thanks to a single civilian American. It was galling. Pyragy vowed he would never tell Nihemedow’s family how this had occurred.

He realized then that there was a chance for him to survive this, perhaps to fight another day. The American justice system was as weak as the Americans themselves. He would be given a lawyer. He would even be read his rights. He could use the many opportunities they would give him, to talk and to talk and to talk, and he could further obfuscate the true reason for the mission as he did so. He would spin the Americans fanciful yarns about his terror cell. Weeks into all of this, the bomb would explode for maximum effect, long forgotten, and only then would the stupid Westerners understand the true reason this attack had taken place.

“I surrender!” he shouted at the top of his lungs in English. “Please, do not shoot! I surrender!” He placed his Kalashnikov on the floor and kicked it away from him, watching it slide some distance before it stopped.

The gunfire continued for a few seconds before shouts of “Cease fire!” and “Hold your fire!” began to echo through the hallway. The men who faced Pyragy kept their distance, maintaining cover, wary of some trick. Pyragy did not kid himself. A sniper would be lining him up for a shot the second he stuck his head out from behind the planter. He would not let them assassinate him. It was said among his people that American police often simply killed their victims this way, after a surrender. Weak as they were, they were also corrupt, and the Americans could not be trusted not to murder unarmed men, women and children if given the opportunity. Some small part of Pyragy’s brain wondered if perhaps the bomb he had just planted in this shopping mall would not also kill unarmed men, women and children…but he crushed that thought before it could grow too loud.

“I wish to surrender,” Pyragy yelled again. “I am unarmed. I have thrown away my weapon. Do not kill me.”

“Come out with your hands on your head,” someone shouted back. “Interlace your fingers. Make no sudden moves.”

“I want assurances,” Pyragy shouted. “I will testify. But I want assurances!”

There was no response to this. Finally the instructions to come out with his hands up were repeated. Pyragy knew that he had only a few moments before they started throwing tear gas or perhaps even stun grenades, if they were equipped with such weapons.

He needed to keep his wits about him. He needed to put on a masterful performance, in fact, if he were to carry out his new plan. Perhaps his people would bargain for his release at some subsequent point…or perhaps, when the attacks began in earnest, his release would be demanded as a condition that the bombings stop. He could not dwell on that now. Now, all that mattered was living through this and making sure his enemies focused on him and his dead teammates. They must not suspect the bomb was here.

He glanced back to where he had concealed the device. He hoped again that moving it prematurely had not ruined things.

“All right,” he shouted back. “I am coming out. Please do not shoot.”

A high-pitched whine made him turn, again, toward where he had hidden the bomb.

Three metal spheres, propelled by charges of compressed gas, burst upward into the air, one after the other.

“No—” Pyragy had time to say.

And then there was no more time, ever.

CHAPTER ONE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, seated herself at the large conference table in the War Room, smoothing the slitted thigh-length skirt of the business suit that did nothing to hide her contours. The honey-blonde, model-beautiful Price did not look as if she had been awake since the earliest hours of the morning, but then neither did Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman. As the Farm’s cybernetics expert propelled himself into the room, turning smartly with a practiced motion of his wheelchair, he looked bright-eyed and alert. Clutched in one massive hand was an oversize insulated aluminum travel mug that was, no doubt, freshly filled with his stomach-roiling house blend of overpowering coffee. Kurtzman busied himself with the uplink controls set in the wall next to the giant plasma screen that dominated that end of the briefing room.

The men of Phoenix Force and Able Team filed in moments later, talking quietly among themselves or, in the case of Able Team leader Carl Lyons, sitting stone-faced and watching the room with cold blue eyes while silently sipping coffee from a disposable cup. The big, blond ex-cop, who had more than earned the nickname “Ironman” from his teammates, was flanked by Able Team members Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz and Rosario Blancanales.

Schwarz, who pushed his wire-framed glasses up on his nose while reaching for a coffee cup of his own, was a computer expert in his own right. He was also a veteran field operative. Many enemies had underestimated the slim, unassuming Schwarz…and had died because of it. Blancanales, for his part, looked calm and confident. He always did. The gray-haired, dark-eyed, soft-spoken Hispanic, a former Black Beret, was known among the men as “the Politician” for his ease with blending in with others, making them believe what he needed them to believe.

David McCarter, team leader of Phoenix Force, seated himself next to Blancanales and gave him a neighborly jab with one elbow, uncharacteristically cheerful by his usual standards. He emptied the aluminum can of Coca-Cola from which he was drinking and set it on the table with a loud, metallic ring. The lean, fox-faced Briton, a former SAS commando, had changed considerably in his time as leader of Phoenix, Price thought. While still something of a hothead, he took his job seriously and had led his fellow counterterrorist operatives to victory in mission after dangerous mission.

The other Phoenix Force veterans filled the opposite side of the conference table. There was Rafael Encizo, the stocky, well-built Cuban-born guerilla expert. Next to him hulked Gary Manning, the burly, square-jawed Canadian who served as Phoenix Force’s demolitions expert. A former antiterrorist operative with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Manning was the sort of solid, dependable soldier Price was always glad to have on hand. He was quiet, stable and more than willing to speak his mind if it was necessary.

To Manning’s left sat Calvin James, the lanky knife fighter and former SEAL who would always be the son of Chicago’s mean streets. Price mentally chided herself for indulging in such poetic phrasing, even privately. Still, looking at James and watching the muscles play under his dark skin, it was hard not to see him as some kind of predatory animal. Easygoing as he was, he was one of the most dangerous men she had ever met, and that was saying something, considering the company he kept. It occurred to Price that she sat in a room with some of the most experienced warriors on the face of the Earth. There was just one exception, and she would see him soon enough, when he returned from whatever mission had called him away most recently.

Beyond James, just pulling out a chair for himself, was T. J. Hawkins, formerly of the Army Rangers and the youngest member of Phoenix Force. Hawkins’s Southern drawl and easy manner belied his abilities as a fighter. He could hold his own with any of the men of Able Team or Phoenix Force, which was why he had been added to the latter’s ranks.

Also on hand was Akira Tokaido, the brilliant computer hacker who, with Carmen Delahunt and Huntington Wethers, formed the rest of Kurtzman’s cybernetics contingent. Tokaido took the chair next to where Kurtzman was stationed and placed an item on the table in front of them both. The device was about the size of a large universal remote control and bore several LEDs, buttons and knobs, all labeled in neatly printed black permanent marker.

Price unfolded her slim notebook computer, waiting as it connected wirelessly to the secured network that controlled the flat plasma screens on the wall of the briefing room. As she did so, the careworn face of Hal Brognola suddenly appeared on the screen at the end of the room. Larger than life-size, the face of the director of the Sensitive Operations Group stared out at them with hound-dog sincerity from behind his desk, the scrambled transmission emanating from his office on the Potomac. The big Fed was chewing something, which Price knew was probably an antacid. Dark circles under his eyes betrayed the sleepless night he had no doubt just had.

Not for the first time, Price wondered if Brognola’s job was slowly killing him. The man from Justice answered directly to the President, but the covert antiterrorist organization that was Stony Man Farm—from the hidden base in Shenandoah National Park, where they now sat, to the network of resources and assets that included the black-operations soldiers sitting in front of her now—was Brognola’s baby before it was anyone’s. The troubles of the world rested squarely on Brognola’s shoulders before they weighed down anyone else.

“Good morning, Hal,” Price said.

Brognola huffed something that might have been a “good morning” of his own. He was looking away from the camera and thus from the microphone when he did it. He found the papers he was looking for and then looked into the lens of his own camera again. “Let’s get started,” he said.

Price nodded and then looked to Kurtzman, who lowered the lights in the War Room by fifty percent. Price tapped several keys on her notebook computer. The plasma screens on the walls that did not bear Brognola’s image came to life with the pictures of three men.

“Now there’s a respectable-looking lot,” McCarter muttered.

“You’re looking at Nargoly Pyragy, Kanzi Nihemedow and Gandosi Burdimedezov,” Brognola said. “Turkmen nationals who, according to our intelligence networks, were part of a terror network run by the recently ‘elected’ leader of Turkmenistan, officially known as ‘President for Life Nikolo Ovan.’”

“‘Were’?” Hawkins drawled.

“Were.” Brognola nodded. “Because just over eight hours ago, they blew themselves up rather spectacularly in a shopping mall in upstate New York.”

Price tapped more buttons and the images shifted to show video footage of a sea of police cars, fire engines, emergency vehicles and SWAT vans parked in front of the blackened entrance to what could have been a shopping center in any part of the United States. A sharp-eyed Calvin James sat forward in his seat.

“Why am I seeing hazmat response teams in that shot, Hal?” he asked.

“Good catch,” Brognola said. “This was no ordinary terrorist bombing,” he explained. “Aaron?”

Kurtzman nodded and addressed the assembled operatives. “From the point of view of a terrorist,” he said, “the hardest part about perpetrating a successful bombing is not finding the materials to make a device. It is not even planting the device, in most cases. It is detonating the device at a time when the explosion will do more than just property damage. In other words, the hard part is figuring out how to kill the most people.”

“Timers,” Tokaido chimed in as if on cue, “are imprecise. If the bombers are going to be long gone before the bomb explodes, they can’t control the conditions at detonation. In Iraq especially, our military have become adept at dealing with one of the ways terrorists circumvent this problem, by using wireless phones to detonate roadside bombs when their spotters see victims in range. Signals of that type can be jammed, and specific locations can be hardened permanently against such technology.”

Schwarz nodded knowingly. Price knew that he had been on hand assisting Kurtzman and his team for the past few days, in anticipation of the problem they were now forced to confront directly.

“But what if,” Kurtzman said, picking up the narrative again, “terrorists developed a ‘smart’ bomb, a bomb that can ‘learn’ over time by sampling its environment and determining the optimum conditions for detonation?”

