McCARTER RIPPED A BURST INTO HIS ATTACKER’S CHEST

The machete-wielding killer spread his arms wide, the wind knocked from his lungs before he could cry out, further raising the alarm.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Briton saw Hawkins leap out behind another predator, clubbing him with the buttstock of his P-90. The marauder collapsed without a sound, and Hawkins crawled on top of the stunned man, grabbing riot cuffs from his pocket.

The crack of a handgun split the night and McCarter and Manning separated, drawing the Phoenix Force leader’s attention back to the front of him. Manning’s FN spoke, coughing out suppressed rounds that chopped into the handgunner, ending his assault.

McCarter stumbled over a tree root, and looked up to see a machete-wielding murderer let out an enraged scream as he came down on the Briton, blade gleaming in the starlight, thirsty for blood.

Other titles in this series:

#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

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

#81 SKY HAMMER

#82 VANISHING POINT

Doom Prophecy

STONY MAN®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Don Pendleton

Ka55andra is the proper spelling for the character’s name. It is a habit for people in cyberspace to protect both their anonymity and individuality by adopting unique spellings of their names, often by replacing letters with numbers or symbols such as @, $, # and &. All references to Cassandra starting with “K” are properly spelled, as are the spellings of the mythological prophetess’s name.

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

PROLOGUE

The bridge was quiet and dark, in sharp contrast to the glittering San Francisco skyline to the south, reflecting off the Pacific Ocean like an orgy of fireflies. Cara Duong wasn’t afraid of the dark, or what lurked in it, not with the reassuring weight of the Colt 1911 in the waistband of her skirt. Her trench coat was drawn tightly around her as the chill breeze cut over the railroad trestle.

The smell of the ocean was strong, but another scent dominated her memories. It was the scent of fresh blood, still vivid after decades. The unmistakable image of her mother’s bare white ribs sticking through her blood-spattered chest stabbed into Cara Duong’s gut and twisted like a murderer’s knife. She had been only nine years old, but already she’d known pain and loss.

When she was only five, her father and teenage brother were slain during the 1968 Tet Offensive, killed in pitched battle against the American forces who sought to crush the Vietnamese dreams of independence and freedom from western oppression. Her mother told her constantly about the wretched whites and blacks who violated their country, who raped women and children and burned villages, deforesting jungles, turning paddies to poisoned muck with the corpses of their slain countrymen.

Cara Duong hated Americans as a child, but that was because she had a good teacher. Her mother was as much a warrior as her father was. Mama Duong was ageless, able to look as old or young as she wanted to with only a little change of clothing and makeup. She snuck into the cities when she could, slaying American soldiers on leave who looked for a little “brown nookie.”

Even today, the term filled her mouth with the acid taste of hateful bile. Duong trembled with rage, more than from the coolness of the northern California night.

Her mother had taught her well, how to hate, how to despise. At age eight, Duong learned to shoot her first gun, a captured Colt 1911 just like the one she stuffed down into her skirt. It was locked and cocked, meaning that the hammer was all the way back, ready to fire, but the safety was on, keeping it from going off accidentally. Her mother was good with guns, but even better with knives.

But all the skill in the world didn’t make a difference. Not with a dozen armed soldiers stalking through their village at night, hunting for insurgents. Mama Duong roused her fellow fighters to make a defense, laying a trap for the hunters.

Cara Duong didn’t know if it was an itchy trigger finger, a frightened reflex, or plain impatience that fired the first shot, spoiling the ambush. All she knew was that when the first bullet exploded, the Americans returned fire.

No. They returned more than fire. They returned the full unleashed wrath of hell. Grenades detonated and ripped huts asunder. Antitank rockets plowed through homes and reduced them to fluttering pieces of burning paper, everyone inside slaughtered and vaporized by the unholy fury of their blasts. Heavy machine guns ripped through the night, grunting like a herd of giant pigs, except these war pigs stampeded and churned human beings asunder.

Mama Duong brought up her AK-47 and blasted three of the Americans before they could react. She kept her head and raced with her daughter around the back of the unit of soldiers. A single man spun and fired back, blazing away with a grenade launcher that threw Cara’s limp form to the ground, her flesh charred by the heat of the explosion. Her mother avoided most of the blast, and she opened fire on the man with the grenade launcher.

Her shots had no effect. The man spun under the impact of a bullet through his upper arm, but he still held up his Colt Commando and blasted with his other hand.

Cara, her back and shoulders burning, saw the face of the soldier who killed her mother, his features illuminated by the blazing fireball of the muzzle of his short-barreled assault rifle.

That face was burned into her memory, the searing image forever tied to the state of her mother’s body, ripped apart and ruined by a hose of 5.56 mm slugs chopping into defenseless flesh. Unconsciousness claimed Cara moments after her mother flopped to the ground, her last thought being of a vow to kill the American who took away the last of her family.

Headlights flashed at the other end of the trestle. Cara tensed, her eyes narrowing with concentration.

He was coming.

Cara Duong never thought she’d ever see the man again, but to have not known Lieutenant Governor Riddley Mott, the crusading politician who took California by storm, she’d need to have had her head buried in the ground like an ostrich. Riddley Mott, Vietnam veteran, war hero, Purple Heart recipient.

Her mother’s murderer.

The living symbol of the American forces who slaughtered her father and older brother.

The man who destroyed the huts of the village of Troui, laying waste to her home, the home of her childhood friends.

The medical men who treated her upon awakening said that she was one of eight survivors from the battle of Troui. It was a complete slaughter, with the Vietnamese fighters being killed to a man, the cross fire laying waste to entire families. Tears came to Cara’s eyes, but something darker came into her life, wrapping around the base of her heart, coiling black bloodlust, a desire for vengeance that roosted in her breast like a cancer.

Now she had her chance. She was in spitting distance. Riddley Mott, the crusading politician, war hero, golden son of the California senatorial race, was no saint. With her computer skills, she’d managed to trace his bank account records, and found interesting sources of contributions, both public and private. Very few of them were a matter of record, and more than one of his contributors was listed under FBI surveillance.

But the FBI didn’t know that these corruptors had their fingers in Mott’s pocket. They knew that money was being laundered somewhere, but only Duong had been able to track the cash through the loops of offshore bank accounts until they finally found their way into the lieutenant governor’s pocket. The information would have made Duong rich enough in its own right, but the Vietnamese woman didn’t need cash. She could skim millions with a press of the button, not even breaking a sweat writing the code necessary for such a heist.

No. She wanted blood.

She imagined Mott, clutching his bloody guts, his stomach sporting one to five big fat .45-inch holes, coughing up gouts of syrupy red, eyes wide with horror and agony. The thought brought a warmth to her that dissipated the cold in her bones.

Mott walked toward her from the other side of the trestle. The headlights of his car backlit him and his shadow stretched crazily forward. Cara’s moon-shaped face glistened lightly in the reflection when Mott’s shadow didn’t block the light, but she doubted he’d remember her.

Not the way she remembered him, even with gray starting to replace the black in his hair, wrinkles deepening his craggy, handsome face.

Come get your payback, you son of a bitch, Duong thought. Through the vent pocket in her trench coat, she felt the wooden grips of her Colt .45. They were rough, the checkering clinging to her hand. She enjoyed the feel of the big handgun. Its handle was just small enough for her to get a good trigger reach, and yet the weapon was as powerful as anything on the market.

Mott stopped, twenty feet away from her.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Governor,” she said.

“Some gook,” Mott muttered. “So you’re the one threatening to tell the FBI about my friends?”

“Not just some gook, Riddley.”

“I survived four years in Vietnam taking on all comers. You’re supposed to impress me?” Mott asked.

“I’m not here to impress you, Riddley.”

“My friends call me Riddley, bitch.”

“Then, by all means, Lieutenant Governor, don’t count me among your friends, you murdering bastard.”

“Murder?” Mott asked. He was clearly surprised.

“Remember the village of Troui?” Duong asked. The muzzle of the .45 slipped out of her waistband.

Mott frowned.

“Remember a woman, a woman with a nine-year-old child, attacking you?” she asked.

“That wasn’t murder. It was self-defense. She tried to kill me first,” Mott said. He didn’t sound in the least bit guilty.

Too bad, Duong thought. Your punishment is coming.

“Listen, just turn around and go back home before you end up regretting this,” Mott suggested.

Duong pulled out the Colt, flicking off the safety in a single fluid motion. “I actually think you’re going to regret this, asshole.”

Mott looked at the gun, but his face didn’t show anything more than momentary surprise. He took a half step away from her, holding up his hands.

“Now come on. Don’t you think that’s a little too big for you?” Mott taunted.

The muzzle didn’t waver a single degree. She aimed at his stomach, anticipating the gut shots that would fold Mott like bloody laundry, making him vomit his life as his internal organs were reduced to soup by the fat .45-caliber hollowpoint rounds she loaded especially for the purpose of prolonging his agony.

“It’s too big for a rat bastard like you. But hey, you’ll die faster this way,” Duong said.

The sound of footsteps behind her reached her ears too late. Black shapes lunged out of the darkness, a blow knocking her gun hand up. The Colt erupted into the night sky, its muzzle-flash lighting the darkness. Strong fingers wrapped around her slender arms, yanking her off balance. The .45 was pulled from her grasp and thrown to Mott.

“Silly bitch,” Mott said. “You think I wouldn’t come here without some kind of backup?”

Duong thrashed, trying to pull free as Mott held the pistol loosely in his hand. The bodyguards held on to her tightly, not giving up an inch of slack. Her dark eyes stared back in defiance at her mother’s murderer.

The barrel whipped across her face, its front sight slicing into the flesh of her jaw. The metal carved a four-inch furrow in her smooth, once unlined face, throwing her head back. Her eyes crossed.

“Hold this gook down, guys,” Mott said, stuffing the pistol into his jacket pocket. “I always enjoyed having a piece of brown tail.”

Duong’s eyes blurred as her trench coat was torn open, rough hands ripping at her skirt as she kicked and struggled.

HITTING THE WATER was a shock. She felt her shoulder dislocate as she struck from seventy feet up. Her entire body had already been abused and violated. Somehow, through the whole ordeal, she’d stayed conscious, her brain rousing back to life as she was finally dragged, half naked, to the edge of the trestle that overlooked the swollen river below.

On the way down, she took a deep breath and knew that even as she tried, the impact with the water would knock it from her lungs. If she hit wrong, in a spot that wasn’t deep enough, she’d be dashed against the river floor, broken apart.

Instead, hitting the water only popped her shoulder free from its socket and left her breathless. The next few moments were a nightmare swirl of turgid waves, inky darkness and body-numbing pain, but somehow she found the strength to breach the surface of the river, gulping down fresh lungfuls of air.

She had survived the fall, even though she was being swept away from the bridge in a crazy tumble. Mott threw her over, in the hope that the fall would kill her. A bullet in her would leave too much evidence should she be washed ashore after a few days.

But she was alive, and she kicked, dragging herself with her good arm toward the shore.

She needed to make the shore, to survive.

Riddley Mott wasn’t getting away with murder tonight.

Cara Duong still lived to kill again.

CHAPTER ONE

COMMAND:> RUN RADIO FREQJAM.EXE BAND 438.79

COMMAND:> RUN VOICEMOD.EXE SAMPLE 11418

COMMAND:> BEGIN XMIT

The radio crackled to life with a staccato burst of static that made the members of Special Forces Unit Knight Seven jump to attention. “Rook’s Nest to Knight Seven. Respond.”

Captain Jacob Kensington took the radio. “Knight Seven reporting. What’s the problem?”

The jungle zipped past the windows of the MH-60K Pave Hawk as it cut through the night skies twenty feet above the Kenyan countryside. The Pave Hawk was designed for low-level flying, with advanced avionics and terrain avoidance/terrain following multimode radar. The pilot could fly in pitch black without fear of encountering obstacles that could tear off the rotors. There was still some light that reflected off a gibbous moon; however, the Pave Hawk crew wouldn’t take chances. The ship’s gunner was strapped into his harness, hands wrapped around the .50-caliber machine gun, scanning the night.

But all the technology in the world, redundant electronics and hydraulics, still didn’t bring reassurance to Captain Kensington. Not with the sudden call.

“The problem is that the target is moving,” Rook’s Nest’s voice responded.

“What?” Kensington asked. He kicked himself for being so blatantly obvious, Rook’s Nest would provide an explanation to him immediately. Shock had taken him off guard. What in the hell was the Shining Warrior Path doing moving their training base at this time of night?

Unless…

“The Predator UAV drone has picked up a convoy of trucks moving out,” Rook’s Nest explained.

“Dammit,” Kensington cursed under his breath. The rest of Knight Seven, listening in over their own headsets, tensed up. They looked at him for confirmation.

“We think they must have noticed the Predator on its overflight while there was still light,” Rook’s Nest answered. “They’ve been packing up and moving out.”

“All right, team,” Kensington advised. “Change of plan. We have to take out that convoy.”

“It’s your option, Knight Seven. The Copperheads we had tagged for the warmup can be redirected, but you have to be on the ground to laze the target,” Rook’s Nest pointed out.

“Thanks,” Kensington replied. He grit his teeth in frustration. The team had no ambush site plotted out, and in the time it took for a flight of Copperhead missiles to reach the convoy, the trucks would be able to drive away unless Knight’s Seven slowed them. That meant two minutes of fighting.

The original plan was to have Knight’s Seven land and use its laser designators to bring down a storm of warheads to obliterate the camp, and once the enemy forces were decimated, the Special Forces team would move in, mopping up. They were to kill anyone who was left, butcher’s work, but the Shining Warrior Path was a group of hardened murderers, aligned with the remnants of the Taliban. They had been responsible for dozens of car bombings throughout Pakistan, and had killed more than forty people and injuring hundreds. If slaughtering the terrorists seemed cold-blooded, then Kensington had only to remember the photographs he’d seen of the carnage wrought by the Shining Warrior Path.

It was payback time.

He glanced at the pilot’s monitor, seeing the Predator’s video feed showing a line of trucks moving through the forest. The GPS readings gave the pilot a good path.

“All right. Swing around front,” Kensington said, checking his own map of the area. “We’ll use the hairpin that’s heading into the canyon.”

“Gotcha,” the pilot answered.

“Rook’s Nest, do you have that?” Kensington asked.

