“WE HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED ON A MAJOR LEVEL, AND BY A PROFESSIONAL.”

The President raised a hand to massage his temple. “As of this moment, our unknown thief owns a billion dollars’ worth of American technology.”

“Orders, sir?” Brognola asked grimly.

“Search the wreckage and find out who stole the Chameleon—or if nobody did. Maybe this is all a gigantic coincidence. They do happen sometimes.”

“If it is not a coincidence, sir?”

The President leaned closer to the screen. “Then get the Chameleon back at any cost. Get it back, Hal. And if that proves impossible, then destroy the prototype.”

“Sir?” Brognola said, putting a world of questions into the single word.

“You heard me. I’ll eat that billion dollars, and another billion on top, if that’s what it takes to keep the U.S. safe. The Chameleon is dangerous enough in our hands. But at least we have checks and balances in our government. However, under the control of a terrorist group, or rogue nation, we’d never even know what was happening until Manhattan, L.A. or even D.C. was blown off the face of the map with millions dead.”

Other titles in this series:

STONY MAN VIII

#9 STRIKEPOINT

#10 SECRET ARSENAL

#11 TARGET AMERICA

#12 BLIND EAGLE

#13 WARHEAD

#14 DEADLY AGENT

#15 BLOOD DEBT

#16 DEEP ALERT

#17 VORTEX

#18 STINGER

#19 NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

#20 TERMS OF SURVIVAL

#21 SATAN’S THRUST

#22 SUNFLASH

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

The Chameleon Factor

STONY MAN®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Don Pendleton

To all of the brave men and women, who do not go

gently into that good night.

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

—Sergeant Dennis O’Brien, USMC

“Freedom favors the strong and the wise. May God grant that we stay both.”

—Carl Lyons, leader Able Team

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

Military Target Range, western Alaska

The guard went stiff as the knife blade slid into his head.

Mouthing a silent scream, the U.S. Army guard dropped his weapon as Professor Torge Johnson shoved the blade in deeper, exactly behind the right ear where there was a small opening into the brain, a slim passage known to many as Death’s Doorway.

Gurgling, the guard began to claw at his side for the semiautomatic pistol in his shiny black holster. Frowning at the man’s resilience, Johnson savagely twisted the blade to sever the brain stem. The guard went limp, his body turned off like a light switch, his rapidly dying brain only a few moments behind.

Easing the corpse to the grass, Johnson yanked out the bloody blade just as a tremendous explosion sounded in the distance. As the professor wiped the murder weapon clean on the guard’s uniform, cheers sounded from the grandstand above.

Sliding the blade up his sleeve, Johnson checked the cheap watch on his wrist. Good. Everything was precisely on schedule. Taking a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, he carefully peeled off the back to expose a thin layer of adhesive. Reaching up, he just managed to press the pack to the bottom of the wooden seats of the grandstand overhead. As his hand came away, the pack stayed in place and there was an audible click of the electronic device arming itself.

Glancing briefly at the bright rectangle of light that marked the only door to the space under the grandstand, Johnson stepped over the cooling body of the guard and weaved his way through the maze of struts and support beams to reach the middle section. Attaching another cigarette pack there, he continued the process slowly, emptying every pocket of the deadly cargo until reaching the opposite side. Glancing back just once to check his lethal handiwork, the professor allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction, then set his expression into neutral and stepped through the open doorway and into the bright sunlight.

Taking a real cigarette from the pocket of his old suit, Johnson lit it with a butane lighter and drew the smoke in deep, savoring the building excitement. Soon now, very soon.

Walking out of the bushes that blocked the entrance of the doorway, the man pulled up his fly and tried to look embarrassed as if he had been inappropriately relieving himself in the greenery.

An elderly U.S. congressman sitting at the edge of the grandstand happened to catch the gesture and chuckled in sympathy.

“Don’t blame you.” He grinned. “Hell of a day, isn’t it, Professor?”

Johnson pressed a finger to his lips and hushed the plump politician. Although he looked exactly like the professor, his voice didn’t match in the least. The impostor’s heart was pounding as he fingered the second butane lighter in his pants pocket. The device was actually a pneumatic dart gun of considerable power, the flesh-colored darts coated with a neurotoxin that paralyzed instantly, and death came in foaming agony a few seconds later. Come on fool, go back to the show and enjoy the last few seconds of your life. The reaction of the darts closely resembled a heart attack, especially in older people, but the trick lighter carried only three darts: two for victims and the third for himself to prevent capture. The Americans disliked torture, but in his case their military intelligence and CIA would happily have made an exception. Being captured alive wasn’t an option in his mission.

Touching two fingers to his brow in a mock salute, the congressman winked at the professor and turned back to the display on the target range below. Johnson relaxed slightly and exhaled a long stream of smoke. Good.

The grandstand, filled with politicians and high-ranking military personnel, was situated directly behind a tall barrier of wire mesh as protection from any stray shrapnel. Fifty feet below was a wide field that stretched to the distant ice-capped Baird Mountains. The target range was pitted with huge craters of assorted sizes from the wide variety of missiles used this day. The green tundra was beginning to resemble the surface of the moon, a few of them still smoking. Standing untouched in the midst of the destruction and desolation was a small concrete bunker with a slim radio antenna raised high enough to sway slightly in the warm breeze.

“Look there!” somebody cried, standing to point.

Johnson gave no reaction as two Harpoon-class missiles rose over the horizon, their fiery exhausts as bright as newborn stars. The politicians and generals in the review stand cheered at the sight. Unable to tear himself away for a moment, Johnson stayed to watch as the missiles rose sharply, then rotated about their long axis to sharply angle downward toward the ruined field. Flashing forward at nearly Mach speed, the Harpoons raced for the bunker and then incredibly went on by, their wake churning up clouds of dust and scorched earth.

The crowd roared its approval as the deadly missiles continued onward to slam into the pitted side of a hill a mile away.

“Son of a bitch, the bloody thing works!” a colonel shouted while applauding. “It really works! The missiles couldn’t see the bunker!”

“So that’s what this is, a radar jammer?” a senator grumbled with a scowl. “Big deal. We’ve had those for decades.”

“Not like this!” a general stated proudly. “There’s never been anything like this thing!”

“Well, we certainly spent enough on the damn program!” a senator yelled over the crowd noises.

Turning away from the jubilation, Johnson started for the gravel walk that led to the parking lot when he noticed a Marine guard looking in the bushes.

“Lose something, Corporal?” the professor asked in a friendly manner.

The Marine looked hard in return, and Johnson felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. This man wasn’t like the rest, he realized. Everything looked fine, but he felt that something was wrong. That combat-sense thing soldiers were always talking about. Part instinct, part training.

“Just routine,” the corporal said, straightening the strap of the M-16 assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

But Johnson could see that the bolt had been worked on the weapon, making it ready for firing. No! There was no time for this! Seconds counted. He had to move fast or die with the rest!

“I know what you’re looking for,” Johnson whispered. “Come on, he’s over here.”

Leading the soldier to the open doorway below the grandstand, Johnson stopped at the entrance. “It’s darker than shit in there. Got a flashlight?”

The soldier shook his head, and Johnson pulled out his cigarette lighter.

“This’ll do,” he said, and pressed the hidden stud.

There was a soft hiss. The soldier grabbed his throat as the tiny dart went deep into his flesh. Suddenly, his eyes began to roll about in panic as he stiffened, unable to move a finger.

Taking the Marine guard by the collar, Johnson half dragged the dying man back into the shadows under the grandstand and flicked his left wrist. A blade dropped out his sleeve, and he pulled back the Marine’s throat to finish the job with a single clean stroke. The neurotoxin was fast, but not instantaneous like a blade. However, there was no time to enjoy the kill; the numbers were falling. He had to move fast.

Moving quickly away from the grandstand, Johnson proceeded along the gravel path until reaching a wooden kiosk. An armed guard raised a hand, but Johnson simply pointed at the photo ID on his lapel. The guard nodded and waved him by.

Past a wire fence woven with plastic strips to block the sight of the curious, Johnson moved onto the parking lot, forcing himself to not walk too fast. That would raise suspicion, and he might be detained for questioning, which would mean death in about ninety seconds from now. However, there were more armed guards lining the edge of the parking lot, U.S. Marines, Army and even some Navy intelligence. Incredibly expensive, Chameleon was a multiservice project. At opposite ends of the lot sat two Apache gunships, their blades at rest, but with a full crew inside, the wing pods bristling with weaponry, 35 mm minirocket pods and Sidewinder missiles in case of an aerial attack. The Alaskan test zone was a military hardsite, armed and armored to withstand any imaginable attack. Chameleon was all-important. The theoretical-danger team at the Pentagon had thought of everything, except him.

Reaching his car, Johnson pressed the fob on his key ring to unlock the door. The EM signal unlocked the door and also silently activated the packages hidden in the trunks of two other cars. Now the die was cast, and there was no turning back.

Starting the engine, Johnson pulled away slowly, keeping a careful eye on his watch. Exactly at the proper moment, he pulled the cigarette lighter halfway out of the dashboard and then plunged it back in hard. There was a click as it locked into position.

Trying to hide a smile, Johnson wheeled for the exit, waving goodbye at the Marine guards standing alongside the entrance to the isolated valley.

DOWN IN THE TARGET range, inside the concrete bunker, the real Professor Torge Johnson lowered a pair of binoculars and turned. “Cut the field,” he ordered briskly.

“Yes, sir,” the technician said, and pivoting in a chair, he flipped several switches on a complex control board. On a stout wooden table in the middle of the bunker, a small gray box stopped humming and went still.

Squinting out the slit in the thick concrete wall, Johnson patiently watched as two more stars rose into the sky over the horizon and started coming his way.

Trying to control his excitement, the professor inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. This was it, the last test. These were two of the new breed of Delta Four missiles, equipped with the very cutting edge of radar guidance, satellite-assisted navigational system, and proximity warheads, all supported by an onboard computer more powerful than anything else in the world. Three waves of Delta Four missiles. If the Chameleon could stop those titans, there would be no question that his project was a complete and total success.

“Power up,” Johnson instructed.

“Power is good for go, sir,” the technician replied crisply, checking some dials on the board. “We are online and ready.”

“Good. Engage the field,” the professor said calmly, raising the binoculars and adjusting the focus. Although a man of science, he did enjoy watching the missiles fly by stone blind, their wonderful radar eyes dead from the jamming field of his Chameleon.

“Ah, sir, I did, but nothing happened,” the technician said, flipping the switches again. The man pressed buttons and twirled knobs with frantic speed, but the dials stayed inert. “And I’m getting no response from the override!”

Spinning, the professor clutched the binoculars to his chest as if for protection. “But the missiles are on the way!” he gasped, felling his belly tighten with fear. “Wait, use the backup unit!”

Lurching from his chair, the technician flipped open the top of a second gray box and reached inside, then froze.

“What in hell are you waiting for?” Johnson yelled, almost beside himself. “Turn on the Chameleon!”

“I can’t,” the pale technician said softly, turning to look at the professor. “The second unit isn’t here. The box is empty.”

Empty? The world seemed to reel at the word. The elderly professor went pale and clawed for the emergency radio clipped to his belt. “USS Fairfax, this is Johnson!” he yelled into the transponder. “Abort the missiles! Repeat, abort the missiles!”

But there was only the crackle of static in reply. Johnson checked the frequencies and tried again twice more before the answer punched his soul. Jammed. The radio broadcast was being blocked from outside. But how…who…?

“It’s a trap!” Johnson threw the radio aside and charged for the armored door. “We have to get out of here!”

A sudden light filled the slits of the bunker with hellish intensity.

“Too late!” the technician screamed, throwing an arm before his face.

“MOTHER OF GOD,” a general whispered, recoiling slightly as the two Delta Four missiles slammed directly into the fortified bunker and violently detonated. Broken slabs of concrete and steel beams blew into the sky as the twin fireballs washed over the target range in searing fury.