“You’d have the ultimate terrorist weapon,” Schwarz interjected. “A bomb that you can set, leave behind and trust to figure out for itself how to murder the most people.”

“Exactly,” Brognola said. “And that is just what we’re dealing with.”

It was Price’s turn to address the operatives. She keyed in several more images that were timed to display as she spoke. “Our intelligence and surveillance networks have known for some time that Iran was sponsoring, with just enough plausible deniability to stop world governments from intervening, the production of terrorist bombs and other weapons for use in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems, however, that they’re not satisfied with making things worse. A team of Iranian scientists, whose location we have not yet been able to determine, has developed and has been producing, for six months now, these smart terror bombs.”

“The bombs are shielded against explosives’ detection methods using specially sealed canisters prepared and then cleansed prior to deployment,” Tokaido said at Price’s nod. Pictures of a briefcase-size weapon containing three inset spheres appeared on the plasma screens. “Central Intelligence Agency operatives have recovered at least two of these devices from potential terror sites abroad, and it was thanks to the CIA that we received the initial hard data that confirmed what our data network sweeps have been turning up as chatter for several months now.”

“Each bomb,” Kurtzman said, “has electromagnetic, heat, motion and sound detectors, among other sensors, all of it connected to a powerful microcomputer that is devoted solely to figuring out when the most victims will be within range of its payload.”

“It’s that payload, Calvin,” Brognola said, “that is the reason for the hazmat response.”

James nodded grimly.

“The bombs,” Tokaido said, pointing at schematics that appeared on the screens as Price called them up, “contain three sealed bouncing betty spheres. They’re extremely innovative. The plastic explosives are shaped breakaway charges that produce deadly shrapnel, and they’re interlaced with a low-level nerve gas, a chemical-warfare agent that ensures the blast radius has an effective kill zone of close to a hundred percent.”

“Bloody hell,” McCarter said softly.

“And then some,” Brognola acknowledged. “The blast radius, fortunately, is only about a hundred yards, but it was enough to demolish a good portion of the shopping mall you see here.” The image on the secondary screens returned to the video footage of the upstate mall.

“How many dead in that attack?” Blancanales asked.

“Fortunately, only the terrorists,” Brognola said. “There were some wounded among the responding police, but no fatalities. Our assets locally have interviewed law enforcement and the one witness we have, a security guard who seems to be the luckiest bastard in a polyester uniform for miles. In his debriefing, he said that two men who had apparently broken in after hours attacked him and tried to stab him to death. Apparently he used a knife of his own to cut his way out of the situation and flee.”

“Three cheers for American ingenuity,” McCarter said.

Brognola ignored that. “Something about the attack made our security guard think terrorists instead of burglars, probably because New Yorkers in general are understandably nervous about that kind of thing. He called the cops, the cops sent in SWAT and a gun battle ensued. It was anything but one-sided.”

“How so, Hal?” Blancanales asked.

“The terrorists were fielding fully automatic weapons,” Brognola said. “The locals say the last of them was trying to surrender when the bomb exploded. The three shooters were the only ones within the blast zone, thankfully, and the locals were smart enough to pull out before they got too much exposure to the toxin. Apparently somebody on hand was worried about conventional chemical weapons or perhaps even a dirty nuke of some kind. Whatever their fears, they got out of the way, and that’s what saved them.”

“If we’re going up against these bombs,” James said, “are we looking at dealing with chemical warfare?”

“The toxin used has a very short chemical half-life, to misuse the terminology,” Schwarz explained. “Clear the blast zone and wait ten minutes, and there’s no danger. That’s the only thing working in our favor here.”

“What does a new superbomb created in Iran have to do with a Turkmen terror network?” Carl Lyons interjected. “Please tell me the answer isn’t what I think it is.”

“Sorry.” Brognola shook his head. “It is. The bomb used in the attack was, according to our analysis after the fact, the very same bomb the Iranians have developed. Once intelligence services identified the three dead terrorists, the Man gave us the go-ahead to move on this.”

“So we’re hitting Iran?” McCarter asked.

“Unfortunately,” Brognola sighed, “nothing is ever that simple.” He waited while Price cued up several more images: pictures of men dressed in formal suits, as well as one man in paramilitary garb.

“This,” Brognola said of the latter, “is Nikolo Ovan. He’s essentially a warlord. His ultranationalist party has swept to power in the last year and seized control of Turkmenistan, militarizing it and terrorizing the Turkmen people. Ovan fancies himself the next Stalin or something. He’s motivated, intelligent, and very, very brutal. His leadership of Turkmenistan threatens the stability of the entire region.”

“Recent discoveries of new, more extensive deposits of natural gas,” Price said, causing a map of Turkmenistan and its neighbors to display on the screens, “have made Turkmenistan more economically powerful than it has ever been. Our intelligence sources tell us Ovan is negotiating with his neighbors, particularly Iran, to build a pipeline to them and trade in sales of the gas.”

“I take it he doesn’t want Euros,” Hawkins said.

“No,” Brognola said. “Ovan wants weapons, specifically weapons of mass destruction. He’s been able to purchase enough of them to get them into the hands of the terrorist network he’s building. Bad as that is, it could become much, much worse. The CIA tells us that Ovan wants to negotiate a steady supply of these bombs. That, coupled with the buying power a pipeline deal would give him, would make Ovan a real player on the world stage. We can’t allow that.”

“Ovan hates the West,” Price said. “He’s a socialist who sees everything about the Western, capitalist world as evil incarnate. His state-controlled television station broadcasts a steady stream of invective and propaganda against the Western world in general and the United States specifically. We know he’s been in talks with several dictators of minor countries to see whom he can bring aboard his terror network, too.”

“Make no mistake,” Brognola said, “Ovan is in this for the long term. He’s not just some kill-crazy tin-pot dictator, the type that rises and falls over the course of a summer. He has real plans for something like long-term domination of his region and ultimately the world through terror and violence. If he’s allowed to implement them, he’ll be that much more difficult to stop.”

“So we’re hitting Ovan?” Lyons asked impatiently.

“Again, it’s not that simple.” Brognola shook his head. “The two men you see here with Ovan,” he went on, indicating the men in suits, “are candidates for the presidency of Iran.”

“This,” Price said, causing one of the pictures to glow brighter, “is Khalil Khan. He’s the moderate candidate. A series of increasingly turbulent uprisings has prompted calls for yet another election in Iran. The hard-line incumbent, Mohammad-Hossein Magham, is doing everything he can to squelch the press, including attempting to cut off access in Iran to certain social networking sites on the internet, blocking all but Iranian-controlled news media in the country and threatening those news outlets that don’t side with him or who dare even to report on the dissidents. Our CIA assets in Iran report that Khalil Khan has a very good chance of winning, if he lives to see election day…and if Ovan doesn’t influence the election otherwise.”

“It’s almost a repeat of the Ahmadinejad-Mousavi election,” Brognola said. “Khan’s a pro-Western moderate who wants to bring his country into the modern world and improve its human rights record. Magham’s a dictator who’d just as soon crush the dissidents and run the country like a prison camp, but he’s sensitive to world attention and media coverage. He doesn’t just want to run the country—he wants people to acknowledge that he’s right to run the country.”

“Enter Ovan again,” Price said. “We have covert intel that says Ovan’s terror network is led by two men. These are his sons, half brothers Karbuly and Ebrahim Ghemenizov.”

The secondary screens displayed images of a large, bearded man with wild eyes and a thin, balding, sallow man whose eyes shared the other’s slightly unstable look. “We have reason to believe Karbuly is heading up the domestic terror network that directed the actions of the three dead terrorists in New York,” Price said. “There are unconfirmed reports that Karbuly has been spotted at multiple locations here in the Northeast United States. We think the botched attack, in which the terrorists either set their bomb incorrectly or perhaps used a defective weapon, was the opening salvo in Ovan’s long-range plans to hurt the West as he jockeys to better his economic and strategic position worldwide. From the terrorist chatter we’ve intercepted, we also think he’s trying to show the Iranians just what he can bring to the table. They hate us, too, remember, and if he can show the hard-line Iranian government that he’s a real force to be reckoned with, they’ll be eager to cut a deal with him.”

“Ebrahim Ghemenizov is half Iranian by birth,” Brognola said, “and the CIA places him in Tehran. Their people believe that Ovan, through Ebrahim, has been behind several terrorist attacks on supporters of Magham.”

“But Magham’s the hard-liner,” James said. “Why would Ovan hurt the candidate who’s more likely to sell him the weapons?”

“It’s true that Khan would put a stop to the weapons program,” Price said, “or at least we hope he would. Magham is behind the program. But he’s also working in complicity with Ovan to help stage the attacks on his own supporters. The idea is to create, and spread through the media, the idea that Khan’s followers are violent murderers who cannot be trusted. So far the tactic is working. Those few polls we can get that aren’t skewed by Magham’s government show that, while he’s still running behind Khan, the moderates’ lead has diminished since the attacks began.”

“On the world stage, meanwhile,” Brognola said, sounding especially weary, “the Man is worried that we can’t simply hit Ovan and cut this off at the source, because all of the evidence we have is covert intelligence. We can’t afford to point to any more satellite photos of WMD factories that turn out to be anything but…and we can’t afford to move against Turkmenistan in an official capacity, not even as a black operation, unless we can turn public opinion against Ovan and show the world he’s got his hands in the terror attacks in Iran. If his involvement is exposed, the Iranians will scream bloody murder about the interference, and Magham’s fate will be sealed. That’s especially true if his own involvement in the plot is outed.”

“So what are we doing?” Lyons asked.

“A WMD-equipped Ovan would be a nightmare for us all,” Brognola said. “His terror network, at this point, quite possibly rivals al Qaeda. But more years of hard-line rule under Magham does no one any favors, either. We need to expose the terror link in Iran and do what we can to ensure an honest victory for Khan, while putting a stop to Ovan’s terror network and removing him from power.”

