BROGNOLA STOOD WHERE HE WAS, WAITING

“In addition to the church in that cowboy state of yours,” the voice said pompously over the speakerphone, “the third suicide bomber I sent to Israel has just eliminated close to four hundred infidels in Tel Aviv.”

The President remained cool. “I hadn’t even heard of the first two yet,” he said, glancing at Brognola. “They must not have been very big.”

The voice that responded turned angry. “They were exactly the size I wanted them to be.”

Brognola was listening to one of the biggest egos he’d ever encountered in his long career.

“And, Allah willing, there are far bigger things to come,” said the Iranian president.

“Are you declaring war on the United States?” the Man asked.

But the leader of the free world got no response.

All he and Hal Brognola heard was a click as the line went dead.

Sky Sentinels
Don Pendleton

Stony Man ®

America’S Ultra-Covert Intelligence Agency

www.mirabooks.co.uk

SKY SENTINELS

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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Wilson “Pat” Patrick took a seat on the rocky ledge and pulled the strap of his canvas briefcase over his head. As he set the bag down at his side, he turned to Buford Davis and said, “Make sure you get those colors flying high, Buff. We can’t be more than a quarter mile from the border.”

Davis had already found a crack between the craggy rocks and jammed the steel pole down as far as it would go. A light wind caught the flag and flattened it out so it could easily be read.

Noncombatants! the slick flag proclaimed both in Farsi and Arabic. And below that was written Newsweek magazine, followed by the periodical’s logo.

Patrick opened his briefcase and pulled out a small tin lunch box. Davis had found another relatively flat surface a few feet away from Patrick and dropped to a sitting position, temporarily setting his camera bag behind him. From somewhere inside the light bush vest in which he carried everything from camera lenses to a Swiss Army knife, he produced a paper sack. He pulled an egg-salad sandwich out of the bag.

The two men heard the tromping of feet behind them and turned slightly to see six members of the FOX News team approaching. Jason Kapka, who was toting a heavy video camera, was the only one Patrick knew. Kapka made the introductions.

Patrick opened his lunch box and pulled out a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich as the FOX crew found rocks or ledges where they could stow their gear and sit for lunch. Patrick finished his sandwich and opened a small bag of Cheetos at the bottom of his lunch box. He looked down into the valley that separated them from Iran. A trickling stream of water passed over the rocks at the very bottom of the valley, and although it was actually a few feet inside the Iraqi border, it was generally regarded as the separation line between the two countries.

As he watched broken twigs, flowers and strands of grass float by, he suddenly caught movement in the corner of his eye.

Patrick spotted the heads of two men appear as they marched purposefully over a hill and into view. Both wore red scarves around their necks, earmarking them as members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Officially known as the Pasdarans, these special forces Iranians were fully decked out in khaki uniforms, web gear and carried either American M-16s or Soviet AK-47s.

The M-16s, Patrick knew, were left over from the days when the Shah had ruled Iran. The AK-47s had been acquired from the old Soviet Union, which had been more than happy to arm the Iranians while they held the American hostages shortly after the revolution.

“What do you suppose those two are up to?” asked Court Hough, one of the FOX crew anxiously. Before anyone could answer, another pair of heads appeared. Then another. And it continued until roughly two dozen of the Pasdarans had marched over the hill into view.

“Just out on patrol,” Davis said around a mouthful of egg salad. “Flexing their muscles for us.”

The Americans continued eating their lunches. “They’ll stop down by the stream,” Jason Kapka said. He reached to his side, unzipped his bag and pulled out his camera. “Might as well get some footage of them, though,” he added as he turned back around and rested the camera on his shoulder. “It’s been a boring day. But the suits back home’ll still want tape of some kind.”

The routine-patrol explanation seemed to have calmed the FOX men. When Roger Stehr spoke up, his voice was steady. “Well, I’m sure you Newsweek liberals can find a way to make it look like it was all the U.S.’s fault,” he said.

“And I don’t doubt that by the time we finish lunch, you FOX guys will have written that they killed two dozen babies in some sort of Satanic Muslim ritual,” Davis retorted.

All of the journalists laughed.

But their laughter had an edge to it.

The Americans continued eating as the men with the red scarves around their necks made their way down the embankment to the water. But they all stopped in mid-bite when the Pasdarans sloshed straight across the water and began climbing the bank on the Iraqi side.

Patrick looked quickly to the side and saw that the breeze still held the noncombatant flag straight out. There was no way the Iranians could miss it. And there was no doubting that they knew they were invading another country.

“What the hell are they up to?” Court Hough said in a shaky voice. “Don’t they know where the border is?”

“They know,” Davis said as he continued clicking away with his camera. “They just don’t care.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t like this. No, I don’t like this at all.”

As the squad of Iranians continued to make its way up the hill, one of the newsmen stood. “Look,” he called out in a loud voice as he turned slightly and lifted his arm, tapping the media patch on his shoulder with the fingers of his other hand. “We’re newsmen.”

As he turned and pointed toward the flag Davis had jammed into the ground, one of the lead Pasdarans raised his AK-47 and shot him through the heart. The newsman fell down the bank, past the oncoming Iranians and finally came to rest in the stream, turning the water a dull red as the blood drained from his body.

All the rest of the Americans froze in place. A few seconds later they were completely surrounded.

“Stand up!” an Iranian with sergeant’s stripes ordered as he jammed the muzzle of his M-16 into Patrick’s chest. The Americans complied. Turning to his side, the sergeant rattled off orders in Farsi and a second later four men hurried forward, searching the Americans head to foot and confiscating their equipment and bags.

One of the Pasdarans suddenly turned toward the sergeant and spoke rapidly, holding up a North American Arms .22 Magnum Black Widow he had found. The sergeant stepped away from Patrick and walked toward the two men. Holding out his hand, he took the tiny hideout gun and lifted it to his eyes. “What is this?” he demanded in perfect English. “A toy?”

The American newsman saw a possible opening and took it. “Yes,” he said emphatically. “Just a toy gun. I found it and planned to take it home to my kids to play with.” As soon as the sentence was finished he held his breath.

“I see,” said the sergeant. “So, if it is a toy, this should not hurt.” Pressing the barrel of the little pistol between his captive’s eyes, he cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger.

The .22 Magnum round exploded in the newsman’s brain, sending blood, flesh and chips of skull out both the front and back of his head.

The sergeant turned toward the rest of them. “It seems it is a dangerous toy,” he said, smiling. “It should come with a warning on the box.”

The air filled with laughter.

But it was all Iranian.

The sergeant barked out more orders, and the soldiers who had searched the American newsmen gathered up both the still and video cameras. But instead of taking them as Patrick expected them to, they piled the cameras into the arms of one of the FOX correspondents.

The sergeant looked the man in the eyes. “Take your tape, and your pictures, back to your President,” he said. “Tell him that if he can invade other countries, so can Iran.” Then he aimed the .22 Magnum at the FOX man’s foot, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger again.

The American’s howl of pain was almost as loud as the explosion.

“That will slow you down a little,” the sergeant said. “But you can still make it back.”

The FOX man had dropped the camera bags and now more Pasdarans lifted the bags and slung them over his shoulders again.

“I think I will keep this toy for myself,” the sergeant said, grinning. More orders in Farsi followed, and suddenly Patrick and Davis found their hands cuffed behind their backs.

“Congratulations,” the sergeant said. “You have the honor of becoming our guests.” He turned one last time to the FOX man who was sweating and trying to stand on one leg, his face contorted in agony. “Go now,” he said. “And tell your president that this is only the beginning.”

A moment later Wilson Patrick, Buford Davis and the remaining three men from FOX were trying not to fall as they were escorted down the embankment toward the stream.

Patrick glanced over his shoulder to see the FOX man begin limping back toward the American base camp.

He wished he had paid more attention to the man’s name.

CHAPTER ONE

The three members of Able Team wore skintight black combat suits as they fell through the sky over Oklahoma City’s south side. Below, Carl Lyons watched the traffic on Interstate 44 as he prepared to pull the ripcord on his parachute.

Local law enforcement had already set up roadblocks surrounding the strike zone. There were already hundreds of law-enforcement officials on the scene. But they had been ordered by the President himself to wait for Carl “Ironman” Lyons, Rosario “Politician” Blancanales and Herman “Gadgets” Schwarz, the three men who made up Stony Man Farm’s crack Stateside counterterrorist squad known as Able Team.

At the last possible second, Lyons jerked his cord and looked up to watch the parachute canopy open above his head. A few feet to the side and a mere foot or two above the canopy, he watched Blancanales and Schwarz do the same.

The three men’s black combat boots all hit the asphalt parking lot of a deserted Pizza Hut in front of the large church at almost the same time. Wasting no time, they cut the lines to their chutes and let them blow away in the strong Oklahoma wind.

Somebody else could pick them up. Right now, Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz all had more important duties to perform than to worry about littering.

Lyons glanced at a cardboard sign in the otherwise empty window of the Pizza Hut building. It read Future Home Of The Southern Hills Baptist Church Youth Group. He wondered just how many of those young Christian boys and girls would still be alive once the building had been remodeled. Unless he and his team were successful, the purchase of the former Pizza Hut might turn out to have been a bad investment for the church.

Terrorists dressed in khaki uniforms had taken over the sanctuary at approximately ten-fifteen that morning, just as the musical portion of the service was ending and the sermon was about to begin. Some had moved in through the sixteen entrances to the sanctuary with submachine guns and smoke and stun grenades, while others had taken over the balcony and rounded up miscellaneous personnel from the offices and other rooms inside the church. At least one man—an off-duty police officer—had been killed during the siege. The small .38 Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special in the pocket of his sport coat had proved to be no match for the superior fire- and manpower of the invaders.

As Lyons straightened, a burly man with sandy-brown hair, a well-trimmed mustache and wearing a brown suit walked up to him. “I’m Langford,” he said simply. “You must be the guy they called me about?—Agent Lyons.”

Lyons let the M-16 fall to the end of the sling over his shoulder and shook the man’s hand. From the briefing Able Team had held via cell phone as they flew to Oklahoma City he knew that Langford was the director of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

“Give me a quick rundown on the situation, will you?” Lyons asked.

“Not a lot to tell you that you didn’t hear during the flight,” Langford said. “We’ve had some sparse communication with the men inside. We’re estimating that there’s about three dozen, total.”

“Any other Feds shown up yet?” Lyons watched the OSBI man’s eyes carefully as he spoke. As a former LAPD police officer himself before joining the Stony Man crew, he was more than familiar with the turf wars between law-enforcement agencies. No one liked having what they thought was his responsibility taken away from him. But he saw no jealousy on Langford’s face as he questioned him.

“Just the OKC office of the FBI,” Langford said. He looked toward a group of men in carefully tailored suits who stood huddled around a minivan. “They got their little feelings hurt when I wouldn’t let them take over the show.” He paused to draw in a breath. “I think they’re arguing about what dry cleaner is the best at stuffing their shirts right now.”

Lyons wasn’t known for joviality, but that one made him smile. “They’re good at that,” he said. Then, changing the subject, he said, “Have the men inside ID’d themselves or given out any demands?”