“Right. The ambush will happen at the hairpin road leading into the canyon,” Ka55andra answered, her voice masked by a modulator to sound exactly like Rook’s Nest. “Plotting the flight path now.”

Ka55andra smiled as she looked at her transmitting equipment. She was forwarding the information to the Shining Warrior Path as she spoke. It was she who took control of the Predator UAV drone, and she who was feeding computer-generated imagery through the monitor, giving Knight Seven and their Pave Hawk false information.

She was glad that she anticipated the best spot for Knight Seven to land and attempt to engage the convoy. Her brother, Wilson Sere, had taught her well; military tactics were as second nature to her as the complex coding of high-powered computer programs.

As she watched on the Predator’s true video feed, the Pave Hawk swerved off course from the main Shining Warrior Path camp, soaring toward the canyon. She directed the drone, piloting the remote-control spy in the sky after the helicopter. The Pave Hawk had slowed considerably, allowing the 150-mile-per-hour unmanned aerial vehicle to do more than keep pace. Putting on a burst of speed, she targeted the American helicopter.

The Predator was unarmed, but in effect, it was a slow-flying, guided missile. One that was big and heavy enough to do a lot of damage to a helicopter just by crashing into it. Ka55andra smirked as the distance between the two craft shortened.

Algul’s men wouldn’t need to use their RPG rockets to bring down the aircraft. There was a good chance, too, that they would be able to capture some of the American soldiers alive.

Algul was exactly the wrong kind of person that American soldiers wanted to be in the hands of. He liked to promote the rumor that he was one of the avenging dead. Even his name was Arabic for the blood-drinking nightmares that stalked the night, a Pan-Arabian version of the vampire. Prisoners who fell into his hands were bled dry into goblets, their vital fluids occasionally drunk in an orgy of madness.

Ka55andra wanted that on live, streaming video, presented to the world.

American soldiers, slain by her very own pet ghoul, would be an excellent calling card, a chilling message to be sent back to the leaders of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Predator transmitted its final images, the Pave Hawk looming in the view of the monitor. The door gunner screamed, sending out a blast of .50-caliber shells, but it was too little, too late. The Predator’s video image jerked violently and turned to static.

Knight Seven was screaming over the radio.

The helicopter was fatally hit, but somehow the pilot was directing the wounded aircraft to a landing.

It didn’t matter.

Algul was waiting.

MONSTERS DID EXIST, and as Captain Kensington struggled to push open the crumpled door of the helicopter, he saw them rise from the African jungle, blood-streaked, horror-faced monstrosities that moved with unnatural quickness. Wild eyes rimmed with red focused on him and his team, and he brought up his Barrett M-486. The Barrett was an M-4 rifle that had been chambered for the new Special Forces 6.8 mm Special Purpose Cartridge as an improvement over the smaller 5.56 mm NATO round. Grabbing the rail-mounted forward grip to stabilize it, he flicked the rifle to full-auto and fired through the gap between the door and frame of the downed aircraft, spitting a stream of SPC rounds. The heavy bullets smashed into a trio of the charging shadows.

His commandos struggled as hot brass rained down on them. They tried to get up, to gather their own weapons.

The first three attackers were swatted down in Kensington’s initial burst, but moments later other bodies slammed into the hull of the Pave Hawk. He whirled, but the barrel snagged in the grip of one blood-caked, snarling madman. Wrenching with all his strength, the Special Forces captain tried to pull free, to regain control of his gun.

It was like fighting a gigantic octopus. Other hands gripped the barrel of his rifle, fingers clawing at his sleeve and snagging it. The ripstop material resisted Kensington’s efforts to pull free, and he found himself being dragged through the gap.

The captain’s mind flashed back to the zombie movies he’d watched in his youth, remembering the horror of being torn from a place of safety and security, being hauled into the merciless grip of a horde of snarling, bloodthirsty things. He kicked frantically at the doorjamb, his team clawing at his back, trying to keep hold of him as he was being hauled through the dented doorway.

“No! Let me go!” The M-486 was empty. He’d burned off the whole magazine in a mad attempt to drive off the marauders, but with each corpse fallen away, another implacable man-thing lunged into place, fingers tearing at his battle uniform and flesh like talons. Icy fear filled his bowels as two of his men wrapped their arms around his legs, pulling with all their might as he was almost out of the helicopter now. His uniform blouse was torn out of its web belt. His backpack and load-bearing vest were peeled from his skin, and the chill of the night could be felt on his naked skin where the dozens of hands weren’t clutching him.

Kensington twisted his head. He bit into one marauder’s forearm and hot blood gushed over his lips, the skin bitter and tasting of clay and earth. He spit the foul concoction out of his mouth and felt his scalp yanked, his nonregulation-length hair knotted with clutching fingers. His lungs squeezed out a wail of horror. He was being dragged to his death.

A thumb gouged his eye. Fingers slipped into his mouth and yanked him by his upper teeth. He kicked and struggled, but his arms and legs were too firmly held. His spine creaked under the sheer pressure put on it by the tug of war. Gunfire exploded over the eerie silence.

That was the greatest of horrors. There were not even shouts of anger, no mocking taunts. Just quiet, voiceless violence. Like something out of the zombie movies, but there wasn’t even a soundtrack of moans or eerie music. Except for the rattle of M-4s, there was numbing silence, just the clutching of hands, the clawing of fingers, the tearing of skin and cloth and hair from its roots. And his own terrified screams for mercy and help.

To Kensington, that was the worst of all. As a commander, he led by example. That was why he struggled to his feet first, that was why he volunteered to be first through the door on countless terrorist-hunting missions. He didn’t want his men to face any dangers he wouldn’t. But now he was caught in his ultimate nightmare, out of control.

When darkness descended upon him, he almost welcomed what he knew to be his death.

THE HORROR WASN’T OVER. Captain Jacob Kensington opened his eyes. He was in front of a white drape, lit up by klieg lights. He squinted past the glare and could see men with video and still cameras. Flash elements flared and made him blink and wince. When he looked at the ground, he could see the forest floor. Trees were visible on the other side of the lights now that his eyes had adjusted. He was still in the jungle.

To his horror he found he was tied to a giant wooden X, his men around him. Six lay on the ground, their bodies ravaged and torn, their skin ripped out in chunks, eyeless sockets staring into the sky above them. He prayed that they were dead long before they were mutilated. He didn’t want to think of the possibility that the wounds on his dead boys were from bite marks, that they had been partially eaten alive.

Kensington saw a man wearing fragments of skull wired together into a mask on his face, two long animal fangs bolted into the cheeks, framing a wide, swarthy mouth. The man wasn’t African, though his skin was browned, heavily tanned. Clear blue eyes stared out of the eye sockets of the skull. They looked him over, making his skin crawl.

“I am Algul,” the man said. His cape fluttered on his shoulders. For a moment Kensington thought it was made of leather of various colors, patch worked together with coarse twine, but on closer examination, he saw tattoos on each of the bits of flesh. He recognized the unit insignias of dozens of military units from around Africa and the Middle East, each tattoo centered and perfectly visible.

Cold dread filled Kensington’s gut as he realized that the madman calling himself Algul was wearing the skin of dozens of soldiers, claiming their tattoos for his multicolored cloak.

The skull-masked killer smirked at Kensington’s fear and brandished a wicked, bone-handled knife. He stepped to the half-naked Special Forces captain and walked behind him. Kensington tried to turn his head, to follow the man, but instants later the skin over his shoulder blade burned.

“What a lovely skin tag you wear, Captain,” Algul whispered seductively into his ear. “It will look wonderful on me, do you think?”

“Get fuck—!” Kensington gasped, pain choking off his words. Blood poured down his back now. Algul stepped in front of him, licking the back of the patch of skin, and the Special Forces captain couldn’t restrain a shudder of cold fear and revulsion.

“Delicious,” Algul said with a grin, his teeth stained with blood.

Kensington tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight, too dry. His heart hammered in his chest. “The U.S. government will not negotiate for our freedom. We will not give in to terrorist demands!”

Algul quirked an eyebrow and handed Kensington’s skin to one of his followers. “Terrorist demands? You silly, silly fool.”

The bone-handled knife rose to the captain’s throat. “First, I am not a terrorist. I am the spiritual leader of my people, the warriors of the night who seek freedom from the oppression of those who seek to shine their light upon us.”

The edge slit Kensington’s skin, a slow trickle of blood crawling down his chest.

“Second, I do not have demands. Indeed, I wish for more of your compatriots to throw their lives away in coming after me. I am Algul, the demon blood-drinking prince of darkness. And I thirst greedily.”

The knife bit deeper. One of Algul’s followers pressed a goblet into his master’s hand, and the madman brought the rim up to catch the sudden splash. The cut was wicked, bleeding profusely, but it hadn’t severed a major artery. Kensington knew he’d bleed to death from this wound, but unfortunately, it would be a slow, arduous process. He struggled against his bonds, spitting and cursing, but Algul held his cup steady as it filled.

Then the madman stepped back and raised the goblet to the cameramen. “This is the blood of the enemy, which I give to you, my followers!”

Kensington watched in horror as Algul decanted the blood into his mouth, streaks of crimson rolling down his chin, pouring onto his chest. The American’s heart hammered and he struggled, trying to rip free, but his strength poured out of him, down his own torso in the torrent of life that pumped from his wound.

Algul turned to Kensington, and smiled, his mouth a crimson mask. “You may feast now, my friends.”

Suddenly, red-clay-caked bodies blocked the glare of the klieg lights, bloodshot eyes staring at him, their mouths agape and slack.

Kensington swore he wouldn’t scream in horror, but when they lunged at him, his howls streaked through the darkness as if on the hooves of a nightmare.

AMANDA CASH CHUCKLED into the phone as she listened to Carmen Delahunt on the other end of the line.

“I’ll be there in a couple days for the Expo,” Delahunt said. “Maybe then we can get together and you can update me on your hunt for Ka55andra.”

Cash looked at the calendar. The San Francisco Law Enforcement Technology Exposition was scheduled for that Friday and “white-hat” hackers like her team would be attending. “White hats,” as they called themselves, were computer experts who used their skills for the sake of preventing cybercrime. Some, like her friend Carmen, worked for the government, even though Delahunt never really let on exactly where in the government she worked. Amanda herself, and her team, freelanced their work.

Delahunt had tapped Cash and her crew for assistance in tracking down a notorious cybercriminal who called herself Ka55andra. Identified only by her call sign, she proclaimed to be a prophetess of a new age, seeking to tear down the stone walls of the government and to destroy the Department of Homeland Security. So far, the cyberwitch had proved herself to be a formidable force, sending military units and agents into death traps for numerous terrorists and criminals. Ka55andra’s reign of terror had been responsible for the deaths of three hundred lawmen, soldiers and intelligence operatives around the globe, and she showed no signs of abatement.

That was why Delahunt had started using the resources of Cash’s crew, HedSpayce, for gathering information on Ka55andra. For Cash, it was no major problem. Her crew had enough ability, and what they couldn’t get on their own, they asked for around the bulletin boards across the Net, as discreetly as possible.

Having Ka55andra, someone who had ties to international terrorists and assassins, finding out they were on her trail would have been hazardous to HedSpayce’s health.

“I’ll look forward to seeing you, Carmen,” Cash said. “We haven’t gotten together in a couple years.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, in the work I’m in, business is too good,” Delahunt answered, sounding sullen, defeated.

Cash figured that her friend worked for something akin to the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security, and she felt a pang of sympathy. If work was keeping her busy, that meant that she was keeping her finger on the pulse of tragedies and horrors across the globe. Trying to maintain a watch on that either turned you callous or slowly bled your spirit one atrocity at a time.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Carm.”

“It’s okay. Anything you have, just send it to my BBS. I’ll have my department look it over, too,” Delahunt answered. “I just wish we could budget you more money.”

“No problem, Carm. Though, maybe a little tax break come April…”

Delahunt chuckled on the other side. “We’ll see what we can do, Mandy.”

“Thanks,” Cash answered, not quite certain whether Delahunt was joking or not.

The door of the warehouse loft offices was rapped, and Cash sighed. “I’ll have to talk to you later. Sounds like we’re getting a new delivery.”

“All right. Take care, okay?”

“Sure,” Cash replied, and she turned off the phone and tucked it into her pocket.

She opened the door and looked up to see one of the largest human beings she’d ever seen. He looked down on her but remained silent. A voice from below caught her attention, and she looked at a squat little man holding a clipboard.

“Is this HedSpayce?” the dwarf asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Cash answered. She looked past the dwarf and the giant, seeing a lanky, long-haired man with a handlebar mustache standing in the hall. He looked as if he were made out of toothpicks, he was so skinny. His eyes were black, and creepy. They had dollies, loaded with stacks of boxes of paper, diskettes and other office supplies. These weren’t their usual deliverymen, even though they wore the right uniforms and their boxes were stamped with the right return labels.

She just didn’t know. The mammoth delivery man looked too mean, too cruel, to be anything other than a professional wrestler, or worse, a serial killer. The giant somehow managed to squeeze his wide shoulders through the doorjamb and rolled his dolly toward the center of the office.

“Where do we drop this off?” the little one asked. Cash looked down at him as he pushed his cart in.

“Oh, the supply room is this way,” she said as he handed her the clipboard.

The clipboard was one of those digital delivery invoices, with a stylus to sign your name on a pressure-sensitive LED screen. HedSpayce’s office address was displayed on another little screen at the top of the brown unit. She signed her name and started to hand the clipboard back to the dwarf when something snaked around her throat.

It was an arm, the wiry thin limb of the creepy, long-haired delivery man. Suddenly, that toothpick-thin body was a lot stronger than she thought, corded muscles squeezing her throat and picking her up off the ground. Her feet kicked and she tried to let out a choked scream.

Nothing got past that strong, muscular forearm.

Henley, a handsome young black kid, rose, shouting at the man strangling her. The giant turned swiftly and wrapped his massive hands around Henley’s head and yanked him off his feet, snapping his body around and hurling him through a bank of cubicles. As the young hacker’s body crashed through the offices, screams of confusion filled the air.

Cash struggled, her fingers trying to dig into the forearm of the killer strangling her, but the cords of his muscles were too tight. It was like squeezing steel. His other arm snaked around and he aimed a long-barreled handgun at another of her friends, a pretty young woman named Claudia, and peppered her white blouse with bloody splotches. Claudia’s corpse dropped to the floor, and the HedSpayce executive forced a screech past her constricted larynx. She reached out to claw at his gun hand, but his arm was too long for her to grab the pistol.