“Oh, is that all?” McCarter snorted, half grinning. Brognola rolled his eyes fractionally but ignored the comment.

“Gadgets, working with Aaron, Akira and our friends at the CIA who provided the sample bombs,” Brognola said, “have performed extensive analysis on the bombs, and there’s a vulnerability we can exploit. The devices have a unique electromagnetic signature that changes as they go active and increases as they reach their full sensor capabilities.”

“The signature is difficult to pin down among the background noise of the electromagnetic spectrum,” Schwarz said, “but it can be detected.”

“The Pentagon has, overnight, retasked its Warlock network of surveillance satellites,” Brognola said. “They’re going to provide us with the detection we need to home in on each terrorist attack site. Able Team, using this intelligence, will intercept the cells before they can carry out the series of attacks we believe to be imminent.”

“That’s where this come in,” Tokaido said, holding up the handmade device.

“Gadgets and Akira have built this scanner-jamming unit,” Price said. “It reads the bombs’ signals at close range and retards the function of the processors in the bombs. It can be used, at extreme close range, to deactivate it, provided you can hold it on target long enough.”

“The problem is,” Schwarz explained, “you’ve got to get close enough and point the unit directly at the bomb as you approach to prevent it from going off. Then you’ve got to touch it to the casing and hold it there until it gives you the all-clear that the bomb has been neutralized. The rest happens within the bomb’s processor as it interacts with the wireless signal from our unit.”

“Are you saying,” Lyons asked him, “that the bombs could go off because they sense us coming?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Schwarz confirmed. “Also this device is one of a kind. There isn’t time to build more, nor to test this one. So nobody drop it.” He looked at Blancanales and then back to Lyons.

“Wonderful,” Lyons said.

“Phoenix,” Price said, “will deploy to Iran. The CIA has operatives placed within Iranian security who will conduct you from there. You’ll enter the country as Canadian journalists and then fall off the radar to conduct your operation covertly with the CIA’s assistance. Able Team will use the Warlock surveillance feed to perform terrorist interdiction here.”

“The goal,” Brognola said, “is to stop the terrorist attacks centered in Tehran and, if possible, uncover Ovan’s network there. We also want to prevent an outright assassination of Khan if we can. If you can expose the terror connection there, we’ll redeploy you to deal with Ovan directly. If you can’t get anything on him, however, there’s little we can do except find and destroy the source of the Iranian bombs so that Ovan cannot continue to make use of them. Able, meanwhile, will deal with the threat at home using the more direct approach.”

“At least there’s that,” Lyons said.

“Jack Grimaldi is standing by,” Price said, referring to Stony Man’s senior pilot, “and he’ll hop you from target to target. The Warlock network has produced a priority list, and the signals we receive will help redirect you once you get closer to each potential strike point.”

“All right, then,” McCarter said. He stood. “What are we wasting time here for?”

“Good luck,” Brognola said. “And good hunting.”

Price lingered as the rest of the teams filed out, their conversations growing louder and more businesslike as they began to discuss the missions ahead of them. Kurtzman shot a salute to Brognola as he wheeled in front of the screen, and Brognola nodded in acknowledgment.

“You okay, Hal?” Price asked, stopping Brognola as he reached for the disconnect button.

“I’m always okay, Barb,” Brognola said. “You know how it is. This job is never easy.”

“I do,” Price said. “Just…take care of yourself, Hal. We all count on you.”

“And the country,” Brognola said, “counts on them.” He pointed at his camera, and Price knew he meant the soldiers who had just left. Brognola’s extended finger came down on his unit’s disconnect button. His screen went blank.

“Another day,” Price said to the empty room, “another mission to save the world.”

She shook her head. Enough introspection. There was a lot of work to do.

CHAPTER TWO

Ithaca, New York

The twin rotors of the massive Boeing MH-47G Chinook helicopter flattened the grass of the field in which ace pilot Jack Grimaldi brought the big bird down. With a top speed of close to 200 miles per hour, the heavy chopper was overkill for ferrying Able Team around—the helicopter could lift and transport a bulldozer or an M-198 howitzer—but it had been readily available while time was of the essence. The chopper had a 450-mile range, and with the Warlock network and U.S. intelligence projecting their targets to be clustered in the New England area, this Special Operations Aviation version of the Chinook would serve well to hop them from site to site. The chopper boasted an advanced avionics system, a fast-rope rappelling system and was no slouch as an assault chopper. A single Chinook so equipped could, Grimaldi had told Able Team enthusiastically, replace multiple UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

Carl Lyons just wished the damned thing was a little smaller.

It was no small feat to land a chopper somewhere other than an airstrip or helipad, that much he knew. The wires and telephone poles, not to mention the trees, that dotted their landing zone made Lyons decidedly nervous as Grimaldi deftly fitted the machine into the space available.

The members of Able Team filed out of the chopper, weapons at the ready. There was no attempt at subtlety here, and there would be no hiding in plain sight in civilian clothes, trying to keep those around them from seeing what they were doing. No, there was no time for niceties of that kind. The Warlock network indicated that one of the Iranian bombs was online in the area, and Carl Lyons could see why terrorists might have selected this location.

Men and women dressed for spring gasped and backed up as Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales approached. All were dressed in combat boots and black BDUs, although Lyons had foregone the BDU blouse for a brown leather bomber jacket over a black T-shirt. Each man carried web gear or, in Lyons’s case, a canvas shoulder bag bearing extra magazines and other weaponry. Lyons’s bag was stuffed with 20-round polymer drum magazines for the Daewoo USAS-12 select-fire 12-gauge assault weapon he favored. In a leather shoulder holster under his left arm, he carried his .357 Magnum Colt Python. Schwarz and Blancanales both carried M-16 rifles, although Schwarz also had his Beretta 93-R machine pistol in shoulder leather, and Blancanales had a Beretta M-9 in a dropped thigh rig.

Each member of Able Team wore a microtransceiver earbud in his ear. The processors in the little devices cut the sound of gunfire but transmitted even a whisper from the owner, amplifying such sounds so that each member of the audio network could hear them. The effective range of the little earbuds wasn’t very great, but it was more than enough for the typical combat ranges in which the team typically fought.

Schwarz moved out in front as Blancanales and Lyons flanked him, weapons at the ready. Somebody in the crowd screamed. The three men of Able Team found themselves among the hedgerow parking lot of the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, which would have been a peaceful scene if not for the roar of the Chinook’s rotors, the artificial windstorm caused by its presence and the rushing crowds hurrying to avoid the armed men now approaching them.

Lyons wasn’t happy about terrifying civilians in this way, and he was keenly aware of the danger presented by a spooked crowd. As the three advanced, each one of them shouted, “Government agents. Remain calm. We are authorized Justice Department agents. Do not panic.”

He wondered if an armed man shouting “Do not panic” was likely to produce the desired effect. He doubted it.

Still, there was nothing they could do about it. There was a job to do, and Schwarz, in front with his whiz-bang techno-remote, was following some sort of sine-wave graphic on its tiny LCD screen. Carl Lyons didn’t care how it worked; the device was the domain of Gadgets Schwarz. As long as the device kept them from exploding when they got near the bomb, he was satisfied.

Someone shouted to call the police, and Lyons shot the woman a baleful glare. “We are the police,” he said.

She just stared at him, then repeated her appeal to call the police.

Well, that figured, and some part of him was proud of her for not simply bowing to asserted authority. Too many people could be fooled into doing what they were told by people who meant them harm, simply because the predators of the world counted on bullying their victims into submission.

The farmer’s market was an open-air covered pavilion that stretched in two different directions, forming an L-shape. It was quite large, and secondary sections containing booths and display tables jutted out at different points along the building. There was food for sale, some of it obviously still cooking as those preparing it fled their posts. There was also a ton of flea-market-style junk. Everything from garage-sale electronics to new, Chinese-made tourist-trap merchandise was arrayed for sale on line after line of folding tables.

“Have you got it?” Lyons asked.

“Tracking a firm trace signal,” Schwarz reported.

Blancanales shooed an attractive young woman in a halter top out of his way, somehow managing to be charming while doing it, and Lyons shook his head. Blancanales could get lucky in the strangest places.

They searched up and down each aisle. All the crap on the tables was starting to look the same, as far as Carl Lyons was concerned. Then, suddenly, the device in Schwarz’s hands seemed to light up like a Christmas tree. He stopped, examining a table covered in old, obsolete video game consoles that looked like they had been rolled down a hill and then run through a rock tumbler.

“Here!” Schwarz said. “It’s right here!”

Lyons realized then that he was pointing with the scanner at a gunmetal-gray box on the table that he had first thought to be one of the console games. It was, on closer inspection, one of the Iranian smart bombs.

Blancanales and Lyons took up stations on either side of Schwarz, covering a flank. The three men had worked and fought together for so long that very few words needed to pass between them; they knew their jobs, and they knew how to protect their own.

“Leave the area immediately,” Lyons ordered the few brave souls who still stood and watched, milling around nearby. “You won’t be in any danger if you leave immediately, but this device could produce noxious fumes. You don’t want to inhale them.”

The crowd moved off. Schwarz shot Lyons a look. “‘Noxious fumes’? Underselling the whole nerve-gas thing, aren’t you?”

“Shut up, Gadgets,” Lyons said. He smiled, though. This was an old game they played. Both men knew they didn’t want to create a panic—or any more of a panic than they had already caused with their arrival. Already he could hear police sirens in the distance. If Price was doing her job, and she of course would be, the Farm would even now be relaying orders to the local authorities, instructing them to maintain a cordon around the target site but not to interfere with the government agents operating within it.