“No demands yet,” Langford said. “It’s almost like they’re waiting for us to get set up on purpose in order to make the biggest splash possible.”

“That’s a legitimate possibility,” Lyons said, nodding. “Any idea who they are? The briefing we got on the plane said they were all dark-skinned, wearing khakis and shouting what sounded like Arabic to a kid who got away.”

Langford nodded. “We had a brief conversation with the boy. They didn’t claim to be a terrorist group at all. They said they were Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Sounds like a load of crap to me.”

“Me, too,” Lyons said. “The Iranian government openly sponsoring a terrorist attack on a Christian church inside the U.S.? That’s like declaring war.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Langford said. “But they could be Iranian rather than Arabic. Most people around here wouldn’t know the difference between Arabic and Farsi if they heard it side-by-side.”

Schwarz and Blancanales had so far remained silent. Schwarz looked at Langford, “You have any idea where they are inside the church?”

“That kid that sneaked out right at the beginning,” Langford said. “He’d been in the bathroom when the shooting started and the grenades went off, and he ran for the closest exit. He said it looked like they were taking everyone into the sanctuary.”

Lyons felt his jaw tighten as he nodded his understanding. That meant explosives. If the terrorists were armed only with firearms, they’d have spread the hostages out throughout the building. The Able Team leader was about to speak again when a dark red Toyota Tundra pickup pulled up, followed by two black-and-white OCPD cars, sirens blaring and lights flashing. It had obviously run one of the roadblocks.

A man wearing a large turquoise bolo tie, a gray suit, black cowboy boots and a white straw fedora stepped out of the truck while a woman Lyons assumed was his wife stayed inside.

Officers from the two squad cars leaped out after him, guns drawn. Ignoring them and the other officers stationed around the church, the man in the bolo walked toward Langford and Lyons.

Langford held up his hand and shook his head to the uniformed men. They lowered their weapons.

“Somebody you know?” Lyons said.

“Oh, yeah.” The OSBI director grinned. “Retired agent. And I’d forgotten he went to this church.” He paused a moment, then said, “Carl Lyons, meet Gary Hooks. Former agent and close-quarters-combat expert with and without weapons.”

The two men shook hands.

“You’re a little late for the service, Gary,” Langford said.

“We always are,” Hooks said. “My wife can’t stand that canned music they play on Sunday mornings. So we get here just in time for the sermon and sneak into a back pew.” He looked around for a moment, taking in all of the other officers, weapons and equipment. “Then again, maybe God made me late on purpose,” he said. “My guess is none of you know jack about the layout inside of the church.”

“No details or schematics,” Langford said.

“It’s fairly simple,” Hooks said, tightening the turquoise bolo around his neck. “Right behind those front doors is a foyer that is about ten feet wide and circles the sanctuary. But it’s a killing ground. They—whoever they are—could stand just inside the sanctuary itself, with the doors propped back, and kill every one of us who opened one of the outside doors before we even got inside.”

“Any other ways in?” Blancanales asked Hooks. “Ways these guys wouldn’t know?”

“Well,” Hooks said, squinting slightly, “this isn’t ancient Rome and we don’t have any catacombs to hide in. But there’s a way in they may not have thought about, particularly since they’re Muslims and particularly since this is a Baptist church.” He looked up at the roof of the large building. “There’s one way in I think enough of us could use to get the drop on them. That’d give the rest of these guys time to come through the doors,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Your team, Lyons, plus Langford and me. Our job will be to take out the sentries at the sanctuary doors from behind so the SWAT teams and other officers can come in and join us.”

“And just how do you plan to get behind them, Gary?” Langford asked,

Hooks grinned. “Since you’re a Methodist, I wouldn’t expect you to know,” he said.

Langford laughed, and it was obvious to Lyons that this was an old joke between the two old friends. “Don’t worry,” Hooks said. “I’ll show you all the way. But we’ve got to spot and disarm whatever explosives they’ve set up, too. And that could get tricky.” He paused a second and cleared his throat. “You know what this is, Dwayne,” he said, using Langford’s first name. “One giant suicide bombing. Those men inside plan to blow themselves up along with everyone else, and you know it. I know that because they haven’t paid a bit of attention to what we’re doing outside here. Has anyone so much as seen a face in any of those windows?”

Langford shook his head. “But you’re retired, Gary,” he said. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m not retired when somebody tries to blow up my church,” Hooks said. He glanced around. “You’ve got some good men out here,” he added finally. “I know, because I trained most of them in close-quarters combat. But none of them know the inside of that church like I do.”

Langford laughed softly again, then looked at Lyons. “He never was worth a damn at taking orders,” he said.

“I think what he’s saying makes sense,” Lyons said. “We need Hooks to come with us.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” Gary Hooks said.

“I know this is a foolish question, Gary,” Langford said. “But do you have a gun on you?”

“One or two,” said Hooks. “But I need one more.” He turned swiftly and returned to his pickup, kissed his wife, and came back carrying a worn canvas briefcase. A moment later he produced a 5.56 mm Kel-Tec PLR-16 pistol and began stuffing extra loaded magazines into the pockets of his gray suit.

As soon as he returned, Langford turned to a man at his side. “Give me your AR, Don,” he said.

As he grabbed the AR-15 from his subordinate’s hands he said, “Everybody ready?”

Lyons nodded. “Then let’s go. You know the layout,” he said, looking to Hooks, “so you lead the way.”

A second later they were following the man in the gray suit and turquoise bolo tie around the building to the side of the church.

T HE RECENTLY PURCHASED Pizza Hut building was not the only addition the Southern Hills Baptist church had planned. A vacant lot where an old crumbling wood-frame house had been torn down stood adjacent to the church’s gymnasium, and the workmen who were building new Sunday-school classrooms had left several ladders at the site.

While Blancanales stood watch through the windows into the gym to make sure no curious eyes were on them, Lyons, Schwarz, Hooks and Langford hefted the tallest of the ladders and hauled it to the side of the church.

“See anything?” Lyons asked when they had the ladder resting against the brick.

“Nothing but basketball goals and foul lines,” Blancanales said.

Lyons led the way as the other men steadied the ladder, then turned and assisted each of the other men up onto the asphalt roof of the church.

The men made their way as quietly as possible across the top of the building. When they reached an airshaft roughly halfway toward the front of the church, Hooks stopped. “This leads down into the dressing rooms behind the baptistry,” he said. “From there we can step down into the water itself. There’s a curtain that’ll cover us from sight.”

Lyons nodded. It was at this point, he knew, that the leadership of the quickly formed five-man team should return to him. Hooks looked him squarely in the eyes and nodded his acknowledgment.

“Okay, guys,” the former LAPD detective said. “I’ll go first. None of us hit the water until we’re all down. Got it?”

Four heads nodded back at him.

With Hooks’s and Langford’s help, Lyons pried the metal shaft off the hole leading down into the building. His Randall Model 1 fighting knife took care of the screen, and then he lowered himself through the passageway to the tile floor. His boots tapped as they hit the floor and he heard the curtain in front of the water start to move.

Someone had heard him.

And there was absolutely no place to hide.

Ignoring his own order of a moment earlier, Lyons lowered himself into the water of the baptistry and ducked his head beneath the surface, pressing himself as tightly as he could against the wall directly beneath the curtain. Through the water, he could see the curtain move. A bearded man wearing a red scarf with his khaki fatigues and BDU cap peered through the open window.

But he didn’t look down. And a moment later, the curtain closed again.

Lyons rose slowly through the water, acutely aware of the unavoidable sound he was making. But it was evidently not as loud as his drop had been because the curtain remained closed. Climbing up the two steps and back onto the tile floor, he looked upward and motioned for the next man to come down. Lyons caught Schwarz’s legs before they hit the floor, then lowered him silently.

Together the two Able Team operatives did the same for the remaining three men.

Holding a finger to his lips, Lyons then gave hand signals to direct the other men down into the water. He remembered the red scarf the terrorist had worn as he looked through the curtain a minute earlier, and frowned.

These terrorists had claimed to be legitimate Iranian troops. And the red scarf was official issue to the Revolutionary Guard—like the green beret to U.S. Special Forces.

The president of Iran was crazy—few people would argue that point. But was he crazy enough to actually send official troops inside America’s borders and attack a house of worship? Of course anyone could buy a red scarf and tie it around his neck and call himself anything from Revolutionary Guard to Gene Autry if he wanted to. The terrorists could easily be al-Qaeda or Hezbollah or Hamas or some other group simply masquerading as Pasdaran troops.

At this point it didn’t matter. He and the rest of his men could sort that all out after the thousand or so hostages on the other side of the curtain were safe.

Lyons’s M-16 was already soaked with water from his earlier dip beneath the curtain. But that mattered little with modern firearms. It would still fire. So holding it in front of him, he moved slowly to the corner of the curtain and used the barrel to push it slightly to the side.

Directly through the window was a large choir loft, with terrified men and women dressed in robes still sitting in their chairs. Mixed in with them were more men in khaki uniforms and red scarves.

One of them had to be the man who had almost spotted him earlier.

Behind the pulpit, and making full use of the microphone in front of him, another terrorist dressed in identical fatigues and a red scarf stood spouting Islamic terrorist propaganda in broken English. Lyons could hear him demanding that the congregation all convert to Islam immediately or be killed and go directly to Hell.

Other men with AK-47s, Uzis and a variety of other weaponry stood next to the speaker. Still more patrolled the aisles, and in the balcony Lyons could see that the same thing was going on. These men in red scarves—perhaps Iranian Pasdarans, perhaps simple terrorists in disguise—were covering their hostages from every angle.

What interested Carl Lyons most, however, was a red-scarfed man on the stage sitting next to a Caucasian in a blue suit. Lyons suspected the man in the suit was the minister. In his midforties, he had slightly graying hair. He sat quietly. But his face showed no fear. If anything, what emanated from the pastor was confidence and determination.

Next to the minister, on the floor, was a sinister-looking device that appeared to be comprised of Semtex plastic explosives and a glass container that held a dull, cloudy liquid that was turning yellow.

Nitroglycerin. Most people thought it was clear, and it was when it was new. But as the explosive aged, it took on more color.

And more instability. It might even be set off by the vibrations of a gunshot. It was a true IED—Improvised Explosive Device. Unprofessional and unpredictable.

In addition to a pistol in one hand, the man next to the minister held an electronic device that resembled a television remote control in the other. But Lyons knew this device had only one channel.

Explode.

Lyons stepped back through the water. He could never crawl through the window and get to the bomb or the man with the detonator before the bomb was detonated. And if he shot the terrorist, the gunshot itself might cause the explosion of the shaky nitro. Lyons stood there while the rest of his team took turns looking through the curtain to access the situation for themselves. All of them looked at him when they’d seen the explosive.

The Able Team leader moved back to the corner of the curtain and brushed it slightly to the side again. He looked out to lock eyes with the minister he had seen only moments earlier.

Somehow, for whatever reason, the preacher had turned in his seat enough to stare at the baptistry. And somehow Lyons had known he was going to do just that even before he moved the curtain.

The minister slowly nodded at Lyons.