As a mushroom cloud of dark smoke rose into the blue sky, it exposed a gaping hole in the ground. Muttering curses and prayers at the terrible sight, the crowd of dignitaries remained in their seats, unable to move from the horror unfolding below.

“We’ve got to help them!” a lieutenant cried out, standing. Pushing his way through the stupefied throng, the lieutenant tried to reach the stairs leading to the ground. Then somebody grabbed his arm.

“Don’t be a fool, man! They’re beyond help,” a general snapped. “The professor is already dead. Nobody could have survived that first salvo.”

Scowling darkly, the lieutenant yanked his arm free and stared at the decimated target range once more. The fortified bunker was reduced to a mere handful of cracked pieces and rubble, ringing a blackened crater.

“Sorry, sir,” the lieutenant muttered, clenching his fist in frustration. Then a motion in the sky caught his attention, and the Army officer turned to see the next set of Delta Four missiles lift over the horizon and angle over to start for the destroyed bunker.

Then they abruptly changed course and swung directly for the grandstand.

“Hello, give me the White House,” a congresswoman said into a cell phone. “There’s been a disaster at—”

“Incoming!” the lieutenant bellowed.

At the incredible sight, men and women both began to scream in terror, and the crowd became a mob fighting to reach the stairs. A handful of military personnel pulled out their dress side arms to empty the weapons at the approaching Delta Fours. If the subsonic lead had any effect on the ultrasonic missiles, it wasn’t noticed as the Deltas smashed directly into the grandstand. Hundreds of bodies blew apart from the triphammer blasts, the rolling waves of chemical fire obliterating the grandstand, and the homing beacons glued to the underside of the wooden seats.

A death wave of splinters and boards blew across the parking lot, killing everybody in their path. A heartbeat later, the hidden charges in the car trunks went off, adding their thermite charges to the assorted destruction. Melting cars flipped into the air, gas tanks exploding like firecrackers. The startled pilots of the two Apaches had no time to react before the shock wave and shrapnel arrived, throwing the gunships sideways. Their blades snapped off as the helicopters tumbled over and over along the ground until they erupted into flames. Shrieking insanely, the pilots burned alive in the wreckage until their cargo of rockets and missiles ignited.

WATCHING FROM the side of a road on a hilltop, the man disguised as Professor Johnson looked up from the destruction of the target range just as the last two Delta Four missiles climbed into view. As they reached azimuth, he looked to the east, down into a rugged arroyo filled with a small complex of buildings surrounded by lush greenery. Pulling out a fountain pen, Johnson aimed the disguised transmitter at the complex and pressed the side hard. The pen gave an answering beep as its signal was received and the next set of homing beacons was activated.

Climbing back into the car, Johnson saw the Delta Fours streak past, heading for the office buildings. Looking up, he saw the missiles angle about and streak past the test site to head for the office buildings. Done and done—the Chameleon now belonged to him.

Starting the engine, the man turned the car and headed south toward the Kobuk River. There was a speedboat waiting for him there, and after that…

Following a gentle curve in the road, the nameless spy glanced in the rearview mirror and saw writhing tongues of orange flame reach for the sky, then an outcropping blocked his view and they were gone. Now there was only open road stretching between him and freedom.

CHAPTER ONE

Virginia

With its rotors beating steadily, the U.S.Army Black Hawk helicopter moved through the crisp morning air. Reclining in the jump seat in the rear of the massive gunship, Hal Brognola looked out the port window and watched the lush Virginia countryside endlessly flow by, the dense forests melding into sprawling towns of tree-lined streets and green parks. A hundred years or so ago, all of this land was torn and bloody as brother fought brother in the Civil War.

“Did you know that more Americans died in the Civil War than in World War II?” the blacksuit pilot said over a shoulder.

Roused from his thoughts, Brognola turned from the window. “Yeah, I did. History buff?”

The pilot flashed a smile. “I am in the military, sir.”

The big Fed waited for the pilot to also mention his skin color, but apparently it was not relevant to the discussion. White and blacks both died in the war, each fighting on both sides. Hell of a thing.

Harold Brognola wasn’t a soldier in the traditional sense, but he had certainly seen more than his share of warfare. As a high-level official in the Justice Department, Brognola was one of the top cops in the nation, answerable only to the President. Chief of the ultracovert Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, Brognola was returning to Washington from a quick visit to the Farm, hidden in the depths of Shenandoah National Park. Recent defensive renovations included a newly installed antimissile system. Upgrades to weapons systems were ongoing, and every once in a while Brognola would drop by the Farm to check things out. Any excuse to escape the frenetic pace of Washington, D.C., was acceptable.

The pilot touched the side of his helmet. “Sir, I have an urgent call for you from Dover,” he reported crisply.

Brognola frowned. Dover. As in the white cliffs of Dover. That was this month’s code name for the White House.

“I’ll take it back here.”

“Yes, sir!”

The big Fed pulled a briefcase onto his lap when his cell phone chirped.

Deactivating the locking mechanism in the briefcase, Brognola lifted the lid and the compact computer inside automatically cycled on. Typing a few passwords onto the miniature keyboard, the big Fed watched as the plasma screen scrolled identification signatures and countersigns as the machine dutifully checked and then double-checked to confirm it was receiving an authenticity signal on a secure frequency.

Exercising patience, Brognola waited. The man was aware that the White House had its own private communication satellites, and that the President had access to several that nobody else even knew existed. But it never hurt to make sure.

The gibberish on the screen melted into a familiar face at a well-known desk.

“Good morning, sir,” Brognola said.

“Good to see you, Hal,” the President replied. “We have a situation.”

“So I gathered, sir. Can it wait until I arrive? I’m already en route to D.C. ETA, twenty minutes.”

“Sorry,” the President said, frowning. “This cannot wait, and you have to turn back.”

Return to the Farm? “This relay is secure, sir,” Brognola reminded him respectfully.

“For now, yes.”

The President reclined in his chair and lifted a sheet of paper edged with red stripes. Even as he held it, the paper turned brownish where his fingers rested. Brognola scowled at that. A level-ten report, for the President only. This was big.

“It’s called Chameleon,” the President said, putting the paper down, “a brand-new kind of jamming field that blocks or interferes with about ninety-five percent of all modulated electromagnetism.”

Brognola raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. Ninety-five percent? That would scramble cell phones, and even landline phones, and make radar absolutely dead. Doppler or focused radar, even proximity fuses on warheads might not work. It would be the ultimate stealth shield. Tanks, planes, hell, even aircraft carriers would become as close to invisible as modern science would allow. In the hands of terrorists, they could fly cargo planes of troops or bombs anywhere and America would never know until it was far too late.

Lifting a cup of coffee into view, the President took a sip and waited while Brognola worked out the details.

“How close are they to completion?” the big Fed demanded.

“This morning was the final test.”

“And what went wrong?”

“Everything, my friend,” the Man said honestly. “The missiles being fired from a U.S. Navy corvette in the bay first took out the control bunker, killing the inventor, a Professor Torge Johnson, and destroying every working prototype of the device.”

Brognola bit back a curse.

The President leaned closer. “We received a piece of a phone call from Congresswoman Margaret Anders at the sight, then she went off the air. A recon flight from Fairbanks confirmed that the second wave of Delta Four missiles hit the grandstand, killing a couple of hundred people, mostly politicians and high-ranking soldiers.”

“Could still just be an accident,” Brognola said slowly, then he noticed the hard expression in the other man’s face. “There’s more.”

“Unfortunately, yes. The third wave of Delta Four missiles went straight past the firing range and curved around a mountain to strike and destroy the laboratory where the Chameleon had been invented.”

Brognola opened his mouth to say “Impossible,” then closed it with a snap. “So we have a traitor who planted homing beacons for the missiles.”

“That is also the opinion of the Joint Chiefs.”

“What was the breakage?” Brognola asked, frowning.

The President drummed his fingers on the desk. “Total. The plans are gone, the working prototypes are gone, everything is gone, and everybody involved with the project is dead.”

“What about the off-site backup files?” Brognola demanded gruffly.

“Unknown,” the President replied, hunching his shoulders. “Everybody who knew their location is now dead.”

“Everybody?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.”

“Agreed. We have been compromised on a major level, and by a professional. As of this moment, our unknown thief owns a billion dollars’ worth of American technology.”

“And there’s no way to re-create the work?”

“Over time, of course. Eight months, maybe a year. But by then…”

Brognola felt a gnawing sensation in his stomach. A year from now the world could be in total chaos, or worse, total warfare. Unlimited smuggling, unstoppable hijackers, it was a nightmare!

“What are the various agencies doing so far?”

“Nothing. This is a White Project. Level Ten personnel only. As far as the FBI and the media are concerned, there was a gas explosion at a military warehouse in Alaska.”

“Orders, sir?” Brognola asked grimly.

“Search the wreckage, find out who stole the Chameleon, or if nobody did and this is all a gigantic coincidence. They do happen sometimes.”

Yeah, right. “If it isn’t a coincidence, sir?”

The President leaned closer to the screen. “Then get the Chameleon back at any cost. Get it back, Hal. And if that proves impossible, then destroy the prototype.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. I’ll eat that billion dollars, and another billion on top, if that is what it takes to keep the U.S. safe. The Chameleon is dangerous enough in our hands. But at least we have checks and balances in our government. However, under the control of a terrorist group, or rogue nation, we’d never even know what was happening until Manhattan, L.A. or even D.C. was blown off the face of the map with millions dead.”

“Understood, sir,” Hal said in a strained voice, and then bluntly added, “What a shitstorm!”

The President gave a strained smile. “You took the words right out of my mouth, my friend.”

A light flashed on the briefcase computer.

“You should have the full files and aerial reconnaissance photos by now,” the President announced, doing something off-screen.

“Just arrived, sir. Standard decoding?”

“Yes. Move fast on this one, Hal. We’re completely in the dark so far, and that light at the end of the tunnel isn’t daylight, but a goddamn express train coming down our throats.”

With a swirl of colors, the link was broken and the screen returned to its neutral silver sheen.

Closing the briefcase, Brognola cupped a hand to his mouth and loudly shouted, “Hey, pilot!”

In the wide cockpit, the blacksuit glanced over a shoulder. “Yes, sir!”

“Turn around. We’re going back.”

The man arched an eyebrow in surprise, but said nothing and tilted the stick in his grip. The pitch of the blades overhead changed, and the Black Hawk started to swing around in the sky.

As the sun reappeared on the other side of the gunship, Brognola opened his briefcase once more and started to access a secret satellite.

Within a few minutes, the screen cleared to show a blond-haired woman leaning forward on a desk. She was dressed in a simple blue workshirt, with no jewelry.

“Forget your wallet, Hal?” asked Barbara Price, mission controller at Stony Man Farm.

“Wish I had. Call them back,” Brognola ordered. “Both teams. Call everybody back. We’ve got trouble.”

CHAPTER TWO

Cassatt Federal Penitentiary, South Carolina

Soft and low, the mournful call of a freight train moved through the night as armed guards in the high watchtowers closely scrutinized the arrival of an armored bus at the front gate of the Cassatt Federal Penitentiary.

The first line of guards checked the driver’s ID and did an EM scan of the vehicle, then finally passed it through the outer, thirty-foot-tall fence. Once the bus was trapped between the first and second fences, more guards arrived with dogs to sniff for explosives or narcotics before the transport rolled through the inner, electric fence and finally onto a featureless parking lot. There were no concrete bumpers or ornamental bushes for anyone to take cover behind. Just a flat expanse of bare asphalt studded with tiny reflecting squares set into the tar and gravel, range finders to assist the sharpshooters in the watchtowers.

In an ocean of bright lights, there came the sound of pumping hydraulic, and the huge ferruled doors on the Cassatt Federal Penitentiary began to ponderously cycle open.