The snakelike gunman twisted and put more shots into the head of Hideo, another of her co-workers, as he ran to her rescue. Tears burned in her eyes as she watched another of her friends collapse into a lifeless heap at her feet. Cash couldn’t speak, and her lungs strained for a fresh breath of air.

Everyone else was running now, but the giant ripped apart two boxes and pulled out two big, barrellike weapons. Thundering booms filled the room, and cubicle walls suddenly sprouted softball-size holes. More hackers and office workers tried to scramble for safety, but the giant’s weapons smashed the same massive channels through their chests and heads.

It was a massacre.

The dwarf had gotten another weapon out of a box. It looked like a water bottle with handles, a belt trailing from the side of it. However, it spit flames from the muzzle that sliced through the office. Computers burst apart in sprays of sparks and chips. Cash’s co-workers also burst open as the high-velocity slugs hammered into them.

The woman’s struggles weakened. She mouthed a desperate plea, then remembered the cell phone in her pocket. Maybe if she hit 9-1-1…

Jacob “The Snake” Cannon lowered his modified CZ-75 as he felt Amanda Cash slump in his arms. “She’s gone.”

“Took your time about it,” Linn “Gremlin” Keller snarled, slipping his personally designed belt-fed Ripper XM-1 back into its box. Keller was a brilliant weapons designer and had produced a full-powered machine gun that he could fire without being knocked off balance by the recoil. “You just love having the girls struggle, don’t you?”

Cannon smirked. “I’m part snake, Gremlin. You know we like to feel the last wiggles of our prey.”

He licked Cash’s earlobe, then let her slip to the floor in a puddle of long red hair and tangled limbs. “Haggar!”

The gigantic David Lee “Mammoth” Haggar stopped clomping through the wreckage of the cubicles and looked back to his partners.

“You know, while you two are talking,” Haggar answered in a deep baritone, “there might be survivors dialing for the cops.”

The giant stopped and triggered one of his custom-designed Striker 12 shotgun pistols into the body of a downed office worker. Keller had shortened the barrels on the 12-shot, rotary drum shotguns specifically to give the titanic assassin a weapon that he felt comfortable with. An oversize trigger guard and grips for his big hands completed the fitting of tool to user.

“Right. Spread out,” Keller said. “We won’t have much time to make sure of a clean sweep, not after the racket we raised.”

“If the cops come, we’ll take care of them,” Cannon responded, his cruel mouth twisting into a hideous smile.

Keller sighed, threw Haggar a bandolier of shotgun shells, then began reloading his Ripper. Cannon chuckled. Even though Keller hated to kill more people than they were hired to, there was a glint of joy as the malevolent, miniature weapons designer fed a new belt into his crowd-killing device.

Sure enough, the San Francisco Police Department showed up as they reached the entrance of the office building.

Of course, Cannon thought later. He slipped into the back of their delivery van and looked at the burning police cars and slaughtered officers slumped in the street—they never stood a chance.

CHAPTER TWO

David McCarter had a strong stomach, but when the horde of bloodred monstrosities fell upon the captive Special Forces soldiers, the Briton had to look away and shake his head. In the SAS, he’d seen countless atrocities committed against captured soldiers and policemen, and as a member and leader of Phoenix Force, he’d been at ground zero to several more. Every time he saw them, revulsion steeled him to fight harder against the madmen who sought to turn the world into their charnel house.

At the other end of the War Room table, a massive fist smashed down hard. Carl “Ironman” Lyons, Able Team’s commander, had given in to his anger.

“That’s what you’ll be going up against, David,” Hal Brognola affirmed, ignoring Lyons’s outburst.

“Africa,” McCarter said. He looked at his mission plan. “Well, I’d like to at least have Calvin with me on this.”

Brognola glanced over to Calvin James. He was a tall, lanky black man, one of the first replacement members of Phoenix Force and their first American teammate. “I wish I could keep Phoenix Force together, but we don’t have enough manpower to keep the teams intact and handle what we think are the three hot spots in the AJAX hunt.”

McCarter sighed. “We can’t call Mack in on this?”

Brognola shook his head. “He’s gone hunting. He’ll be back when he can, but I want AJAX stopped immediately.”

McCarter sighed. “All right. Phoenix has split up before to take on missions. But once you find the gobs who’ve been snuffing those State Department boys…”

“We’ll be right on the first flight to the Sudan,” James answered.

McCarter winked at his longtime teammate. “Don’t make me have to bail you out, Cal.”

Rafael Encizo spoke up. “We’ve got Japan nailed down.” The stocky Cuban’s swarthy face split with a wide smile. He glanced over to James, who looked troubled. “You okay, amigo?”

“I just wish I could be in three places at once,” James said. “I hate leaving David in Africa without a brother to back him up. And Able Team’s going to San Francisco where a lot of cops were killed by the creeps who wiped out HedSpayce.”

McCarter frowned. When he first met Calvin James, he was a member of the San Francisco SWAT team. The ex-Navy SEAL had left behind the streets of Chicago where too many of his family had been lost to heroin and its abusers. Still, even after leaving the military, James wanted to do something to see that no one else suffered like his sister and mother. Putting on a badge was James’s first step in that crusade, but soon the ex-SEAL was called to join another war, taking the place of the fallen Keio Ohara. James still kept ties with the San Francisco police department, and helped vet blacksuits for Buck Greene from that department. McCarter had lost enough friends and partners to know how much James wanted to be part of the team that got even for the slaughter of his fellow lawmen.

“Cal, look at that ugly brute that just dented the table,” McCarter said. Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz, Lyons’s partners on Able Team, chuckled at the Briton’s description of their friend.

James looked at Lyons out of the corner of his eye. He made a face. “Do I have to?”

“Kin-A you have to.” Lyons grunted, slipping into caveman mode.

James looked over, and McCarter continued. “I know you want to do mean, nasty things to those cop killers and freaks who murdered twenty unarmed office workers. I know you’re dying to unleash every horror under the sun upon them. But, Calvin, you’re only human.”

Lyons snorted ferociously.

“That ugly bugger, he’s a bloody nightmare come to life. Do you honestly think there is a worse punishment on Earth than sending him after them?” McCarter asked.

“Well, since you put it that way,” James answered. “I know I sure wouldn’t want to see him as the last thing before I went to hell.”

McCarter gave his friend a clap on the shoulder. James would have gone to Japan and done his duty anyways. Still, it was good to relieve some of his tension and doubts.

“You done with the Mac and Lyons show?” Brognola asked, feeling a little impatient.

McCarter looked at Lyons and raised his eyebrows. The blond ex-cop nodded. “Thanks, Carl.”

“Anytime,” Lyons responded.

“Now that we’re done with that,” Brognola said, “any questions?”

Gary Manning, a broad, barrel-chested Canadian, raised his hand. “The Predator that knocked down the Pave Hawk that Kensington and his team were on. Has anyone been able to check to find out how it was tampered with?”

Brognola took a deep breath, chewing his cigar. “Unfortunately, the central processor unit was destroyed on impact with the Pave Hawk.”

“So we’re up a creek without a paddle on that,” T. J. Hawkins drawled. McCarter rubbed his chin as he looked at photographs of the wreckage.

“Why?” Hermann Schwarz asked, and looked across the table to Manning, Phoenix Force’s demolitions expert.

“Not only did the Pave Hawk veer off course after losing radio contact with their base, but the Predator that was assigned to watch their target followed them. You’d think that the drone’s crew would have picked up on any interference,” Manning responded.

Schwarz ran his index finger through his mustache and thought about it for a moment. “Well, Ka55andra, the leader of AJAX, appears to be a hacker. She could have overridden the Predator’s command codes.”

“From where?” Manning asked.

“With the right satellite hookups, anywhere on the planet,” Schwarz answered. “But she’d have to be a wizard to override its control systems.”

“She does claim to be a prophet,” Blancanales answered.

“A prophet of doom, just like the original Cassandra,” Hawkins stated.

“The original Cassandra?” Brognola asked.

“It’s in Homer’s Iliad, and various other myths,” Encizo cut in. “Cassandra was given the power of prophecy by Apollo because he had fallen in love with her. Unfortunately, she didn’t love him, so he cursed her so that no one would ever believe her prophecies. Since then, Cassandra’s name has come to take on the meaning of a prophet of doom.”

Blancanales shrugged. “Didn’t you read the Classics in school, Hal?”

Brognola’s nose wrinkled. “All right. I’ll have the cybercrew look up more about her. There might be something more to her background that might suggest a motive for our cyberwitch.”

Lyons shrugged. “Well, the warrior Ajax, during the sacking of Troy, attacked and raped Cassandra in the temple of Athena. Later, the goddess Athena smashed his ship with a thunderbolt to sink him. When that didn’t work and Ajax clung to a rock, Poseidon split the stone with his trident and drowned him.”

Brognola glared at Lyons out of one eye.

“Oh, come on. It was a movie just a couple of years ago,” Lyons answered.

Brognola grumbled and shook his head.

“So we might have a rape victim as the mastermind coordinating the assault on Homeland Security?” Blancanales asked. He looked like he’d taken a bitter bite at the thought.

“Not just a rape victim,” Schwarz answered. “She had her home destroyed by Ajax. Burned to the ground, the survivors scattered to the winds, her family slaughtered.”

“And she’s blaming the Department of Homeland Security?” Manning cut in.

“Someone high up, at least,” James said. “A director, a deputy director…”

“All of whom are powerful politicians who have enough power to sweep any scandal under the rug,” McCarter mused.

Hawkins scratched his chin with his thumb, his eyes focusing on the table. He glanced over to Encizo for a helpful suggestion.

“Well, Ajax was a warrior. We could narrow it down,” Encizo suggested. “Ex-soldiers who had been present at the destruction of a city or town.”

“Fairly young, too,” Schwarz added. “At least the past thirty-five years.”

“That means any conflict from Vietnam all the way through the first Gulf War,” Hawkins finally said. “Not counting soldiers who were forced to sit by and watch ethnic cleansing in places like Mogadishu or Bosnia.”

Brognola kept scribbling down notes as his two action teams threw out suggestions. While the Stony Man cybernetics team was among the best technical minds in the world, the eight commandos in front of him were far more than just mere gunmen. They were eight of the sharpest minds in the U.S.’s counterterrorism community, each of them having investigative and intelligence experience around the world. When they set their brilliant minds to work on the same project, there were few problems that they couldn’t solve.

“It might not be thinned down much,” Brognola said. “But you guys have given me a head start. I’ll run these ideas past Bear and the crew.”

“Chances are they’ve already picked up on Ka55andra’s symbolism,” Schwarz noted.

Brognola glanced over to the Able Team electronics genius. “And I suppose they’d know the Iliad.”

Schwarz shook his head. “You didn’t study that in school?”

Brognola rolled his eyes. “I got a D in literature.”

Schwarz shrugged. “And Cassandra was featured in a couple of Shakespearian plays…”

“All right!” Brognola snapped. He looked at his teams, then chuckled. “I bullshitted my way through the exam on that.”

The Able Team and Phoenix Force commandos laughed as they got up from the War Room table, their files committed to memory.

Lyons tossed Brognola a short salute. “That’s why you sit here dealing with the bureaucrats and getting ulcers, while the rest of us engage in stress-relieving exercise.”

“Politician” Blancanales raised an eyebrow. “Stress relieving, Ironman?”

“Forget it, Pol,” Schwarz chided. “Ironman’s in a world all his own.”

“Must be one hell of a planet,” McCarter noted as he lead his Phoenix Force partners out of the War Room.

FIFTEEN HOURS LATER David McCarter watched out the window as the transport jet seemed to lazily amble into a landing. He was stiff from sitting so long on the transatlantic flight, but at least he’d managed to catch a catnap. He glanced over at Manning and Hawkins who were gathering their duffel bags and equipment cases together.

McCarter took a moment to check his Browning Hi-Power in its holster. He sighed as he looked at the plastic magazine poking out of its butt; however, it was a concession he’d agreed to make. The other members of Phoenix Force had decided to carry Glock 34 Tactical pistols, at least for now. They convinced McCarter that the new, long-slide version of the ubiquitous Glock handguns were reliable and accurate enough for their needs. They wanted to have McCarter share in the upgrade to a lightweight autopistol with a 17-round magazine.

The SAS veteran, however, would never give up his beloved Browning Hi-Power. The gun was nearly a part of him. So the other members of Phoenix Force had convinced him to try the next best thing. Stony Man’s master armorer, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, had taken a Browning Hi-Power and altered the magazine well to accept Glock magazines. The unit, like all of Kissinger’s creations, was extremely reliable. Also, the dust cover under the Browning’s long, sleek barrel had been modified—built up to accommodate a mounting rail for gun lights, exactly like the Glock 34s that the other members of the team were using. Minor changes, but the handle still felt the same and the gun was just as accurate. The addition of an Insight Technologies XM-6 tactical light and laser illuminator unit was something that McCarter wanted to add to an assault pistol anyway.

The Phoenix Force leader shrugged. He’d have to get used to the updates of his beloved old Browning. He still had the familiar feel and controls of the classic autoloader, but also benefitted from twenty-first-century handgun designs. In a business where “change or die” was a mandate, McCarter felt he could make a few compromises. Plus, having a reliable, 17-shot magazine for his handgun, as opposed to the old 13-round clips that had to be down by one to insure that they worked, was something that he could get used to.

The transport rolled to a halt on the tarmac and McCarter was the first one to the door, carrying his bags. The door slowly opened. Hydraulics released the airtight seal and he looked out along the airstrip, seeing the green-black strip of jungle just beyond the fence. The sun had just risen, but it was already getting hot. They stepped out of the air-conditioned cabin and onto the rollaway steps; he was struck by humid, muggy heat that clung to his skin.

“Best put on your hats, lads,” McCarter called back, adjusting his black, baseball-style cap. “It’s a scorcher!”

Though he’d felt hotter sun in the deserts of Oman, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the jungle humidity was stifling. He couldn’t sweat fast enough to cool down, as the air was already saturated with moisture. But it was nothing new for the Phoenix Force commander and he bounded down to the tarmac to greet Colonel Jeff Stewart, who rose from his military-style jeep.

“Get in the jeep,” Stewart said without ceremony. Not a large man, he was lean and wiry, with dark eyes and a long nose.