Lyons nodded back. Although he wasn’t sure why or what the nod meant. He only knew that to do nothing meant the sure deaths of two thousand innocent people seated in the congregation.

Turning toward the rest of the men next to him in the water, the Able Team leader whispered individual assignments. Langford and Hooks would take out the guards at the main doors while Schwarz and Blancanales dived through the opening to handle the terrorists on the stage and in the aisles.

Just before he was about to seize the curtain and jerk it back, Schwarz grabbed his sleeve. “What about the bomb?” he said.

“I’m taking care of it,” Lyons said.

Schwarz frowned, then slowly nodded.

Carl Lyons reached up and grabbed the curtain with one hand, holding his M-16 with the other. He took a final look at each of his men, then suddenly ripped the curtain off the front of the baptistry so hard it came completely off the rings that had held it in place along the top of the window.

H AL B ROGNOLA was a well-known face to the Secret Service agents stationed at the White House. So when he walked purposefully through the final metal detector and sent a loud buzzing down the hall, all he got from the men in the dark suits were nods of acknowledgment.

Brognola nodded back as he strode toward the open door to the Oval Office. Stepping inside, he saw that the chair behind the huge desk was empty. But that wasn’t unusual.

So he turned to his left.

Few Americans knew it, but the Oval Office was used primarily for news briefings and meetings with foreign dignitaries. It was a show office. Most of the papers the President reviewed and signed, as well as the rest of the actual work he did, was conducted in a much smaller, more businesslike room next door. And it was from this door that Brognola heard the familiar voice say, “In here, Hal.”

Brognola crossed the freshly vacuumed carpet and entered the work office. The Man was seated at one end of a long leather couch with stacks of paper arranged next to him.

When the President pointed toward the other end of the couch, Brognola dropped down beside the stacked papers. He wore two hats in the U.S. government. To the public, he was a high-ranking official within the U.S. Department of Justice. But behind the scenes, he was also the Director of Sensitive Operations for Stony Man Farm.

Today, however, he had no doubt which role the President would be expecting him to assume. Had the Man simply had Justice Department business on his mind, he’d have conducted it over the phone.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you about the situation at the Iraq-Iran border,” the President began.

Brognola shook his head. “I haven’t seen a news tape replayed so many times since Rodney King,” he said.

“You realize what the Iranian president is trying to do, I’m sure,” the Man said.

“Sure,” Brognola said. “They’re trying to suck us into another Iraq. Crossing the border and killing and kidnapping American noncombatants was an act of war. Clean and simple. They’re daring us to invade Iran.”

The President nodded. “Exactly,” he affirmed. “Right now, the sympathy of the rest of the world is with us.”

Brognola grunted sarcastically. “That won’t last. Particularly if we start bombing Tehran.”

“You know, I know and Iran knows that we can kick their butts nine ways to Sunday if we want to,” the President said. “But unless we nuke them out of existence, we’ll have to send in more troops to keep order, and it won’t work any better there than it has in Iraq.”

“Or Vietnam or Korea,” Brognola agreed.

“Right,” the Man said. “It’s pretty much all or nothing. We’d have to just forget about civilian casualties altogether and wipe them out. Or sit back and do nothing for years like we did when the Shah went down.” He paused a moment, then said, “But there is a third possibility. A surgical strike that frees the hostages but doesn’t do much, if any, collateral damage. It’s slim, but at least it has a chance.”

Brognola knew what was coming and remained silent.

“Where’s Bolan at the moment?” the Man asked.

“Haven’t heard from him in several days,” Brognola said. “He’s tied up with some things in Bosnia right now.”

“Able Team and Phoenix Force?” the President asked.

“Able Team’s in Oklahoma,” Brognola said.

“Ah, yes.” The President nodded. “The church situation. I understand it’s Iranian-backed terrorists there, too?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Brognola said seriously. “There’s a rumor going around the intel agencies that the men who took over the church are Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. Pasdarans, complete with their red neckerchiefs.”

“And Phoenix Force?” the President asked.

“McCarter and his boys are catching a few hours of well-deserved sleep after that affair in South Africa. But I can have them up and ready within the hour.”

The phone on the desk suddenly rang.

“Get that, will you, Hal?” the President said. “Put it on speakerphone.”

“Certainly, sir.” Brognola rose to his feet, took two steps to the desk and pressed the intercom button on the phone.

“Nan, I told you to hold all of my calls while Mr. Brognola was here,” the President said somewhat testily.

His tone didn’t seem to have any effect on his receptionist. “I know,” the voice on the other end of the line said confidently. “But you’ll want this one.”

“Who is it?” the Man asked.

“Javid Azria,” Nan answered.

The President looked at Brognola.

Brognola looked back.

“Put him on,” the Man directed.

A click sounded over the speakerphone and a moment later an Iranian-accented voice said, “Mr. President?”

“Yes, Mr. President?” the Man said back.

Brognola stood where he was, waiting.

“In addition to the church in that cowboy state of yours,” the voice said pompously over the speakerphone, “the third suicide bomber I sent to Israel has just eliminated close to four hundred infidels by detonating himself in one of the decadent Western-inspired night clubs in Tel Aviv.”

The President remained cool. “I hadn’t even heard of the first two yet,” he said, glancing at Brognola. “They must not have been very big.”

The voice that responded turned angry. “They were big enough,” it growled. “Exactly the size I wanted them to be.”

Brognola sat silently. He was listening to one of the biggest egos he’d ever encountered in his long career.

“And, Allah willing, there are far bigger things to come,” said the Iranian president.

“Are you declaring war on the United States, Mr. Azria?” the Man asked, using the Iranian president’s name for the first time.

But the leader of the free world got no response.

All he and Hal Brognola heard was a click as the line went dead.

T HE BAPTISTRY WINDOW was only wide enough to allow three men at a time to crawl through it. And as Hooks, Langford and Schwarz launched themselves upward out of the water, Lyons and Blancanales helped shove them onto the stage.

Counting both terrorists and worshippers, over a thousand heads jerked their way.

As the water-soaked warriors jumped to their feet, the remaining two members of Able Team followed.

It had all taken just enough time for the men in the red neckerchiefs to overcome their surprise and react.

Luckily, Able Team and the OSBI men assisting them reacted a fraction of a second quicker.

Lyons was the first to fire, triggering a 3-round burst from his M-16 into the head of the man who had been shouting from the pulpit. Lyons turned toward where the minister and the dark-complected man holding the remote detonator sat and saw that the minister had already grabbed the other man’s hand. He held it in both of his own, his fingers tight around the device, preventing the terrorist from entering the code that would bring down the entire church.

Hooks and Langford knelt on both sides of the pulpit. The OSBI director was firing his AR-15 steadily in semiauto mode, taking out one door guard per round. Return fire whizzed back toward him, some of it striking the pulpit while other rounds perforated the large cross hanging just above the choir loft. Occasionally a round flew past them into the baptistry and a plopping sound echoed forth as it spent itself in the water.

The members of the choir had all hit the floor. Next to him, Hooks fired his Kel-Tec PLR-16, which had obviously been converted to full-auto. Each tap of his forefinger drove another khaki uniform and red scarf to the ground.

Schwarz and Blancanales were firing their own M-16s into the red-scarfed terrorists in the aisles and balcony. In addition to these warriors, several men and one woman within the congregation itself had risen to their feet and joined the battle, killing the terrorists near to them with hidden pistols. These off-duty cops and citizens with concealed-carry permits had been smart enough to wait for the right time to fight.

Lyons’s well-trained brain had taken in all of these facts in a heartbeat, and now he turned his attention back toward the biggest threat in the church—the amateurish improvised bomb that still stood on the floor next to the chairs where the minister and his guard had been moments earlier. The two men were wrestling on the floor, each doing his best to gain control of the remote electronic detonator.

Skipping from the back of one choir chair to another, Lyons made his way down the rows through the choir loft toward the stage. Moan, cries and shrieks could be heard just beneath his boots.

So far, the vibrations from all of the rounds being fired throughout the church had failed to detonate the IED. But that didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t. Or the one after that. And the minister and terrorist wrestling on the floor were still too close to the device for comfort.

Lyons let his M-16 fall to the end of its sling as he jumped off the last row of choir seats and landed on the stage. A second later he had drawn the Randall Model 1 fighting knife and was diving on top of the grappling men. Lyons knocked the minister to the side, taking his place and grabbing the terrorist’s wrist with his free hand. Before the man had a chance to push any of the buttons, the Able Team leader had thrust the point of the Randall’s seven-inch blade through his wrist. He twisted the knife back and forth. Ligaments and tendons popped as the Able Team leader literally cut the detonator out of the man’s hand with the Randall’s razor-sharp edge.

The man with the scarf screamed at the top of his lungs as blood began to shoot from his wrist. Grabbing the detonator from the man’s useless fingers, Lyons put all of his weight on the Randall, feeling it cut through to the other side of the wrist, penetrate the carpet below, then lodge itself in the wood beneath.

As he rose off the terrorist’s chest, Lyons saw the man try to pull the knife out of his wrist with his other hand. Unsuccessful, he screamed as the pain proved more than he could endure.

The man with the knife through his wrist fell back in agony.

The minister had risen to his feet after being knocked clear by Lyons a moment earlier. The Able Team leader looked at him. His hair and clothing were disheveled and torn from the life-or-death wrestling match in which he’d just been engaged, but his eyes were clear.

Lyons pulled his trademark .357 Magnum Colt Python from his hip holster and twirled it so that the grips faced the minister. “You know how to use this thing?” he asked the preacher.

The man nodded his head. “Cylinder turns opposite from a Smith & Wesson,” he said.

Those few words convinced Lyons that the preacher knew his guns. “Keep him here,” he said, looking down at the man still pinned to the floor. “Don’t shoot him unless you have to. He may have valuable information for us later.”

The minister nodded as he took a two-handed grip on the Python and aimed it at the terrorist’s head.

Lyons lifted the M-16 and turned toward the congregation. Catching a glimpse of khaki running toward a foyer door at the back of the sanctuary, Lyons directed a 3-round burst into the terrorist’s back. The man dropped to the carpet a foot from the door.

Turning slightly, Lyons saw a member of the congregation wearing a plaid sport coat and dark tie aiming a Glock at one of the terrorists. But another terrorist, behind the man in plaid, was aiming an AK-47 at his back.

Lyons swung the M-16 around and sent another 3-round burst over the heads of the people huddling beneath the pews. The bullets all hit the man in the red scarf in the chest, dropping him out of sight a second before the man in plaid triggered his Glock.

The terrorist the churchgoer had aimed at fell to the man’s pistol fire. He turned his gun on yet another of the intruders, never knowing that the Able Team leader had just saved his life.

Schwarz and Blancanales had moved down off the stage and were creeping along the sides of the sanctuary, using the pews as cover and targeting any terrorist who presented himself. Hooks and Langford were still battling away from the side of the pulpit.

Raising his eyes to the balcony, the Able Team leader saw that only one of the attackers was still on his feet, firing downward over the safety rail. Raising his assault rifle, the Ironman caught him in the chest with yet another burst of fire. The man screamed. Then his scream was cut off and a gurgling sound replaced it as his chest filled with blood.