With the close of Alcatraz so many years ago, there had been an urgent need for new prisons to hold the worst of the worst, the mad-dog killers and terrorists that the courts had condemned to death. With nothing to lose, the prisoners would use any opportunity to escape, and since a person could be executed only once, taking another human life meant less than nothing to the cold-blooded psychopaths. Hence the creation of the Bureau of Prisons’ supermax facilities.

Cassatt had been the first supermaximum prison created in the country, level six, absolute security. Yet there had proved to be men that even this ultralockdown couldn’t contain, and so there was forged the prison within a prison, the violent-control ward. Boxcar-style doors permitted no communication to other prisoners, video surveillance was twenty-four hours and there were no windows. Each prisoner had his own private cell. There was no mixing with other prisoners for his entire stay. Guards in the lotus-style control room could electronically open the cell door, and the unescorted prisoner would walk down empty corridors for his shower three times a week. There was no human contact with these violent repeat offenders. Ever.

Yet the ingenuity of the criminals was incredible. Staples were attached to the tips of Q-Tips and blown through tubes made of rolled paper to strike passing guards. Dozens of makeshift weapons were created out of seemingly innocuous items, and more than one guard lost an eye, or worse, to the ingenious prisoners until full-coverage body armor and goggles became standard dress uniform.

Cassatt supermax, and its fellow penitentiaries, weren’t ICCs, correctional institutes trying to correct the career of the professional criminal. The supermax was the end of the line, the edge of the world, and damn few who ever went in ever came out again, except in a black body bag.

Security was tighter here to keep the prisoners in than it was at Cheyenne Mountain, where the purpose was to keep invading enemy armies out. The land beyond the perimeter of the second fence was barren and dead, a former uranium milling dumpsite that the EPA was still trying to clean after forty years. There was no grass to hide in, no weeds in the muddy creek, no trees whose branches could be used as a club. Additional sentry posts stood between the deadlands around the penitentiary and the city of Cassatt, forcing any escapee into the slag heaps of the toxic waste dump. A hundred men had tried to escape from Cassatt supermax over the years. Ten made it to the gate alive.

Six got over the first fence, and two got over the second fence only to be blown apart by the radio-controlled land mines.

The infamous Ossing of New York and Leavenworth of Kansas were considered luxurious country clubs compared to Cassatt supermax. But there were even more secure facilities now: Pelican, Logan and the infamous Florence in Colorado. Many of the inmates were insane, but no asylum ever built could hold the killers, and the violent-control ward of a supermax was the only chance of containing these enemies of civilization.

Many people believed it would be much more humane to simply kill the prisoners than send them to the steel-caged hell of Cassatt. Every prisoner and guard of the supermax penitentiary agreed, except for four special inmates.

As the final lock on the armored front gate was released with a hydraulic hiss, additional lights glowed into blinding brilliance, illuminating the parking lot and the grounds beyond for more than a mile. On the stone walls, searchlights swept the sky looking for small planes or helicopters. It was unknown who would want these four men free, but the list of people who wanted them dead at any cost was a mile long. Although they would be executed some day by the state, that wasn’t the right of any individual, and as much as they hated the idea the Cassatt guards were ready to die in order to protect the criminals from any vigilante justice, no more how much it was deserved.

Ten guards in full combat gear stepped from the armored bus and waited while twenty men in full riot gear walked four prisoners through the doorway of the penitentiary. The inmates were dressed in bright orange prison jumpsuits, heavy shackles on their legs, handcuffs on their wrists, and a black box encased their hands and forearms to forestall any attempt to pick the lock on the cuffs. The cadre of guards was fully armed, and carried military-grade stun guns and bulletproof plastic shields studded with electric probes. One touch and a bull gorilla would drop unconscious from the terrible pain.

“Hold it right there,” an amplified voice called from above, and everybody waited a few moments for the wall guards to decide that the area was safe for everybody to continue.

“Okay, move along,” the voice commanded.

Circling widely past the four men, a guard lifted his face mask and passed over a sheaf of papers to the colonel from the waiting bus. Blue smoke puffed from the double tailpipes under the chassis and the two additional exhaust vents on the roof, every opening covered with a steel grille to prevent the insertion of an item to clog the exhaust and choke the engine. The windows were double sheets of Plexiglas separated by a lattice of steel bars, and the only door was three inches thick.

“Here are their papers,” the lieutenant said, offering a file folder. “Transport orders for prisoners 49724, 97841 and 66782.”

The USP colonel holding a clipboard scowled at the four men standing quietly in the evening chill. The cool night wind was ruffling the thin cloth of their loose jumpsuits. In the clear overhead lights, the four were haggard and thin faced. Heavy scarring marred their faces from constant fighting in the yard of their previous prison. Their long hair was slicked down, their pointy beards oily with liquid soap. The bright lights seemed to be bothering their eyes, but then they may not have seen sunlight for months.

Then one of them looked the colonel in the face and he felt a chill run down his spine. If the rumors were even half-true, these guys were actually too dangerous to let loose in the general population of even a level-five-security penitentiary. The transfer papers on his clipboard said that in their previous place of incarceration they had beaten another prisoner to death and eaten parts of the corpse before the guards could get into their cell. They had jimmied the lock somehow to give them enough time. Some bleeding-heart liberal lawyers wanted them sent to an insane asylum for treatment, which was exactly what they’d been hoping for. But these men would blow out of any hospital in about an hour, leaving a trail of dead doctors and nurses behind. Thank God somebody in the Justice Department was paying attention for once and was moving these psychopaths to the new supermax in Florence, Colorado, the brand-new level-seven facility. A prisoner escaping from that underground facility would face a fifty-mile trek through scored earth and bare rock with helicopter gunships on him every step of the way. It was as close to being thrown off the planet as anybody would ever get. The new Devil’s Island, and these bastards would be the reigning devils once they arrived.

“So this is them, huh?” he said in disdain. “So this is the last remaining members of the terrible Black Vipers. Big deal.”

The Cassatt lieutenant stared at the shivering men in frank hatred. “Don’t be fooled, pal. Give them an inch and you die. It’s that fucking simple. You know that movie about the cannibal guy who escapes wearing a guard’s face as a mask?”

“Sure. Good flick.”

He gave a thumb jerk. “It was based on these men.”

“Yeah? Well, Manson looked tougher,” the colonel muttered, checking over the paperwork.

Suddenly the first prisoner started to slump to the ground, and the lieutenant jumped away just in time as the fourth prisoner swung his boxed hands at the guard’s head. The steel trap passed by so close he felt the breeze of its passage and knew that he missed having his skull crushed by a fraction of a second. Christ, they were fast!

Without pause, the guards converged on the men with the stun shields and rib-spreader batons, the electric sparks crackling over the terrorists as they were driven to the ground into submission. Nobody made any move to stop the beating.

“Been wanting to do that for quite a while,” a guard snarled, panting from the exertion.

A man alongside hawked juicily and then spit on the sprawled bodies. “Damn Feds should have blown their heads off when they were captured. Keeping these assholes alive is like sticking your dick in a working blender.”

“The chair ain’t good enough for them,” another snarled. “I got a brother in the Navy. Ya know how many of our guys these bastards aced with their trick bombs?”

“Don’t let the warden hear you say that,” another warned, glancing at the wall guards hidden behind their bright lights and stone walls. “Or you’re out on your ass. This state doesn’t execute prisoners anymore. It’s not cost effective.”

“Cost effective? And what about justice?”

The smaller man shrugged. “So move to Texas.”

“Check the shackles before removing the black boxes,” the lieutenant directed.

“And you,” he added to the colonel, “constantly keep your weapons on these prisoners. If they make another move, kill them.”

Loosening the flap covering his holstered 10 mm Falcon, the colonel nodded.

Weakened by the stun shields, the prisoners didn’t make a second try for freedom and submitted meekly to being herded onto the armored transport and chained in place. This fooled nobody, and the bus guards were dripping sweat from the tension until the four were shackled into different chairs of bare steel bolted and welded directly to the armored floor of the transport vehicle.

“Good luck,” the lieutenant said as the armored door closed.

The colonel flipped the prison guard a salute as the armored door cycled shut and locked tight.

“And good riddance,” another prison guard muttered softly, removing his protective helmet. “I hope the bus crashes and the prisoners burn alive.”

“Wishful thinking,” the lieutenant said coldly. “Damn the politicians and lawyers. Men like that should just be hung. Cost effective or not, it sure as hell makes it hard for them to kill again once their neck is stretched.”

“Amen to that, chief,” another man agreed.

“I wonder why the government kept them alive,” another muttered. “It’s not like they could be used for anything.”

Throwing back his head, the lieutenant laughed for the first time in days. “And who the hell would have enough balls to try and use the goddamn Black Vipers for anything?”

“Come on,” a corporal said on a sigh, running a gloved across his sweaty face. “Let’s get out of this gear and go have a beer.”

Turning to face the prison, the guards tested their equipment once more to make sure everything was in proper working condition, then marched back into the sterilized confines of Cassatt Federal Penitentiary. High on the walls overhead, the unseen guards watched their every move purely out of habit. The rifle marksmen watched everything and trusted nobody. That was the job, and they were damn good at it.

OVER TWO MILES away, far outside the circle of light around the supermax facility, three men with Starlite scopes stood alongside a battered gray SUV, the license plates obscured with mud permanently glued into place.

In unison, Able Team tracked the progress of the USP transport along Highway 37 as it headed due south away from the supermax facility. The man in front was blond, with a crew cut and ice-blue eyes. The next was stocky with wavy salt-and-pepper hair, and the third had dark brown hair and a full mustache. Swaying slightly in the evening breeze so that they wouldn’t stand out from the rustling forest, all three of the men were wearing camouflage-colored jumpsuits designed for urban warfare.

“Stony One to Stone Two,” Carl “Ironman” Lyons said into his throat mike, Starlite still pressed to his face. “We are in position. Copy?”

“Roger that, Stony One,” a gruff voice replied in the earphone. “We rendezvous at Point Charlie in one hour. Over.”

“Ten-four,” Lyons replied. “See you there. Over and out.”

“Don’t be late,” Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales said in the background.

Climbing into the SUV, Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz grimly added, “If they are, then we’re dead, chum.”

AFTER AN HOUR of driving, the countryside of South Carolina began to change from gray grassland into a plush forest of tall trees and countless small brooks. Shackled to their metal seats, the four members of the Black Vipers sneered at the beauty of nature as if they preferred the concrete corridors of the federal jail.

Glancing about to see if anybody was watching, the largest and most heavily muscled of the Vipers jerked hard on the chain holding his wrists to the bolt in the floor, and instantly a gas vent hidden in the ceiling sprayed him with Mace. The terrorist flopped in his seat fighting for breath, his eyes and tongue almost popping from his flushed face.

“That’s warning number one,” the colonel said from the front of the bus, a wall of thick bars separating the two sections of the vehicle. “Warning number two is a lot worse. So behave, convict, or else.”

“I am a political prisoner of the American government,” the tallest member of the four said. “Once more I beg for asylum from the overlords of Washington.”

“Oh, shut up,” a younger guard said, jacking the slide of the sleek black Neostead shotgun.

Designed by the new democratic government of South Africa, the high-tech alleysweeper had two tubular magazines and could be switched from one to the other by the flick of a selector switch. For this journey, the guard had the first magazine filled with stun bags, the other mag filled with fléchette rounds that could reduce a man into hamburger in under a heartbeat.

The terrorist opened his mouth to speak again, then decided against it and leaned back in his hard chair, his thoughts seething with revenge.

“What the hell?” the guard riding alongside the driver said with a puzzled expression. Frantically, he began to work the controls of the built-in radio switching frequencies.

“Something’s wrong,” he said swiftly over a shoulder. “We’ve lost contact with USP HQ, and every channel is filled with hash.”

“Jamming?” the colonel demanded, releasing the flap over his side arm. The ivory handle of a Colt .45 pistol was revealed, a line of deep gouges in the grip appearing to be hand-carved notches.