McCarter didn’t take the comment as rudeness or impatience. He scanned the tree line again, then glanced back at Manning. The Canadian’s sharp eyes naturally sought out places where a stealthy rifleman could hide. As Phoenix Force’s usual sniper, Manning could anticipate where the enemy would most feel comfortable setting up a lethal, long-distance shot.

Manning continued to keep watch as Hawkins grabbed the Canadian’s gear and threw it in the back of the jeep. Once they were loaded up, the barrel-chested sniper came down the steps and slipped into the vehicle. The driver floored it and pulled away as the transport plane crawled along the tarmac toward its hangar.

“We’ve got company,” the burly, soft-spoken Canadian said.

“The plane’s moving and so are we,” Stewart stated.

“It’s not enough,” Manning answered. “Incoming!”

The asphalt behind them erupted in a fountain of flame, dust and stone chunks. McCarter whipped around and saw the telltale crater of an RPG rocket, a cottony cloud trailed from the impact zone, stretching back four hundred yards to the tree line.

Manning and Hawkins opened their rifle cases as McCarter pulled his updated Browning.

“Everyone else has to deal with lost luggage when they fly internationally,” the Briton snarled as automatic rifle fire crackled from the perimeter. “We get shot at in the bloody airport!”

“They’re out of range for your pistol, David,” Hawkins called out. He shouldered his M-486 rifle. Converted by John “Cowboy” Kissinger to the new Special Forces standard caliber 6.8 mm SPC round, the bigger, heavier bullet made the short-barreled rifle a precision killing machine, even at six hundred yards. With the Aimpoint scope mounted on the rifle, the Southern-born Phoenix Force shooter could easily pepper a target with a salvo of lead.

Hawkins swung his M-486 toward one set of targets. Two men were busily reloading an RPG rocket. Hawkins was about to trigger the rifle when one of the grenadiers suddenly jerked at the same time a crack sounded near the Southerner’s shoulder. He turned to see Manning adjust his aim and tag the second RPG man with a single shot from his Heckler & Koch MSG-90.

“Three more, eleven o’clock,” Manning whispered to Hawkins. He gave the American a wink and swung to engage more targets with his marksman’s rifle.

Hawkins picked up on the targets that his Canadian partner pointed out to him and ripped into them with a trio of short bursts. The 6.8 mm round performed as it was designed to. At 450 yards, the rifle slugs smashed into the marauders and nailed their corpses to the ground. Meanwhile, Manning calmly picked off single shots.

McCarter watched the proceedings as he pulled his own M-486 out of its carrying case. He fed it a fresh magazine and realized that most of the marauders were still five hundred yards out, and still closing with the airfield. Sentries reacted to the newcomers, but even so, the combined rifle work of Manning and Hawkins took away targets as they appeared.

The Phoenix Force leader shouldered his weapon and spotted that another group had penetrated the perimeter at ninety degrees to the main force. He judged, with the aid of his scope, that they were about 350 yards away. They had cut through a gully that was overseen by two guard towers. A quick glance confirmed for McCarter that the guards in the towers were dead, sniped from the ditch before they’d had a chance to react.

“They’re a diversionary force,” McCarter called as he swept a line of long-range slugs across the new attackers. Since they were now only a little over three hundred yards from the jeep, they were well within range for their AK-47s. “T.J.!”

“I’m on you, boss,” Hawkins snapped back.

Manning turned and gave them cover fire. Between the efforts of the Phoenix Force trio, the squad of marauders trying to rush the airstrip was caught in a triple salvo of Stony Man lead. Enemy rifle fire skipped and skidded across the tarmac, the attackers aiming too low, their weapons falling short of the jeep, at least until one bullet ricocheted into the wheelbase of the vehicle. Tire blown out, the driver struggled to keep the 4X4 from lurching, but McCarter, Manning and Hawkins were hurled from their positions.

McCarter slid out of the shotgun seat, centrifugal force tossing him around like a doll. He hit the tarmac and rolled instinctively, feeling the breeze of the jeep’s fender barely miss the small of his back. If he hadn’t gotten out of the way, his vertebrae would have been crushed and he’d be left, paralyzed on the airfield. His M-486 clattered out of his reach, bouncing several yards away.

Even the sturdy Manning had trouble staying seated, but he’d managed to hold on to his rifle.

McCarter looked up, sore from his impact on the concrete. He watched the marauding gunmen grow closer, rifles chattering. He started for his M-4 when a bullet bounced off the tarmac and whizzed too close to his thigh.

The enemy was getting their range, and the Phoenix Force leader was caught, unarmed.

CARL LYONS FLASHED his federal badge as he entered the former offices of HedSpayce, Inc., but even as he walked in from the street, the sight of white outlines where San Francisco police officers had fallen tore at his soul like a vulture at carrion. He was no stranger to murder scenes, and by far, he’d seen enough murdered policemen in his days as a cop and as the leader of Able Team. Seeing the first murdered cop was too much for Lyons. To him, cop killers were among the lowest of scum.

Inside the large warehouse loft office, evidence technicians and photographers were hard at work. Lyons frowned.

The description of the criminals, from the surviving officer who first responded to the scene, were unusual. One was a giant of a man, with a shock of red hair. Another was the exact opposite, a four-foot-tall dwarf carrying an odd little silver bottle-like weapon that sliced through squad car doors as if they were tissue paper. The third was a tall, scrawny, snakelike man who moved with boneless grace and speed, dodging and weaving out of the path of oncoming bullets while he cut loose with a pair of handguns.

The Able Team leader was a workaholic, constantly studying rap sheets and files on known terrorists, mercenaries and criminals. In his line of work, he had to know his enemy. The trio’s descriptions nagged at Lyons’s memory as he squatted, sticking a pen through the casing of a long, narrow bullet.

“We’re trying to figure out what kind of ammunition that is, sir,” a technician wearing white, paper coveralls said. “Do you have any idea?”

“It’s 5.7 mm X 27 mm,” Lyons answered as he examined at the casing.

“We thought it might be some kind of rifle round. What kind of gun uses that?” the tech asked.

“It’s a new, proprietary round from Fabrique Nationale. The reason you guys never came across it is because it’s issued to police departments and special military units for the FN P-90 submachine gun and the Five-seveN pistol,” Lyons explained. He squinted at a pair of ring-shaped imperfections on the casing. He looked at the floor and saw several empty links.

“Do you know if there’s any gun that has belt links for the 5.7?” the technician asked.

“No production weapon that I know of,” Lyons answered. He looked at a metallic half ring on the floor. “May I?”

The tech handed Lyons a pair of latex rubber gloves and the ex-cop put them on. He picked up a belt link. “Too small to get any prints.”

Lyons nodded toward a fingerprint kit the evidence cop carried. He dusted the link, but it was clear of whorls and swirls. “The dwarf was said to have a belt-fed gun that cut through even police car doors.”

“Right. The 5.7…?”

“It’s armor-piercing. Designed to cut through body armor. A Crown Victoria wouldn’t stand a chance,” Lyons replied.

“Scary shit in the hands of a bad guy.”

“Looks like the dwarf was smart enough to wear gloves when he was preparing his ammunition,” Lyons muttered. He stood and looked at the crime scene. The floor was peppered with markers where empty cartridges ejected and littered the floor.

“You color coded the markers,” Lyons noted.

“Right. Yellow for those weird cases,” the tech began. “Red for the 9 mm ammo. Blue for the 12-gauge shells.”

Lyons looked at the floor. “Do you have an example of the 9 mm and 12-gauge?”

“Sure, but—”

“I’ll just make an imprint on a piece of paper,” Lyons answered.

The tech nodded and got a couple pieces of notepaper and a pencil.

While he ran the pencil across the bases of each cartridge through the paper, he thought about the crime scene.

This had a mixed feel to it. As an investigator, Lyons developed a sense of how a murder took place, just by standing at the scene. Even before the days of evidence markers, he could feel the vibes from a crime. Here, the vibes were mixed. This was at once an act of passionless slaughter and a thrill kill committed by madmen.

The dwarf stayed still. He could see the shape of his fallen brass, and he stood still, spraying the office with precision bursts. Like a turret. No chasing after victims. No exposing himself to more danger than he had to. The little guy was a pro, and he was at the center of things.

All his brass of the one with the 9 mm pistol was centered around a bloodless tape outline.

“Who was killed here?” Lyons asked.

“Amanda Cash, owner of the company. She was strangled and her neck was broken,” the technician said.

“Do you have a photograph?”

The tech handed over a copy. “We’re using digital cameras, and printing up with a mobile printer.”

“Good quality. Very useful,” Lyons said. He looked at the woman’s face. He remembered that this was Carmen Delahunt’s friend, and he shoved a pang of regret deep into the recesses of his subconscious and let his analytical mind take over. There, the regret for his friend’s loss could smolder, building into a flame to add to his fury over the loss of fellow officers. There, his mind could harden, and he’d be in the right frame of mind to handle this trio of mystery killers. He could hone that anger, that rage, into a razor-sharp precision edge with which he could rip through the murderers. His friends and superiors often described Lyons as a berserker, but that wasn’t the case. While his rampages could be legendary, his fury was controlled. He’d never take an innocent life, he’d never harm anyone on his side. He’d talk and grumble a good show, but when it came down to the line, the powder keg of retaliation burning down in the middle of his powerful frame was as focused as a laser, despite its destructive force.

Berserkers didn’t care who they hurt. Lyons took his rampage of revenge and laid every ounce of seething anger and hatred on top of the guilty. And he washed it away completely in his torrent of action. He never let it stick with him, and after every battle, he cleansed his mind. No lingering bitterness stayed, nothing to harden his mind and soul against the suffering of those he put his life on the line for. Everything gouted out of him like a stream of napalm, immolating his foes.

He looked at Cash’s face, keeping his conscious mind clear, analytical. She was racked with fear and sorrow. Her bulging eyes and furrowed brow showed that she watched most, if not all, of her friends, partners and co-workers slaughtered by the three-man wrecking crew. The freak who strangled her wanted her to watch, wanted her to feel that loss. It wasn’t enough for her to suffer only an instant with a 9 mm bullet in her head. It wasn’t enough to live through the agony of being strangled to death. Lyons knew that the killer wanted her to watch shock after horror after atrocity. The murderer probably fired over her shoulder and allowed her see where every one of his bullets stuck home.

It had to have been the thin man, the one who was like a snake. He may have looked scrawny, but it took a hundred pounds of force to shatter bone. To do that with one arm, it took strength that could only be surpassed by the giant, who waded into the cubicles after tossing a human being like a missile. But the snake, he was a constrictor. He loved the feel of a squirming victim against his chest. If he hadn’t been a killer for hire, he’d have become a serial killer.

That left the giant. The man-mountain had waded in, and that told Lyons two things. One, he trusted the dwarf’s aim. Two, he was like Lyons in that he preferred his violence at point-blank range. That was where their similarities ended, however. The mammoth who stampeded through the cubicle farm was a beast who unleashed a murderous rage upon unarmed, helpless victims. He reveled in being splattered with blood from contact-range shotgun blasts, and enjoyed the feel of bodies crushed in his massive fists.

Amanda Cash was just one of five victims who didn’t die of gunshot wounds, but as opposed to the pretty redhead, the others died swiftly. Smashed to pieces by being hurled through office equipment or having their necks broken by savage twists or brutal punches. The titanic killer was a professional, and thorough, shooting his victims in the head to make sure they were down, but there was a lethal fury at work in this killer, a desire to crush and pulp those smaller and weaker than he was.

Lyons got an imprint off the linking ring, and the 5.7 mm casing before he left. The papers would be faxed to Stony Man Farm in an effort to trace the ammunition lots that the murderers used. It would provide some kind of clue, but looking at the trio’s work, the Able Team leader had figured out the identities of the murderers.

Linn “Gremlin” Keller, a miniature master designer of weapons, embittered by shady business practices. He sold his skills as not only a gunsmith and arms supplier, but also as a killer.

David Lee Haggar was called The Mammoth when he was in the underground fight circuit. He reveled in killing with his hands, but also enjoyed the splash of gore present when a shotgun exploded in a victim’s face. After being wanted for several deaths in the ring, he decided to make his living as an assassin, hooking up with the tiny Keller, who designed weapons for the titan’s massive paws.

And the thin man was Jacob “The Snake” Cannon. Exbiker, meth dealer, with a rap sheet that pointed toward him being a serial rapist and an unashamed cop killer. The wild-card madman had to have hooked up with the other two, feeling a kinship with them.

Lyons had figured out who they were, but he didn’t know where they were or where they would strike next.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he was going to lead Able Team against them, and bring them down hard.

He owed the San Francisco Police Department, and Carmen Delahunt, that much.

CHAPTER THREE

Calvin James and Rafael Encizo stood on the prow of the small launch as it chugged through the junks moored in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. The sprawl of floating boats was as much a city as the landlocked skyscrapers and shantytowns that gleamed like a blaze of diamonds on the shore. James and Encizo had both ridden in the passenger seats of F-14 fighters, ferried from Langley airfield to Japan, where they met up with the Tokyo headquarters of the U.S. Homeland Security task force.

There, State Department, CIA and other agency personnel gathered under one roof to coordinate their overseas Southeast Asia efforts. While the “Axis of Evil” focus was on the Middle East, there were still threats from China, North Korea and the Asian heroin trade that kept the Pacific branch of Homeland Security busy on a daily basis. As well, in the Philippines and Indonesia, offshoots of Muslim extremist groups engaged in bombing and murder campaigns against the allies of the United States.

It was just more evidence that terrorism wasn’t simply a matter of a simple skin color or religious creed. Madness and carnage festered like a cancer in the hearts of enough people that there would always be a need for men like Phoenix Force, Able Team and their counterparts in thousands of law-enforcement agencies around the world. That gave James a small pause as they continued navigating the maze of anchored junks in the harbor. What started for the slim black man in a Navy recruitment center years ago as a chance to join the military to escape the thugs running rampant through the streets of Chicago, to get a medical degree and make something of himself, became a different kind of surgery. Instead of closing wounds, James found himself on a crusade, cutting away the tumorous infestations of violent, hate- and greed-driven murderers who unleashed their illness upon the world. Instead of healing the sick, James was engaging in preventative medicine, hunting killers and terrorists before they could slaughter or maim innocents.

