“THE CIA BLAMES ONE OF THE NUCLEAR POWERS.”

The President ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “But if another government had such a weapon, they could never use it. And if terrorists had a neutron cannon, the death toll would already be in the millions.”

“Unless this was a field test,” Hal Brognola stated. Taking out Air Force One in midflight would certainly make a statement. “What can my people do to help?”

“Stopping these people is more important than getting our hands on the cannon. It has to be top priority. Kill them with extreme prejudice. No mercy.”

Other titles in this series:

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

#81 SKY HAMMER

#82 VANISHING POINT

#83 DOOM PROPHECY

#84 SENSOR SWEEP

#85 HELL DAWN

#86 OCEANS OF FIRE

#87 EXTREME ARSENAL

#88 STARFIRE

Neutron Force

STONY MAN®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Don Pendleton

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“What was that?” the pilot of the 747 demanded, leaning forward in his seat.

For a split second the man could have sworn that he saw a flock of birds tumbling out of the night sky alongside the speeding jumbo jet. In an instant they were gone, left far behind. But the image remained in his mind. Hundreds of falling bodies, wings spread wide.

“Trouble?” the copilot asked, looking up from the clipboard in his hands. He had been busy working on the fuel consumption figures.

“Not sure,” the pilot replied, looking over to check the radar. They were flying low enough for birds to reach the 747, only ten thousand feet, but the scope was clean, and the flight plan showed that no other planes should be near them for a hundred miles. Aside from the flight of F-18 fighters flying escort, the nighttime sky was clear with only a few sporadic clouds on the horizon and the infinite heavens above. Then what the hell knocked down a flight of birds? he wondered.

There was no moon. Below the speeding plane, the world twinkled with the city lights of the villages and towns of Ohio. The digital clock blinked into midnight, and the pilot saw the map on the plasma screen monitor shift position slightly. Okay, make that Pennsylvania.

Briefly the pilot considered contacting the Secret Service agents in the rear of the plane, but decided against disturbing the men. What could he say? Some dead birds fell out of the sky? How could that possibly be a threat to the armored 747 and its august passengers?

Ever since 1995, there were three Boeing jumbo jets that bore the designation VC-25. The planes only assumed the call sign Air Force One when the President was on board. The three planes were in constant service, sometimes flying empty across the continent, to make it all but impossible for an enemy of America to precisely track the whereabouts of the nation’s political leader. Thankfully, the current flight from Los Angeles to Boston was a milk run. The jumbo jet was almost empty, bearing only a couple of Homeland Security agents, a civil servant, an elderly scientist and a dozen Secret Service agents. Nothing to attract a terrorist attack.

Adjusting the trim slightly, the pilot couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. Those birds had only been in sight for a moment, yet he felt certain that they had been dead and not merely knocked unconscious from the wash of the turbojets. A former combat pilot in the first Gulf War, the man had learned to trust his instincts. And there was definitely something odd about a hundred birds tumbling from the nighttime sky.

“What’s wrong, Chief, see a UFO?” The navigator chuckled as he poured himself a cup of coffee from an insulated carafe.

“Maybe you’ve finally burned out your brain on caffeine,” the pilot suggested with a wane smile.

The navigator laughed. “With Jamaican Blue? Not possible.”

“Coffee that sells for more than cocaine.” The copilot sadly shook his head, placing aside the clipboard. “Waste of money, if you ask me.”

“If I gave you a sip, you’d never say that again,” the navigator said, holding the cup in both hands to savor the delicious aroma. Then he took a taste, the thick rich Jamaican coffee filling his mouth with scalding flavor.

“Really? Okay, so pour me a cup.”

“Ha! I said a sip, besides…” Pausing in the middle of the sentence, the navigator stopped talking and slumped in his seat. The hot coffee splashed across the console, seeping into the banks of controls.

“Bob, are you okay?” the copilot asked, looking over a shoulder. Then he shuddered and went limp, easing down in his seat as both hands dropped to his sides. The clipboard on his lap slipped away to clatter on the deck.

Instantly alert, the pilot flipped the alarm switch and the autopilot at the same time. One odd thing could be ignored, but two always spelled trouble. First dead birds falling from the sky, now this. Was the plane being attacked?

“Report,” said a brusque voice over the intercom.

Reaching for the hand mike, the pilot suddenly felt a tingling warmth engulf his body, then an infinite blackness swelled to fill the universe.

“I smell Jamaican Blue!” a flight attendant called out jokingly, opening the hatch to the flight deck. Just for a split second the man saw the still bodies of the crew before he also crumpled into a heap, dropping a tray of sandwiches.