The guard in the front passenger seat looked up with a pale face. “Confirmed, I can’t get a bounce signal off a repeater tower. The airwaves are being jammed,” he replied succinctly. “But whether or not it’s for us, or some natural phenomenon, I have no idea.”

The guards were silent as the armored bus jounced slightly onto a picturesque stone bridge.

“Sir, if this is an escape attempt…” the younger guard started to say, flicking the switch to the second magazine of fléchette rounds.

“Don’t kill them yet, Corporal,” the colonel said, pulling the Colt and jacking the slide.

Going to the front windshield, he looked out into the starry night. “Maybe this is just another weird solar storm like last year that knocked out all of the satellites for a day. Could be anything, or nothing. I’m not going to ace these men just because we’re not sure.”

In tense silence, the armored bus rolled off the bridge and onto the paved roadway once more. A split second later the night was split apart by a violent thunderclap. Fiery light blossomed from behind the transport, and rocks began pounding the bus in a deafening rain of debris.

“Son of a bitch!” the driver cried as the flaming shrapnel washed over the armored transport, breaking out the rear windows. “The bridge is gone! Completely gone!”

“That bomb missed us by a heartbeat,” the colonel growled. “Get us the hell out of here, man!”

The driver slammed onto the gas, and the big Detroit engine roared with power for only a single moment. Then the vehicle crashed hard, to a halt the front windows exploding out of the frame. Every loose item went flying, the prisoners were thrown forward in their seats, setting off more Mace, and the guards tumbled to the floor in a loose pile of bodies.

It took a few minutes for the pinned driver to regain his composure and pull a knife from his belt to stab the airbag pinning him tightly into place. As the metallic cushion deflated, the USP guard gasped at the sight of a smashed pile of fallen trees blocking the forest road, the trunks painted black to render the barricade invisible. Damn! The bridge had to have been blown just to make them go faster and slam hard enough into the barrier and cripple the bus. That was a trap!

There was nothing moving in the darkness outside the broken windows, but the driver knew trouble was coming, and soon. Frantically, he tried to get the engine to turn over and only got a clicking sound. The battery wires had to have ripped loose in the crash. Shit! Pulling an M-16 assault rifle from a boot alongside his seat, the driver pulled the arming bolt and started over the jumbled forms of the groaning guards sprawled on the floor to shoot the prisoners when he suddenly felt very warm and relaxed.

As his thoughts became muddy, it became difficult to stand and he slumped to the floor, losing his weapon. Fighting to stay conscious, the driver vaguely understood this was a gas attack. Summoning his last vestige of strength, the USP guard tried to slap the emergency alarm button on the dashboard that would send off a flare and radio signal, plus detonate a series of explosive bolts to lock down the entire transport, rendering it impossible for anybody to enter without using a cutting torch. The Black Vipers couldn’t be set free! The feeling had left most of his body and the man could only mentally order his arm to hit the switch. But the warm embrace of the gas filled his universe and everything went pleasantly dark.

SLUGGISHLY, THE FOUR members of the Black Vipers came awake in a field of damp grass, the moonlight overhead bathing them in silvery light.

“By God!” one of the terrorists exclaimed, lifting both hands to stare in wonder at his bare wrists. The handcuffs were gone.

“We are free,” the giant rumbled, holding his head. “How is this possible?”

The skinny leader rose and raised his arms high, savoring the sensation of unfettered movement.

“I do not care, my brothers,” he said in Arabic, just in case there were listeners in the woods. Years of confinement with guards always monitoring had made the men paranoid, even worse than when they first went into prison. “Let us take this gift and leave.”

“But which way?” the third man said in a nasal whine, his strength returning with every breath.

He turned about in every direction, and there was nothing in sight but trees. Maybe they had been thrown from the crash into the Cassatt Forest Preserve? But if so, what had happened to their shackles and cuffs? The terrorist sensed danger of some kind but couldn’t readily identify what it was. His first impulse was to stay exactly where he stood and let the police capture him again. Then his anger flared at the very idea that the Americans had beaten fear into his soul and sapped the strength from his will.

Just then, a fiery explosion rose in the distance, illuminating the nighttime.

“This way.” The leader pointed and took off in the opposite direction at a stumbling run.

The grassy field was empty and smooth, but it took the men a few moments to get past the wall of their cell. Eight feet was as far as any of them had walked without chains for years since their incarceration. That ninth step felt like bursting out of a bubble of glue. Suddenly, the killers were laughing as they ran, putting on speed and tearing off the hated prison jumpsuits. Naked, they raced through the night. Somewhere they would find new clothing to wear. A laundry line, a closed store or from the bodies of murdered strangers.

“The Americans must not capture us again, my brothers,” the leader panted, leaping over a shallow ravine. “They will slay us on sight and claim we fought back.”

In silent agreement, the others dashed into the forest dodging trees and running for their very lives. None of them spoke or stopped for miles before reaching a small creek. The smell of the fresh, clean water was overpowering, and the parched men dropped to their bellies to lap at the creek like thirsty animals.

“The Yankees shall pay for our years of imprisonment,” the thin man growled, rising to his knees after a while. “No, their families shall pay. I have been designing new bombs in my mind. Ones perfect for children. There shall be a slaughter like America has never seen.”

“Revenge shall be ours!” the third cried, wiping the water from his mouth with a hairy forearm. “By the blood of the prophet, this I do swear. America will pay for its crimes against us in the red blood of its children!”

“Not this time, freak,” a voice of stone said from the darkness.

The Black Vipers leaped to their feet as three armed men stepped out of the nearby shadows. Incredibly, the newcomers weren’t prison guards or police officers, but soldiers, their camouflaged jumpsuits covered with weapons.

“What is this, some sort of trick?” the leader demanded, lifting a rock from the mud of the creek. “By the blood of God!”

“God. You do everything for God, right? You ever actually read the Koran, asshole?” Lyons demanded, leveling an Atchisson assault shotgun. “It’s a book of peace, not war.”

The big prisoner snarled, lifting a piece of fallen fence post from the creek. The wood was old, a poor weapon, but better than nothing.

“Want a weapon? Try these instead,” Schwarz said, tossing a canvas sack onto the ground. The bag landed with a heavy metallic rattle.

“That’s filled with guns,” Blancanales stated in a hard voice. “More than enough to fight your way to freedom. Money, too. Small, nonsequential, unmarked bills. Clothing and passports. Food, medicine, the works.”

The terrorists stood there in the chilly night, looking at the freedom given to them in a canvas sack.

“Why would you do this?” the leader asked suspiciously. “Do you support our holy cause? Who are you?”

“Your cause is full of holes, not holy,” Lyons said, flicking the safety on the Atchisson and tossing it aside. “As to who we are, we’re your sworn enemies and want nothing more than to see you bastards buried in the ground.”

The terrorists stood in confusion, the gift and the words together not making any sense.

Blancanales clicked the safety on the M-16/M-203 assault rifle combo he carried and lowered his own weapon. “We knew that there were two more members of your hate group still running around loose in the world. So we arranged for your transfer in the hope they would try to come to your rescue.”

“And they did,” Schwarz muttered, his hands holding a 9 mm Beretta pistol.

“So they are now captives of the American secret police?” the leader snarled hatefully.

Softly in the distance came the chatter of several MP-5 submachine guns all firing in unison.

“Not anymore,” Lyons stated without emotion. “You have friends, and so do we. But I’m betting that our guys just sent yours to hell.”

Fighting a shiver from the cool breeze, the leader of the Black Vipers muttered something in Arabic to the others.

“Not quite,” Blancanales answered in English. The former Black Beret only knew a few words of Arabic, but as a master of psychological warfare he could guess what the other man had said. “If we wanted you dead, we would have slit your throats when you were unconscious instead of taking off your shackles. But we’re offering something you never gave any of your victims. A fighting chance for life.”

The terrorists stood in silence, thinking hard, their scared bodies poised for flight, but uncertain.

“Surrender and go back to prison,” Schwarz said, using a thumb to click on the safety and tossing away his Beretta. “Or go for the guns. Your choice.”

Flexing his hands, Lyons lowered into a combat crouch. “But you’ll have to get past us first to reach the guns.”

“With snipers hidden in the bushes?” The leader laughed, glancing around nervously. Only shrubbery and more trees were in sight. “Why should we give you an excuse to gun us down?”

“You did that already,” Lyons said in a guttural voice. “When you bombed that civilian hospital. Now choose, or we choose for you.”

“And even if there were snipers,” Blancanales stated in harsh logic, “do you have a better offer?”

The leader waved that aside and said something softly to the other members. “We want nothing of this charade,” he said in resignation. “We surrender.” Then he whipped his arm around and threw the stone he had been palming while the others charged in a group.

Expecting the betrayal, Lyons ducked out of the way of the rock, then launched a side kick into the belly of the first terrorist, the force of the blow driving the man to his knees. But from there, he lunged forward and snapped his teeth at Lyons’s groin. The Able Team leader raised his thigh just in time and drove a rock-hard fist into the other man’s exposed neck. The bones snapped with an audible crunch, and the terrorist fell to the ground twitching into death.

Two of the Black Vipers converged on Blancanales, while the leader went for Schwarz. Although an expert with explosives and electronic surveillance, the former U.S. Army soldier had done more than his fair share of unarmed combat and simply stood motionless until the very last second. Then Schwarz twisted his fingers together in an odd way and thrust both hands into the face of the terrorist. Screaming in pain, the man froze motionless to claw at his ruined eyes.

Unexpectedly, the terrorist lashed out a kick, and Schwarz just swayed out of the way in time to avoid having his throat crushed. Darting forward, he grabbed the snarling man’s neck in a complex hold and spun him fast. Still fighting to get free, the prisoner contorted in an odd angle, there was a crack and the leader of the Black Vipers slumped lifeless into the creek with a loud splash.

Moving fast, Blancanales ducked under the hands of the first terrorist and kicked the second in the knee. The joint broke and the man dropped, only to throw dirt into his adversary’s face. Blinded for a second, he backed away quickly and felt the oversize hands of the giant terrorist close around his neck. His air was instantly cut off, and Blancanales forced himself to go calm, which used less oxygen, and fingered the other man’s arms until sightlessly finding the nerve complex in the wrist. Savagely, he buried his thumbnails into the tattoo-covered skin at just the right angle. The giant screamed in pain and let him go.

Instantly, Blancanales launched into a karate kata, a set sequence of movements normally used to fight your way out of a large crowd of opponents but also served well if you were blind. His hands and legs flashing, he hit nothing again and again, simply protecting himself while his watery eyes slowly cleared away the dirt.

When at last he could see, the Able Team commando dropped into a defense posture just as Schwarz smashed the temple of the small terrorist with a back-kick and Lyons released the giant from a bear hug, blood dribbling from the slack mouth of the last member of the dreaded Black Vipers as the killer started on his journey into hell.

Their chests heaving, Able Team stood for a moment amid the dead prisoners, pulling in the cool air. Often they had terminated the mad-dog killers of society, but usually it was at gunpoint and rarely was justice so satisfying.

“I swore to that dying Marine we would get these scumbags,” Lyons said softly, “face-to-face. It took a long time, but the bill has finally been paid in full.”

“Those two were supposed to be mine,” Blancanales said, wiping his cheeks dry with the back of a hand.

“Aw, but you were having so much fun punching the empty air,” Schwarz said with a weak grin, rubbing his oddly lumpy shoulder. “We didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I’m not a ninja like John Trent,” Blancanales replied, linking as his vision cleared. “But I make do. Hey, what’s wrong with your arm?”

“Dunno. Hurts like a bastard, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

Going around a corpse, Lyons walked over to the electronics expert and touched the shoulder. Schwarz winced slightly.

“It’s dislocated,” Lyons said as a warning.

Schwarz nodded, knowing what was coming.

Blancanales took his friend’s arm by the wrist, then placed the sole of his foot in the other man’s armpit.

“On the count of three,” Blancanales said, gently putting some tension on the arm.