Falling forward over the rail, he did a half flip before the back of his head struck the top of a pew. By now, the gunfire had begun to subside, and the cracking sound of the falling man’s neck breaking echoed throughout the large sanctuary.

The various law-enforcement officers waiting outside began to enter the sanctuary through the foyer doors, and suddenly the battle was over.

“Check for wounded!” Lyons called to Schwarz and Blancanales. Both men nodded back at him. In the meantime, Langford walked to the pulpit and began talking in a calm voice, doing his best to end the screams of horror and other noise from the people under their seats. In a few seconds, heads began to rise as it became apparent that the nightmare was over.

Lyons returned to where the minister was still covering the man pinned to the floor. “Pastor,” he said, “I need a room where I can talk to this guy. Nice and private.”

The minister nodded as he handed Lyons’s revolver back to him. “I’ll take you to one of the Sunday-school rooms,” he said. “By the way, thanks.” He paused a moment, then said, “You don’t look like regular policemen. Not even like special state agents like our own Gary Hooks.”

“Nobody looks like Gary Hooks is my guess,” Lyons said.

The minister laughed. “He marches to a different drummer, all right. I’m Rick Felton, by the way. Call me Rick.” He stuck out his hand. “And you?”

“Just call me Lyons,” the Able Team leader said.

“You must be federal agents of some kind,” said Felton. “Is that what it is?”

“Sort of,” Lyons said as he knelt next to the man on the floor. “It’s hard to explain.”

Lyons turned his attention to the man on the floor. Reaching down with both hands, he wriggled his fingers beneath the man’s wrist, then yanked upward. There was still screaming and loud moans all over the sanctuary, but this terrorist’s shriek was loud enough to turn all heads their way.

Lyons left the knife in the man’s wrist, using the grip to guide him down off the stage and out through the closest exit. As they descended the steps, he saw both the Oklahoma City Police and Highway Patrol Bomb Squads enter the sanctuary. He pointed toward the bomb behind him, then moved on.

As they neared the door, Schwarz and Blancanales suddenly appeared next to him. “Only two civilian injuries, Ironman,” Schwarz said. “Both superficial flesh wounds.”

“Lucky,” Lyons said as Felton led them down a hallway past the church kitchen.

The minister glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “I think there might have been a little more than luck involved here, don’t you?” he said. When no one answered, he continued to speak as they walked on. “Tell me how I knew you were in the baptistry,” he said, smiling. “Better yet, tell me how you knew I’d know, and that I’d be willing to fight for the detonator until you got to me. And tell me why none of the congregation was killed, and why that bomb never went off. By all rights, we should all be dead right now. You think that all just happened by coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Lyons said.

Felton glanced up toward the ceiling. “Well, I do,” he said, smiling.

Lyons followed the minister to a door with a metal sign that read Adult II Sunday School. Felton pulled out a key ring and opened it, holding the door wide while Lyons led the captured man inside, still holding the knife. As soon as they were all inside the room, Lyons sat the man wearing the red scarf in a metal folding chair. The man was still making low, whimpering noises that the Able Team leader found irritating. Twisting the knife slightly, he made the prisoner scream.

“Okay,” said Lyons. “You keep whining like a baby and I’ll keep twisting the knife. Or you can act like a man and I’ll treat you like one.”

Their captive rattled off something in Farsi.

“You speak English?” Lyons demanded.

The man shook his head.

Lyons pulled on the knife again and the man screamed, “Yes! I speak English! I speak very good English for you!”

“Somehow I knew you were gonna say that,” Lyons told him. Still holding on to the knife handle, he turned to Felton. It was obvious that the minister was uncomfortable being there while Lyons inflicted even this slight pain on their captive. “Pastor,” he said, “you might want to take Hooks and Langford through the church and see if any of these guys escaped the sanctuary and are hiding someplace. On the other hand, there are probably SWAT teams already doing that, so I’d go back to the sanctuary and get behind the pulpit if I were you. I’m sure your presence would be of great comfort to the congregation during this stressful time.”

Felton was no fool, and his facial expression told Lyons that he knew the Able Team leader simply wanted him out of there. But he nodded, then looked at the bleeding man in the chair. Even though the terrorist had attempted to murder him, his family and a thousand other people in his congregation, the preacher’s eyes held no malice—only a trace of sorrow.

Felton looked up at Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales. “Do what you have to do to save lives,” he said. “And I’ll keep working on their souls.” He paused for a minute, then started for the door. “Someday the lion will lay down with the lamb,” he quoted as he twisted the doorknob.

“Yes,” Lyons agreed. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be today.”

CHAPTER TWO

“Gadgets,” Lyons said to Schwarz, the Able Team’s electronics expert, “go double-check what the bomb squads are doing and then hurry back.”

Without a word the Able Team warrior zipped out of the Sunday school room door and disappeared down the hall toward the sanctuary.

Lyons pulled the red-scarfed man’s arm over the table in front of where he was sitting and braced it with his left hand. “This is going to hurt,” he told the terrorist. “Hold your breath.”

With a sudden yank on the Randall’s grip, he withdrew the blade of the custom-made fighting knife.

The terrorist screamed and jerked the injured limb back against his chest, cradling it like a baby with the other arm.

“Do us both a favor,” Blancanales said, irritated. “Act like a man instead of a bitchy little girl. You’re a shame to our entire gender.”

The prisoner quieted down, but small little moans still came from his mouth.

“Do like he said and shut up,” Lyons growled. “Or I’ll do the same to your other arm.” In truth, the Able Team leader had no intention of torturing the man. Torture was too unpredictable. The subject tended to tell his tormenters whatever he thought would make them stop, and it might or might not be the truth.

The fact of the matter was, Lyons had even found pinning the man’s wrist to the stage to get the detonator distasteful. But it had been the only practical way to disarm him. Guiding him into the Sunday-school room with the blade still stuck in his arm had been equally unpleasant. But it, too, had been the fastest and most pragmatic way of getting him out of the sanctuary and to a place where he could be questioned.

Now, as the injured man fell silent and tears streamed down his cheeks, Lyons looked him in the eye. “We’ve got two different routes we can take here,” he said to the man. “You can tell us everything you know about who you are and what your plans were.” He paused for a second, then went on. “Or we can play games until you bleed to death.” He pointed to the man’s wrist where the blood continued to leak in a slow but steady stream. Miraculously, it appeared he hadn’t completely severed any of the major arteries in the process of cutting the tendons and ligaments.

But he had to have at least nicked one.

Snatching the red scarf from around the man’s neck, the Able Team leader used it to wipe the blood off his knife. Then, dropping the Randall back into its sheath, he said, “Let’s start with your name. What is it?”

The man closed his eyes but the tears still flowed from under his eyelids. “Umar,” he finally mumbled.

Lyons leaned down, stuck a thumb on top of both of Umar’s eyelids and opened them for him. What he saw inside was a man who was as terrified now as the poor, defenseless congregation in the sanctuary had been during the earlier siege. “Okay, Umar,” he said. “Tell me who you and who the rest of the men are.”

Umar paused a moment, as if trying to think of an answer that would satisfy Lyons but still not betray his countrymen. But when he saw Lyons’s hand drop back down to the grip of the Randall knife, he said, “We are the Pasdaran. What you call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”

Schwarz had reentered the room and now stood on the other side of the man with the punctured wrist. “Right,” he said, leaning down on the other side and sticking his nose an inch away from Umar’s. “And I’m George Washington, father of this country.”

Umar shook his head back and forth violently. “No!” he declared, his eyes still on Lyons’s hand gripping the knife. “It is the truth. We have been sent here by President Azria himself.”

Lyons straightened but still stared hard at the man across the table. Could that be true? Javid Azria, the president of Iran, was a megalomaniac every bit as crazy as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. And regardless of Azria’s claim to the contrary, everyone knew Iran had been working on a nuclear program ever since he had taken control of the country. And Azria had either refused or stonewalled all attempts by the UN to inspect that program.

If Azria had already worked out the kinks in his nukes, it might just have resulted in the courage to send official troops onto American soil. That possibility cast a whole new shadow over an already dire scenario.

“What were you supposed to do here?” Lyons demanded.

Umar took a deep breath, then looked down at his wrist, which was still spouting blood.

“I wouldn’t waste too much time if I were you,” said Rosario Blancanales, who stood directly behind the man. “You’ve probably lost a pint or two already. Feeling a little light-headed?”

Umar slowly nodded to indicate that Blancanales was right.

“Then I’d talk fast if I was you,” Lyons said. “While you still can. Believe me, you tell us the truth—the whole truth—and you’ll get immediate medical attention. You’ve got my promise on that. If you don’t, we’ll just watch you slowly pass out and then die right here.” He leaned closer and added, “It’s your decision.”

“We are Revolutionary Guard,” he said. “And our orders, which came directly from the president’s mouth, were to find a large church in the area of the U.S. known as the Bible Belt, take it over during a Sunday-morning service and blow it up.”

“And you were planning to blow yourselves up with it?” Lyons asked.

Umar nodded his head, and it was apparent to all three Able Team warriors that the line separating terrorists from officially sanctioned government soldiers had finally been crossed. It was also obvious that Umar was getting close to the point where he’d pass out.

“So it was a suicide mission?” Schwarz said.

Umar nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice weak.

Lyons knew he’d have to hurry if he planned on getting more intelligence information out of this bleeding Pasdaran. As if to emphasize his thoughts, Umar’s chin suddenly fell to his chest and his eyes closed again.

Lyons slapped him across the face. “You’re faking it, you little scumbag,” he said. “You think we just gave you a way out of all this. You’re wrong.”

Either the slap or Lyons’s words or both brought the Pasdaran’s head and eyelids back up immediately.

“So I can assume that you’re not the only squad of Pasdarans in the country?” Lyons said.

Umar nodded. “There are dozens,” he said.

“Where do we find them?” the Able Team leader demanded.

Umar slowly shook his head, and it was obvious that he really was getting dizzy now. “I do not know.” His words slurred like a drunken man’s. “Each unit knows only their own orders.”

Lyons straightened to his full height and turned away from the bleeding man, his thoughts returning to Iran and Azria and the nuclear program. American intelligence agencies all knew that most terrorist strikes against the U.S. were backed and supported by the various governments of the Middle East. But this was never admitted to by those governments. To openly send official troops—especially troops as identifiable as these men in the red scarves—was unheard of.

Carl Lyons knew that Iran had developed nukes. His gut assured him of that. But did they have missiles, too? Ironically, that was where nuclear programs in rogue countries such as Iran usually got stalled. Building nuclear bombs was relatively easy compared to developing their delivery systems.

Lyons continued to stare down at the bleeding man. Even if the Iranians didn’t have missiles to tote the nukes halfway around the world, there were many other ways to sneak them into the U.S. and then detonate them. And even if they didn’t attack America, Israel was barely a stone’s thrown away from Iran.

One nuclear explosion in Israel and a chain reaction could easily escalate straight into World War III. Such devastation was unthinkable to the average, sane man no matter what his politics or the country he called home. But to a madman like Javid Azria it might seem to be a perfectly logical step.