The locals always hated that, and Lyons didn’t blame them. He’d worn the badge and been part of the thin blue line himself. Nobody liked the jurisdictional crap from the Feds. There was simply no other way, and this was going to play out again and again as Jack Grimaldi ferried them into and out of one municipality and then the next. They were going to stomp a lot of feet before this was over. The alternative was wading through the usual bureaucratic red tape, and he was not going to allow that. People would die before the folks keeping chairs warm with their asses figured out what had to be done to keep the populace safe from Ovan’s terror network. He supposed he couldn’t blame the local law enforcement for not understanding the threat of a network they didn’t know about; Ovan and his terrorists were classified government information, their existence a closely guarded U.S. intelligence secret at this point.

By the time Able and Phoenix were done with Ovan, it was Lyons’s hope that no American civilian would ever need to hear of Ovan’s network. The men in it, and perhaps Ovan himself, would be extinct.

Schwarz, careful to keep the scanner device trained on the box as he approached it, was already holding down a switch, and Lyons thought he could hear a high-pitched whine coming from the scanner. Schwarz then placed the unit in contact with the smart bomb and pressed several more buttons. Lights began to cycle in a definite pattern.

“This bomb,” Schwarz said, “is fully active. According to the scanner it hasn’t completed its acclimation algorithm.”

“It’s what now?” Lyons asked absently. He was watching for threats over the barrel of his Daewoo.

“The bomb has to do a bunch of computer sampling,” Schwarz said, still holding the scanner in contact with the device. “The CIA first told us about it, and Akira and I verified in testing with devices not carrying explosive charges. When it’s placed, it has to go through an orientation phase, if you want to call it that, so its computer brain can get its bearings. It can’t be moved during the orientation or the calibration is all screwy and it just goes off at a random interval.”

“That what happened to the three puddles they pulled out of that shopping mall?”

“No way to tell,” Schwarz said, “but it’s the most likely explanation. Of course, we don’t know for certain that trying to deactivate the bomb like this won’t set it off.”

“We don’t?” Lyons asked. He caught the wink that Schwarz shot Blancanales, though.

“How long does it take?” Blancanales asked. He waved off a pair of women in shorts and tank tops who were starting to edge closer from the hedgerow parking lot. “Please, ladies,” he ordered. “Move along.”

“Still pulling the chicks, eh?” Schwarz said without looking up from his work.

“You know it,” Blancanales said smoothly.

The status LEDs on Schwarz’s scanner suddenly turned green. There was a metal clicking noise from inside the bomb casing. Schwarz looked at Lyons, then to Blancanales, and placed the scanner back in a padded pouch on his web gear.

“What are you—?” Lyons started to say.

Schwarz reached out and pressed the buttons on either side of the case. He opened the bomb like a suitcase and let the top rest against the table, revealing the inset spheres of the explosives.

Blancanales whistled.

Schwarz reached inside and, as Lyons winced, pressed a catch that released each of the spheres. Then he removed them. A contact wire trailed from each sphere. Schwarz produced a multitool from his web gear and used the wire cutters to snip the wires just aft of the connection to each sphere. Then he placed the spheres gently back in their receptacles.

The Able Team electronics genius pointed to the bomb case.

“The bouncing betty balls here,” he said, “have simple contact switches connecting their fuses to the computer’s brain. When they’re expelled from the bomb through breakaway hatches in the outer casing, they pull free from the fuses, and that’s what causes them to go off. They’re harmless now.”

“Really?” Lyons asked.

“Well, as harmless as a sphere of plastic explosive laced with solidified nerve toxin ever gets. I’m not saying I’d leave them out for the neighborhood kids to play with.”

“Good call,” Lyons said. “Let’s collect those and get the hell out of here.” He was grateful for the chopper still beating the air in the field nearby, its rotor thrum a heartbeat to the action here in the market. Getting on that chopper and flying away meant they wouldn’t have to deal with any awkward questions from the local law enforcement.

“Wait!” Schwarz said. He pulled the scanner from his web gear; it was beeping. “I’m getting…yes, I’m getting another localized signal. It’s not a full trace, just back-scatter, but it’s strong. The profile fits that of a device that’s online but not activated.”

“Another device…here?” Lyons asked.

“Yes, somewhere close.” Schwarz nodded.

“Go,” Lyons ordered. “Find it.”

Schwarz was off again, the scanner in his hands pointed in front of him. His M-16 was still slung and he used his free hand to pull the Beretta 93-R to allow him to track and shoot at the same time.

“This way,” Schwarz directed.

They followed the electronics expert as he made his way into the hedgerow parking lot. Here, winding rows of man-tall shrubbery separated each curving dirt path. Cars were parked on either side of the paths, and to exit the market, drivers would have to take a circuitous route through the twisting rows and back around the rear of the market to reach the nearest paved road.

Schwarz began moving back and forth among the rows of parked cars, spooking even more civilians. Lyons and Blancanales urged them to get back beyond the police cordon, the flashing lights of which he could see beyond the hedgerows.

“Get out of here!” Lyons snarled at one group of teenagers.

Schwarz moved like a dog following a scent, this way and that, watching the telltales of the scanner unit rise and fall. At the end of the furthest hedgerow, Lyons put a hand on Schwarz’s shoulder and told him to stop.

“What?” Schwarz asked.

“There,” Lyons said. He pointed.

Sitting at the end of the parking lane was a battered black cargo van. The windows were tinted, darker than was probably legal, and a cardboard sun screen bearing the cartoon image of a giant pair of sunglasses obscured the front windshield.

The van rocked slightly to the left, then the right.

“Signal’s coming from there,” Schwarz confirmed. “And obviously there’s someone in there.”

“Or a lot of someones,” Lyons said. He nodded to Blancanales, who nodded back and broke away, moving around to cover the rear right quarter of the vehicle. “Now for the part I hate.”

“What part is that?” Schwarz asked from his position at the front of the van.

“The part where they start shooting after I demand they come out,” Lyons said. “You in the van!” he roared at full volume.

Lyons was hitting the dirt even before the shots came, but they came. The hollow metallic clatter of a Kalashnikov beat the interior of the van like a drum. Bullets sprayed from the rear windows and even blindly through the body of the vehicle. The engine started.

“Go for the tires,” Lyons ordered.

Blancanales and Schwarz immediately fired into the front and rear tires of the vehicle, which was already moving. The dirt and gravel beneath the shredded wheels flew up in great plumes as the vehicle’s powerful engine urged it forward. Lyons pushed himself to his feet and jogged ahead; the van might be moving, but it wasn’t doing so very quickly. Lining up his shot carefully to prevent catching his partners’ positions, he lowered the barrel of the USAS-12, flicked the weapon’s selector switch to full-auto and held back the trigger.

Heavy 12-gauge slugs poured from the barrel of the weapon. Lyons rode out the tremendous muzzle-rise of the weapon, firing from the hip, watching the heavy slugs tear apart the grille of the van. The hood was blown up on its hinges as the engine screamed in torment. The van shuddered to a halt.

The sliding door was shoved aside, as the rear doors were thrown open.

“Here they come,” Lyons said, his words carried to Able Team by his transceiver.

“Got it,” Blancanales said.

“Let ’er rip,” Schwarz said.

The terrorists spilled out, almost falling over each other. There were three of them. The one who scrambled out the side door was easy pickings; he tried to level his Kalashnikov at Lyons. The big cop let his USAS-12 fall to the end of its single-point sling and withdrew his Colt Python with deadly speed, pulling through double-action to send a Magnum round punching through the man’s face.

Schwarz and Blancanales fired short, measured bursts of their own, dropping their adversaries. Lyons holstered his Python and reloaded a new drum magazine in his shotgun. He advanced on the van.

“Check them!” Lyons said. “If anybody’s still alive we need medical attention rolling.” A live prisoner might mean valuable intelligence about the terrorist network Ovan was fielding. Lyons didn’t like the idea that technology was their only lead in this mission. The cop in him told him they needed something else, some human element, some information that would give them an edge over their enemies. With only an electronic leash to lead them around, they were vulnerable. If they lost the initiative he wasn’t sure they’d be able to get it back, and that worried him. Too many lives were riding on this…and the terrorist attack on the mall was already all over the news, cycling through the twenty-four-hour cable networks. More attacks would raise public response to the level of panic. Nobody wanted that…and Able Team, thanks to their one-of-a-kind gizmo and the Warlock network, were the three men standing between Ovan’s terrorists and complete chaos in the United States.

No, he didn’t like the idea at all. But he would do his job, and so would Blancanales and Schwarz. They always did.

“Nothing here,” Schwarz said.

“Mine’s dead,” Blancanales reported.

Lyons didn’t bother to look at his man; there was no surviving the head shot that gunner had suffered.

Inside the van, he found another one.

The gunman was slumped in a corner of the cargo area, a Makarov pistol on the floor beside him. There was a bullet hole in his temple and a spray of blood on the interior of the van above and behind him.

In his free hand was a cell phone. A voice on the other end was still speaking.

Lyons picked it up and listened. He handed it to Schwarz, who listened. The connection was terminated from the other end.

“Probably Turkmen,” Schwarz guessed. “Not in my repertoire.”

Lyons pocketed the phone. “Jack,” he said. “Are you reading us?”

“Loud and clear,” Grimaldi answered from the chopper.

“Have a courier detailed to meet us, soonest,” he said. “Coordinate with your flight plan, however we can work it out. I’ve got a cell phone here that I want analyzed.”

“Will do.”

Lyons glanced into the back of the van. Two of the suitcase-size bombs were inside. “They’re not active?” he asked.

“Not according to this,” Schwarz said, pointing the scanner at the bombs.

“Then let’s pack them up and get back on the chopper,” Lyons said, looking around. “We’re only just getting started.”