Bracing his legs against the ground, Lyons held Schwarz tight by the waist, and instantly their teammate yanked hard on the arm, twisting it just slightly along the radius. Schwarz went white as the arm snapped back into the socket.

“Wh-hat th-the hell happened to three, you bastard?” he demanded, inhaling sharply though his nose.

They both released the man.

Blancanales gestured in apology. “I didn’t want you tensing up,” he explained. “That only makes the pain worse.”

“Worse?” Schwarz gasped, gently massaging his throbbing shoulder. “How is that possible?”

“Trust me,” Lyons said in a serious manner. “I’ve been there. It can get worse.”

“Damn.”

Just then a woodlark called from the darkness. Lyons spun about at the noise, and waited for it to come again before answering. A few seconds later, Phoenix Force strode into view from the midnight shadows beneath the thick cover of oak trees.

“The prison guards okay?” Lyons asked.

“Bruised, but alive,” David McCarter said, easing the tension on his Barnett military crossbow. In the hands of the former British SAS officer, the silent-kill weapon struck like divine justice, leaving only cooling corpses who left this world with a puzzled expression of how it had happened to them.

“Although they’ll have a hell of a headache when they finally wake up,” the Briton added, slinging the bow over a shoulder. “Without the antidote you gave the Black Vipers, that bleeding sleep gas has nasty side effects.”

“But it is fast,” Rafael Encizo stated, the compact Starlite goggles distorting his face as he scanned the night for any danger, or worse, any witnesses. “And that’s what counted tonight.” Heavily muscled, the soldier moved with catlike reflexes that spoke of endless years of combat in the field.

“We took a big chance on this,” Hawkins said, nudging one of the dead men. “Not that I disagree, but it was a hell of a chance. I’m surprised that Brognola gave this mission an okay. Pleased, but surprised.”

His actual name was Thomas Jefferson Hawkins, but everybody who saw him in combat quickly accepted the nickname of T.J. Trained by the elite Delta Force, Hawkins was relentless and brutal to the enemies of freedom.

Lyons rubbed a palm across his blood-smeared cheek. “Hal understands that there are some crimes,” he said softly, “for which a simple bullet in the head is not enough payment. Now the books are balanced.”

“Starting to sound more and more like Bolan all the time,” Gary Manning said, canting his silenced MP-5 submachine gun against his hip.

“Thanks for the compliment,” Lyons growled, almost smiling.

“Incoming call,” Calvin James said, touching the radio receiver in his ear. Tall and lean, the night-camouflage paint only took the reflective quality off the man’s dark skin.

“We’ve been recalled,” he stated, looking at the others. “Barbara wants us to report in person ASAP.”

“The SUV is this way,” Lyons said, starting into the bushes. If the farm was calling during a mission, something serious was brewing.

CHAPTER THREE

Nome, Alaska

Death stalked the crowd.

A calm voice called an announcement over the PA system of the airport. Excited children ran ahead of their weary parents. An old couple walked stiffly along the carpeted corridor, holding hands and talking softly. An anxious young man clutched a bouquet of flowers and watched each arriving plane with painfully obvious impatience.

As he stood in line at the airport scanner, the weight of the gun felt heavy inside the blouse of the disguised man. His wig itched, and his lower back ached from the weight strapped to his belly, along with the padded bra and the—

“Next, please!” the guard called out.

His disguise of Professor Johnson long ago removed, Davis Harrison, aka the Chameleon, waddled forward from the yellow line on the floor and placed his lady’s handbag on the conveyor belt, then paused and removed a plain gold wedding ring from his pinkie and put it in a little plastic tray. His long nails were manicured and freshly painted, his sneakers worn at the heels and his white support stockings had a small run artistically placed near the ankle, where most runs occurred in stockings. He knew his disguise was perfect, but there was still a small knot of tension in his stomach. After 9/11, the Americans had become exceptionally good at uncovering smugglers—whether it was drugs, money or weapons. He was carrying all three. Plus his technological namesake, the prototype jamming unit.

Armed guards stood in the far corners of the airport, loaded M-16 assault rifles cradled in their arms, hard eyes sweeping the crowds steadily. Briefly, Harrison had a flashback to the armed guards walking the elevated catwalks of the Berlin airport before the Wall came down. Hard times to make a living.

However, as the Transportation Security Administration guards glanced his way, they shifted their attention away from his face to the bulging belly, and those with wedding rings smiled. Posing as a pregnant woman was a favorite ruse of smugglers, but this one seemed to be okay. She was wearing support stockings and her ankles were slightly swollen, her wedding ring didn’t fit the correct finger anymore from the water weight gain, her ears were pierced, but she wasn’t wearing earrings, there was no scarf to cover an Adam’s apple, no razor burn on the cheeks and so on. Satisfied for the moment, their attention moved to more likely suspects.

An Inuit woman in a neatly pressed TSA uniform at the scanner held up a restraining hand as Harrison waddled toward the scanner.

“Your glasses, ma’am,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Sorry, I forget they were there,” Harrison said as he passed over the glasses.

The guard nodded in sympathy and waved him on.

Holding his bulging stomach protectively, he squeezed through the scanner and it remained silent. It worked! Elation filled the man, but he kept his expression weary. He was pregnant now, and it was exhausting work. Remember that, fool!

Once on the other side, the now smiling guard returned his glasses, ring and handbag, and waved for the next passenger.

Awkwardly shuffling away, Harrison paused for a moment to glance into a convenient wall mirror as he put on the ring and glasses, and fixed his hair. Then he pretended to burp and frantically covered his mouth in embarrassment.

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the mirror, the security guards drinking coffee watched with dull interest as the pregnant woman primped for a moment. A lot of smugglers were caught by the mirror trick. They remained icy cool at the scanner, then smirked in satisfaction at their cleverness in the reflection in the “conveniently placed” mirror.

“Poor thing,” a soldier said. “When my sister was preggers with her twins, she belched like a sailor day and night.”

Another man laughed. “Well, that explains a lot about you.”

“Stuff it,” the first guard snarled, the threat softened by a half smile. “Now, your sister, whew! Let me tell you…”

WADDLING AWAY, Harrison joined the short line heading to the China Air counter. His ticket was for New Delhi, a city closely watched for smuggling things out, but not well monitored for smuggling things into. The nation was poor. Why would anybody smuggle something into India? Harrison kept his face pensive, but smiled inside his mind. Why indeed?

As the line to board the plane moved slowly forward, he started shifting his weight from foot to foot, and began breathing a little heavily.

An alert flight attendant noticed the action and briskly walked over.

“Come on, dear,” she said, smiling. “Let’s get you on board where you can use the rest room.” Her nametag said Gwenneth, and the tall beauty had deep green eyes, a sure sign of not being of pure Chinese descent.

“Thank you,” Harrison whispered in a little voice. “I didn’t want to seem pushy or anything, but, well, you know…”

“My first baby seemed to love kicking my bladder,” the woman said in a friendly manner. “I understand. It’s okay, come with me, please.”

A few of the younger men scowled as the pair moved past the line and onto the plane. But all of the adults merely smiled as they figured out the reasoning behind the courtesy, and remembered similar incidents from their own lives.

A killer a hundred times over, Harrison took hold of the pretty woman’s arm and let his hand press against her uniform jacket, savoring the warmth of her full breasts as they walked along the skyway tunnel. Then he felt a flash of real fear at the totally unexpected appearance of a second weapons scanner in the entrance of the waiting 747 jetliner. This wasn’t on any of his plans or charts! Relinquishing his hold on the flight attendant, Harrison cradled his fake stomach and pressed on the sides to activate the Chameleon at its lowest setting. The tunnel lights flickered for a brief moment as the field engaged, but then they returned to normal and he passed through the EM scanner without incident.

Inside the plane, he gave a male flight attendant his ticket and shuffled quickly toward the little lavatory. Once inside, Harrison locked the door and reached under his dress to turn on a Humbug. The device silently swept the lavatory for any optical pickups or working microphones. When it checked as clear, he pulled out a Tech-9 machine pistol, worked the bolt to chamber a round for immediate use, then slid it back under his dress into the cushioned sack of supplies hanging from his shoulders. The thing weighed a ton, but there was no other way to accomplish his mission. So what couldn’t be changed had to be endured. At least temporarily.

Adjusting the power levels on the Chameleon, he raised the dial from its lowest setting to about halfway, and locked it into position. Soon now, very soon. Using the toilet, Harrison washed his hands and waddled out to his seat, settling down with a contented sigh.

Remembering to read a magazine through his glasses, he waited and watched as the last of the passengers came on board. After the door was latched shut, the pilot made an announcement that the flight was on schedule, and the steward began his mindless song about safety and seat belts, while the female flight attendant checked seat belts and the storage of the carryon baggage. Gwenneth was working his aisle, and Harrison allowed himself to study her in detail. Slim legs rising to a perfect rear, a narrow waist and large breasts. Midnight-black hair, pouting lips, sparkling green eyes—yeah, maybe he’d keep her alive for a while, before he sent everybody else on this plane straight to hell.

As the pretty flight attendant walked by, Harrison stretched out a fingertip to lightly brush the smooth nylons on her thigh.

Angrily, Gwenneth glanced down to scold the flirt. But when she saw it was the pregnant passenger, she dismissed it as an accident and moved on to help other passengers settle in for the long flight to India.

Yes, do your job, little flower, but nothing can save these fools now. Harrison smirked behind an impassive face. All I need are a few more minutes. Then it will be too late to stop me. And afterward, nobody would ever be able to stop the fall of America.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

MURMURING SOFTLY, the radio receiver tucked into security chief Buck Greene’s ear gave a constant report on the progress of the Black Hawk gunship coming in from the south. The surface-to-air missile bunkers were armed and ready in case it wasn’t the Stony Man teams inside coming home. The Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price, had told Chief Greene about the secondary effects of the Chameleon device, so he was taking no chances. If the lights flickered just once, or if there were two Black Hawks instead of one, then he would order the covert fortress to cut loose with everything it had, which was plenty. A mistake could be made, and friends might die. “How could we stop a Chameleon attack?” Greene wondered out loud.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that myself,” John “Cowboy” Kissinger stated. “Radar-invisible gunships, armed with invisible missiles—how could we stop those?”

“We couldn’t,” Greene replied flatly. “That’s what worries me. Even our proximity trips wouldn’t work.”

“Damn.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

If they were reduced to visually targeting a flying enemy, they’d be slaughtered. Running stiff fingers through his hair, Kissinger scratched his head as he considered possible countermaneuvers, and came up with nothing.

Tall and lanky, Kissinger was the master gunsmith for the covert warriors of Stony Man, his strong and nimble hands constructing nearly all of their speciality weapons. Guns were his thing, and there were damn few better at his job in the entire world. A 10 mm Megastar pistol rode in his shoulder holster this month, the Magnum automatic being personally tested by the gunsmith for possible use by the field operatives. Unless a weapon carried the Cowboy seal of approval, it never made it into the hands of the Stony Man commandos.

“Our heat-seekers are good, but at short range, they’d never have enough flight time to lock on to the exhaust of an incoming missile or rocket,” Kissinger said at last.

“I know,” Greene rumbled.

“Just trust to the nets,” Kissinger said, glancing at the thick trees surrounding the hidden base, “and keep those land mines armed. Whether it’s helicopters, jet packs or pogo sticks, they got to land sometime.”

“Amen to that,” Greene said, tilting his head to listen to the soft voice coming over the radio. “Heads up, they’re here.”

Almost immediately they heard the powerful throb of rotor blades approaching from the south. The noise rapidly built in volume until suddenly a sleek Black Hawk came into view over the leafy tops of the trees in the park.

Greene and Kissinger watched the helicopter maneuver into a landing.

As the aircraft landed, the two men caught sight of the grinning pilot through the cockpit windows and relaxed. Chief Greene and Kissinger walked from the building bent over against the turbulence of the spinning blades. Before they got halfway there, the side door of the Black Hawk slid open, exposing Able Team and Phoenix Force. Carrying bulging duffel bags, Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz jumped to the ground, and, bent low, hurried to greet their friends.