The Able Team leader turned back to Umar and saw that the man really had fallen asleep this time. “Pol,” Lyons said, “go get some cops to wrap this guy up and get him to an ambulance where he can be transfused.” He looked at the man in the chair who was still clutching his arm to his chest in his sleep. “And tell them he needs to be arrested and guarded. We may get more out of him later if he lives.”

Blancanales hurried out of the room.

Schwarz and Lyons walked out together. They had taken only a few steps down the hall back toward the sanctuary when Lyons’s satellite phone rang. Lyons held the instrument to his ear and said, “Yeah?”

“You learn anything worthwhile?” Hal Brognola’s voice asked.

“Just some general stuff. No specifics,” Lyons answered. “These guys claim to be official Iranian Pasdaran instead of terrorists, and according to the one who lived, there are several dozen bands of them scattered across the U.S.” He paused as Schwarz opened the outer door of the church. “But each squad appears to be autonomous. None of them know what the others’ orders are.”

“Well,” Brognola said, “I can tell you what at least one of them is doing at the moment.”

“What’s that?” Lyons said.

“I’ll brief you once you’re in the air,” said Brognola. “One of the local PD helicopters will take you to the airport, where Charlie Mott’ll be waiting for you.”

Blancanales joined them as they walked down the steps of the church. Almost as soon as Lyons had pushed the button to end the call, he heard the chatter of helicopter blades in the air above him. Looking up, he saw a blue-and-white chopper with OCPD markings.

The chopper set down on the grass in front of the church and the men of Able Team quickly boarded. A moment later the helicopter was rising again, headed for Will Rogers World Airport a few miles away.

D AVID M C C ARTER came wide awake as soon as the phone rang next to his bed. Before it could chime again, he had snatched it from its cradle. He glanced at the wristwatch on the table next to the phone and saw that he’d had four hours of sleep.

Well, the native Londoner thought, it was at least more than usual. “McCarter here,” he said into the mouthpiece.

“Grab your buddies and gear up,” Hal Brognola’s voice said into the phone. “You’re on your way to Iran.”

McCarter yawned. “Iran,” he said. “Always wanted to go there.”

“Well,” Brognola said, “you’re gonna get the chance. I’m about to land outside and I’ll brief you and the other guys once you’re on board.”

“You’re going in with us?” McCarter asked.

“No,” Brognola clarified. “I’ll just be riding along to run down the situation for you. Jack will fly me back as soon as you’re on the ground.”

McCarter yawned again. “That’s going to cut into your own time,” he said, glancing at the wristwatch again.

“Not as much as you think,” Brognola said.

“Come again?” McCarter requested.

“You’ll see what I mean in a few minutes. Grimaldi’s got a brand-new toy.”

David McCarter saw no reason to keep questioning Brognola on the subject. So he changed it. “Anything special we need to bring with us?”

“Just your personal weapons and other gear,” said Brognola. “Kissinger’ll be loading the extras while you round up your men.”

“Affirmative,” McCarter said. Even as he spoke he was pulling open a drawer filled with BDU clothing. “Just give me five.”

“I’ll give you four,” Brognola said, and then the line went dead.

McCarter donned a clean blacksuit—the skintight, stretchy combat clothing of Stony Man warriors—and zipped up his boots. He reached for the large duffel bag that held the rest of his equipment. He had learned long ago that you packed before you slept in one of the Stony Man Farm bedrooms. Stony Man missions broke quickly, and tasks that required five minutes had to be completed in four.

Or less.

Leaving the room, McCarter walked along the hallway knocking loudly on the four doors he passed. The other members of Phoenix Force knew what the noise meant.

They were heading out again.

Two minutes later, the five-man squad walked out the front door of Stony Man Farm’s Main House and headed for the landing strip. Just in time to see a strange plane land on the runway.

“What in bloody hell is that thing?” McCarter said to no one in particular as they walked toward the aircraft.

“It’s a Concorde,” Gary Manning said. The burly Canadian was Phoenix Force’s explosives expert.

“We know it’s a Concorde, Gary,” said Rafael Encizo. “What our brilliant former British SAS man means is, what’s it doing here? ”

A moment later the five warriors had boarded the bird-looking Concorde, which was being flown by Jack Grimaldi, Stony Man Farm’s number-one pilot. Brognola sat in the redecorated passenger’s area in a reclining chair that was bolted to the carpeted deck. The other men dropped down into similar seats around the plane.

“Okay,” said Thomas Jackson Hawkins in his South Texas drawl. “I give up. Where’d you pick up this monstrosity, Hal?”

Hal Brognola laughed. “Got it practically for a song,” he said. “When the Concordes went out of business. As you can see, we’ve completely redone the inside.”

“How come you didn’t tell us about it?” Calvin James asked. The former Navy SEAL was from the south side Chicago.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Brognola said. “These recliners are great to sleep in. It’s going to give you more rest before each mission.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” McCarter said as the Concorde took off down the runway again. “But first tell us why we’re heading for Iran.”

Brognola nodded, then looked at his watch. “A lot has gone on since you boys shut your eyes in the Main House a few hours ago.” He told the men of Phoenix Force about the murders of the newsmen and the hostages in Iran, as well as the attack on the church in Oklahoma City.

“The actual word war was never used when the Man was talking to the Iranian president,” he said. “But that ratty little bastard might as well have. He took personal credit for his men crossing into Iraq, killing two men from FOX in cold blood and kidnapping the hostages. As well as the takeover of the church.” Brognola pulled the remaining half of his cigar out of his front jacket pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “And he promised there was more to come. He even insinuated a nuclear strike on both Israel and the U.S.”

“So what is it we’re on our way to do?” Manning asked.

“Rescue the remaining five Americans,” Brognola said solemnly. “And do your best to stop World War III.”

Calvin James reached behind his back and pulled out a twelve-inch Crossada knife. It resembled a mediaeval dagger, and James kept it sharp enough to shave with either edge. “I’d like about thirty seconds with Azria and this,” he said, staring at the huge knife in his hand. “Just the three of us.”

“Well, you may get your chance,” Brognola said. “There’s no telling which way this thing’s going to go at this point. But I can tell you that the Man in Washington is gearing up for a full-scale attack, both nuclear and conventional. The captive Lyons and his crew took, said there were at least a dozen Pasdaran teams already in the country and getting ready to strike all over the States.”

The sentence brought on a profound silence as the Concorde rose higher into the air.

Brognola continued. “We’re going to land in occupied Iraq. There, you’re meeting a former CIA snitch named Adel Spengha. He’s also known as “the Desert Rat.”

“Are you telling us he doesn’t mind that name?” McCarter asked.

“Evidently not. He’s half Iranian and half Pakistani, and he’ll guide you through the mountains into Iran.”

“This bloke trustworthy?” McCarter asked.

“Are snitches ever trustworthy?” Brognola retorted. “You’ll have to watch him for double crosses just like always. I could count on one hand the number of informants I’ve had over the years who weren’t playing both sides of the fence. And I’d still have enough fingers left over to throw a decent curve ball.”

McCarter nodded his head.

“Okay, then,” Brognola said. “This Concorde is going to get us where we’re going in about half the time we’d make in a regular plane. So if I was you, I’d take advantage of that time to catch up a little more on your sleep.” Without another word, the director of Stony Man Farm leaned back in his recliner and closed his eyes.

So did the men of Phoenix Force.

And when they opened them again, the Concorde’s wheels were touching down on the runway of a U.S. military base in eastern Iraq.

C HARLIE M OTT was a long time Stony Man pilot. So it was no big trick for Mott to set one of the newly acquired Concordes down on the runway in Oklahoma City. Officials at Will Rogers World Airport had already been contacted by the Justice Department, and the sight of the odd, bird-beak-looking aircraft brought out only a mild curiosity on the parts of the Will Rogers’s crewmen who greeted him.

“I wondered what was going to happen to these things after the company went broke,” said a white-bearded mechanic in coveralls when Mott walked down the folding staircase. “Who are you with now?”

“The Department of Justice,” Mott lied.

“That the truth?” asked the man with the beard.

“Uh-uh.” Mott smiled. “But if I told you the truth, I’d have to take you up in it and drop you out at about forty thousand feet.” He paused and adjusted his California Angels baseball cap. “Without a parachute.”

The man with the white beard laughed. The noise conveyed not only humor but a tiny bit of nervousness, as well.

Silence fell over the tarmac until an Oklahoma City PD sedan, lights flashing and siren blaring, suddenly appeared and began crossing the runways toward the Concorde. “Ah,” Mott said. “My passengers have arrived.”

The marked unit screeched to a halt and Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz got out.

“Need a lift?” Mott asked as they hurried his way.

“Yeah,” Lyons said. “But where did you get this thing?” He indicated the Concorde with his head.

“Hal bought a couple of them,” Mott said. “I think you’ll be impressed.” Without another word, he turned and hurried up the steps. The men of Able Team followed.

As they taxied down the runway, Lyons said, “Hal’s supposed to brief us in the air. Any idea where we’re going?”

Mott pulled a headset over his ears and began fiddling with the Concorde’s control panel. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I know exactly where you’re going. To a suburb of Kansas City called Shawnee Mission.”

The Concorde left the ground looking like some kind of a determined predatory bird in flight.

As the trio moved to the reclining chairs bolted to the deck in the back of the plane, Lyons pulled his satellite phone from a pocket. Once seated, Lyons tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm.

A second later Hal Brognola was on the line. And the conversation turned serious.

Deadly serious.

A LL EYES on the ground rose to the air then fell to the runway with the Concorde as it landed at the U.S. military base near Mandali, Iraq.

They stayed glued to the men of Phoenix Force as the five men—all dressed in blacksuits and wearing side arms, as well as carrying assault rifles—walked down the steps to the ground.

McCarter started to lead them toward the buildings in the distance. But before he could even take a step in that direction he saw two jeeps racing toward them. Both sets of tires screeched to a halt in front of the Phoenix Force warriors, and the drivers—both wearing 101st Airborne patches on their sleeves—motioned them to hop aboard.

A few minutes later they were in front of a desk with a nameplate that read Colonel L. D. Brown. They shook hands all the way around, then dropped into five folding chairs that had obviously been brought in just for this meeting.

Colonel Brown might as well have had U.S. Army stamped on his forehead. Although obviously around sixty years old, he still had a full head of hair flattened into a white buzz cut. His face was worn and wrinkled, reminding McCarter of a dry creek bed, and although he was only around five feet six or seven inches tall and maybe 140 pounds, the muscles in his tattooed arms, which extended out of his short-sleeved uniform shirt, would have rivaled those of Popeye the Sailor.

Brown had started to speak when a sergeant suddenly opened the door and ushered a man dressed in robes and a kaffiyeh into the room. He looked up at the colonel to see what his next move should be, and Brown raised a hand and waved him in.

The door to the office closed behind him.

“Gentlemen,” Brown said to the men of Phoenix Force. “Say hello to Adel Spengha. He also goes by Desert Rat. And he’s worked with the CIA for years.”

Another round of handshakes took place and then Brown said, “Rat here, can get you through the mountains and into Iran faster and safer than anybody I know. But that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter any of the enemy.”