CHAPTER THREE

Tehran, Iran

The Volkswagen diesel microbus pulled up to the curb as the men of Phoenix Force, completely unarmed and traveling under the false papers of Canadian reporters from a fictional news outlet, left Imam Khomeini International Airport. Named for the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, the airport had been closed and reopened several times in the scuffle over whether or not the facility was run by foreign contractors. David McCarter remembered reading some years back that the airport’s runway had supposedly been built over ancient subterranean waterways and was therefore somehow unstable. Nothing had given way when their Kish Air flight from Dubai had landed, however. McCarter was grateful for that, and grateful that they were done bouncing around all over the globe to complete their successful transit into hostile territory. He grew tired of the secret-agent games and sometimes wondered if they ever truly fooled anyone for long.

Unarmed as he was, McCarter knew a moment’s concern when he sat in the passenger seat of the van. If the man meeting them wasn’t who he was supposed to be, there would be little they could do about it.

“Hello,” the man behind the wheel said as he guided the van away from the loading and unloading area. “My name is Ghaem Ahmadi. I am officially a well-placed operative within the Iranian Internal Security force.”

“Officially?” McCarter asked.

“Unofficially, Uncle Sam asks me to extend his greetings on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency.” Ahmadi smiled. He had a gap-toothed grin set wide in a smooth, olive-skinned face. His dark eyes and round face gave him an almost somber look, as if he was in mourning, and the smile that creased his features seemed incongruous. He wore nondescript civilian clothing and a light windbreaker, much as the members of Phoenix Force did.

“Pleased to meet you,” McCarter said. “A little birdie tells me the weather here’s doing okay lately.”

“It is hotter than Texas but drier than Arizona,” Ahmadi said, and grimaced at the awkward code phrases. “You are satisfied?”

“I am,” McCarter said. “I imagine you’d be hauling us to a dungeon somewhere if you weren’t.”

“I imagine as much, as well,” Ahmadi said.

They traveled in silence for a time. It was a relatively clear day in a city known for its cloying smog. Mc Carter could see Milad Tower in the distance, and beyond that, the Alborz mountains were visible. As they moved through the city he was struck by how modern and cosmopolitan it looked and felt. It wasn’t at all the type of backward, repressive society he knew it to be, not from the outside. Of course, you didn’t have to look far to see the fear in people’s eyes whenever one of the uniformed paramilitary Iranian Internal Security goons neared. The IIS had been one of the innovations Magham’s government had brought to an already oppressed people. The paramilitary IIS squads strutted through the streets of the city as if they owned it—which, for all intents and purposes, they did.

The city was home to some eight million people, thirteen million if you included the surrounding metro area. It was also the governmental capital and economic hub of Iran, although McCarter thought he remembered reading that the government was still mulling over moving the seat of government to another location. He didn’t suppose that would make too much difference in terms of the mission ahead of them. He was, however, only too aware that he and his men were deep in a country that was no friend to the United States, with very little recourse should things go awry. They were heavily dependent on the extensive network the CIA had developed covertly in Iran.

“You are fidgeting in your seat,” Ahmadi said. “I believe I know why.” His round face again crinkled into something like a smile as he gestured to the men in the rear bench seats. His accent was pronounced, but he was clearly fluent in English.

“Let’s just say I am very attuned to our situation,” McCarter said.

Ahmadi laughed. “I like how this is put. Yes. I like it.” He gestured again. “Very discreetly, look under your seats. I received a special request for you, Mister…?”

“David,” McCarter said. The team would use their first names only in a covert situation like this.

“Mr. David.” Ahmadi smiled again. “I received a special request for the leader of my guests, and I did what I could to provide for the others.”

McCarter reached under his seat and felt a familiar shape: the grip of a Browning Hi-Power, as it turned out. He checked the weapon as best he could, keeping it low near the floor to prevent it from being seen by pedestrians and other drivers. There was a clip-on holster that he affixed inside his waistband, under his windbreaker, and a small mountain of extra magazines that he placed in his pockets.

He glanced back to see that his teammates had been provided with similar setups and Glock pistols, the compact Model 19. He nodded his approval to Ahmadi.

“The Glock 19 is the pistol of the IIS,” he explained. “Relatively easy for me to get. Untraceable except back to the armory of the IIS. The Browning was more difficult, but all things are possible with motivation.”

“Much appreciated.” McCarter nodded. “Were you able to get us anything heavier?”

“There is a bag containing two folding-stock AKS-74U rifles in the back,” Ahmadi said. “Loaded magazines for both, as well. It was the most I could get and, realistically, the most you can expect to carry without raising suspicions.”

McCarter was inclined to agree. The 5.45x39 millimeter Krinkov rifles had short barrels and were designed to be compact; they would fit into a small bag easily enough. That would be more or less the limit of what they could display openly. If the Phoenix Force veterans were trooping all over Iran’s largest city carrying bags large enough to house assault rifles for all of them, it would look out of place. One man with a duffel bag was a man with a duffel bag. Five were suspicious.

“So where do we begin, Ghaem?”

“First, I have one last item for you all,” the Iranian said. He reached into the pocket behind his seat and pulled out a small cloth bag. He handed it to McCarter, who looked inside and discovered five personal radios. The radios had wireless headsets. They weren’t as small as the self-contained transceivers Phoenix Force often used, but there had been no way to smuggle those into Iran without risking giving themselves away. The team did have their secure satellite phones, which provided them with a very important data link to Stony Man. The encrypted units could pass for ordinary Iridium satellite phones, and only the access codes known to Phoenix Force would enable an operator to use the phones at all.

“What’s the range of these?” McCarter asked.

“A few city blocks,” Ahmadi said. “No more. These are scrambled. They are reasonably secure unless someone with similar hardware chooses to make it his business to listen.”

“Someone…like whom?” McCarter asked.

“One of my good friends from the CIA, for example.” Ahmadi waved one hand. “It is unlikely to be a problem. I do not foresee anyone going out of the way to help us.”

“So, mate,” McCarter asked again, “you’re our guide. To where can you guide us?”

“There is a safehouse,” Ahmadi said. “We have traced its rental to a holding company that we believe is ultimately owned by agents of Ovan’s government. Now is a very good time to strike that safehouse.”

“Why is that?”

“There are three rallies scheduled for supporters of Magham today. The safehouse, which is being used by Ovan’s terror network, is the logical place for them to prepare for their attacks. We can intercept them and perhaps deal a very telling blow to the entire network in a single day. Without your operatives such a move would not have been possible before. There was thought in Washington that the situation here in Iran was best dealt with…quietly. I imagine there are those within the agency who think your intervention is akin to using a hammer to kill ants. You may get some of the ants, they will say, but you will miss many more, and you will anger the colony.”

“Do you feel the same way?”

“I do not,” Ahmadi said. “I have fought long and hard to help bring about, in whatever small way I can, a free and democratic Iran. I was a young man when I became a traitor to my country and allowed myself to be recruited by the CIA. But the slow approach is…slow. We have seen so little real change, and every time my people shout for democracy, for freedom, they are crushed under boot heels with greater force. The beginning of the IIS was the beginning of the worst wave of terror and oppression we have seen. It is time for more direct methods. I welcome them.”

“Fair enough,” McCarter said.

“Do your men require rest before we can go?” Ahmadi asked. “We could spare perhaps an hour or two and still have enough time before the first of the rallies.”

McCarter glanced back at his teammates, who shook their heads or otherwise silently indicated no. He did the same. “We’re ready,” he said.

“Then so am I.”

Ahmadi drove them through ever-narrowing streets, and McCarter was struck by the age of Tehran, by its mixture of architectures, by the weight of its past pressing in from all sides. He laughed at himself, wondering why he was doing so much bloody woolgathering, and reminded himself to focus on the task at hand.

“Comm check,” McCarter whispered. He listened as each of his men responded in kind, their whispers amplified in the wireless earpiece he wore. “All right,” he said as Ahmadi continued to delve deeper into the city, squeezing down alleyways that McCarter thought for certain would rip the side mirrors from the microbus. He finally stopped in a dimly lighted corridor between two recently built concrete buildings. He pointed through the front windshield.

“There,” he said. “The safehouse is there, accessible only through the front door, on the street opposite, and by this metal door at the rear.”

“How secure is that door?” McCarter asked.

“Not at all,” Ahmadi said. “The lock is…damaged. It will give with enough pressure.”

“Damaged, eh?” McCarter asked. “I wonder who might have damaged it for us?”

“I would not know.” Ahmadi looked up and in any direction but at McCarter. “Perhaps a man with a small, quiet cordless drill could damage the lock in the night. Who is to say? The ways of vandals are mysterious.”

“Indeed they are,” McCarter said.

“It’s a bottleneck,” Rafael Encizo said.

“Unfortunately,” Ahmadi agreed. “But works against us also works for us.”

“Works for us,” McCarter agreed. “You stay here, Ghaem. We need you at the wheel for a fast getaway, mate.”

“This I understand,” Ahmadi said, although he looked somewhat disappointed. “I shall keep the engine running.”

McCarter nodded. “Let’s go, then, lads.”

The only concealment for the operation was provided by the alley itself. Under other circumstances McCarter would have detailed at least two men to take the front while the remaining three breached the rear. As it was, he had to hope they could overcome the enemy within using only surprise and ruthlessness.

“Rafe, T.J., take the rifles,” McCarter directed. “You’re the exterminators, lads. Go in first, spray the bugs out. We’ll follow and mop up.”

The men of Phoenix Force hit the pavement and arrayed themselves on either side of the door.

“Gary.” McCarter pointed. The big Canadian’s tree-trunk legs were just what the situation called for. Manning moved into position and, with his Glock drawn, planted one foot solidly against the door.

The metal door sprang inward as something gave. Encizo and Hawkins were immediately through the opening, their Krinkov assault rifles chattering.

McCarter came through the doorway with his Hi-Power ready. There were several tables, each really a tall counter, and on these tables were arrayed a variety of weapons. Most were AKs, some of them stripped. There were a few pistols, some of them exotic or obscure enough that even McCarter would have had to pause to identify them. There were boxes of ammunition, maps, and on the wall, he caught a glimpse of a map of Tehran with certain targets marked in red felt pen.