Smiling with pleasure, Greene and Kissinger shook hands with the team.

“Glad to see you guys in one piece,” Greene shouted. “How did it go?”

“Still in one piece,” Lyons quipped.

Kissinger snorted a laugh. “Damn glad to hear it!”

Just then, the men of Phoenix Force exited the aircraft along with their cargo of destruction. The men were still under the blades when the Black Hawk lifted and circled the Farm once, the smiling pilot giving the men on the ground a thumbs-up gesture before leveling out and departing.

“Nice to see you boys again,” Kissinger stated as the swirling dust settled. “Barb’s waiting in the computer room for a debriefing. Something’s going on in Alaska.”

“Alaska?” Rafael Encizo asked, shifting the strap of the duffel over his shoulder. “Any trouble with the Chameleon test?”

They already knew? Chief Greene shook his head. “Better ask Barb.”

The two teams accepted that and headed for the farmhouse.

Walking onto the porch and up to the front door, McCarter tapped a security code into a keypad and the door clicked open.

The teams headed directly to the basement, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, ceiling-mounted security cameras tracking them along the way. At the landing, Schwarz raised a hand to block a camera, and it gave a nasty warning buzz. Quickly, he took away his hand before the alarms sounded and tear gas began to vent from the ceiling.

“Touchy, isn’t it?” Manning said, amused. “Built-in proximity sensor?”

“Yep,” Schwarz said with a touch of pride. “The best in existence. I helped design them.”

Hawkins frowned. “And if the Chameleon works as promised, they would be about as useful as two paper cups and some waxed string.”

Since it was true, nobody bothered to reply to that.

Exiting the stairwell, the two groups continued on to the tunnel that would take them to the Annex, choosing to walk rather than take the tram.

The Computer Room was abuzz with activity, two men typing madly at computer stations, while a redhaired woman wearing a VR helmet and gloves rode the Internet. At the end of the row of consoles, the fourth computer was dark, the chair empty.

“Anything on the railroads or bus lines?” Barbara Price demanded, crossing her arms.

“Nothing so far,” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman replied, his hands flowing across a keyboard. A former member of the Rand Corporation think tank, Kurtzman was the chief of the electron-riders at the Farm. Although confined to a wheelchair from an attack on the Farm many years earlier, his mind was as sharp as ever. That was, aside from a minor dementia for black coffee strong enough to kill a rhinoceros.

“Ditto with major airlines,” Akira Tokaido added, speed-reading a scrolling monitor. “Every plane is on schedule and accounted for.” Of Japanese and American descent, the handsome young man was often referred to as a natural-born hacker with “chips in his blood.”

“So far,” Price said, biting a lip. “Keep a watch on the private planes. He might try to hijack a Cessna or a helicopter. Are there any crop dusters working in the state?”

“Good idea. I’m on it,” Tokaido said, turning on a submonitor while typing with his other hand.

“What are we looking for?” Lyons asked, dropping his duffel to the floor. It landed with a clank that momentarily caught the attention of the hackers.

“Glad you’re here,” Price stated without preamble.

“Where’s Hal?” McCarter asked, glancing around.

“Already back in D.C. talking with the President,” Price answered, waving the men toward the coffee station along the wall. “There’s plenty of coffee, so help yourself. I expect you’re also hungry, so I had the staff fill the fridge with fresh sandwiches. I can brief you as you eat. You go airborne in fifteen minutes.”

So fast? Lyons started to ask for an explanation, but said nothing. Price was no fool. If she was sending them into the field this quick, then the shit had already hit the fan.

“Ah, thanks, I think. Did Bear make the coffee?” James asked with a worried look.

Without turning in his wheelchair, Kurtzman laughed. “And you call yourselves soldiers.” He brandished a steaming mug. “This’ll put some hair on your chest!”

“Or take it off,” James quipped.

“Also degreases tractor parts,” Schwarz added.

“Heads up!” Carmen Delahunt announced from behind her VR helmet. “I just accessed a NSA WatchDog satellite.”

Right on cue, the main wall monitor fluttered with a wild scroll and settled into a picture of more swirling clouds.

“Damn!” Delahunt cursed. “There’s no break in the cloud cover over western Alaska.” She sounded as if the inclement weather were a personal affront to her abilities as a hacker.

“Carmen, did you really expect clear sky at this time of year?” Price asked. “That’s why the Pentagon set the field test for the Chameleon. No other nation’s satellites could watch.”

“Advanced technology is so damn primitive,” Schwarz said with a flash of a smile.

“Apparently so, this time,” Delahunt muttered, going back into the virtual reality of the worldwide Net.

Going to the kitchenette, Price poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, adding a lot of milk and sugar. “Have you all read the report from Hal?”

“In the Black Hawk coming here,” Lyons replied. “There wasn’t much there.”

“Sadly, it’s all we have,” she said.

“Okay, grab a seat,” Price instructed, gesturing at some chairs pushed along the wall. “We’re truly operating in the dark on this. We know nothing about how the Chameleon operates, power requirements, distance limitations and so on. Every report and file was destroyed in Alaska. All we can do is make some educated guesses. Everybody connected with the project was at that field test or in the laboratory. The missiles from the USS Fairfax killed them all.”

“What was the hoped-for size of the unit?” Schwarz asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“About the size of a paperback book,” Price replied. “But Hal said that the President believes Professor Johnson was field-testing a shoe box version yesterday.”

“The size of a shoe box?” James said, the astonishment plain on his face.

She nodded. “Yes. But once again, it’s only a guess.”

“Still certainly small enough to be portable,” McCarter said, rubbing his chin. “How much did it weigh?”

“We figured it at roughly twenty pounds. But it could be more, a lot more.”

“Barbara, was that Professor Torge Emile Johnson by any chance?” Schwarz asked, scrunching his face.

Blinking in surprise, Price turned. “Yes, it was. So you know him?”

“Only by reputation. I’ve read articles by the man. He was a genius. A real one. Made breakthroughs all the time. SA once called him the Thomas Edison of the twenty-first century.”

“SA?” Manning asked patiently.

“Scientific American magazine,” James explained.

Manning nodded wisely. “Ah, yes. I have the swimsuit issue at home.”

“Oh, shut up,” James growled.

“So what is the mission?” Hawkins asked, leaning against the wall. “We’re supposed to get it back before anybody get hurts?”

“Over three hundred people are dead already,” Price answered sternly. “We want it found, or destroyed.”

Going to the fridge, Blancanales opened the door to find it filled with plates of sandwiches, soft drinks and bottles of juice, so he grabbed sandwiches and an orange juice. It was going to be a long day. He could feel it in his bones.

“What about the off-site backup files?” he asked, resting against the counter to unwrap his food and take a healthy bite.

“The what?” McCarter asked, heading for the fridge. There was no Coca-Cola in sight, only some diet Mountain Dew and several bottles of fruity stuff, and the juice.

Blancanales was chewing, so Schwarz answered. “Every project is vulnerable to accidents, or hackers. So all big corporations, and most government projects, have an automatic recording of everything done in the lab located far away from the building. Just in case.”

“Smart move,” McCarter commented.

“Damn straight it is. The IRS does the same thing, which is why it’s pointless to bomb the place.”

“The Farm, too?” Hawkins asked.

Turning away from his console Kurtzman said, “No, we’re too sensitive. If this place goes, nobody will ever know we even existed.”

“The backup files are a good place to start a search, but once again, we don’t know where they’re located,” Price added grimly. “Only the project head and the Pentagon liaison did.”

“And they’re dead,” Encizo stated.

“Exactly.”

“So our job is to go through the wreckage and find the location of those backup files,” Lyons said, thinking aloud, his eyes half-closed in concentration.

“Yes,” Price said. “Able Team goes in as DOD inspectors. Phoenix Force stays in the background to give you three cover in case of trouble.”

Lyons frowned. Which translated as, his team got killed, but Phoenix Force found the culprit.

“And then?” Encizo inquired.

“Kill the thief.” Price didn’t believe in couching terms. If the men could do the job, then she could damn well say the word.

“Any ID on him yet?” Blancanales asked, then added, “Or her?”

“Not a thing,” Price replied, placing her mug aside on the counter. “Whoever did this is good. As good as anybody we have.”

“Must have been an inside job. Nothing else makes sense,” McCarter stated. He took a drink from the bottle, then went on, “So it’s a mole.”

Lyons shook his head. “Or an ape.”

Ape, yes, Price knew the term. Spies stayed out and relayed information for years. Apes hit hard, blew things up and stole things. “Ape” was slang for an AP, which stood for Agent Provocateur. Secret government soldiers.

“So we’re facing a James Bond type,” Schwarz said without a trace of humor. “Not many of them around these days.”

Blancanales lowered his sandwich. “And for just this reason. Everybody is dead, and the prototype is lost.”

“Maybe lost,” James corrected. “Maybe destroyed in the explosions, or stolen. We don’t know shit right about now.”

“Could be a solo, or a freelance,” Price admitted. “Somebody not affiliated with any government. Just there to steal the Chameleon and sell it on the open market.”

“Or even sell it back to us,” Hawkins grumbled. “If it cost us a billion to make, then we’d certainly pay that much to get it back.”

“At least.”

Rubbing the faint bullet scar on his temple, Encizo sighed. “Hellfire, we really are in the dark on this.”

“That’s why we have to move fast,” Price agreed, “and try to cover every base.”

“What was the name of the company doing the research?” Kurtzman asked over a shoulder.

“Quiller Geo-Medical,” she said, and then smiled at the surprised expressions. “Yes, it means nothing. But it sounds very scientific, and people seldom ask.”

“Or maybe one did,” Kurtzman muttered, then wheeled his chair about. “Akira! Check the IRS tax records for a list of employees. Then cross-check that with the state driver’s-license files at the Alaska DMV. Carmen, I want you—”

“On it,” she interrupted from behind her mask, both hands in their VR gloves caressing the air. “I’ll access the video surveillance cameras at the airports and run a facial check as soon as Akira gives me some faces from the driver’s licenses.”

“He’ll be wearing a disguise,” Price warned. “And this person is damn good. KGB good. Maybe better.”

Delahunt shrugged. “We can adjust for that. It’s our ID software that caught that last group of terrorists trying to sneak out of the country.”

“Where’s Hunt, anyway?” Blancanales asked, glancing at the empty fourth chair at the end of the row of computer stations.

Huntington “Hunt” Wethers had been teaching cybernetics at Berkeley when he was recruited into Stony Man. With wings of gray hair at his temples, and smoking his briarwood pipe, Wethers looked like the stereotypical college professor. Yet he possessed a facility with computers that few other experts had.

“Hunt’s on a special assignment with Mack,” Price explained after a moment.

That was an unexpected answer. “In the field?”

She shrugged. “Mack asks, and he gets.”

Lyons stood. “Good luck to them both,” he said with feeling. There had to be a major problem for Striker to request assistance from anybody, and double so for him to ask for a desk jockey like the professor.

“Better save it,” Hawkins said, pushing away from the wall. “Because I think we’re going to need all of the luck we can get to bust this nut.”

“Alert,” Delahunt announced calmly. “We have a break in the clouds.”

Everybody turned. The main wall monitor filled with a view of western Alaska, then jumped closer in a staggered series of zoom shots until the screen was filled with a real-time view of the destroyed target zone and the smoking ruin of the research lab. The ambulances had come and gone, leaving only chalk outlines everywhere on the ground. Often, there was only the outline of a limb, or a torso, instead of an entire body.

Somebody merely grunted, while another muttered a curse.

“Barbara, tell Jack to get fueled and ready for liftoff,” Lyons ordered brusquely. “We’ll meet him on the front lawn in ten minutes.”

“Cowboy already has your spare equipment ready to go. Along with the proper ID cards, weapons permits, all the usual,” she told him.