However, the one weakness in the Stony Man crusade was that they had to know where the symptoms of terror and crime were evident. People had to suffer and die for the men of Phoenix Force to spring into action to protect further victims.

It was a form of triage, James thought, making sure his FN P-90 hung under his coat, out of view to prevent the harbor residents from panicking at the sight of men with guns. He didn’t like the fact that with that form of triage, he had to wait for people to be hurt, to die.

Every loss still hurt, but James was glad for that hurt. It meant he still cared. The day he stopped sympathizing with the victims of terrorism and crime was the day he knew his career was over. He knew deep down that it was a very real possibility, drummed into him by his deceased mentor and former commander, Yakov Katzenelenbogen. The reason Phoenix Force, and by extension their counterparts in Able Team, were so much better than any other special operations unit, was that they had been chosen because they believed in a cause. They had a passion to protect the innocent that drove them to fight impossible odds on a daily basis. Sure, they received government paychecks, but they were only employees in the sense that they were given the opportunity to engage in a crusade to protect America, and the whole world, from the barbarian hordes laying siege and preying off its suffering.

Now, the sky dark, stars rendered invisible by the fierce glow of Hong Kong’s city lights, James and Encizo were finishing their trek to hook up with a defector from AJAX who had approached the Homeland Security task force.

Her name was Terremota, an Argentinian woman who was known to be a demolitions expert. The nomme du guerre she worked under literally meant “Earthquake” in Spanish. Terremota promised to divulge the secrets of AJAX’s worldwide terror network, if only she could be granted asylum from her partner.

It had been a crash course, but James had learned about Wilson Sere. Sere was a self-proclaimed modern-day ninja, a master of disguise and deception, as well as of martial arts and modern weaponry. The record of kills attributed to him was impressive, and he was known to be responsible for the deaths of at least thirty American intelligence operatives and military personnel since the beginning of AJAX’s reign of terror. Terremota, herself, was no saint. Her bombs had wounded hundreds, and claimed over forty lives in concert with Sere.

She claimed, however, that she had a lover’s spat with Sere, a falling out that had compromised her usefulness to the modern-day American ninja. People who were no longer useful to Sere ended up in the discard pile, usually in unmarked graves.

Hal Brognola wanted James and Encizo to be part of Terremota’s protective crew, simply because one of them was familiar with the Japanese language and both were needed to baby-sit the volatile Argentinian in Tokyo. The pair had been trained in martial arts, and both battled with ninja-trained opponents on several occasions.

The Phoenix Force duo were naturals at handling boats and were expert swimmers.

Brognola figured that the CIA retrieval team could use them as backup.

“This is going to turn out badly,” Encizo said softly to James, the sound of the outboard motor keeping his words from carrying to the other men in the motor launch. Across his knees, under a blanket, rested a Heckler & Koch MP-5, his favorite submachine gun. While it didn’t have the 50-round firepower of James’s FN P-90, it was still a reliable, accurate weapon. Both men were armed to the teeth. Aside from their long guns, both were packing at least two handguns and their favorite fighting knives.

Part of the reason Phoenix Force pushed for the change to the Glock 34 pistols was that their magazines and controls were identical to the minuscule Glock 26. While the Glock 34 was a light gun, and slightly smaller and much flatter than the Beretta M-9 or the Colt Government model, it was still a formidable weapon, with plenty of barrel length to squeeze every ounce of power and accuracy out of their 9 mm ammunition. By contrast, the Glock 26 was tiny enough to slip in a trouser pocket or an ankle holster. James and Encizo both had their backup 26s tucked in their BDU cargo pockets, within easy reach, but still small and out of the way. If necessary, the compact, polymer-framed handguns could use the larger Glocks’ magazines.

Encizo backed his pair of Glocks with a 7.65 mm Walther PPK. While he was a fan of Heckler & Koch weapons, the excellent 9 mm USP wasn’t as ubiquitous as the Glock, and finding spare magazines around the world would be more difficult. As well, the brand-new P-2000 compact didn’t share the Glock 26’s record or reliability, nor the capability to use the larger USP’s magazines. Preferring to have a familiar tool on hand, he went with his Walther, despite a sideways glance from Stony Man Armorer John “Cowboy” Kissinger.

“You might as well just throw it at them,” Kissinger, a fan of the .45 ACP round, stated.

“I’ve had my luck with the 7.65 mm,” Encizo answered with a grin.

In addition to his Cold Steel Tanto knife, he also had three unusual pieces of cutlery in a forearm sheath under his sleeve. A trio of four-pointed throwing stars, the infamous shuriken, rested in the sheath. Encizo’s deceased teammate, Keio Ohara, had instructed him in the deadly mastery of these tiny pieces of metal. He’d been able to save his life on several occasions by having the skill to punch one of the razor-sharp tines through an eye socket or an exposed throat.

James had his favorite G-96 Jet-Aer Boot and Belt knife. It was an old friend, from his ex-SEAL days in the Navy, a trusted implement that had logged countless hours with the black Phoenix Force medic every day, carried concealed, or in a sheath in full combat black. The black-handled, double-edged blade was considered a collector’s item, but James simply felt entirely comfortable with it.

It was a lot of gear to be carrying, especially since the other members of the CIA strike team were carrying only folding-stocked mini-Uzis in shoulder holsters. But both James and Encizo preferred to err on the side of being too prepared for mayhem, rather than end up as statistics.

James glanced at their destination, a single junk parked, without lights. It was a fifty-footer and its railing was low to the water. It would be easy for anyone to scramble on board, even claw themselves up from the water. He looked to his stocky friend Encizo, his instincts on edge.

“It looks like a trap,” the swarthy Cuban commando agreed. “Plus, it’s low enough that someone could jump from a neighboring deck.”

“These boys aren’t going to turn back without Terremota,” James replied. “And I think our girl is expecting just that.”

“A sucker play,” Encizo muttered. “If a fight breaks out here, we’re going to have a hell of a time retreating.”

James glanced at the trailing launch, loaded with more CIA strike force members, then sighed. “The file on Terremota stated that she may have trained al Qaeda operatives for the bombing of the USS Cole.”

“So she knows how to mix water and demolitions,” Encizo answered.

“Johnstone,” James said.

“What is it, Mr. Farrow?” Mills Johnstone, a brawny, pug-nosed man asked. He was the commander of the strike force, and ever since James’s and Encizo’s arrival as Calvin Farrow and Rafael Rey, he’d harbored an edge of impatience in his voice.

“Keep your men on this boat. We’ll go aboard,” Encizo said.

Johnstone’s craggy face bent into a frown. “You boys are too paranoid.”

“We’re alive, aren’t we?” James asked. He glanced toward the rail they were approaching. “Listen, if it’s safe, no problem. If not… Well, you won’t lose any of your men.”

Johnstone snorted. “Fine.”

James slid his hand under his coat, wrapping it around the curved plastic grip of the FN P-90 where it hung by its sling. He placed one foot on the prow of the launch and prepared to hop the rail when he spotted something bobbing in the water.

His body tensed and he looked to Encizo. “Rafe!”

That’s when an explosion ripped through the night. Splinters of the shattered boat sailed on a wave of billowing orange flame.

GARY MANNING THREW HIMSELF out of the jeep when he realized that David McCarter had just developed a case of road rash. T.J. Hawkins was hot on the Canadian’s heels, somersaulting to the ground as a wave of AK-47 steel-cored bullets hammered at the vehicle they exited. Stewart flopped to the ground, wincing in pain from his clumsy dive for cover.

The driver, however, wasn’t so lucky. He was pinned to the driver’s seat for the rest of his short life as 7.62 mm COMBLOC rounds punched through his chest, soaking his woodland camouflage with slick, red blood. Manning’s jaw tightened as he watched the lifeless chauffeur flop over the steering wheel moments before the vehicle’s destroyed tire snagged on the tarmac. The jeep preformed a flip, and if the poor bastard was still alive after being cored by a wave of flying bullets, Manning knew it was too late as several tons of steel sandwiched his corpse between itself and the ground. The Canadian came out of his roll and brought the MSG-90’s scope to his eye.

There would be time to mourn later. Right now, he had to help repel the sudden invasion on the base.

The transport jet they’d come in on gouted flames where an RPG shell had ruptured its hull. Luckily, the grounded bird didn’t need its hydraulics to fly, and its wings were where the volatile fuel was stored. A subsequent hit, however, could change all that.

Manning homed in on an RPG crew and the Bushnell scope atop his rifle brought the faces of the two rocketmen into sharp relief. One was a native Kenyan by the look of him, while the other was an Arab. Somehow, the two nationalities seemed to have come to an agreement of mutual hatred against the U.S. It didn’t matter how they got that way. In a moment, they would both be united in death.

The Phoenix Force sniper triggered his MSG-90 and planted a 175-grain precision match bullet through the forehead of the Kenyan, spraying his brains out the back of his skull in an eruption of crimson and stringy tissue. The Arab, waiting for his companion to load the next shell into his rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, gawked in momentary horror at the disintegration of a large part of his partner’s head. He scrambled for the next shell, but Manning leveled the crosshairs on the base of the terrorist’s neck and milked the trigger again.

He watched to make sure the Arab’s corpse landed on the ground, a massive chunk of spine torn out by the 7.62 mm NATO round, even at a range of 400 yards. Satisfied he hadn’t left a killer still able to fight, he shifted his aim and realized that the remaining guard towers were coordinating their fire. The brawny Canadian turned toward the ditch and saw that the enemy had closed to nearly two hundred yards.

Hawkins hammered out long bursts from his M-4 carbine, 6.8 mm slugs crashing into the attackers even as Air Force and Army personnel flooded out of their barracks. The surprise attack had been slowed enough by Phoenix Force’s instantaneous reaction that the U.S. military garrison could mount a counterattack. Half-dressed soldiers armed with M-16s raced into view.

McCarter, however, was caught out in the open without the protective bulk of the overturned jeep to shield him from incoming fire. Armed only with his custom Browning, he did the only thing he could think of—charge the enemy. There was a method to the Englishman’s madness. While the marauders were still adjusting their aim after engaging in a long-distance shooting match with the other members of Phoenix Force, they were unprepared for the lean, sleek Briton’s mad dash. As they struggled to shoot at the serpentining Phoenix Force leader, McCarter mentally counted down the distance between himself and his foes. All he needed to do was to get within one hundred yards. Precision rifle fire from Manning was buying McCarter some breathing space, while Hawkins and the other U.S. servicemen were doing their best to bat cleanup. AK-47 fire still gouged the ground at McCarter’s feet, and he kept pressing.

When he guessed he was within one hundred meters, he threw himself forward, landing flat on his stomach. Hot 7.62 mm slugs sizzled over his head, barely missing him. Now prone, McCarter swung his front sight to the nearest target and squeezed the trigger on his Browning twice. One hundred meters was a long shot for a pistol, but McCarter was an Olympic-level handgun marksman, and he practiced with his Hi-Power regularly at extreme ranges for emergencies such as these.

His first target was already tumbling into the afterlife when he swung the muzzle to a second terrorist and sent him a few more 9 mm pills to cure him of his antisocial tendencies. Sprays of slugs chewed up the ground in front of the Briton, and he rolled over three times, feeling the thump of bullets strike so close to him. When he came to a stop, he noticed that the squad of attackers was thinned out by the efforts of his partners, but there were still enemies kicking.

Worse than kicking, they were shooting. McCarter ripped out six shots in rapid fire, 9 mm brass ejecting from the breech and raining on his back as downrange, his sweep of Parabellum slugs scattered the remaining attackers in that group. A rifle round rebounded off the tarmac and sliced across his shoulder. It burned only skin deep, but it was enough to make the Phoenix Force commander roll once more, triggering his Browning as he flipped over. Even tumbling, he managed to tag the rifleman whose weapon’s muzzle-flash flickered at him.

The gunman jerked and sprawled lifelessly as McCarter’s 9 mm rounds punched into him. The sound of gunfire rose to a crushing crescendo around the SAS veteran, then died out.

As quickly as the attack had begun, it was repulsed.

McCarter pushed himself shakily to his feet, his flesh wound trickling blood down his triceps. He was out of breath, and his chest hurt where he slammed hard into the ground. His aches were catching up quickly to him as his adrenaline rush died away. He dumped the partially empty clip from his Browning, and was surprised to see there were still rounds in the magazine. He fed the gun a fresh 17-round stick, however. This could have been only a lull in the action.

He looked back to Manning and Hawkins. Both shot him a thumbs-up, indicating that they were unhurt. McCarter was glad for that, but he’d seen enough of the defending servicemen hurt and killed by this attack to realize it was hardly a perfect victory.

Another thing nagged the Phoenix Force commander—how in the hell did these bastards know that they were coming?

Apparently, even the cloak of secrecy around Stony Man Farm wasn’t protection enough against the powers of the deadly Ka55andra.

McCarter holstered his Browning as his partners got closer, Hawkins bringing his fallen M-4 carbine. This was just the opening shot in Phoenix Force’s fight with AJAX’s forces in Kenya.

CARMEN DELAHUNT FELT in a daze as she walked into the Moscone Center, San Francisco’s premier meeting and exhibition hall. She’d been to the twenty-acre facility before, for previous Law Enforcement Technology expos, helping to keep Stony Man Farm abreast of some of the latest developments in computers, programs and tech gear devoted to helping fight crime. Before, even though she’d grown jaded and cynical in her career, the awesome expanse of the convention managed to shake loose her sense of wonder and awe.

Now, all of that was numbed beneath guilt and mourning. Delahunt couldn’t help but think that if she hadn’t employed Hedspayce’s white-hat hackers in tracking down Ka55andra, her friend Amanda Cash would be alive today. A deeper emotion, rage, nagged at the edges of her haze of mourning.

She wanted revenge for her friend. Though she was part of Stony Man Farm’s elite cybernetics crew, Delahunt managed to keep her fiery temper cooled in relation to the atrocities that she encountered on a daily basis. She had a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that her computer wizardry enabled the two action teams of the Farm to go out and strike blows for justice against the predators of the world.

But Amanda was personal.

“This is Houston control to Carmen, come in.” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz’s voice cut through her daze. She turned and looked at the friendly, mustached face.

She pursed her lips, sending a command for a smile, but not quite making it. “Hi, Gadgets. You’re not with Carl?”

“Ironman wanted to do the cop thing, and he thought Pol and I would only get underfoot,” Schwarz answered.