A burst of gunfire nearly took his head off.

He ducked behind the cover of one of the tall counters. These were solid, not standing on individual legs, but they couldn’t be more than studs and drywall, because bullets were passing right through them. At the opposite end of the room, several gunmen were blazing away, and midway between McCarter’s position and theirs, Encizo and Hawkins were holding their own.

McCarter bided his time. He waited, sensing the rhythm of the gunfight. A burst from the enemy…an answering burst from his men…a few shots from the Glocks held by James and Manning. They were firing from the rearmost position, from outside the doorway, covering the exit. From where he crouched McCarter could see the front door, and he could see that their opposition was pinned down. Going for the front door would expose the enemy and allow Phoenix Force to take them down.

Stalemate.

Not on my watch, McCarter thought. He stood and braved the gunfire as he half crouched and ran from table to table, zigzagging this way and that. The maneuver did what he had hoped it would: it drew the attention and the fire of the enemy at the opposite end of the room. That was the break that Encizo and Hawkins needed. They worked their way forward with their Krinkovs and began firing anew, advancing as they covered each other.

One man went down in a hail of bullets. Another fell over him as he, too, was tagged. McCarter threw himself behind the dubious safety of the closest counter and was covered in drywall dust as bullets from the remaining shooters punched through it.

The gunfire stopped.

“Clear!” Encizo shouted.

“Clear!” Hawkins repeated.

He heard Manning and James sound off, as well. Standing cautiously, McCarter didn’t bother to brush himself off. He kept the Hi-Power at the ready while he made sure there were no lurking targets behind him or on his flanks. The other men of Phoenix Force had presumably done the same before sounding the all-clear.

“Everyone intact?” McCarter asked.

Again the team members sounded off; no one was injured badly. James had taken a scratch across the forearm that was not truly a graze. It was bleeding but not badly. He was careful to use a handkerchief from his pocket to make sure he didn’t leave a telltale puddle of blood behind, though. It was unlikely any of the Iranian authorities would conduct DNA analysis, but it paid to be meticulous. The men of Phoenix Force took their jobs seriously and were well experienced in them.

Ahmadi entered the back, careful to announce himself. “We do not have much time,” he said. “We must move quickly. The gunfire will have attracted attention, and even here, where IIS raids are common, someone will have called the authorities. They will come to investigate.”

“Then let’s get what there is and get gone, lads,” McCarter said. “Rafael, watch the front. T.J., you monitor the rear. The rest of you, let’s sweep this room. Turn up anything you can. Turn it inside out if you must, but let’s do it with haste.”

McCarter, James and Manning began working their way from one end of the room to the other, like searchers beating a field for a missing person. They tossed the gear on the tables and checked every piece of furniture in the Spartan room, looking for anything that might be squirreled away.

“Nothing,” James finally said. Ahmadi had produced a first-aid kit and was wrapping the tall black man’s arm tightly in gauze. James tucked the bloody handkerchief in a pocket; he would dispose of it later.

“Something about this is not right,” the Iranian agent said.

“Do I hear sirens?” Encizo asked from the door.

They heard it, then, the foghorn cadence of the peculiar sirens the Iranians used.

“That is IIS, without doubt,” Ahmadi said.

“Then let’s go right now.” McCarter pointed to the door.

They filed out. As they were climbing into the microbus, Ahmadi had a thought and actually slapped his forehead.

“What?” McCarter said.

“The lights,” he said. “I did not check the lights.”

McCarter didn’t bother to ask what that meant. He simply gestured for Ahmadi to move. The Iranian operative leaped from the vehicle and went back through the rear door, while McCarter seated himself behind the wheel.

“David.” Manning pointed from his seat. At the end of the alleyway, they could see the flashing lights of what had to be security vehicles.

Ahmadi came running from the building. “Go!” he shouted. “Go!”

McCarter stepped on it. The little microbus was surprisingly responsive. He put the vehicle into Reverse and accelerated, putting distance between them and the alleyway. At the first junction, he took a hard reverse left, scraping the side of the van against a concrete building as he did so.

“Switch with me!” McCarter told Ahmadi. “I have no bloody idea where I’m going!”

Ahmadi managed to move himself into position and take the wheel as McCarter slid out of the seat, then planted himself behind the controls. The van careened from one side of the alley to the other, and this time one of the mirrors did get ripped off. Ahmadi muttered something that was definitely a curse, though it was apparently in Persian.

“What was it you went looking for?” McCarter asked as Ahmadi brought the little microbus back under control at last. The Iranian did not answer until he took several more turns, then looked back to make sure they were not being pursued.

“That,” he said at last, “was much closer than I might have liked.”

“Well?” McCarter asked again.

“My apologies,” Ahmadi said. He reached into his jacket and removed a device. It was a pair of wires connected to a small metal box. He handed it to McCarter, and the Briton put the box against the metal of the door frame on his side, watching it stick there.

“Magnetized.”

“It is a bug,” Ahmadi said. “We have had good success with that particular model. It is preferred to fit it somewhere there is electrical wiring, such as in light fixtures.”

“A bug?” McCarter asked.

“Yes,” Ahmadi confirmed. “There were far too few men at the safehouse. And we found weapons, but not nearly enough. Ovan’s terrorist network is much more advanced, much better equipped than this.”

“Offhand,” James said, “I think I’m glad there weren’t more of them in that particular room.”

“This I understand,” Ahmadi said. “But I do not think you realize what this means.”

“The room was bugged,” McCarter said. “Understood. But there’s nothing they can use against us. How does this line up with there being too few men present?”

“No.” Ahmadi shook his head, spinning the wheel as he took one hard turn, then another. “Iranian Internal Security, even Ovan’s terrorist network, they do not use this equipment. This is my equipment.”

“The bug is—” McCarter began.

“That is standard-issue CIA surveillance equipment,” Ahmadi said. “I have used its like many times. I have never seen this particular unit, nor am I aware of any success in attempting to bug this structure. It has always been too well-guarded for us to risk it. At least, that was my understanding.”

“So you didn’t put this here and you don’t know of anyone else who did,” McCarter said.

“Correct.” Ahmadi nodded.

“And you think our boys were tipped off to expect trouble and effected at least a partial evacuation of the premises?”

“Unless they have moved up their timetable, it is the only explanation. They may be deployed at the rallies, which means we will meet greater difficulty in attempting to safeguard Magham’s people and supporters from the terrorists. Or it may be another problem entirely. There may be a mole within the CIA.”

“Bloody hell,” McCarter said.

CHAPTER FOUR

Syracuse, New York

The local minor-league baseball team was featuring a promotional night when door prizes were offered to fans. Carl Lyons couldn’t tell what the door prize was as they neared, but he didn’t suppose that it mattered.

Grimaldi and the Chinook waited in the middle of a vacant parking lot for a nearby weekend market. Fortunately they had not yet drawn a crowd, but that was inevitable. Mindful of the huge crowd inside the stadium, however, the men of Able Team had opted to leave their long-arms in the chopper. Lyons was already going through shotgun withdrawal as they took the steps leading to the stadium two at a time. Schwarz was trying to be discreet with his scanner, but Lyons couldn’t see any point in trying to hide too much. There was no way they could pass off as normal what was essentially a raid on a civilian location.

“Lead on,” Lyons urged as Schwarz once more took the lead.

Lyons felt exposed and worried that Schwarz was especially vulnerable. He liked that phone in the hands of the dead terrorist even less. The Warlock network had indicated that signals were coming from this location, and Able Team had opted to investigate the stadium first because it offered huge target potential. If the terrorists had come and gone, leaving their bombs behind, it was just possible that the smart bombs hadn’t yet detonated and could be neutralized without a gun battle. Much as he hated the thought of the terrorists planting their bombs and escaping undetected, Lyons had to admit that it would be preferable not to start spraying bullets in the company of…how many people? The stadium looked like it easily held a few thousand as he ran his eyes over the vacant and occupied seats.

They’d flashed their Justice Department ID coming through the gates, and now security personnel in black polo shirts were wandering around nearby, obviously wondering what was going on. Lyons figured his team could afford to ignore them for now. As long as they didn’t get in the way and as long as nothing went boom, it hardly mattered if a few of the locals gave Able Team the stink eye as they passed.

As they moved from the upper decks to the lower, and then to some access areas that were on the basement level of the stadium, Lyons fought an uneasy feeling of being watched. He hoped it was just his imagination. But if he was that dying terrorist and he’d had a chance to make one last phone call before he died, wouldn’t he have tried to warn the others in his network? It only made sense. And if they had been warned, and they were on-site, there was no telling what they might have planned.

Screw it. Lyons was disgusted with himself even for spending so much time dwelling on it. No matter how dangerous the job, of course, he and Blancanales and Schwarz would do it. The idea of worrying about their own hides when American lives were at stake never even entered into the equation. It was just that he, as team leader, had to worry from time to time. He had to worry about what would happen if they failed in their mission. That was the one thing Stony Man Farm could never do: fail. They had lost battles before and the ugly reality was that they would lose them again. But they could not afford to lose the war. The war was why Lyons had given up any hope of a normal life to dedicate himself to Able Team and to the Farm. He knew his teammates shared his drive and had made the same sacrifices.

They had lost many good men and women getting to this point. And it was all worth it. They fought because they had to. They fought because their country needed them. They fought because predators, monsters, killers like Ovan’s terrorists, sought to murder innocent men, women and children, and there had to be warriors like the men and women of Stony Man Farm to stand between those killers and the rest of the world.

“This door is locked,” Schwarz said. He was facing a fire door. The corridor of the access level was getting smaller. Lyons couldn’t tell where it went, but it was probably used for maintenance purposes. “This padlock looks brand-new.” The chain on the doors was indeed bright and polished, while the rest of the metal on that level looked scuffed and slightly rusted.