In the main galley, the other attendants turned at the noise, then reeled and toppled over, one of them splashing hot soup everywhere.

From their seats, the Secret Service agents looked up at the commotion and started to rise when they also paused, then limply collapsed back into their seats.

The door to the private washroom swung open and the director of special projects for the Department of Defense stepped into the aisle. The man gasped at the sight of everybody sprawled in their seats, and felt the hairs at his nape rise in warning. Something was horribly wrong.

“Get Himar off the plane!” the man shouted, lurching toward a rack of emergency parachutes. But that was when a wave of warmth filled his body and the director tumbled onto the carpeting.

At the aft of the 747, Himar glanced up at the sound of his name, then the scientist slumped in his seat, both hands motionless on the keyboard, the plasma screen filling with lines of total gibberish.

Unstoppable death swept through the 747, touching everybody on board. In moments, the jumbo jet was a flying coffin, totally devoid of life. The only sounds were the drip of the spilled coffee, the hushed whisper of the air vents and the muted thunder of the powerful engines.

Staying a loose combat formation, the wing of jet fighters kept a careful watch on VC-25. As per standing regulations, the Air Force pilots stayed in constant communication with SAC headquarters, and through them, the situation room of the White House. But there was nothing to report. The flight was on course, and on schedule. Everything was normal.

Rigidly maintaining the last heading, the 747 continued toward distant Boston, guided solely by the autopilot…

CHAPTER ONE

Washington, D.C.

Impatiently, Hal Brognola honked the horn of his car, and the armored entrance to the underground parking lot for the Old Executive Building rumbled aside.

As big Fed eased the vehicle inside, two Secret Service agents carrying M-16 assault rifles stepped out of a small brick kiosk. Two more stayed inside, one of them touching his throat as he subvocalized into a throat mike.

Flashing his federal identification, Brognola waited while one man checked its authenticity on a handheld device and the other walked around the car, looking underneath with a steel mirror at the end of a pole.

Brognola knew all of the men by name, but this close to the White House, the Secret Service wasn’t taking any chance with anybody. He had already passed through a barrage of EM scanners and chemical sniffers checking the driver and vehicle for explosives, biological agents or other illicit materials. This was an understandable precaution.

Maintaining the classic “rock face” of the U.S. Secret Service, the agent looked at Brognola without expression, then waved him by.

Driving past a line of cars, Brognola angled onto a steep ramp and proceed to a sublevel, and then another, until reaching the bottom. He paused to let a security camera get a good view of his face, then went to a far corner and parked near a construction zone, the area marked off with bright yellow cones. Bags of cement were stacked high on wooden pallets and a small portable cement mixer chugged away, blast dust puffing from the rusty exhaust. A canvas tent covered the work area, and several large men stood around adding sand to the mixer or inspecting blueprints spread across a table made of a sheet of plywood placed across two sawhorses. They wore bright orange safety vests marked with the letters DPW: Department of Public Works.

Getting out of the car, the big Fed walked over to the workers, his hands held deliberately away from his sides. Even this far away, he could see the small bulges in the clothing of the workers. They were carrying guns at the waist, small of the back and ankle. The men were heavily armed and seemed even less friendly than the Secret Service agents at the front entrance.

“How is the work coming on the foundation?” Brognola said, stopping a few yards back. “Seems like you’ve been here for an ice age.”

“This is dangerous work,” one of the men replied, looking up from the blueprint. “If we go too fast, people could die.”

“Fast as lighting?”

“Slower than a glacier.”

Sign and countersign given, Brognola used only fingertips to spread open his jacket and display the holstered weapon at his side, a snub-nosed S&W .38 Police Special.

The workers stayed where they were and did nothing. But their sharp eyes never left him for a second.

“We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Brognola,” a worker said, pushing aside the flap of the canvas tent. “This way, please.” The man was wearing a bright yellow hard hat, marking him as the foreman.

Proceeding inside, the big Fed followed the man around a large stack of crates blocking a direct view of the interior. More canvas covered the wall. The foreman agent pushed the material aside to reveal the burnished steel doors of a modern elevator.

Going to the wall plate, Brognola pressed his palm against the warm metal and kept it there until there was an answering beep that his five fingerprints had been accepted. With a soft sigh, the door parted and he stepped inside. There were no buttons.

As the foreman entered, the doors closed, cutting off the thumping of the cement mixer. A moment later the cage began to descend.