The man called Rat had taken a seat in another of the folding chairs, and now he opened his mouth. Speaking in near-unaccented English he said, “The Zagros Mountains, which border Iraq and Iran, are filled with Iran’s regular troops, brigands and a tribe of Kurds who got caught in the middle of things when the war first started. All are dangerous.” He paused a second, then added, “I must be honest. It would be much wiser not to go.”

“That depends on how important a chap’s mission is, I suppose,” McCarter answered him. “We don’t always have the luxury of doing the smart thing. Sometimes we have to do the necessary thing.”

The Rat nodded his head. “Yes,” he said. “I understand. So, when do you want to get started?”

“There’s no time like the present,” said McCarter, standing. The rest of the men of Phoenix Force followed.

Brown walked out of the office and down the hall with them. “The jeeps will take you as far as they can,” he said. “But then you’re on your own.”

“That’s usually the case,” McCarter told Brown. “Thanks for your help.”

The two men shook hands once again, then the men of Phoenix Force and Adel Spengha piled into the jeeps.

As they started toward the Iranian border, McCarter saw the Concorde take off again over his shoulder.

CHAPTER THREE

The Zagros Mountains, which separated the northern border of Iraq and Iran, was the largest mountain range of either country. And David McCarter could attest to that as he climbed the final step to the small plateau, then held up his hand for the men behind him to stop. “Fifteen-minute break,” the Phoenix Force leader said as he turned around. “Then we move on again.”

McCarter took a seat on the plateau, pulled the canteen from his belt and took a swig of water. Swishing it around in his mouth, he swallowed, then took another sip. Farther up the mountain footpath, he could see snow. But even though he and the rest of the men had been ascending steadily for over three hours, they were still low enough that their cold-weather gear was still stowed in their backpacks.

McCarter looked at the snow again, then drank once more. There was no need to save water. There would be plenty of snow and ice that could be melted before this journey was over.

McCarter drank again from his canteen as he watched the rest of Phoenix Force and their guide take seats or lie down to rest upon the plateau. After a short break the Phoenix Force leader glanced at his wrist. It was time to go.

“Everybody up,” he announced as he rose. “Time to move on.” He smiled slightly as he watched his men almost jump to their feet. There were no moans or any other sounds of distress or unhappiness you always heard when commanding regular troops. The men of Phoenix Force were far above such behavior. They were the best of the best, culled from positions with Delta Force, the Navy SEAL, U.S. Army Rangers and Special Forces, and other special-operations units. McCarter himself, being an Englishman rather than American, had once headed up a team of British Special Air Service commandos.

He was proud of his past. But David McCarter was even more proud of his present. Every single man under his command was a leader, and could take the steering wheel at any time. McCarter considered commanding such men a privilege and an honor.

Adel Spengha was the last to rise to his feet. While he remained as silent as the warriors, it was obvious that he was hardly in the same peak physical condition as the men of Phoenix Force. It was primarily for his sake that McCarter had called for the rest period in the first place.

The Desert Rat wobbled slightly as he walked over to McCarter, and the Phoenix Force leader saw the fatigue in the man’s eyes. “I would suggest,” Spengha said, “that we soon pick out a place to bivouac for the night.” His dark brown eyes rose toward the snowy peaks ahead. “If we keep going, we will have to spend the night near the top and it will be freezing.”

McCarter assessed the suggestion. “You’re right,” he said. He glanced at his watch again. “We’ll hit it hard for another hour, then find a place to settle in for the night. Trying to cross the top would be a death sentence. We’re going to be walking on ledges covered in ice as it is, and there’s no sense in trying it at night.”

The Rat’s eyes looked relieved.

McCarter was about to announce his decision to the rest of the team when sudden gunfire broke the peacefulness of the mountain. He watched what sounded like a submachine-gun round strike the Rat’s bulky robe, then yelled, “Take cover!”

The men of Phoenix Force dropped back down on the plateau, squirming in tightly behind the boulders that surrounded the area.

McCarter had unconsciously reached out and taken the Rat down with him. Now, as they crawled to the cover of the rocks, he said, “Were you hit?”

The Rat shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Just my robe.”

The gunfire had continued. But it stopped as the targets disappeared. “Anybody hit?” McCarter called.

He got four negative replies from his men.

David McCarter turned his attention back to the steep trail. The gunfire had come from somewhere farther up the mountain. Which meant the enemy had the higher ground.

Never a good thing.

As silence returned to the plateau, the Phoenix Force leader looked back at the Rat again. “Any idea who we’re facing?” he asked.

“My guess would be brigands,” Spengha said. “Iranian soldiers would have come down the trail en masse. And the Kurds are farther to the south. At least I think they are.”

“How old is that bit of intel, mate?” McCarter asked.

“Two days,” the Rat said.

McCarter’s teeth tightened as he blew air out between them. Two days was like an eternity when it came to war. More than enough time for the entire picture to change. The Kurds might have moved north during that time. And he wasn’t so sure about the Iranian regulars, either. Iran’s red-scarfed Revolutionary Guard—the troops Lyons and his men were now facing back in the States—actually outnumbered the country’s regular army both in size and influence.

So he wasn’t nearly as sure that they weren’t facing legitimate Iranian soldiers as the Rat seemed to be.

McCarter had been wearing a black floppy boonie hat during the climb. But now he yanked it from his head. Draping it over the barrel of his M-16, he slowly poked the hat up over the boulder.

Almost as soon as it became visible from behind cover, a shot rang out. The hat twirled on the rifle barrel before he pulled the rifle back down beside him. “Well,” he said more to himself than to the Rat, “whoever they are, they’re still there.”

The Rat nodded his head vigorously. “We must go back,” he said. “We will get killed if we try to continue.”

“We’re not going back,” the Phoenix Force leader said. “We’re going into Iran, we’re going to find the hostages, we’re going to get them out safely and we’re going to find out if that little wanker of a president really does have nuclear weapons.” He looked the Rat in the eyes. “Now, you stay here.”

Without waiting for any sort of reply, David McCarter dived away from the boulder and rolled across the plateau toward where Calvin James had taken cover behind another large boulder. He threw a wild 3-round burst toward the enemy as he rolled, and felt the heat of return rounds sizzle past his body as he moved.

But a moment later he was safely ensconced behind the same rock as James.

The gunfire continued for a moment, then settled down again.

“Cal,” McCarter said as he rose to a sitting position next to James, “I believe we have a job for a man of just your talents.”

The well-trimmed mustache on the black Phoenix Force commando’s face spread wide into a smile.

He already had the twelve-inch blade of his double-edged Crossada out of its Kydex sheath.

C ALVIN T HOMAS J AMES had grown up on Chicago’s South Side where knife fighting was more important than any subject or sport offered by the school system. It was a matter of survival. You either got good or died trying.

And while he had plenty of scars to remind him of past altercations, Calvin James was still alive.

Slowly, the Phoenix Force warrior descended back down the rocks, staying out of sight below the plateau where the other men were still lurking. He knew he had to stay invisible if he was to be successful on this private mission McCarter had just handed him.

James was counting on the enemy staying focused on the plateau. He just needed to move far enough to the side that he could navigate his way up the mountain until he located and identified them.

Finally, when his instincts told him he was low enough to be out of sight, James moved to the left side of the mountain pass, then slowly began to scale the side of the mountain. His eyes stayed one step ahead of his body, always searching for the next hand- and foothold, be it a crevice in the rocky mass or the stub of a tree lacking enough water to grow to its full potential. Every so often, he came to a ledge wide enough to stand on, and he used such places as rest stops, keeping a close look at the chronograph on his wrist and forcing himself to wait a full two minutes before moving on.

It was a true test of strength, skill and patience but soon he had drawn even with the small plateau from which he’d started. Here and there, he could see an arm or leg among the rocks, and knew they belonged to one of his Phoenix Force brothers. But they weren’t moving. And there still had been no gunfire since he’d left.

James moved on, the muscles in his shoulders and arms beginning to pump now as blood rushed into them and his legs. When he came to another ledge wide enough for a breather, James looked back down to see that the rest of the men of Phoenix Force and the Rat were completely out of sight. He had begun timing the rest stop when a pebble rolled down the side of the mountain and bounced off his head before falling on.

James looked up to see the boots and pant legs of a man ten feet above him and perhaps a yard to his right. Above the pants, the man wore a brightly striped robe that was cinched at the waist by a gun belt.

James froze in place.

The enemy was using the same strategy that he was. The only difference was that their recon man was coming down the side of the mountain instead of going up.

James watched closely as the man descended toward the same small ledge upon which he was standing. Luckily, the head above the robe was looking over his right shoulder as he made his way down, and appeared totally oblivious to the fact that James was even there.

So the Phoenix Force knife expert slowly withdrew the Crossada from its Kydex sheath, hoping the inevitable swooshing sound it made would not be loud enough to catch the ears of the man above him.

While the swoosh sounded as loud as a tornado in James’s mind, it went unnoticed.

The Phoenix Force warrior waited until the man had both feet on the ledge before moving a step to his right and hooking the Crossada around his throat. Pulling him in tightly, he whispered, “I hope you speak English. Because if you make any sound at all, it’ll be a race to see if you bleed to death before you get killed by the fall you’ll also be taking.”

The man remained silent.

“Okay,” James said, pressing the razor edge of the huge fighting knife a little harder into the man’s throat. “In the quietest voice you can possibly muster up, tell me if you speak English.”

“I speak English,” the man whispered in a jittery voice.

“Good,” James said. “Then tell me who you are.”

“We are what you call Kurds,” said the man, his voice still shaking. “And we thought you were either Iraqi or Iranian troops. Which is confusing because we are now speaking English and your voice sounds American.”

James hesitated a moment, then slowly withdrew the knife from the man’s throat and sheathed it once again. He turned the Kurd around to face him, and shook the man’s hand. “We are Americans,” he said. “At least, I am. But we’ve got a Canadian and Englishman along with us, too. We’re an international force, and we’re not after you.”

The man still looked frightened and skeptical. “So, what do we do?” he said.

James frowned for a moment, then said, “How far away are the rest of your men?”

The Kurd’s dark brown eyes looked directly into those of Calvin James. “Not far,” he said. Then, guessing at what James already had in mind, he said, “They will be able to hear me if I shout.”

“Then shout your little heart out,” said James. “Tell them we’re friendlies, and we want a meeting with your leader.” He paused for a moment, drawing in a breath of the thinning mountain air. “But first, what’s your name?”

“My name is Mehrzad” the Kurd said.

“I’m James,” the Phoenix Force warrior said, then shook the man’s hand again to ensure that he knew they were, indeed friendly. “Now, call out to your men.”

Mehrzad’s voice cracked slightly as he shouted out in a dialect of Arabic. Silence followed his words, then a voice called down the mountain.

After the next exchange, James said, “My turn.” Looking down toward the plateau where his fellow warriors waited, he yelled, “These are Kurds, guys. They thought we were Iranian or Iraqi.”

“I’m not sure which is the bigger insult,” McCarter’s voice called up the mountain.

“I say we kill them just for that,” Hawkins drawled.