“I have a key,” Lyons said. He planted his combat-booted foot against the door, hard. Then he kicked it again. Then he did it again.

“You’re not going to break the padlock like that, Carl,” Schwarz said dryly.

“Don’t care about the padlock,” Lyons grunted. He heard the shriek of metal on metal as something started go give. “Care about the hinges.”

The hinges gave. The door, which had never been designed to sustain such an onslaught, fell aside at an angle, hanging on twisted flanges. Lyons shoved it aside and then waved down the corridor.

“Why, thank you, sir,” Schwarz said with an exaggerated flourish.

“Shut up and find me a bomb,” Lyons growled.

At the end of the corridor, they found a cluster of machinery whose purpose Lyons couldn’t guess.

“Sprinkler system,” Schwarz said.

“Thought they used AstroTurf in all these stadiums,” Lyons argued.

“Don’t you ever use the web browser on your phone?” Schwarz teased, referring to the secure satellite phones they all carried. “Read up on your local history, Carl. This stadium has had real turf for a few years now.”

“And I’m very happy for them.” Lyons’s growl turned deeper. “Find me a frigging bomb.”

The bomb casings looked like the ones they had found in Ithaca, New York, and they were chained together through the suitcaselike handles in a cluster at the rear of the machinery.

“Pol, the door,” Lyons directed. “Cover our backs. I’ll keep an eye on Gadgets.”

“And I get bomb duty,” Schwarz said. He pressed the scanner he had used to track the bombs to each of the devices, running the scanner across each bomb in a constantly moving pattern.

“Can’t you do one after the other?” Lyons asked.

“I’d rather get them all moving toward neutralization at once,” Schwarz said. “It helps disrupt the processors so that if the bombs are, well, thinking of going off, they won’t.”

“Great,” Lyons said.

“These are fully activated,” Schwarz explained, “and they’ve almost completed their calibration cycles. We were lucky. These could have gone off down here and spread a toxic cloud through most of the stadium.” Not far above them, they could hear the roar of the crowd as the home team did something worth cheering. The music playing over the PA reverberated through the ceiling. Lyons could feel it in his chest.

“We’ve got company!” Blancanales shouted from the doorway.

“What?” Lyons asked.

“Hostiles!” Blancanales yelled. “Coming down the corridor!”

Lyons cursed under his breath. Well, there was one way to handle it.

“Come on!” he shouted to Blancanales. “Gadgets! Watch your ass!”

“Thanks for thinking of me!” Schwarz called after them.

Lyons pulled his Colt Python from its shoulder holster. Blancanales, understanding the bold play the Able Team leader was running, raised his own weapon. Lyons just needed to verify that they weren’t staring down some errant security guards or even local police called to see what the hell was going on.

A pistol fired in their direction. Lyons could feel the bullet pass his face.

There was a knot of men moving down the corridor, all of them armed with handguns. Lyons could see one particularly large man behind the others. They were shouting to each other in something that almost sounded like Russian to Lyons’s ears; it was like the voice he had heard on the phone. It was probably Turkmen, and that meant that these men were Ovan’s operatives. It also meant they’d been lying in wait for Able Team, and that was very, very bad.

Forward, toward the danger. That was the only way.

Lyons roared, flattened himself against the wall of the corridor and started shooting.

The boom of the .357 Magnum rounds was deafening in the corridor. His first shots took out one, then another terrorist, and his crazed charge broke the enemy’s forward momentum. They had thought they were cornering their quarry. They had thought that, while the men they had waited to kill or capture weren’t helpless, they were at least at a disadvantage.

Lyons made his own advantages.

Screaming like madmen, the two Able Team soldiers continued to press their charge. Each time Lyons reloaded his Colt Python, Blancanales picked up the slack with his Beretta, filling the corridor with 9 mm destruction.

The tide turned. The men coming down the corridor began to back up, then broke, then fled. Lyons and Blancanales pursued. Foremost in Lyons’s mind was the fact that Schwarz was back there by himself, trying to defuse bombs that could kill thousands of people if he didn’t succeed. They had to make sure nothing interfered with that. They would have to shield Schwarz with their own bodies, if necessary.

Another man fell to a bullet. There were several ricochets around them, and Lyons ducked, taking a round in the arm that had expended most of its energy bouncing from the corridor wall. He gritted his teeth against the pain. There was some blood, but it didn’t feel as if the slug had penetrated very far.

Then all of the shooters were down, except one. He turned as if to run, and Blancanales tackled him.

Or he tried.

As he hit the big man’s legs, Blancanales realized that their opponent was almost a giant. He had to crouch to avoid scraping his head on the top of the corridor, and he seemed almost as broad through the shoulders as Blancanales was tall. The giant grunted as Blancanales hit his legs…and then he straightened, reaching around with one grizzly-bear-size palm to grab the back of Blancanales’s head. He threw Blancanales into the corridor then, and the Able Team warrior went slack, knocked out cold.

The gun that came up in the giant’s fist looked like a toy. There was an audible click as the hammer of the 1911-pattern .45 automatic failed to fire. It wasn’t locked back, but Lyons wasn’t going to wonder what gods of fate had prompted this misfire. He pulled the trigger of his Colt Python.

It clicked. He was empty.

The giant roared in laughter then, his whole body shaking. He had a lion’s mane of naturally curly black hair framing a face that could have been chipped from granite. Strangely piercing blue eyes stared out from his craggy face, and Lyons recognized that look. This was one of the two brothers mentioned at the briefing. This was Karbuly Ghemenizov, son of Nikolo Ovan and leader of Ovan’s terror network here in the United States.

Ghemenizov wasted no words. He threw himself at Lyons, the sheer weight of the man knocking the former L.A. cop onto his back. The Python skittered across the floor. The second he hit the corridor, Lyons understood the lethal danger. Going to the ground with a larger opponent like this was a sure way to get killed. If Ghemenizov mounted him and started to pound him with those ham-size fists, he would never get up again.

Lyons brought his feet up, scooting to one side, keeping his feet between Ghemenizov and himself. He fired several vicious kicks from that position, several times catching Ghemenizov painfully in the shins. The giant roared, then simply waded through the defense of Lyons’s legs. Lyons’s had just enough time to roll to the side to avoid being pinned when Ghemenizov landed on the floor of the corridor.

He was not fast enough to escape. The big terrorist grabbed him and hooked an arm around his neck. Lyons ducked through that, going for the crook of the elbow, escaping before the giant could apply pressure. That was the only thing that saved his life.

He wriggled free and managed to get to his feet as the giant also rose, still on top of him. Then a fist the size of a small moon was rocketing toward him. He tried to bring up his arm to block and felt the fist smash right past his guard and into his face. The blow bounced him off the wall of the narrow access corridor. Stars exploded in his vision and bright spots swam in front of his eyes.

One of his martial-arts instructors had once counseled him, “Never celebrate the hit.” It was the sensei’s way of telling him not to waste time reacting to a blow, no matter how painful. The appropriate response to being hit was to hit back harder.

Lyons fired a punch with everything he had. He felt as if he’d struck a brick wall, but he put all his power behind it anyway, following through with every fiber of his being. Ghemenizov howled and actually rocked back slightly.

Lyons didn’t know how much damage he was doing and didn’t care. Half blind, he began punching and kicking, throwing knees and round kicks and elbow strikes, anything and everything he could summon. He mixed in ax-hand strikes and hammer fists, too, fighting for his life, driving back the monster who towered over him.

He felt something give in the big man’s torso, possibly a rib.

With a bellow of inhuman fury, Ghemenizov started to drive Lyons back. He fought with little technique, using his natural strength and ferocity, but this he had in abundance. Lyons felt the shock wave of every blow as the giant hammered away at him. Then, as he reeled under the onslaught, he heard the giant speak.

“You wonder, don’t you,” Ghemenizov whispered, his accent sounding like nothing so much as thickly Russian. “You wonder why I waited. Why I watched you tamper with my little bombs. I know you stopped the bombs in the little market. We were warned. I wanted to see. I like to see my foes, see who dares to challenge me, before I crush them.”

Then he was done talking, apparently. Ghemenizov grabbed Lyons, now dazed, by the throat with one hand, wrapping his fingers in the leather of Lyons’s bomber jacket with the other. He started squeezing, and Lyons could only hammer away ineffectually at the big man’s arms. He tried to reach for the tactical folding knife he kept clipped to his pants’ pocket, but he could not find it; it had apparently been dislodged during the struggle.

“You are very strong,” the giant said in his ear, still squeezing.

Lyons could feel his vision start to go gray around the edges. Black spots replaced the bright blobs he had seen before.

“I like a good fight. You have given me one. But you, like everyone who faces me, have lost. I enjoy making people lose. I enjoy hurting them. I have enjoyed hurting you.”

He threw Lyons to the floor, and the big cop felt the floor strike his face with unyielding finality. Some part of his mind could picture Ghemenizov raising a large foot to stomp him. A man like this would relish stomping on a fallen enemy.

Schwarz would have been able to deactivate the bombs by now. He and Blancanales would be able to continue the fight. He, Carl Lyons, would not be the first Stony Man warrior to fall in the line of duty, at the hands of a brutal foe.

He only regretted that he would not be able to complete the mission and destroy Ovan’s network—

The shots, when they came, sounded strangely distant. Lyons realized then that he was hearing the triple bursts of Schwarz’s Beretta 93-R. He faded for a moment, then came back, then faded again. Finally he opened his eyes and looked up at the face of Hermann Schwarz.

“Oh, thank God,” Schwarz said. “I thought I was going to have to give you mouth to mouth.”

Blancanales’s face came into view. He looked sheepish. “Come on, Ironman. We’ve got to keep moving.”

“Did you get him?”