Both teams headed for the door, and a grim-faced Encizo tapped in the exit code this time.

“We bloody well could be walking into a trap, mate,” McCarter commented.

As the armored door started to cycle open, Lyons looked backward at the pictures on the wall monitor, the hundreds of chalk outlines amid the smoking rubble.

“No,” he replied in a voice of stone. “They are.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Flight 18, above the North Pacific

The recessed ceiling lights in the 747 flickered for a moment.

“Hey,” a man said, taking the cell phone away from his ear. “What the hell is going on?”

“What’s the matter?” his wife asked, lowering her magazine.

“This damn thing is dead!” he raged, hitting the device.

Gwenneth started forward to talk to the upset passenger, when she noticed that across the plane, a woman was shaking her airphone and also muttering annoyances. Two phones died at the same time? How odd.

“Hu, Yuki,” Gwenneth said to the other flight attendants. “Go calm down the passengers. I’ll report this to the captain.”

Yuki nodded vigorously and started down the aisle, beaming a pleasant smile.

“It’s nothing,” Hu scoffed, sliding another packaged meal into a microwave to be warmed. “Just a coincidence.”

“Maybe,” Gwenneth said, biting a lip. “Or maybe it’s a freak magnetic storm that’ll throw off the navigation and make us hours late. Either way, regulations say that the captain must be informed at once.”

Hu shrugged in a noncommittal manner, and Gwenneth pushed past the man to start for the cockpit. Moving through first class, she stopped as the door to the lavatory opened, almost hitting her in the face. It was Mrs. Coleson, the pregnant American woman from coach.

“You really shouldn’t be here, dear,” Gwenneth started to say, when the woman grabbed her forcibly by the arm and shoved something hard into her stomach.

“I have a weapon,” Davis Harrison growled in his real voice. “Stay calm and you may get to live.”

Her eyes went wide at the realization that it was a man wearing a disguise. Quickly, Gwenneth started to pull air into her lungs for a full-throated scream, but Harrison rammed the gun into her stomach, almost knocking her out. Gasping for breath, Gwenneth felt her eyes well with tears as she fought to draw in a ragged breath.

“Oh, dear,” Harrison said, sounding like a woman again. “You’ve go the flu, too, eh? Here, let me help you sit down.”

Gwenneth tried to fight free from the other person, but his grip was like iron, and every move only earned her another jab in the belly. Her vision was starting to go red from the lack of air, and a wave of weakness swept over her. This had to be a hijacking…terrorists! But how to warn…

Something slammed into her face, and Gwenneth had a brief flash of the steel-plated door to the cockpit before the universe turned black and she tumbled into a warm darkness.

“Yes?” a voice said from the other side.

Dropping the unconscious woman to the deck, Harrison pushed the door open, its electronic lock disabled from the humming Chameleon strapped to his belly. Stepping inside, he swung the deadly Tech-9 about, marking his targets. The crew was three, pilot, copilot and navigator, exactly as there should be. No surprises here. Excellent.

“Hey, that door was locked!” the navigator cried out in confusion, spinning from his console. Then he raised an eyebrow at the pregnant woman holding an automatic weapon of some kind. Shit! A hijacking!

“Nobody move,” Harrison ordered.

The copilot fumbled under his seat, while the navigator snatched a small black box from the wall and lunged forward to thrust the Talon stun gun at the intruder, the silvery prongs crackling with electricity. The Chinese man got only halfway before Harrison fired from the hip.

Hardly any flame or smoke erupted from the muzzle, and only a subdued click was heard, as if the weapon had misfired. But the navigator dropped the Talon as he was slammed backward against his console, blood spurting from his throat.

Harrison fired twice more, only clicks sounding. The navigator writhed under the sledgehammer blows, his chest seeming to explode and a radar screen behind the man noisily cracked as a slug drilled through. Exhaling life itself, the shuddering man fell to the cold deck, blood pouring from the gaping holes in his body.

“Alert, Anchorage!” the pilot said quickly into her throat mike. “Code four, repeat, we have a code four in progress!”

But there was no reply from the airport; not even the soft crackle of static came over her earphones. The radio was completely dead.

That was when she noticed that most of the control board was dead, many of the instruments giving wildly impossible readings. Shit and fire, her ship was in some sort of a jamming field! There was no other possible explanation.

Reaching under the chair, she thumbed a hidden button. Then something hit her shoe, and the pilot glanced down to see a misshapen lead slug on the deck. From the pistol? But there had been no noise. What was going on here?

“That emergency signal will never be heard.” Harrison chuckled, enjoying their confusion. On impulse, he reached up and pulled off his annoying wig.

The pilot scowled at the sight of the hijacker’s bald head, the skin stubbled with hair. Not bald, shaved, details she would need to remember to help convict him in court before the Red Army firing squad blew off his face.

“Don’t hurt anybody else,” the copilot said in Chinese, raising both hands. “We will obey. What do you want?”

The hijacker frowned at the copilot, and the pilot realized he didn’t speak Chinese. That could be useful in the future.

“This is foolish,” the pilot began in English. “Once we move off course—”

“Shut up! Do you need the copilot to fly this plane?”

Not really, no, she admitted to herself. Then the end result of such honesty became horrifying obvious.

“Yes!” she lied, darting a glance at her friend. “Of course. This aircraft is huge!”

Harrison smiled. “You lie,” he whispered, and the strange gun clicked twice more. The copilot jerked backward against the hull, then slumped over in his chair, supported only by the safety harness around his chest. Blood began to dribble from his slack mouth, and a second Talon fell to the deck with a clatter.

“Toy, stupid, useless toy,” Harrison growled in annoyance.

Then the Tech-9 swung to point at the captain. To her, the muzzle seemed larger than the Beijing Tunnel, and she felt the world shrink to a view of its black interior. A drop of sweat suddenly trickled down her face, and a thousand images and feelings flashed through her mind in a single heartbeat: childhood, family, friends, becoming captain.

“Obey me, or die,” Harrison said from somewhere in the distance.

Her attention split in two, the yoke of the jumbo jetliner felt hot in her grip, the elaborate control board only inches away. If it was only her life, she would crash the plane rather than submit. But she was responsible for all the other souls in the aircraft. Honor wouldn’t allow her to abandon them. For the moment, there seemed to be no other choice. Yes, she would obey, and hopefully live, and do her best to keep the passengers alive no matter what.

Then a muscular hand gripped the pilot’s shoulder and squeezed hard, the sharp painted nails digging painfully into her flesh.

“Well?” Harrison demanded, pressing the gun barrel to her right eye.

As if her head weighed a thousand tons, the pilot slowly nodded.

“Very good.” He chuckled and slid his hand down the silken material of her white blouse to cup a soft breast and squeeze with brutal force.

She started to cry out from the pain, then bit back the sound and concentrated on flying the plane as the man lewdly fondled her body. Born and raised a Communist, the pilot didn’t believe in any gods, but she still sent a silent prayer into the universe begging for deliverance from the coming hell.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nome, Alaska

The summer wind was warm, gently rustling the bluebell flowers that grew wild in the fields outside the airport.

The unmarked C-130 Hercules transport was parked all by itself on a secluded landing field as far away from the main terminal as possible. All across the Nome International Airport, the staff, crew and TSA guards were staying far away from the military transport. They had been told when it would arrive, and nothing more. But nobody thought twice about the incident. Alaska was so close to Russia, only fifteen miles at the closest point, that the local population was used to covert military landings, odd troops movements and such ever since the cold war. America and Russia were friendly these days, but the military still kept a close watch on its old foe. Just in case.

With a strong whine of hydraulics, the rear of the C-130 Hercules transport disengaged, and cycled down to the ground to form a ramp. Deep inside the mammoth plane, headlights flashed on, and soon a civilian SUV rolled into view and bumped down the ramp to reach the tarmac.

Driving a few yards away from the aircraft, Carl “Ironman” Lyons parked the SUV and waited for the rest of the team to drive out. The vehicle was a dark green in color, so dark it appeared to be black. The windows were tinted, and the license plates carried government numbers.

What couldn’t be seen was the composite armor lining the SUV, and its hidden arsenal of weaponry in the ceiling, walls and seats.

Suddenly the massive engines of the Hercules coughed into life, the four great propellers rotating in spurts and then accelerating into a steady blur. Then the rear hatch began to cycle upward as the airplane prepared for takeoff.

Setting the parking brake, Lyons scowled. What the hell was going on now?

The side door near the tail swung open and a pair of duffel bags was tossed onto the tarmac, closely followed by Blancanales and Schwarz. Even as the two men grabbed their bags, the C-130 released its brakes and started to taxi forward, heading for an empty runway. The two men walked toward the SUV, and by the time they arrived, the Hercules was airborne and disappearing into the clouds.

“Trouble?” Lyons asked from behind the wheel.

Blancanales opened the rear hatch and tossed in his bag. “Yes and no,” he replied. “We caught the squawk from the Farm that a China Air 747 has crashed in the Koryak Mountains of Russia only an hour ago.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Lyons said with a grunt. “What has that got to do with us?”

“Its destination was New Delhi,” Schwarz said, adding his duffel to the pile of equipment and packs in the rear of the SUV. “And it left Ted Stevens Airport in Anchorage two hours after the attack on Quiller Labs, about six hours ago.”

As the men climbed into the vehicle, Lyons did some fast mental math. “So it’s hundreds of miles off course. And how did it penetrate that deep into Russian airspace without being challenged or shot down?”

“Only one way that Barb can guess,” Blancanales said, snapping on his seat belt.

“The Chameleon,” Lyons growled. “Our ape must have hijacked the plane, then killed the crew, jumped out and let it crash to hide that he was ever there.”

“Or it could be a diversion,” Schwarz offered, pulling the 9 mm Beretta from his shoulder holster and dropping the clip to check the load before reinserting the clip. “But I don’t read our ape that way.”

Adjusting his DOD identification badge on his suit jacket, Blancanales nodded. “Agree. Our boy is fast and furious. Not really into fancy tricks. He’s more the lead-pipe type.”

“Anything from the pilot, or civilian cell phones?” Lyons asked, starting the engine again. The big V8 purred into life, and he slipped the shift to start driving for an access road.

“Not a peep,” Schwarz replied. “And the emergency beacon didn’t activate until the plane was already tumbling out of the sky.”

“You mean once it was out of range of the jamming field of the Chameleon,” Lyons said grimly.

“That’s the idea, yes.”

“Gadgets, could the ape have used the Chameleon to mask itself and smuggle it on board past airport security?” Blancanales asked frowning.

“He could have smuggled an Abrams tank past security with that thing,” he answered. “But it would have to be operating at very low power. Full force it would interfere with the operation of the controls regulating the jet engines, and the plane would—”

“Crash,” Blancanales interrupted. “Goddamn it, maybe the passengers rushed the bastard and that’s exactly what happened!”

Pennsylvania all over again. Conversation stopped as only a few hundred yards away, a 707 roared into the sky. Even as it ascended, a small two-seater Cessna daintily arrived to touch the ground on another landing strip. In spite of the fact that it was so close to the Arctic Circle, the Nome airport was always busy with the combined civilian and military traffic, but its safety record was equaled by few other airports.

“So unless we can find the backup files here, this is going to be a race between McCarter and the Russian air rescue service,” Lyons stated as the SUV bumped over a small crack in the road. There had been an earthquake in November 2002 that rocked all of Alaska, and the damage was still being repaired on a priority basis.

“Which is why they took off with us still on the field,” Blancanales agreed.

“Jack isn’t going to try to fly Phoenix Force there, is he?” Lyons demanded. “He’d never get past the Russian radar.”

“Damn right he couldn’t. Their EM umbrella is tight,” Schwarz stated with conviction. “Without the Chameleon, there’s no way to fly into Russian national airspace without getting a SAM up your ass. Maybe two.

“Unless you do it at a height of six inches,” he added.