Slowly building speed, the elevator moved swiftly along the shaft until finally slowing to a complete stop. The doors opened on a wide brick-lined tunnel. Standing behind a low concrete carrier was a squad of U.S. Marines in full combat gear, M-16/M-203 assault rifles held ready in their hands. The 40 mm grenade launcher slung under the 5.56 mm assault rifle was a daunting sight to anybody, even if they were wearing body armor.

While the foreman and a Marine exchanged passwords, Brognola looked the tunnel over. Folding steel gates had been pushed back, allowing access, but this tunnel could be closed off at a dozen points. It had to be one of the private government tunnels rumored to honeycomb Washington.

Satisfied, the foreman went back into the elevator and a lieutenant waved at Brognola to follow him down the tunnel.

At an intersection, they took a side tunnel, then zigzagged twice more before reaching a plain steel door with a dozen Secret Service agents standing outside holding Atchisson autoshotguns.

Without a word, the big Fed showed his ID again and submitted to a pat-down. His S&W revolver was taken, then returned. Because of his position as the head of the Sensitive Operations Group, Brognola had the unique distinction of being one of the few people in the world who could be armed in the presence of the President.

“Bird Dog is here, sir,” a Secret Service agent said into his throat mike. There was a pause, then the man nodded. “Confirm.”

“Go right in, sir,” another agent said, tapping a code into a small keypad in the wall. There came the soft hiss of hydraulics and the metal portal ponderously swung aside, revealing that it was two feet thick.

Stepping through alone, Brognola heard the door close behind him as the lights came on overhead. Not surprisingly, he found himself in a kill box—an enclosed space with both doors closed. Just another layer of protection for the President. Lull the enemy into thinking that they were successfully getting past the security, then let them walk directly into the kill box and start firing through the hidden gunports. Nice and simple. And extremely deadly. A tense moment passed in silence, then Brognola relaxed slightly as the second door opened with a soft hydraulic hiss.

Stepping out of the box, he suffered a moment of disorientation as he appeared to be walking into the Oval Office at the White House: curtain-draped bay windows, massive hardwood desk flanked by American flags, the great seal of the presidency woven into the carpeting, twin couches set parallel to the fireplace filled with a crackling blaze. A Franklin clock ticked away on the mantle, and he could hear typing from a nonexistent secretary. The curtains were open, and he could dimly see the Washington Monument masked by the Potomac River mist. Obviously this was one of the many duplicate offices designed during the cold war so that the President could address the nation on television from a hidden position of safety.

Sitting behind the desk, the President was writing furiously in a black leather journal. Positioned carefully at strategic spots around the office were a dozen more Secret Service agents. These men openly wore body armor and were carrying a wide assortment of deadly weapons.

Off by himself in one corner was an Air Force colonel carrying a steel briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. In Washington slang that was the Football, the portable computer console used to activate the hellish nuclear arsenal of the United States. The colonel’s job was to carry the briefcase for the President, and to guard it with his life. No matter how peaceful the world was, the colonel was never more than fifty feet away from the President, day or night.

“Sir,” Brognola said as a greeting.

“Good to see you, Hal.” The President rose from behind his desk and offered his hand.

Respectfully, Brognola advanced and they shook. “Always glad to be of service, sir,” he stated, releasing the grip.

“Sit down, old friend.” The President sighed. “We have a major problem, and time is short. Very short.”

“How can my people help?” Brognola asked, leaning back in the chair. The fabric was warm. Somebody else had just been conferring with the President only moments ago.

“Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to leave us for a few minutes?” the President asked politely, glancing at the armed agents about the office.

The Secret Service agents showed no emotion.

“This is a Code Moonfire situation,” the President added.

Inhaling deeply, the chief Secret Service agent nodded. “We’ll be right outside, sir,” he said, leading the others out through a side door.

As they departed, Brognola caught a glimpse through the next room, a large concrete-lined area filled with crates of MRE food packs, and a small emergency medical station. Many weapons hung on the unpainted walls.

“Are we at war?” Brognola frowned, loosening his necktie.

“If only it was that simple,” the President said, sitting again. “What do you know about neutron weapons?”

“Weapons? I thought there was only the neutron bomb,” the big Fed stated carefully, rubbing his jaw.

“Originally, yes,” the President said.

“But you suspect different?”

“Judge for yourself.” The Man slid a sealed envelope across the desk.

The dossier was covered with stamps from DOD, NORAD, SAC, FBI, CIA, NSA and Homeland. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here, Brognola thought. Breaking the seal with his thumb, he lifted out the red-striped papers inside, the edges immediately turning brown from contact with his fingers. A Level 10 document. For the President’s eyes only.