“No,” Schwarz said. “He got away. With you and Pol both down I didn’t dare go after him and leave you and the bombs unattended.”

“It was…Karbuly Ghemenizov. Head of their terror network here. Should have…gone after him.”

“And let your brains leak out all over this floor?” Schwarz said with a half grin. “Not likely, Carl. Come on. We’ve got to get the deactivated bombs back to the chopper.”

“Police?”

“Not coming unless somebody thought we should have paid at the gate,” Schwarz said. “The noise down here was probably nothing like gunfire to the folks upstairs.” They could still hear the music and cheering of the game above.

“You saved my life,” Lyons said.

“Pol’s, too,” Schwarz said. “I keep reminding him.”

“Help me up,” Lyons said.

His teammates helped the big blond cop get to his feet.

“How do you feel?” Schwarz asked.

“I just got the shit beaten out of me by a giant Cossack,” Lyons said. “How do you think I feel?”

“Well, you’re alive enough to be grumpy,” Schwarz said, helping him down the corridor as Blancanales covered them both. “I imagine you’ll live.”

“Shut up, Gadgets.”

“It looks like he mostly pounded on your skull,” Schwarz went on. “That should mean you’ll be fine in just a little while.”

“Shut up, Gadgets.”

They continued bickering as they made their way back to the Chinook. Grimaldi wasted no time asking questions. He simply put the heavy helicopter back into the air. “We’ve got our next target,” he reported. “The Farm says Warlock has pinpointed another set of signals in Albany, New York. That’s where we’re headed.”

“All right.” Lyons nodded wearily.

Blancanales retrieved the chopper’s well-equipped first-aid kit and went to work. He started probing at Lyons’s chest. The big cop breathed in heavily but refused to give in to the pain any more than that.

“I don’t think your ribs are broken,” Blancanales said finally. “Although I couldn’t say why not, from what Gadgets says happened. All I remember is a sensation of flying, and then the wall and I got to know each other.”

“He wasn’t the most fun person you’ll ever meet,” Lyons said.

The chopper was headed east. Lyons could tell from the position of the sun. They spoke over the noise of the chopper as Grimaldi flew them. Lyons hoped there would be enough time. Whoever was in position in Albany, Karbuly Ghemenizov wouldn’t be there…but there was no point in searching the city of Syracuse for him. He wouldn’t be staying there, unless it was to plant more bombs, and if he did so, the Warlock network would find him.

Lyons hoped so.

“You’re looking pretty grim, Carl,” Schwarz said, less teasing now. “You all right?”

“I don’t like getting my ass kicked.”

“Did you see that guy?” Schwarz asked. “He could beat up a marching band and have energy left over for the color guard.”

“That has to be the strangest comparison I’ve ever heard.”

“Quiet,” Schwarz said. “Your brain is scrambled and you’re not in my right mind.”

“Gadgets?”

“Yes, Carl?”

“Shut up.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Tehran, Iran

The irony that they were fighting to protect supporters and party officials belonging to the hard-line tyrant now holding Iran’s presidency was not lost on David McCarter. The strange complication of the surveillance equipment, unaccounted for, worried him a great deal, but there was nothing to be done about that now. They would have to play out the hand they had been dealt. It would do no good to concern themselves with factors whose import was not discernible yet.

The small cafeteria hall that was the site of the first rally boasted a crowd of a few hundred people. Phoenix Force, at Ahmadi’s urging, insinuated themselves into the crowd toward the back. There were a few token security personnel here and there, from what they could tell. These men wore no uniforms and, while they carried wireless radios, did not appear to be armed.

The front of the cafeteria hall had been decorated with banners bearing Magham’s photograph and some sort of slogan. None of McCarter’s team would have been able to understand it even if they could read the writing, but of course that was irrelevant. A podium had been erected, and one of several speakers who Ahmadi had said was a minor party functionary was now going on in Persian. He sounded boring even in an incomprehensible language, McCarter thought, and it didn’t surprise him that politics was dull no matter what the cultural environment.

The plan, inasmuch as they were able to create one, was simply to stay among the crowd unless and until a terrorist hit was enacted. It was a stopgap measure; McCarter would much have preferred to go directly to the heart of the matter but, as Brognola had said, there were certain political concerns. The big Fed would not come right out and say it in so many words in the briefing, but they all understood that there were certain political exigencies at stake. It wasn’t enough to destroy Ovan or to smash Magham. The men involved had to be exposed so that the world would know why such men had been destroyed and smashed. Thus the weight of public opinion would not be thrown too hard against those few industrialized nations still willing to combat terror in the world.

The real difficulty here would be in pulling off armed resistance to the attack without ending up in the hands of the Iranian authorities. At the thought, McCarter realized it was odd that this rally, supporting as it did the current government’s regime, boasted no Iranian Internal Security agents. He edged closer to Ahmadi, who now wore a radio just as did Phoenix Force’s members. Their conversation would be inaudible to anyone not wearing such an earpiece.

“Ghaem, lad,” McCarter said softly. “Where is the IIS in all this?”

“It is indeed curious,” Ahmadi said. “Usually, Magham’s operatives travel with them in plentiful number.”

“Not that I’m complaining, mate,” McCarter said, “but just how do you suppose we would pull this off if the place were crawling with IIS men?”

“I assumed you would think of something.” Ahmadi managed to sound sheepish, even whispering. “You came highly recommended.”

“Can’t argue that,” McCarter said with a mental shrug.

The audience began to close in around the podium as the speaker made as if to wrap up his comments. Apparently he was some sort of preliminary figure, for the crowd perked up considerably when the next man strode to the podium. He began without apparent preamble, making sweeping gestures with his arms, doing his best to animate the crowd. For the most part, they responded, and the men of Phoenix Force played along, shouting when the crowd shouted, waving when the crowd waved.

McCarter was starting to feel silly when he saw the first of the killers.

He would not have been able to explain, if asked, what first drew his attention to the man. It was something in his body language, a quality visible to a soldier with years of battlefield experience. The man who stood in the midst of the crowd, playing along as McCarter was doing, was focused entirely too much on everyone but the speaker at the podium. He kept brushing his hand across his shirt just above his waistline, too, a dead giveaway. It was a tell that he was carrying a firearm or some other weapon there.

“David,” Encizo said in his ear. “I have a possible shooter.”

“Describe him,” McCarter said. He listened. It was clear that Encizo was describing an entirely different person.

“I’ve got another,” James said. “He’s just to my left, in a black shirt and tan pants.”

“Me, too,” Manning said. “In fact, I see two, close to the podium on the far right.”

“I’ve got one, as well,” Hawkins drawled.

McCarter worked his way farther to the rear of the hall. He looked out over the assembled group and, with the positions of his team still fixed in his mind, ran down the approximate positions of the potential shooters. “Calvin,” he said, “I need you to take the two closest to you. That’s yours and the one Rafe spotted.” He ran down assignments for Manning and Hawkins, too. “That leaves one for me. Get ready.”

Ahmadi had assumed McCarter and his men would think of something.

McCarter reached the rear of the cafeteria and pulled the fire alarm.

The response was immediate. Most of the crowd began filing out of the room, conditioned as were most people to respond to a fire alarm. But in that moment when most people stop and look up in reaction to such an alarm, the possible shooters had looked, not to the alarm, but to their target at the podium. McCarter knew what they were thinking; it was what he would be thinking in their place. They were wondering how to complete their mission.

Well, they wouldn’t be. He and Phoenix Force would make certain of that.

“Now!” McCarter ordered.

The Phoenix Force commandos drew their weapons and leveled them at the would-be gunmen. The shooters went for their own weapons, but they weren’t fast enough. The pops of pistols were almost anticlimactic in the seconds that followed. Phoenix Force moved in on their targets, crouching low, moving smoothly, confident in their ability to engage enemies in close-quarters handgun exchanges and come out the winner.

As soon as the battle had begun, it was over, and the members of Phoenix Force stood over a dozen dead bodies.

Someone screamed.

The few people who had not responded to the fire alarm began to flee from the cafeteria. The speaker at the podium and the political operatives with him looked around in dismay. Some of them fled and some of them didn’t; the ones who remained looked confused or frozen.

It was time to go, before they met more resistance.

“Go, go, go, go,” McCarter urged. The team backed away, leaving the stunned speaker still at his podium. “Do we have anyone else?”

“No one that I can see,” Encizo reported. There were calls of assent from the other team members.

“Let’s fade, lads,” McCarter said. “Ghaem?”

“Meet me at the rear entrance, please,” Ahmadi reported. “I have secured alternate transportation.” The foghorn sirens of Iranian Internal Security were closing in. Ahmadi could hear them better than he could, McCarter was certain.

He stepped over one of the corpses—and it grabbed him. The terrorist was not yet dead, and he was determined to take someone with him. McCarter went down and suddenly found himself wrestling for possession of his Browning with a man possessed. The strength of adrenaline, fear and imminent death made the man’s hands iron as he clawed at the Briton.

“Keep going!” McCarter yelled. He slammed a palm heel up under his adversary’s chin. “Don’t wait for me! Go!”

The sirens were more insistent now; they sounded as if they were immediately outside. This was what Mc Carter had feared: doing their jobs only to end up handing themselves to the Iranian security forces. To be prisoners under those circumstances would be a fate worse than death. The Farm would have to disavow knowledge of them, and the Iranians, realizing they had high-value military personnel from the United States, would never let them go. They would probably use their captives for whatever propaganda value they could get, first torturing each member of Phoenix Force to break them.

Everyone could be broken. Many times McCarter and the men of Phoenix had found themselves in the clutches of determined enemies, and at times those experiences had been decidedly unpleasant. They had remained strong through them, but he had no illusions. The members of Phoenix Force were human, not super-men, and they could be broken by persistent torture as could virtually anyone else. It could take years of privation and steady mistreatment…or it could take hours of brutal, maiming torture, depending on the methods used.

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