Delahunt raised an eyebrow, wondering if he was telling the truth. It was likely, Carl Lyons had a tendency to engage in a bit of lone wolf activity, but she sensed that Schwarz and his partner, Rosario “Politician” Blancanales, were with her for another reason. Even as her suspicions were raised, she already noticed the nondescript, massive frame of a Secret Service command center truck in the parking lot.

“You think that Ka55andra might make a move here?” Delahunt asked.

“You caught me in a lie, Carm,” Schwarz said, shaking his head.

Blancanales made his way through the crowd toward the duo. He looked around before speaking. “This place has the potential to be a security nightmare.”

Schwarz shrugged. “It looks like the convention center staff is handling things well enough.”

“Sure, they can handle a rowdy crowd, and maybe a few creeps with switchblades. Maybe even someone with a .38 and an urge to blow away Bill Gates,” Blancanales noted. “But against someone…”

Able Team’s diplomatic Puerto Rican glanced at to Delahunt.

“You’re talking about the freak show that killed my best friend and her company staff,” she answered.

Blancanales nodded. “They’ll blow through this place like a tornado through a trailer park.”

“We just have to figure out when and where,” Schwarz replied.

“And who,” Blancanales added.

“Well, the President, and the deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security, Riddley Mott, are going to be appearing here Saturday,” Delahunt confirmed.

“Mott?” Schwarz asked. He threw a glance to Blancanales.

“Yeah,” Delahunt answered.

“He was in the Special Forces,” Blancanales said.

“We worked with him on a couple operations,” Schwarz added. “But even back then, he was a pompous, know-it-all ass.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard you guys grumbling about him when he was hired to the position of deputy director,” Delahunt answered.

“I’ll never forget the time he started into you for your parents being ‘wetbacks,’” Schwarz said to Blancanales.

“It was all Mack could do to keep me from pounding Mott to a pulp right then and there. I didn’t care if I got thrown in the brig. I was born in Puerto Rico, but my parents risked their lives to bring me to a country where I could grow up in a better place,” Blancanales replied. “My father and mother worked hard to become legitimate citizens after getting here, and I joined the Army as a way of repaying my new country. Me, a wetback?”

“It’s cool, Pol,” Schwarz began.

“Sorry, Gadgets,” Blancanales answered.

“He certainly cleaned up his act once he’d gotten into politics. He must have worked his ass off covering up all the stories about his old life,” Carmen stated. “Right now, he’s as bulletproof as you can get. A true-blue American patriot.”

“Yeah. Remember my nickname,” Blancanales said. “Politician. Not just because of my diplomacy, but because I could put on a second face and prance around completely in character. If I came up to you tomorrow, in a full beard and my head as clean as the bottom of a bowl, I could have you going for an hour before I let you recognize me.”

Blancanales glanced toward the auditorium stage through the double doors. “Mott’s an actor, too. Except, he’s acting to save his ass. If people knew what a total jerk he was…”

“He wouldn’t have a job at the top of one of the biggest federal agencies in America,” Schwarz concluded. “An agency which, if it wanted, could squish the Farm if we got into his face.”

Blancanales frowned. “We never shirked away from doing the right thing before because the enemy was too powerful. And Striker never backed down, either.”

Delahunt nodded. “Pol, if we find anything out that’s fishy about Mott, we’ll bring him down. But right now, we’re supposed to be protecting the Department of Homeland Security.”

“Yeah, well, I thought the goal of the guy who proposed it was to decrease the size of government, not create a bloated bureaucracy,” Blancanales muttered.

“We can’t do everything by ourselves,” Schwarz answered.

“Yeah, but you’d think that American law enforcement could coordinate without this petty jurisdictional bullshit,” Blancanales quipped.

“The day that happens, I’ll hang up my shotgun,” a new voice cut in. The Able pair looked to their commander, Carl Lyons.

“Hey, Ironman,” Schwarz greeted.

“What is this? Point/Counterpoint?” Lyons asked.

“Just reminiscing about an old buddy of Pol’s and mine, Riddley Mott.”

“Oh, yeah, he was in the Special Forces, too,” Lyons said. He paused and looked at Delahunt. For a moment, his gruff exterior softened. “Are you okay?” he asked softly.

Delahunt looked up and smiled weakly. “Yeah, Carl, thanks.”

Lyons nodded.

“Listen, I’m going to my room and hop on the laptop. I want to see what Bear and the others have going,” Delahunt told them.

“Wait,” Lyons said. He handed her a few scraps of notebook paper. “I took impressions of bullet casings used in the massacre, and I have a list of likely suspects.”

“You do? But the police weren’t able to identify them yet.”

“No, they don’t have pictures from any security cameras, but they had descriptions. That, and their style at the crime scene gave me a strong hunch,” Lyons said.

Delahunt read the names. “Linn Keller. Jacob Cannon. David Lee Haggar. These are some pretty heavy hitters on the FBI’s most-wanted list.”

“I know,” Lyons answered. “I keep up to date on that. Have Bear run some checks to see if I’m barking up the right tree.”

“Knowing you, you’re probably dead on,” Delahunt said. “I’ll fax these over.”

“Thanks.”

She headed back to the hotel while Blancanales and Schwarz only looked at him.

“What?” the blond ex-cop asked.

“We’re just wondering who you are and what you did with the real Carl Lyons,” Blancanales said first.

“I’m betting it’s pod aliens,” Schwarz chimed in.

“You always think it’s pod aliens,” Blancanales returned.

“All right, all right, enough grab-assing,” Lyons snapped.

“Ah, he’s back to normal,” Blancanales said.

“Temporary alien mind control.” Schwarz chuckled.

Lyons popped Schwarz lightly on his shoulder. “Cool it, Mr. Wizard.”

Schwarz rubbed his arm, still chuckling. Even a light tap from the Ironman was enough to raise a painful bruise. “Okay, Mr. Stone.”

“We’ve got a lead?” Blancanales asked, slipping back into professional mode.

“If I know David Lee Haggar, he loves to hang out at biker bars,” Lyons said. “And in San Francisco, he’s rumored to hang out at the Skulls and Chains.”

“Not waiting for Aaron to confirm that Haggar was involved?” Schwarz asked.

“I think the proper terminology in police work is ‘interviewing a person of interest,’” Blancanales offered.

“Saying hi to a perp is still saying hi to a perp,” Lyons said. “You guys wearing your vests?”

“Just like my credit cards. Don’t leave home without them,” Schwarz quipped.

“Then let’s roll.” The Able Team leader grunted. “The sooner we find these murderers, the sooner Carmen…”

He trailed off, aware that Blancanales and Schwarz were smiling.

“The sooner we find the killers, the better,” Lyons concluded.

CHAPTER FOUR

Rafael Encizo kicked up through the black, murky water and glanced around. As soon as the second motor launch disappeared in a flash of orange flame and splinters, he dived into the harbor. Blinking droplets from his eyes, he looked around. He wasn’t concerned about immersion affecting the MP-5 for its brief dunking, but he wanted to know where his partner Calvin James had disappeared to. Johnstone and the rest of his crew had evacuated the boat, as well, and they were popping up through the surface around him.

Something grabbed Encizo’s ankle and he felt himself being yanked under again. In the inky-black waters, he could barely see the outline of a shadowy diver who hung on to him. He let go of the machine pistol and let it float on its sling, and pulled his knees tightly up to his chest. The stocky, Cuban-born Phoenix Force commando somersaulted toward his attacker, head and shoulders ramming into the chest of the enemy swimmer.

The impact and the leverage of Encizo’s tumble combined to pop his ankle free from the underwater killer’s grasp, and the Cuban reached up, hooking his fingers around the hose leading to the diver’s face mask. With a savage kick, he twisted again and hammered his knees into the attacker’s chest, yanking back with all his prodigious strength. While he wasn’t a weight-lifting powerhouse like Carl Lyons or Gary Manning, he was easily the second strongest member of Phoenix Force. His might was enough to tear the mouthpiece from the wetsuited marauder’s lips.

A knife scythed through the water and deflected off his body armor, Kevlar and water resistance teaming up to save Encizo from being instantly gutted. The swarthy Cuban diving expert pulled his own Cold Steel Tanto knife from its sheath and in a single fluid motion raked the chisel-shaped tip across the face of the killer. The enemy diver thrashed violently as the blade carved through one cheek between his teeth and out the other. An explosion of bubbles and black blood spiraled stormily to the surface.

Encizo’s lungs were starting to burn, so he knew he had to finish this quickly. A kick to the underwater attacker’s knife arm jarred the enemy blade loose. A hard tug on the hose connected to the swimmer’s tanks and the Phoenix Force diver pulled his foe closer and plunged his knife deep into the joint between the killer’s neck and shoulder. With a quick twist, he’d gotten his knife free, then wrapped his lips around the diver’s mouthpiece. He exhaled and sucked in a fresh lungful of air, the foul taste of the chemicals in a Draeger bubbleless rebreather filling his mouth.

No wonder the swimmers had snuck up on the boats. He looked around, trying to make sense of the situation, but saw only mayhem as bodies thrashed underwater. Taking another deep breath, he stomped his foot into the chest of the dead attacker and kicked toward the surface, hoping to find James.

As Encizo broke the surface, he noticed that Johnstone’s remaining forces had been halved yet again. The enemy swimmers had taken them by storm, and the one thing that the Phoenix Force pro knew was that he was a sitting duck if he stayed in the water.

“Get on board!” Encizo shouted. He drew his Glock 34 and clicked on the Insight Technologies XM-6 gun light with the rocker switch at the front of the trigger guard. He kicked below the surface again and hoped that the 9 mm rounds would have enough punch to take out an enemy, even through water resistance. James and Encizo had tried out the handguns under water, and they fired and cycled reliably while immersed. That, plus their polymer frame and rust-resistant finish, made them seawater-proof. John Kissinger had left one of their Glocks fully loaded at the bottom of a seawater tank for six months, and when he pulled it out, there was only a slight bit of rust. It worked perfectly, and the rust had buffed out.

But now, using it in underwater combat for the first time, Encizo wondered just how well it would do. He certainly couldn’t swim up to each attacking diver and knife them to death, not before they dragged more of the CIA strike force under to their doom.

He swung the cone of light toward one diver, who stopped, caught like a deer in the headlights. As far as Encizo was concerned, terrorist season was year round, and he triggered the Glock twice. The 9 mm slugs from the long barrel smacked the killer and tumbled him backward, blood reddening his white light’s glare.

So it worked. Encizo was relieved; this meant he could continue to protect the helpless strike force members swimming for the railing.

Another figure knifed into the water downrange and suddenly a separate cone of white light split the inky blackness. More thumps of a weapon discharging underwater reached Encizo’s ears, and he knew it was James entering the conflict.

Encizo was glad he wasn’t going it alone, because in the glow of his XM-6, he spotted three men kicking toward him, knives drawn. One had a speargun and swiveled it toward the stocky Cuban. Encizo kicked forward, making himself a smaller target and spearing his Glock ahead of him. A 9 mm bullet smashed the speargun-wielding diver through his face mask, jolting him to a halt. The launched spear sliced the water, glancing off Encizo’s boot.

However, the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel phase of the battle was about over. One knife-wielding swimmer wrapped his hand around Encizo’s gun wrist, pushing the muzzle away from him. Under the water, the agile Cuban let the momentum of his enemy’s tug swing him around as he kicked both of his heels into the face mask of the terrorist diver. The man’s head snapped back brutally, and Encizo twisted free, kicking as if to go to the surface for a fresh breath of air.

The other rebreather-equipped murderer turned to come after Encizo, but the Cuban jackknifed instead, pressing the muzzle of his long-barreled Glock into the man’s head. As soon as he felt the jolt of the skull against his gun, he pulled the trigger and the water erupted into a blossoming cloud of blood.

The dead diver tumbled backward, disappearing into the murky depths. The remaining member of the trio recovered his senses from Encizo’s head kick. He twisted and plunged after his partner’s corpse. Encizo swung his gun, but the flashlight only reflected so far, and the rebreather-equipped killer had disappeared for now. Encizo twisted and saw that James had extinguished his gun light.

Encizo shut his off, as well, and kicked to the surface, making for the junk.

“Shit,” Johnstone growled. “I’m sorry I gave you boys a hard time.”

The CIA man reached down for Encizo’s hand and helped haul him aboard. James was pulled on deck by other men, as well, and the Phoenix Force pair swiftly reloaded their pistols.

“It was a trap,” James grumbled.

Encizo looked out over the water, wiping his brow clear. “Yeah, but they still got a lot of good people.”

“It’s not over yet, Rafe,” James said.

“I know,” Encizo replied. “We’ll get them.”

“Not that…” James noted. “Look!”

“All this racket’s drawn the harbor patrol,” Johnstone snarled. “Crap.”

“Cal, take the helm,” Encizo called. He pulled out his knife again and rushed to the railing where the anchor rope was visible. “The rest of you, make sure there’s no more booby traps on this tub. If you’ve got a multiband communicator, check to see if there’s surveillance equipment aboard, too.”

Johnstone stood frozen for a moment, then waved for his men to follow the Phoenix Force vet’s orders. Encizo chopped down on the anchor mooring, the sharp edge of the Cold Steel blade easily cleaving though the thick hemp.

The engine struggled to turn over and James gave the outboard another pull. When that failed, he opened the casing on the engine, slowly and carefully. Encizo rushed over to his side.

“Anything?”

James lowered the casing back down. “I felt a wire hooked to the lid.”

“Booby trap?”

“I’m not taking a chance. Rafe, get the other launch,” James said.

“Got it,” Encizo responded, and he leaped over the side, spearing into the water like a dolphin.

With the leap he made, and a few powerful kicks, he was at the other launch in moments. James assembled the survivors of Johnstone’s team on the deck after heaving the possibly booby-trapped engine over the back. Just because it looked like a dud didn’t mean that it couldn’t still be dangerous. Even as Encizo pulled himself into the motor launch, the water shook and bubbled, an explosion ripping through the inky depths.

He glanced over at his friend and partner.

“Good call, Cal,” Encizo said as he reached for the outboard.

James gave his friend a thumbs-up. “Hurry up, the patrol’s getting close.”

The stocky Cuban fired up the electric motor and zoomed the craft, much quicker and more agile without the weight of a full load, over to the side of the junk. James plunged into the water, rather than come aboard the craft, while Johnstone and the others clambered over the railing.

“Where’d he go?” Johnstone asked.