Slowing down at a locked gate, Lyons waited for the armed TSA guards to leave the kiosk. He showed the woman his ID. She gave no reaction, but spoke into her radio, and then waved them past.

Taking a turn onto an access road, Lyons raised an eyebrow at that. “They’re going to try a deadman’s run?”

“Only way to get there fast enough,” Blancanales said, pulling an M-16/M-203 combo from his duffel. “Our ape might not have jumped, and the damaged Chameleon could still be on the plane. They have to get there first, at any cost.”

Damn. Then Grimaldi would be taking McCarter to Ketchikan Island. The Coast Guard should have what the team needed. If not…

“Check your equipment,” Lyons directed. “We’ll be going to the testing area first. That’s the last place where anybody would hide their backup files.”

“Then why are we going?” Blancanales asked, puzzled, slapping in a clip. Then his face brightened. “Because it’s the best place for them to ambush us.”

“This crazy son of a bitch is trying to take the pressure off Phoenix Force,” Schwarz snorted, thumbing a fat 40 mm round into the breech of his M-203 grenade launcher. He closed the breech with a solid metallic snap. “Fair enough. Let’s rattle the trees, Carl, we got your six.”

Merging with the outgoing traffic, Lyons said nothing as he checked the .357 Colt Python under his jacket and sent the SUV heading for the coastal highway outside of Nome.

CHAPTER SIX

International Waters, North Pacific Ocean

The white Coast Guard cutter pitched and tossed in the churning ocean, waves crashing over the bow with drumming force. The evening sky was pitch-black, a cold rain pelting sideways through the fog.

Visibility was near zero. Off in the distance, the powerful beam of a Russian lighthouse was only a ghostly glow, and if there was a warning horn, its plaintive cry was swallowed whole by the near deafening crash of the endless waves.

“This weather couldn’t be any better!” David McCarter shouted in frank approval over the wild storm.

“God loves the infantry.” Hawkins chuckled as the cutter dropped five feet into a wave trench. “But I think He hates the Navy tonight. Hold on, here comes another big one!”

The men gripped the chain railing tight, bracing for the crash. For a full second the ship was in free fall, then it hit hard, the jolting impact almost tearing their hands away. Riding the recoil of the watery landing, Phoenix Force watched and listened to the rampaging storm, getting a feel for its tempo and rhythm. The unexpected squall was helping to mask the approach of the USCGC Mellon. That was the good part.

Unfortunately, the Coast Guard cutter was also falling way behind schedule and the team felt the pressure of the lost time bearing down upon them. The numbers were falling and not in their favor. Too many battles to count had been lost because of arriving late. However, they couldn’t afford for this to join those ignoble ranks.

“We’re going to have to leave early,” McCarter stated, wiping the water from his face with a palm. “Got no choice!”

“In for a penny, in for a pounding, eh, David?” Gary Manning joked, bracing himself as a giant wave swept across the lower deck to crash against the hull just below their boots.

“Pity we had to leave Ketchikan Island before seeing the Panama Guns,” Encizo said, casting a glance back toward the coast of North America, only a hundred miles away, but in this storm it might as well have been in other dimension.

“Not much left of those cannons anyway,” James replied loudly, squinting into the maelstrom. “Hey, I think the squall is easing some!”

“Good!” Hawkins yelled. “Still, they would have been nice to see! The Panamas were designed to stop the Russian navy from taking Alaska. Sort of the American version of the Guns of Navarone!”

“How big were they again?” Encizo asked, swaying to the pitch of the rolling deck.

“A whopping 155 mm!” Then he added with a grin, “Just about the size of decent T-bone steak in Texas!”

“You mean a deep-dish pizza in Chicago!” James shot back.

Whipped by the wind and sea, Phoenix Force shared a brief laugh as the men battled the squall and continued their vigil. Time was short, but professional soldiers knew how to wait until just the right moment, and then explode into action. It was all timing.

Inside the wheelhouse of the USCGC Mellon, a young helmsman turned from the joystick-style yoke and gave a scowl at the strangers below on the forward deck. Alaska had been clear sailing, but only fifty miles off the coast they hit this squall. Now cold rain was coming down in sheets, and the triple-blade window wipers fought to keep the bulletproof glass clear. But the raging sea and rain were mightier than the technology of man, and the wipers gave only brief slices of visibility, strobing glimpses of the churning sea and the rocky shore they were heading toward at full speed.

“Look at them out there,” the helmsman muttered in disapproval, involuntarily flinching as a wave slammed against the starboard windows. “Standing on the open deck! Crazy bastards.”

“Peterson, why are you talking to yourself?” Captain Tyson asked, hands clasped behind his back. In spite of the inclement weather, the officer was neatly dressed in a crisp uniform, his shoes shiny with polish and his hair freshly cut.

On the wall behind the officer was a line of yellow rain slicks, Veri pistol flare guns, fire extinguishers, a medical kit and a dozen lifejackets.

“What was that, Skipper?” the helmsman asked, checking the course and heading on the dashboard instruments.

“You know the standing orders,” Tyson stated. “There is nobody on the deck, not a soul in sight but you and me.” The captain paused. “And you sure as hell didn’t just call your CO crazy, now, did you?”

The helmsman swallowed hard and turned his face to the rampaging storm again. “Sir, no, sir!” he chanted, tightening both hands on the joystick.

“Didn’t think so,” Tyson muttered, moving to the motion of his cutter. Sonar showed the sea below was clear of Russian submarines, but the radar screen was filled with the storm, the computer unable to recognize a few small dots moving in from the west. They could just be St. Elmo’s fire; there was a lot of that out here. Or it could be MiG fighters moving just above the storm on a recon run.

“Maintain course and speed,” Captain Tyson said, looking out the windows at the squall.

“Aye, sir.” Concentrating on his job, the helmsman switched hands on the joystick to wipe the first one dry on a pant leg. Equipped with autofeedback, the computerized yoke wasn’t loose under his grip, but pushed back at him this way and another as the currents slapped the rudder about. It was exactly like holding a wheel and steering a windjammer. In spite of the mechanical interfacing, the joystick gave a man the feel of the water, and that was sometimes even more important than maps and sonar readings. Sailing was a science, but one that was ruled by art. The poetry of the wind was more than a clever saying; it was a way of life burned into the bones of every sailor.

Especially on this combination rescue vessel and warship. The USCGC Mellon was the pride of the Coast Guard. A Hamilton-class cutter, the craft was 378 feet long, with a crew of eighteen officers and 143 sailors. She boasted both gasoline and diesel engines, along with a flat bottom for faster speeds and the ability to go into amazingly shallow water without damage. The hull was composite armor over an aluminum frame, making the Mellon strong but lightweight. The windows were shatterproof glass, every door a watertight hatchway, and each deck was railed for safety in even the roughest storms. The Mellon could sail through a hurricane and come out fighting back, its crew and passengers alive and safe.

As was standard in the Coast Guard, the cutter came with a 76 mm cannon in a small pillbox at the bow, designed to put a whistling warning shot across the deck of other vessels to make them come about for inspection. However, if the warning failed, the Mellon also boasted two 25 mm Bofors Autocannons, four .50-caliber machine guns and side-launching Mk49 torpedoes.

OUTSIDE AT THE RAILING, McCarter noted the addition of Harpoon missiles to the cutter’s impressive arsenal. Back in 1992 the torpedoes and the missiles had been removed because of budget cuts. After 9/11, the Coast Guard got a massive boost in spending and quickly reinstalled the heavy weapon systems. Basically, it was a pocket battleship. More accurately, the cutter was a PT boat for the twenty-first century.

“David, how many of these does the Coast Guard have?” Manning asked, his face into the wind, hair slicked back from the wash so that he resembled a tango instructor or Mafia capo.

“Twelve!” McCarter shouted in reply. “But they should have a bloody hundred!”

“Preaching to the choir, friend!”

“Rocks!” Encizo shouted, pointing at black shapes looming in the storm. Jagged peaks of stone, the broken cliffs stood defiant in the crashing waves, the pinnacles rising higher than the radio antenna of the listing Mellon.

McCarter grunted, “About damn time.”

“HALF SPEED!” Captain Tyson barked. “Hard to port, two degrees!”

“Aye, sir!”

Shapes rose from the squall, black and imposing.

“Quarter speed! Hard to starboard!” Damnation, the rocks were everywhere! He glanced at the instruments, but they were useless. Too much conflicting data from the storm, rocks and muddy surf.

“Half speed! Hard to port!” More rocks appeared from the rain. “Quarter speed!” A wave crashed across the bow of the turning cutter, and there appeared a wall of black rock straight ahead of them.

“Full speed ahead!” Captain Tyson commanded, his hands clenched white behind his back, but his expression was cool and calm.

“Aye, sir!” the helmsman cried, fighting the joystick. A wave slammed them on the port side, then there came a metallic shriek as something under the water scraped along their hull. The mountain of stone seemed to expand before the cutter as the ship fought the waves. A crash seemed imminent, and then the Mellon entered a calm in the storm, the sections of tumbled-down cliffs forming the imposing breakers soon in their wake.

On this side of the barrier, the force of the storm was noticeably less and visibility was greatly increased. The shoreline of mother Russia was barely visible about four miles ahead. No lights showed along the shore, or in the wooded hills beyond. But that was why this section of the coast had been chosen. Near total isolation. Not even smugglers used the deserted cover because of the deadly breakers and underwater boulders that could rip open the keel of a ship like a soda can being crushed in your fist. And if not for his special passengers, Captain Tyson would never have come to this special little slice of Russian hell.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the captain checked the GPS and the navigational chart, and then the compass just to make sure. Okay, the Mellon was now in the national waters of Russia and most certainly on their radar screens. The storm should kill visual, but at the first sign of anything suspicious, the Russian navy would hit the Coast Guard cutter with infrared, UV and anything else the local boys had. And if those were indeed MiG fighters in the sky…

“Okay, son, full stop. We now have engine trouble,” the captain announced, checking his wristwatch. “Shut her down, and drop the main anchor.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the helmsman acknowledged crisply, and worked the controls on the joystick, slowing the huge craft with surprising ease until it was relatively still in the choppy North Pacific waters. Overriding the automatics, he gunned the gasoline engines a few times, making them turn over but refuse to catch.

“Keep doing that until further notice,” Captain Tyson said, turning to leave. “But keep the diesels hot in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

“Sir?” the helmsman asked hesitantly. “Do you think that this might be a good time to run a gun drill with the crew?”

The captain nodded at that in appreciation. He liked sailors who thought fast. Smugglers were tough and clever, and only touch and clever CGs could do the job of guarding the shores of America.

“This close to the Bear,” Tyson said, meaning Russia, “that is generally a good idea, but not tonight. We have engine trouble, the crew will all be down in the hold banging on hatchways and pipes with hammers to make as much noise as possible. So that for the Russian sonar can hear us doing, ahem, repairs.”

“Understood, Skipper,” the helmsman said, setting his shoulders as he gunned the flooded engines again. “We’re dead in the water, but in spite of the storm, we don’t need any assistance yet.”

“That’s what the radio operator will be reporting to Ketchikan base right at this moment,” Tyson said, pulling out a cell phone and tapping in a memorized number. “Carry on.”

“Aye, aye, skipper!”

THE PAGER in McCarter’s breast pocket vibrated, and he hit the pager to turn it off. That was the signal. If they were in the vicinity, the Russians would be monitoring the military channels for transmission, and not be paying much attention to the civilian bands. Unless there was a lot of traffic. So all messages were being sent over pagers and cell phones, and consisted of a yes or no.

“Let’s move,” McCarter said, starting along the railing toward the stern of the huge cutter.

The deck was wet, but the rubberized covering made their footing secure, and Phoenix Force easily reached the aft helipad.

Two crafts were there, lashed down tight under sheets of canvas by a web of ropes. Pulling knives, the men slashed the ropes free and hauled off the canvas to reveal two rather lumpy-looking rubber dinghies. Each was equipped with a set of tandem motors and filled with bags of supplies.

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