“Some of them speak English, Hawk,” James yelled back. “And they may take you literally and not understand that you’re making a joke.” He raised his voice even louder on the word “joke” in case other English-speaking Kurds above had heard the exchange. T. J. Hawkins was Phoenix Force’s newest member, and while he was as good at fighting as any of them, he occasionally let a careless sentence slip out of his mouth.

McCarter’s voice came up the mountain again. “Tell them we’re laying our rifles down, Cal. And ask them to come on down to meet us on the plateau.”

“I heard him,” Mehrzad said. Then the Kurd translated the Phoenix Force leader’s words in a loud voice.

Above, James heard low mumbling and grumbling as the Kurds tried to decide if he and the rest of these strangers could be trusted. Mehrzad spoke again, then James watched as the members of Phoenix Force rose from behind the boulders and laid their M-16s against the rocks, finally stepping out into full view.

A few moments passed, then the heads of more Kurds began to appear above them. They all moved toward the pathway that led to the plateau.

James realized he had been less than ten yards below where several men had been hiding behind an outcropping in the rocks. If Mehrzad had not come down the mountain first, James would have been filled with automatic fire as soon as he’d climbed even a few more feet.

Calvin James raised his eyes toward the sky and grinned from ear to ear. “Thanks,” he said.

Then he and Mehrzad made their way across the mountain to join the rest of the Kurds going down to meet Phoenix Force on the plateau.

C ARL L YONS leaned back in his reclining chair on board the Concorde and pressed a button on the control panel to his side, answering the call from Hal Brognola. “Lyons here, go ahead. We’re all listening. Where are you?”

“I’m on my way back from dropping Phoenix Force off in Iraq,” Brognola explained. “Here are the facts as they stand right now. Another squadron of Pasdarans have taken over an entire shopping mall on the Kansas side of Kansas City. There’s no runway close by that even Grimaldi can set the Concorde down on, so I’ve arranged for a Kansas City chopper to be ready for you when you set down at Kansas City International.”

“Great,” Lyons said. “But I want Jack flying it.”

“I’ve pulled some strings and arranged that, too,” Brognola said over the speakerphone. “They weren’t all that happy about turning their bird over to somebody they didn’t know. But I convinced them it was a good idea.”

Lyons chuckled under his breath. Hal Brognola had the ear of the President any time he wanted it, and he suspected the Stony Man director might have had the Man call himself. “How long ago did they take the mall over, Hal?” he asked.

“Shortly after 1300 hours,” Brognola said. “It’s Sunday, so it hadn’t opened until noon. They gave it an hour to fill up with customers—a lot of them churchgoers who’d stopped in on their way home from services. The first communication to the KCPD came in at 1312.”

“You suppose they did that on purpose?” Lyons asked.

“I’m certain of it,” Brognola said. “They told the KC cops that themselves.”

As the Concorde flew on, Lyons frowned. “Did they have demands or was it like the church—just bleed the news media for all the publicity they can and then kill everyone including themselves?”

“No, they actually had one demand this time,” Bro gnola replied.

Lyons waited to hear it.

“They want every Muslim prisoner in county jails, state and federal penitentiaries all over the country released,” he said.

“They aren’t asking much, then,” Lyons said sarcastically.

Brognola snorted over the line. “That’s sort of the way the Man looked at it.” He paused, then went on. “We know that they know that nothing of that sort is going to happen. Even if it did, they’d just wait and then carry on with what they’ve begun at the mall.”

“What does the Iranian president say?” Lyons asked.

“Javid Azria isn’t making any excuses. He openly admits that these are all official Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen who’ve snuck into the country over the last few weeks and are now carrying out his specific orders.”

“He’s asking for war,” Lyons said.

“No doubt about it,” Brognola came back.

“That madman can’t believe he’s got a chance of winning against the U.S.,” Lyons said.

“No,” Brognola agreed. “But the joint chiefs are in session and they think they’ve figured out what Azria’s large picture looks like.”

“And?” Lyons urged.

“Azria has vowed to wipe Israel off the map,” Brognola said. “That’s a direct quote.”

Lyons snorted sarcastically again. “Minor change from the old ‘push them into the sea’ threat we’ve been getting since the end of World War II,” he said.

“Well,” Brognola said, “this time it looks like they plan to carry through with the threat. Like I was about to say, the joint chiefs are all in agreement that Iran intends to force America’s hand. They’re prepared to take massive air strikes just like Afghanistan and Iraq did in order to draw us in, then bog us down on the ground like we already are in those two countries.”

“Hundreds of thousands of Iranians who don’t have a thing to do with this are going to die if that happens, Hal,” the Able Team leader noted.

“I know that, the President knows that and so does Javid Azria. But he doesn’t care about that.” Brognola stopped talking long enough to take a breath, then went on. “Life’s cheap to him. All life except his own.”

“Okay,” said the Able Team leader. “Anything else we need to know?” He glanced out the window at the clouds below the Concorde as he waited for an answer.

“Yeah,” Brognola said. “Striker came across some interesting side intel in Bosnia. Evidently, there’s a Russian connection somewhere inside this whole mess.”

“A what connection?” Lyons wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

“You heard me correctly. Some kind of Russian connection.” The Stony Man director was chomping hard on the end of his stump of cigar. “Striker doesn’t know any more, and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with his own mission there. It was just something he picked up along the way and passed back to us in case it helped.”

“It helps confuse me even more than I already was,” said Lyons.

“Me, too,” Brognola said as Lyons felt the Concorde begin a rapid descent. “But it might start to make sense somewhere down the line.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Lyons said. “Anything else we need to know?”

“Probably a lot. But that’s all I have for now. I’m sure you’ll find out yourself when you get to K.C.”

“We’ll keep you informed,” Lyons said. “And thank Striker for me.” He disconnected the call.

The flight from Oklahoma City to Kansas City, Missouri, was almost an up-and-down hop for the Concorde, and Lyons saw that it was only a little past 1500 hours on his wrist. As they deplaned to the runway, they saw the marked KCPD helicopter waiting for them on the ground, blades whirling as it warmed up for flight.

In a way, it felt like Oklahoma City all over again. But the mall was going to get a lot more complex than the church had been. It was far bigger, and there were thousands more places for men—or explosives—to hide.

Jack Grimaldi was the last one out of the Concorde but he raced past the men of Able Team as Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales began pulling equipment bags out of the storage compartment. Lyons saw the air ace say a few words to the KCPD pilot inside the chopper, and then the uniformed man reluctantly stepped down.

Grimaldi patted him on the shoulder as he took the man’s place at the controls.

It took a little less than four minutes for Grimaldi to get them over the tall downtown buildings of Kansas City, Missouri, to the Kansas border and then to Shawnee Mission, Kansas. Actually, Shawnee Mission was a region rather than a suburb, made up of several independent smaller towns that, if combined, would have taken over from Wichita as the state’s largest city.

“There’s the mall,” Grimaldi said, nodding toward the bubble windshield in front of him. “Carpenters Square.” He turned to glance at Lyons. “Want me to do a fly-over?”

Lyons nodded silently, frowning slightly as he looked out the side window of the chopper. Below, he saw what looked almost like a replay of the scene at the church they’d just come from. Blue-and-red lights whirled above both marked and unmarked squad cars, and the sirens were blasting so loud he could hear them all the way up in the helicopter. Most of the marked units were from Kansas, but some of the Missouri officers had crossed the state line as backup, too. Such was usually the case when a residential area spanned more than one jurisdiction—the cops on both sides knew each other and worked together frequently.

The mall itself appeared to be in a classic cross configuration, with two long hallways that intersected in the middle. At one end of the north-to-south hallway stood a large, three-story Dillard’s store. At the other was a JC Penney.

Kohl’s and Jan and Jeni’s Sportwear made up the tips of the other long strip of stores.

“Take her down a little lower,” Lyons told Grimaldi. “I want to get a look at the entrances and exits.”

Grimaldi nodded and dropped the bird in the air, hovering a few feet off the ground and almost directly in front of one of the entrances into Dillard’s. Through the glass, the Able Team leader could see several men with red scarves around their necks looking back at him. As he watched, one of them raised his AK-47 and fired.

But Jack Grimaldi had seen the man, too, and he twisted the chopper slightly in the air, not unlike a boxer sliding off a punch. The 7.62 mm bullet struck the windshield of the chopper and careened off, leaving only a tiny scratch in the glass to show where it had been.

That scratch was directly in front of Carl Lyons’s nose.

The radio suddenly blasted with screeching and scratching. Grimaldi adjusted the squelch as a stern voice said, “KBI-1 to Missouri chopper—whatever your call name is!”

Lyons lifted the radio microphone from where it was clipped below the control panel and said, “Just call us AT,” he said. “AT-1, 2 and 3. I’m 1.”

“Well, whoever you are, get your ass out of there,” said the same KBI voice. “They’ve just called and said if you don’t land or fly away they’ll ignite the whole mall right now!”

“Affirmative,” Lyons said. He nodded at Grimaldi, who immediately raised the helicopter straight up in the air. He glanced down at the mike, as if it might actually be the man he’d just talked to. Whoever the guy was, he sounded as if he was used to being obeyed.

Carl Lyons’s best guess was that KBI stood for Kansas Bureau of Investigation, a state investigative unit. And KBI-1 would undoubtedly be the director.

But he didn’t sound as if he was going to be as easy to get along with as Dwayne Langford had been back at the church.

“AT-1 to KBI-1,” Lyons said into the mike. “What’s your 10–20?”

“We’re set up at the edge of the parking lot, north side,” the surly voice came back. “There’s a place where you can land over here, and I’m ordering you to do just that right now!”

Grimaldi turned to the Able Team leader again. “Want me to land?” he asked.

Lyons nodded. “I’m not sure this clown’s ego could take it if we didn’t.”

Grimaldi laughed and turned the chopper that way.

A few seconds later they were coming down on the asphalt parking lot next to one of the SWAT vans parked around the mall. Lyons saw the same hectic activity that he’d seen outside the church in Oklahoma City, with flashing lights and sirens blaring, with every SWAT team and other unit anxious to get started but not knowing how or where.

As the chopper’s rails met the ground, a man in a dark blue shirt and bright red tie approached with a look of anger on his face. He reached out and opened Lyon’s door with one hand, and would have grabbed the Able Team leader by the arm and dragged him out if Lyons hadn’t intercepted his other hand first. Twisting the man’s wrist into a classic jujitsu hold, the Able Team leader watched the anger on the man’s face turn to a grimace of pain as he exited the chopper on his own.

“Well, we’re certainly off to a great start, aren’t we, Mr. KBI-1?” he said as he finally released the man’s hand.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation director was too proud to rub his wrist where it had come close to snapping, so he stood upright and at attention as he said, “Okay, you’re under arrest for resisting an officer.” He turned to look at Schwarz and Blancanales as they exited the helicopter behind Lyons. “What happens to you two remains to be seen.” He ran his eyes up and down the blacksuits all three Able Team warriors wore, looking for any trace of a patch or insignia.

But, of course, he found none.

“What in the hell kind of dress-up is that?” he demanded. “Who do you represent, anyway? You’re not Missouri cops. The chief would have called me himself.”