“Checking to see if our raiders left a mine attached to our hull,” Encizo answered. He looked across the water, seeing the Hong Kong harbor patrol closing in. A spotlight splashed across the opposite side of the junk, throwing it into stark silhouette. Encizo and the strike force survivors ducked down so they wouldn’t be visible.

James popped up to the surface and started to crawl in.

“Nothing?” Encizo asked.

“No,” James answered as the powerful Cuban hauled him over the edge and into the boat. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Encizo answered.

Cutting between the larger junks and parked ships, the Phoenix Force pair wove through the thickest accumulation of craft. Even if the patrol boat had noticed them, unlikely in the harsh shadows of the junks and over the sound of their diesel engines, they would not have been able to follow them.

Encizo turned to James as he pulled into the dock where they had launched from. They’d managed to save some lives, but too many good people died that night, and they were no closer to getting a clue than before.

But the gauntlet had been thrown down, and Phoenix Force was always up to the challenge.

AARON KURTZMAN, his beard scruffy, his build round, yet powerful, certainly lived up to the descriptive nickname “The Bear” in looks. Still, there were times when he thought that he might be living like a bear, practically living in the cave known as Stony Man’s Computer Room. Here, in the nerve center of the Farm, he was able to access an array of supercomputers and processing servers that combined to create one of the most powerful search engine bases on the planet.

Barbara Price, the Farm’s mission controller, strolled over to check the big board. So far, there hadn’t been much news from the boys in the field, but Kurtzman knew that didn’t mean anything yet. Pretty soon, unless they found themselves cut off from all outside contact, information would start to pour in.

All the while, the Bear was busy in his cave, listening to Internet whispers, news articles, rumors, field reports, arrest records, all of which might allow the cyberteam to give their friends in the field some hook, some angle that might give them the edge. They were down in force, Carmen Delahunt having gone in person to San Francisco on a promised trip to meet up with an old friend and a valuable resource in her research.

What should have been a reunion, however, was a trip of mourning. Amanda Cash and her staff at HedSpayce were murdered, possibly due to their investigation of Ka55andra and AJAX.

No, not possibly. There were times when coincidence factored heavily into Kurtzman’s life, but when someone involved in an investigation ended up murdered in a spectacular massacre, then that meant something was up. Huntington Wethers, the tall, pipe-chewing African-American member of the cybercrew, was going over HedSpayce’s data with a fine-toothed comb. If anyone could methodically plod his way through mountains of information, it was the coolly analytical and highly organized Wethers. He could spend hours looking at lines of code in the hope of finding a single misplaced character, a single stretch of data that could be the fingerprint of a virus or a worm, and not grow tired.

Conversely, Akira Tokaido, the long-haired, young Japanese-American cyberpunk, was listening to wild music on his iPod and plowing through the transmission information regarding the final hours of Knight Seven and the mysteriously overridden Predator UAV drone. Tokaido, as opposed to Wethers, was more an instinctive, imagination-driven programmer and hacker. Bear assigned him to the matter of what happened to the slaughtered Knight Seven Special Forces team and how they had been lured off course into their trap.

It wouldn’t go easy. Carmen Delahunt was brilliant at being the in-betweener for the pair, able to bridge the deliberate, painstaking methods of Wethers and the off-the-cuff, wild energy of Tokaido. Kurtzman had managed without her efforts before, though, and he could handle it now.

“We’ve got an incoming call,” Price stated, pointing to the main board. “San Francisco.”

“Able has a lead already? “ Tokaido asked. He looked up from his monitor and slid his headphones off his ears, the tinny rattle of heavy-metal music issuing from the foam-covered speakers.

“It’s Carmen,” Wethers corrected as he went to the fax. “And you were right. Lyons got some case-head impressions from the HedSpayce massacre.”

“I’ll get on it. You keep looking through their investigation data about Ka55andra,” Kurtzman volunteered. Wethers came to him, handing the man the pages of the fax.

“All right. I’m starting to pick up a pattern, but I’m only a fifth through the data that they gave us,” Wethers said.

Delahunt’s face appeared on the screen, her Web cam transmitting her tired features across the expanse of the country.

“Damn, Carm, you look like…” Tokaido began before catching a glare from Kurtzman.

“Don’t worry about it, Bear,” Delahunt answered. “I know I’ve had a rough time. Carl gave me a list of names you might find interesting.”

Wethers spoke up, his deep timberous voice filling the computer center. “You know, you could tell him that the Farm has its own investigative resources.”

“You’d like to tell the Ironman to drop what he’s doing?” Delahunt asked.

“My apologies,” Wethers offered.

“No offense taken,” Delahunt replied.

“Besides,” Kurtzman noted. “Able Team and Phoenix Force weren’t hired for their pretty looks. These are smart, dedicated people. This is a two-way street. Any information they uncover only gives us more to help them with.”

Price looked at the faxed list of names. “Keller. Haggar. Cannon. Pretty impressive group of killers if Carl’s right.”

“He probably is,” Kurtzman replied. “According to the descriptions of the trio the S.F.P.D. encountered, and what records we have on Carl’s list, they’ve just made our short list of suspects even shorter.”

He tilted his flat-screen LCD toward Price and she read two parallel windows of information. One was the report given by a surviving police officer from the hospital, and the other window had three subwindows with photographs and verbal descriptions of Keller, Haggar and Cannon. Kurtzman highlighted dozens of matching keywords between one window and the next.

“And yet, he plays dumb so well,” Price muttered. “There are times when he’s almost Sherlock Holmes.”

“Yeah, but the deerstalker cap doesn’t match his commando fatigues,” Tokaido quipped.

“Carl and the others took off. He probably is heading to one of the trio’s San Francisco hangouts,” Delahunt replied.

Kurtzman did a quick scan and nodded. “If they’re going to find anyone, it’ll be Haggar. He was part of an outlaw motorcycle gang for a few years, and his records indicate that he used to frequent a bar in the Frisco area.”

Price groaned softly. “Able Team at a biker bar?”

Kurtzman raised an eyebrow. “They’ll be as discreet as they can be.”

Price frowned. “You know why I made the effort to keep those three on American soil. They’re a diplomatic relations disaster waiting to happen. Hell, even in the U.S., they leave big, messy footprints wherever they go into action.”

“They get results,” Kurtzman said.

Price sighed. “I know. I’ll just get ready to start calling in favors in Southern California. Just in case they accidentally set off the San Andreas fault.”

Kurtzman smiled. “Chances are, when Lyons and company are finished, the authorities will just wish that the big one had hit instead.”

“You’re not bolstering my confidence, Bear,” Price moaned, heading back to her operations office.

She was at the door when another signal lit up from Kenya.

Price stopped and looked back.

“Hang on, Carmen, I have incoming from David,” Kurtzman said.

“Let it through. He’s probably calling, complaining about another Hugh Grant movie on the flight,” Delahunt said.

“David, you’re on,” Kurtzman acknowledged, once Wethers signaled that the call was clean.

“Bloody hell,” David McCarter’s voice snapped over the satellite phone. “Careful!”

“Sorry, David,” Gary Manning responded.

“What happened?” Price asked.

“Gary’s stitching my bloody shoulder shut…literally bloody,” the Phoenix Force commander answered. “Barb, someone was waiting for us to get off that ruddy jet.”

“You were attacked when you landed?” Price asked.

“They tried to make it look like the whole base was the target, but they were looking for us. What information did Stewart have about us?” McCarter asked.

“Just that you were a joint task force counterterrorism team sent over to help investigate Algul, his blood cult, and their ties to the Shining Warrior Path and AJAX,” Price responded.

“Well, they were waiting to throw us a party. RPGs, a couple of waves of AK-toting psychos, and enough ammunition to cripple the transport jet and kill five U.S. military personnel,” McCarter explained. “I thought we were supposed to be protecting people, not springing traps and getting them killed.”

“Sorry,” Price answered. “She must have Task Force Camelot’s communications all sewn up.”

Kurtzman pointed to Tokaido, who put his current work on hold to burn up the keyboard about the possible snooping.

“It makes me wonder if they weren’t planning a ‘how do you do’ for Cal and Rafe in Hong Kong,” McCarter said.

“We’ll get back to you if anything came up,” Price promised. “Don’t worry.”

“It’s my job to worry about my lads,” McCarter grunted. “Luckily, I’m the only one splashing the red vino around, though T.J. and Gary are covered with scrapes from diving to the concrete.”

“All right,” Price answered. “When Calvin and Rafael call in, we’ll let them know you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Barb,” McCarter answered. “Bear, this operation’s full of leaks. That Ka55andra witch must be nearly as good as you are.”

“If you’re trying to challenge me, it’s working,” Kurtzman replied. “I’ve got our people looking all over for her. All we can do is keep shaking trees and hoping something drops into our laps.”

“Any leads on the Cassandra mythology angle?” McCarter asked.

“No reported rape charges in the current administration, both in the White House and in the Department of Homeland Security, though we have had several officials who have been present at the destruction of small towns and villages from Hanoi to Baghdad,” Kurtzman answered.

“And all points in between,” McCarter grumbled. “Bleed-in’ wonderful.”

“It’s taking time, but we’ll come up with something,” Kurtzman promised.

“In the meantime, we’ll knock up this chap Algul and see what he has to say about things,” McCarter replied.

“Be careful, David,” Price requested.

“I always take care of business, Barb. Don’t drink the coffee.” McCarter signed off.

Price looked at the mug in her hands, one she’d prepared during McCarter’s report, and wrinkled her nose at the black ugly sludge. She shrugged and took a sip anyway, screwing up her face at the bitter foulness of it.

“He asked you not to drink the coffee,” Kurtzman noted.

Price looked at him and shrugged. “That’s okay. I know David. He’s not going to be careful, either.”

Kurtzman winked and returned to conferencing with Carmen Delahunt.

It was going to be a long week.

T.J. HAWKINS HANDED over McCarter’s M-486 carbine and gave his commander a mock salute. “All cleaned up and accounted for.”

The ex-SAS commando checked his rifle, just to be sure, and nodded to the former Ranger. “Thanks, mate.”

“You think Rafe and Cal stumbled into a trap?” Hawkins asked.

“I bloody well know it,” McCarter responded. “But, I know those two. If anyone can scurry out of the fryer, it’s them.”

Manning applied the last bandage to the Briton’s shoulder and gave him a light tap on the back. “It’s the best I could do. Calvin could have done a better job with his eyes closed.”

“If Calvin was fixing my hide, he’d better keep his bloomin’ orbs peeled for the job,” McCarter rumbled.

“Cranky that you didn’t get your bottle today?” Manning chided gently.

“Having my Coke is the least of it, Gary,” McCarter snapped back. “T.J., did Stewart give you any intelligence on the blokes that hit us?”

“As far as we can tell, they’re the reason why Kenya let in a contingent of multinationals,” Hawkins answered. “Shining Warrior Path. I took a look at the bodies we recovered, and none of them were done up in ceremonial mud or paint like Algul’s men.”

“Too bad we didn’t take any prisoners,” McCarter growled. “I’d get them to talk.”

“Remember what Yakov said about torture, David,” Manning gently reminded.

“What torture? I forgot my country music CDs anyway,” McCarter quipped.

“Hey now…” Hawkins spoke up, exaggerating his drawl. “So what is our plan?”

“I’ll go check with some SAS lads in the British barracks,” McCarter replied. “Gary, you see if any of the Canadian task force boys know anything. If they don’t know you, at least you have the credentials Barb printed up. T.J., you think you know some Rangers assigned to this task force?”

“If not, I can get in good with them after a few minutes. A lot of Special Forces troopers are good ol’ boys. A little jawin’, and I’ll flip ’em over to my way of thinking in no time.”

“Right, whatever you said,” McCarter answered with a wink. “Just see what the good ol’ boys know about the local situation. Deep-down information that they might not have passed on through channels.”

“And then we’re going to have to find a way off the base,” Hawkins added.

“Stewart put us on lockdown?” Manning asked.

Hawkins gave a curt nod. “Tighter than a frog’s ass. His orders were that nobody goes off base without his say-so.”

McCarter shrugged. “Since when have we obeyed orders?”

Manning cupped his chin in his hand, folding his other arm across his broad, barrel chest. His brow furrowed for a moment. “Are you counting simple orders like ‘get down’ and ‘hit ‘em’?”

McCarter grinned. “All right, meet back here at 2200. We go over the fence at Oh-dark-hundred.”

Hawkins and Manning took off, McCarter slipping into a fresh BDU shirt before they set out on their tasks. His shoulder felt stiff and ached, but the thought of revenge for the injury already deadened the pain.

HERMANN SCHWARZ OPENED his gear locker in the back of the rented Econoline van that Able Team had loaded with weapons of war. While the standard gun cases were stored within cardboard boxes, Schwarz kept his portable locker in plain sight. The electronics equipment wouldn’t cause as much consternation on a simple traffic stop as Lyons’s and Blancanales’s rifles, handguns and submachine guns. Schwarz had his own weaponry, as well, hidden in the packing boxes, but the most important stuff, at least for surveillance, was right now at hand.

“Give me a preview, Mr. Wizard,” Lyons said.

Schwarz pulled out a telescope and attached a thermal imaging unit to it. The imager was one of his own designs, and had the power and range, even in full daylight, to see through flimsy walls into buildings. It was good for counting small numbers of people, but heavily crowded bars and clubs could provide a problem. Even then, if the mass of humanity was enough to make individual identification problematic, that was still important advance intelligence. He peered through the viewing reticle and furrowed his brow.

“Ah, hell,” Schwarz said. “There’s a blob of them in there.”

“Anyone outsized?” Lyons asked.

“Outsized?” Schwarz shot his partner a confused glance.

“Any giants or dwarfs?” Lyons asked. “Or can’t you cut it that fine?”

“I could probably pick up one—Whoa—” Schwarz cut off. “Giant?”

“Yeah.”

“Someone just stepped into the back room,” Schwarz announced. “He was a head taller than anyone else in the bar.”

Lyons slid into a leather jacket, then checked his shoulder holster and belt rig. In his belt, he had a Kissinger-tuned Colt 1911A1 pistol, while under his armpit, he had his .357 Colt Python. In the biker bar, he’d need every ounce of firepower and stopping power he could get. The heavy .45 pistol and its Magnum revolver counterpart would prove some serious medicine for dropping a rampaging biker, if worse came to worst.