Lyons had faced such irritating bureaucrats throughout his entire former career as a LAPD officer. He had never had any patience for pompous little jackasses like this man then, and if there had been any change in his attitude at all, he had even less now. “I get one phone call, don’t I?” he said sarcastically, pulling the satellite phone from its case on his belt. Quickly he tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm. “Since you didn’t get a call from the Missouri chief, I’ll let you talk to our chief.”

“Right,” said the Kansas director with the same sarcastic tone the Able Team leader had used.

It took less than ten seconds for Lyons’s call to be transferred to Hal Brognola.

The man in the red tie frowned in confusion as he took the phone from Lyons. It didn’t take long for Brognola to read the riot act to the KBI director. “Yes, sir,” was all he said before his face turned red and he handed the instrument back to Lyons.

“Thanks, Hal,” the Able Team leader said, and then disconnected the line again.

“All right,” said the man Lyons knew only as KB-1. “My name is Markham. Bill Markham. What are your plans and how can we help?” The words sounded as if they hurt coming out of his mouth.

“You can give us a rundown of exactly what’s going on,” Lyons said. “Then, unless one of my men or I tell you different, you can stay out of our way.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Iranian president Javid Azria rolled up his prayer rug, nodded to the staff with whom he had shared afternoon prayers and returned to his office, closing the door behind him. Alone and out of sight, he tossed the rug carelessly onto a padded armchair as he moved behind his desk. As he dropped down into his chair, he felt a grin creeping across his face.

The entire United States, including their president, was still in shock. The Americans simply couldn’t fathom the fact that a country such as his own was openly defying and attacking them at will.

And rather than denying the attacks or blaming them on terrorists, Iran was taking credit for them.

Azria opened the humidor on his desk and took out a long, thick, Cuban cigar. Snipping off the end with a tiny guillotinelike cutter, he stuck the cigar in his mouth and picked up the heavy marble lighter on his desk next to the phone. The cigars had been a gift from his most recent ally, and although smoking was forbidden by the Koran, he liked the Cubans and indulged in one every afternoon and another in the evening. The rest of his staff studiously ignored this small transgression on his part.

As he circled the end of the cigar around the flame in front of him, Javid Azria’s eyes caught sight of the painting on the wall to his left. It depicted Cyrus the Great in battle, a long scimitar in his right hand as he beheaded what was obviously a Jewish peasant. The painting was, of course, an artist’s rendition. Photography had still been centuries away when Cyrus had ruled the Persian Empire, so no one really knew exactly what the man had looked like.

Azria was fairly sure he knew, however. He saw Cyrus’s face every time he looked in a mirror.

He was in the process of starting the first real jihad the world had seen since the days of the Crusades. But this war was going to make those of the past look like an American Girl Scout meeting.

Turning the end of the cigar toward his eyes, Azria saw that it had lit evenly and set down the lighter. Contentedly, he puffed away as he awaited an eagerly anticipated phone call. His mind drifted back in time to his college days. He had been a dean’s list student at Yale when the Shah had been dethroned and Ayatollah Khomeini had taken over Iran. And he had not returned until long after that initial regime had taken control of the country. For a while, the theocracy had ruled Iran with an iron fist, beheading offenders of even the smallest Islamic laws just like Cyrus the Great was doing in his painting. But with the Ayatollah’s death, things had gradually loosened up. Students in favor of separating religion from government were now even allowed to demonstrate in the streets. The only thing that had not changed was what he perceived as an almost countrywide hatred of the Jews, and a certain amount of dependence on the United States and other countries in the Western world.

Azria leaned farther back in his chair. It was his mission in life to change all that. He could have felt it in his soul.

If he’d believed in souls.

He was halfway through the long Cuban when the buzzer on his phone finally sounded. “President Azria,” the voice of his secretary said in Farsi. “I have President Gomez on the line for you.”

Azria answered in the same language. “Put him on,” he said.

The Iranian leader pressed the receiver closer to his ear as he heard a click. Then, an accent far different than his own spoke in English—the one language they had in common and therefore the one they always used. Ironically, he thought, it was the language of their common enemy.

“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” said Raoul Gomez, the president of Venezuela.

“And the same to you,” said Azria.

“We have not spoken since your American guests from Iraq arrived in your country,” Gomez said in a lighthearted voice.

Azria laughed, knowing the other man meant the American hostages who’d been kidnapped near the border. “No, sir, we have not,” he said into the receiver. “I believe they are resting at the moment.”

“Yes,” Gomez said. “I sometimes forget that night here is day in your country. An afternoon nap, no doubt?”

“Probably,” Azria said. “They really have little to do but sleep and worry.”

“Very good,” Gomez stated. “I have a ship en route to your country even as we speak. And I trust that the shipment which is coming my way is on schedule, as well?”

“Yes,” Azria continued. “It will arrive quite soon, in fact.”

“Very good again,” Gomez said. “Actually, that was the only reason for my call. Your other actions in America and Israel are having the desired effect, according to my intelligence operatives. The United States is focused on the Pasdarans you snuck across their borders and the hostage situation.” He paused to cough, and Azria realized he, too, was smoking a cigar. Probably the same brand and size as the ones he had sent to the Iranian president.

When Gomez had quit coughing, he added, “The Israelis are being forced to rivet their attention on your increase in suicide bombings. And, in addition to the newsmen hostages, the Americans are focusing on the small strikes of your Pasdarans inside their very borders. These diversions are allowing our true objective to…” He paused for a second, searching for the right words. “To fly under the radar. Yes. I believe that is the slang term the norteamericanos use.”

“If it means my shipment to you and yours to me is going unnoticed, then, yes, I believe you are correct.”

“We must speak again when the ships have arrived,” Gomez said.

“We will,” Azria agreed, and then hung up the phone.

Javid Azria had to draw in hard on his cigar, which had almost gone out during the conversation. But after a couple of weak puffs of smoke, it returned to its former fully lighted state. Azria sat back in his chair again, stuck the cigar between his lips and smiled.

By either confusing or sometimes flat-out refusing to allow U.N. inspectors to do their job in his nuclear plants, he had successfully completed his program and now had several dozen nuclear warheads at his disposal. In addition to that, he was about to broker another deal for F-14 fighter plane parts from another source. There had been a time when his country still had many serviceable F-14s in their arsenal—purchased by the Shah before Iran and the United States became such bitter enemies. But now, the majority of these fighters had been grounded. And without the U.S. to provide new parts, they had been forced to cannibalize the few that remained to keep others running.

But that would change shortly, too. And the scope of suicide bombers would expand far beyond what the world had ever seen. He was even now shipping several of his nuclear warheads to Venezuela. President Gomez had promised to coordinate the timing with Iran’s own attack, equipping his own airplanes with the nukes and having them flown the much shorter distance from Venezuela to the United States. Of course the Venezuelans were not Muslim, and the pilots could not be induced to kill themselves with the ridiculous and childish visions of gardens and virgins. So Azria had sent his own suicide men along with the nukes.

Javid Azria chuckled and his chest shook back and forth. At the same time, an Iranian aircraft carrier would fly the flag of some neutral nation, smuggling his newly restored F-14s within flying range of the U.S. Azria would send other nuclear-warhead-equipped F-14s directly into Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other Israeli cities. He would concentrate particularly on Christian and Jewish religious sites.

It would be a three-pronged attack, Azria thought as he smiled and took another draw on the Koran-forbidden cigar. At almost the same exact second, the U.S. and Israel would find themselves the recipients of several dozen nuclear kamikaze strikes, and both nations would be crippled beyond comprehension.

Azria’s grin slowly left his face and turned into a frown of determination. The timing was crucial. He had to make sure that the F-14s launched from the Iranian aircraft carrier coincided with those from Venezuela. And the F-14 strikes on Israel should come at almost the same instant, while both the Americans and Israelis were still in shock and their attention diverted.

The Iranian president drew deeply on the cigar, remembering Fidel Castro’s words that the “second half of the cigar is always better.” The Cuban dictator had meant it as a metaphor, he knew. But it was true in a literal sense, as well.

As he continued to smoke, Javid Azria’s eyes fell on the copy of the Koran on the corner of his desk. All in all, Islam was the perfect religion for a man like Javid Azria to use to control his people. He didn’t have to believe in it himself, and he didn’t. But it would keep the common Iranians in line during the inevitable retaliation the U.S. would heap upon his country, and keep public opinion on his side as thousands, or perhaps even millions, of his own people died.

Azria made a mental note to remind the people of Iran that they would go straight to Paradise if killed by U.S. or Israeli bombs. He’d have it written into his next televised speech.

Azria’s smile turned into outright laughter as he thought about it. The masses were so easy to control. Just include the word “Allah” in every other sentence and you had them bowing and scraping at your feet. Personally, he believed in a god about as much as he believed in the Western ideas of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

There was no Allah. And Muhammad had been dead for hundreds of years.

There was only Javid Azria.

As he glanced again at the painting on the wall, he wondered if he might not change his title from President to Cyrus the Second when the smoke cleared and he returned Iran to the Persian Empire it had once been.

He would have to ponder the idea.

It had merit.

S LOWLY, ALERTLY , the Kurds came down the mountain path toward the plateau. David McCarter and the other men of Phoenix Force had risen from behind the boulders. Still hesitant, a dark-skinned, broad-shouldered man of average height, wearing a soiled white turban and a much-patched-and-repaired robe, stepped forward. In a thick leather belt around his waist, McCarter saw what looked like a much-used Western bowie knife and an ancient ball-and-cap revolver.

The rest of the Kurds were similarly armed with a mixture of old and newer weapons that could have filled a museum.

“Name’s Abbas,” the Kurd leader finally said after carefully scrutinizing the men of Phoenix Force. His words were almost shocking, because instead of the Middle Eastern accent McCarter would have expected, they came out in a south-Texas drawl. But before the Phoenix Force leader could comment, the Kurdish leader transferred the battle-scarred bolt-action rifle he held to his left hand and extended his right. “I reckon this is the way you people in the West greet each other.”

McCarter grasped the man’s hand in a firm grip. “It is,” he said. “And I’m McCarter. Your English is excellent, by the way. But curious. Where did you learn to speak the language?” Somehow he didn’t think this Kurd who had taken to the mountains to escape the Iranian government had grown up in the American South.

Abbas shrugged his shoulders. “From an American I know,” he said simply.

McCarter made a mental note to inquire about the man’s accent later, if they had time. But now, he quickly introduced the rest of Phoenix Force. Only then did he notice that Adel Spengha seemed to have disappeared. “Where’d the Rat go?” he asked no one in particular.

“The Rat?” Abbas said. “You talking about Adel Spengha?”

McCarter turned back to the Kurd. “I am. You know him?” In his peripheral vision, he saw Spengha rise from where he had remained hiding within the rocks and walk timidly forward. “Hello, Abbas,” he said uncertainly. “It is good to see you again.”

The corners of Abbas’s lips turned downward in what could only be called a sneer of contempt. “Where are my camels?” the Kurd demanded.

“I am sorry about that,” the Rat said, looking at the ground and wringing his hands. “I needed one to ride out of the desert. The other, I am afraid, I was forced to eat in order to survive.”

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