Lyons looked over to Blancanales. “Pol, you’re not going to be too popular with the biker crowd.”

“You want me as backup?” Blancanales asked. He realized that Lyons was right. Outlaw bikers, the one-percenters as they called themselves, were fiercely jingoistic. They didn’t even like foreign-made guns, let alone Japanese motorcycles. Hispanics and blacks would be looked at as intruders, and at the very best, would leave covered in bruises.

“Keep the driver’s seat warm,” Lyons said. “And get some heavy firepower to back up me and Gadgets.”

Blancanales nodded, pulling a Heckler & Koch UMP-45 out of his case. The high-tech, .45-caliber submachine gun provided more punch than the 9 mm subguns the Able Team had carried in the past. The lightweight machine pistol was an optimal compromise between an M-16 and an Uzi, it could fire twenty-five fat, subsonic rounds, either with authoritative thunder or muffled silence with the right suppressor. With built-in rails for scopes and gun lights, as well as a polymer frame and stock, it was a featherweight, while still possessing awesome firepower. “I’ve got your back, Ironman.”

Schwarz took a deep breath and put his surveillance equipment away, double-checking his gear. “Glock 23 and Kissinger Colt. Two magazines for each.”

“Pocket a couple more,” Lyons suggested. “These guys might not give us much time to get some fresh ammo.”

Schwarz nodded and pocketed a few fresh clips. “We’re not really here to just talk.”

“It’s their choice,” Lyons answered solemnly.

Schwarz did another check to make sure he could reach his guns easily. “I was afraid of that. Get ready to bail us out, Pol.”

Blancanales was already affixing an M-203 grenade launcher to the rail under the UMP-45’s barrel. “Ready, willing and able.”

“Real funny, Pol,” Schwarz commented, getting out of the van.

Schwarz hopped down to the dirt, then looked over at Lyons whose face was a mask of intense concentration. He knew his buddy was in the zone, now. Focused, ready for anything, and he knew from experience that not even a platoon of Spetsnaz special forces soldiers could slow him when he was like that.

The Skulls and Chains bar loomed in front of them, and when they were still a few feet from the small porch, still behind the wall of Harley-Davidson bikes, the front door slammed open. Two grim, burly bikers with shotguns burst into view, their faces twisted into rictuses of anger.

Schwarz reached for his Colt and his Glock, and dived to one side. He knew, though, that things were going bad when the blast of the shotgun slammed into Carl Lyons’s chest, billowing out the lapels of his leather jacket.

CHAPTER FIVE

Calvin James toweled off the last of the droplets, slipped into a pair of silk boxers and tugged on his jeans. Barefoot and bare-chested, he glanced at himself in the mirror. The dip in Victoria Harbour had left him grungy and his old clothes, tossed into a heap in the corner of the changing area, were still damp and smelled of more than a little sewage.

James wrinkled his nose at it, but in the end, he couldn’t blame the people living on the boats moored in the harbor. The sprawl of Hong Kong was crowded, and they went to water to escape the claustrophobic conditions. Living at sea meant that they could dump their garbage and refuse overboard. It wasn’t a swimming pool, and though China might have wanted to cut down on the pollution, they simply had no place to move the people in the floating slum.

So they ignored it, just like the provisional Hong Kong government had in the century before.

He picked up his belt and slid the anchoring loops of his Galco Jackass rig over it, threading it through his new pants. Pulling on a fresh T-shirt, he slipped his arms through the loops, then looked at the disassembled Glock 34 by the sink.

Rafael Encizo had won the contest as to who would get to rinse off the grime of the harbor first, but that also meant that he was still working on the polymer pistols. He laid them out and was running the hotel room’s complimentary hair dryer over the damp mechanisms. Though the polymer and coated steel components were as close to rustproof as possible, the dunking and firing underwater was an unusual stress on the pistols, and they wanted to be sure that the handguns would be in perfect working order. Encizo’s big and little Glocks were already back together, while James’s pistols were still field-stripped.

“Almost done?” James asked.

“Let’s kick it up a notch.” He clicked the hair dryer to a higher intensity and kept sweeping the parts.

“Thanks. Let me know when you’re done,” James answered. He went to pull on his socks and shoes, and sat on the bed. He was tired, but restless.

“You okay, Cal?” Encizo asked.

“Just thinking how we’ve been played for suckers by AJAX,” James told him.

“You and me, or Johnstone?”

“The whole Farm,” James answered. “When we talked with Barb back home, she said that David and the others were ambushed in Africa.”

“You think they were expecting us?” Encizo returned. “I know Phoenix Force has made enough enemies over the years…”

“Not us in particular. Ka55andra might think that we’re a special enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security,” James replied.

Encizo faked shock. “We’re not?”

“I know. Sometimes I feel like we’re given the shaft, going after the unimportant thugs, while the real monsters run around free.”

“We have a leash for a reason, Cal,” Encizo answered. “But Hal’s looked the other way when we’ve slipped it before.”

“I know. Now I understand why Striker quit playing by the rules and became his own cat,” James explained.

“We also serve. Just think of how many more lives would have been ruined if we hadn’t been there,” Encizo said.

James took a deep breath. “But Ka55andra knew that there was going to be some sort of reaction. She’s got her thumb on the pulse of the investigations against her. The attack on HedSpayce, the ambush for us and McCarter.”

“No news on Carl and the gang, either,” Encizo added.

“It might be harder to set up something in the U.S.,” James said. “Even though they were able to kill a bunch of Frisco cops.”

Encizo spoke up. “That’s another thing bugging you.”

“Yeah. Even if I didn’t know any of those officers, I was one of them once. Just like when the Cole got bombed, or when China captured that naval intelligence plane, remember?”

“Yeah,” Encizo answered. “I had friends among the DEA agents I worked with, freelance. Whenever we have a mission involving them, I can’t help thinking of them as friends.”

James nodded.

“I’ll take first watch, as soon as you’re done hairstyling my Glocks,” James answered. “We’ll take an hour nap, and then hit the street.”

Encizo nodded. “Sounds like a great plan. Let’s see if the bad guys are still watching us closely.”

“And if they are, then it’ll be time to set up a trap for them,” James declared.

Encizo clicked off the hair dryer and gave it a twirl around his trigger finger. “Good. I’m sick of only blasting hot air, tonight.”

ROUSING FROM THEIR SLEEP, Gary Manning and David McCarter threw T.J. Hawkins a glance as he greeted them with a couple mugs of coffee.

McCarter wrinkled his nose at the offer. “No cold Cokes?”

“Sorry,” Hawkins answered. “The mess hall was closed.”

McCarter accepted the cup and grimaced. “Well, it’s not Aaron’s coffee. How bad could it be?”

Manning coughed. “Pretty damn repugnant.”

McCarter took a sip. “Compared to Bear’s mud, it’s ambrosia.”

“Sorry I couldn’t stop at Starbucks for you critics,” Hawkins answered.

“I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you,” Manning said as he set down his empty mug. “Okay, do we have any other plans except to badmouth the coffee?”

“Short of finding a grocery store and smuggling a few cases of Coke back, I was thinking of Amman Set,” McCarter said. “Everyone we’ve talked to has agreed that heading into that area is just looking for trouble.”

Manning looked to Hawkins. “Look for trouble. See, that’s why I wasn’t chosen to lead the team. Brilliant, yet simple stratagems like that.”

“You know you’d be stuck in a knitting circle if it weren’t for me,” McCarter quipped.

Manning shrugged. “Well, yeah. Plus, I haven’t sported as many bullet holes as you have.”

McCarter grinned. “The night’s still young.”

Manning rolled his eyes. “Promises, promises.”

The Briton slipped into his sling for the FN P-90 submachine gun, then pulled a loose windbreaker over it. The flat gun, only twenty inches long, was hidden by the drape of the jacket with only a few minor bulges. Spare 50-round magazines balanced out the gun in an underarm clip holder, while his modified Browning Hi-Power rested just behind his hip in an inside-the-waistband holster.

On the barrel-chested Manning, the FN P-90 completely disappeared under the hang of his broad, powerful shoulders. Hawkins, as lean and rangy as McCarter but a bit shorter, had a little more trouble concealing his weapon, but only a few bumps showed under his clothes.

The three Phoenix Force vets slipped out of their quarters and stealthily made their way to a darkened corner of the joint task force compound. Ironically, it was the same one that the marauders had broken through the fence earlier that day. Staying out of the spotlights, and moving slowly enough not to attract attention, it was a simple matter for the three pros to scurry under the fence and be gone before the glare of the spotlights from the watch towers swept across them.

McCarter made a mental note to inform Stewart about the carelessness of the guards who patrolled that area when, or if, he returned the next day.

He hoped that if something did turn up, he’d be able to come back and pick up their spare gear. If not, they’d simply have to scrounge and make do. It wouldn’t be the first time Phoenix Force had been stuck in the wilderness without the ample resources of Stony Man Farm to call upon, but the five superpros of the team hadn’t been selected because of their ability to do the job when intelligence and artillery were handed to them on a silver platter. Resourcefulness, determination and skill were the selection factors when it came to the Stony Man action teams.

As soon as Manning was through the fence, the trio serpentined around the spotlights, disappearing into the shadows.

“T.J.,” McCarter whispered, unlimbering his FN from the folds of his jacket, “earpiece in and take point for a comm check.”

Hawkins unfurled his weapon, as well, and took the lead in the darkened forest, cutting through the trees. Manning, however, clicked on his LED light to check the map case strapped to his forearm.

“Hawk to Mac, reporting,” Hawkins’s voice came back.

“Reading you,” McCarter answered. “Keep your ears on and—” he glanced at the map, then at the stars above, getting his bearings “—continue on heading 268.”

Squinting, McCarter could see the silhouette of Hawkins consult his compass-wristwatch. McCarter had a similar design himself, and knew the luminous, tritium hands on the dial would provide an easy reference, even in complete darkness. Hawkins’s shadowy form raised a hand and motioned for the others to follow his course.

Manning took up a rear security position, and McCarter fell into step in the middle, keeping his eye on the youngest Phoenix Force member as he continued to take point. Now, all speech was kept to an absolute minimum and subvocalized so that only someone else wearing a communicator with an earpiece and a throat mike could hear the others. There was still the chance that Shining Warrior Path members could be stalking the trees, waiting for a patrol to fall on them. The possibility of running across a team of task force hunters, taken to the shadows, seeking more marauders, was also likely. Caught off the compound, Phoenix Force could expect a “shoot first, as questions later” response if they stumbled across even a friendly patrol.

Fortunately, Hawkins, like the rest of the team, was an expert night stalker. Even in the thickest of forests, in the blackest night, he’d be able to use the cloak of darkness as an ally. Without night-vision goggles and operating by starlight, the trio continued through the jungle, following Manning’s infrequent consultations of the map and his own compass.

It was a long, tiring hump through the uneven jungle floor.

And McCarter’s instincts had been right. The Phoenix Force trio had to stop and take cover as a squad of Rangers moved with almost complete silence past their hiding places. While the Americans moved with stealth and alertness, McCarter was glad for his team’s superior skills. They’d picked up the shadowy forms and, nestled behind deep cover, sat breathlessly as the patrol passed by.

“We forgot our night-vision gear,” Manning said into his throat mike.

“They didn’t,” McCarter quipped. “And look, they missed the three of us.”

“Guys,” Hawkins continued over his communicator.

The elder Phoenix Force commandos dropped back into silence, and they spotted more lean, stealthy shadows creeping through the night. These weren’t servicemen attached to the international joint task force, and from the looks of the machetes in their hands, handguns around their waists and their stripped chests, coated with reddish, ruddy tints, it could only mean that they’d stumbled on a squad of Algul’s men.

“Jackpot,” McCarter whispered. “Silencers.”

Manning and Hawkins were already affixing suppressors to their space-aged submachine guns. The big Canadian glanced at McCarter and raised a finger.

The unvoiced question was simple to understand. One prisoner?

McCarter answered with a thumbs-up, then clicked his transmit button. The single click would convey to Hawkins that they needed a prisoner to interrogate, if possible. Keeping their weapons suppressed would make it hard for the enemy to locate them, but also keep the sounds of a conflict from reaching the recently passed Ranger squad.

While the American Special Forces soldiers would appreciate the assist, the sound of a gun battle would only draw their own firepower into the mix. And without a score card, McCarter knew that his team would end up on the losing end of a friendly fire incident.

Manning shouldered his weapon and peered through the sights at the first of the crimson-caked stalkers in the shadows. As the best marksman of the three, it would be the brawny Canadian’s role to begin the festivities with a sniper shot. McCarter wished he’d brought his Barnett Commando crossbow along. For silent, deadly work, it was an amazing tool, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to conceal the crossbow under his jacket, with or without the FN submachine gun.

Instead, McCarter leveled the muzzle of his weapon at a second target, flicking the selector to full-auto. One pull of the trigger and the cadaverous stalker in the forest would receive a salvo of 5.7 mm tumblers at the rate of 800 rounds per minute.

Manning pulled his trigger and the forehead of one of Algul’s zombie-like followers disappeared in a volcano of blood. The man gurgled and collapsed, the others freezing as they realized they had come under attack.

McCarter cut loose, ripping a burst into the red-clay decorated chest of a second hunter. The machete-wielding killer spread his arms wide, the wind knocked from his lungs before he could cry out, raising further alarm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hawkins leap out behind a third of the dark night predators, clubbing him with the buttstock of his P-90. The marauder collapsed without a sound and Hawkins crawled atop the stunned man, grabbing a cable tie-style riot cuff from his pocket.

The crack of a handgun split the night and McCarter and Manning separated, drawing the Phoenix Force leader’s attention back to the action in front of him. Manning’s FN spoke, coughing out suppressed rounds that chopped into the hand gunner, ending his assault.

McCarter stumbled over a tree root and looked up to see a machete-wielding murderer let out an enraged scream as he came down on the Briton, gleaming blade glinting in the starlight, thirsty for the Phoenix Force commander’s blood.

CARMEN DELAHUNT NEEDED to get out of her room, out of the confining, claustrophobic walls. She needed to network, get some ideas about the mysterious Ka55andra.

It wasn’t going to be an easy time, each thought invariably reminding her of her dead friend Amanda, but then, she felt a spark of flame burning inside her. Motivation. She’d become restless and needed to act, not sit around and keep fingering her psyche until she went slowly mad.

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