Reviewing the reports, Brognola skimmed the photos of the crashed 747 on a rocky beach, and concentrated on the autopsy reports. There was one for every passenger and crew member, including a couple for the bomb-sniffing German shepherd dogs that had been traveling in the pressurized hold.

As Brognola read the detailed analysis, the President rose to pour himself a coffee after his guest had declined. Sipping his drink, the President looked out the windows at the artificial horizon and impatiently waited. He desperately hoped that Brognola would have a different conclusion from the one that everybody in his cabinet had arrived at less than an hour ago.

Lowering the last page, the big Fed inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered. There were no bruises on the corpses. None. The dead passengers were laid out in a neat row on steel tables. Their clothing had been removed, and the bright halogen lights revealed every detail of the broken and twisted bodies in unforgiving clarity. No bruising meant the people had been dead before the aircraft hit the ground.

“When did the autopilot engage?” he asked, frowning.

“According to the black box,” the President said, “somewhere over western Pennsylvania.”

“Did the escorts report anything out of the ordinary in the vicinity?”

“Nothing unusual was reported until the 747 failed to start making course corrections over New York state. After that, they tried for a radio contact, then did a flyby and finally got a visual of the dead bodies on the flight deck.”

“And then what, sir?”

“They followed the plane, trying to contact anybody on board via the flight deck radio, cell phones, air phones, e-mail, pagers, you name it. Strategic Air Command and NORAD were still trying when the aircraft crashed into an escarpment just outside the town of Bouctouche along the Richibucto River in New Brunswick, Canada.”

Brognola suppressed a whistle. Pennsylvania to Canada was a long ride on autopilot. He checked the photographs of the bodies again. “Not much fire damage,” he noted thoughtfully. “The fuel tanks must have been bone dry.”

“That’s hardly surprising, since the original destination was Boston,” the President said. “The aircraft was supposed to be dropping off the director of special projects to talk with me about a new weapon.”

Brognola raised an eyebrow. “A neutron weapon?”

“See for yourself,” the President said, lifting a slim laptop and passing it over.

Raising the lid, Brognola saw the machine was ready to play. He hit Enter and the video file began. The screen showed three different sections of the 747, the people laughing, sleeping and playing cards. A handsome Secret Service agent was chatting with a female flight attendant, and apparently the redhead liked what he was saying. Sitting all by himself, a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit was typing on a laptop. That could be the leak right there, Brognola observed. Aside from that, everything seemed normal.

But suddenly a flight attendant carrying a tray of sandwiches opened the hatch to the flight deck and fell dead. Almost immediately afterward, so did everybody else.

Watching closely, Brognola studied the bodies, then tapped the fast-forward button and went through several hours. Nobody stirred. Then there came a whining sound that rapidly built in volume, everything shook, loose items went flying, arms and legs of the dead people flopping around loosely. Then there came a horrible crunching noise. The picture went wild, more shaking, bodies lying on the deck were tossed about like rag dolls. There was more noise, a flash of fire, a metallic thunder and then blackness.

It was distasteful, but the big Fed ran the video one more time and turned the volume all the way up. The man rushing out of the lavatory seemed to be shouting something. But his back was turned away from the video camera, and the clatter of falling dishes garbled his words.

“The natural assumption is that whomever did this got the itinerary wrong, and thought I was on board,” the President said, shifting in his chair.

“But you suspect otherwise?” the big Fed asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ll assume the Secret Service and Homeland Security have ruled out food poisoning and nerve gas—no, skip that.” Brognola massaged a temple. Not even the best neurological agent could sweep an entire plane of people dead at the same time, along with the dogs in the hold. A massive electrical shock might do it, but there would have been visible arcing and sparks, plus small fires and a lot of charred flesh. The new air cameras hidden on commercial flights weren’t very good, but the ones on Air Force One were top-notch, absolutely the best available, and the digital video had been crystal-clear. He could even hear the engines in the background. Everything alive on VC-25 had been killed without any mark of violence. And that could only be accomplished by a neutron bomb.

All too clearly, Brognola remembered reading about the weapons when he’d first taken the job with the Justice Department. A Dr. Cohen down at Oak Ridge had modified a nuclear bomb so that it would throw off a halo, a corona really, of neutrinos, ultrafast, subatomic particles. The blast of the bomb would destroy only six city blocks, it was pretty small. But the halo of neutrinos would radiate for a mile, killing every living thing it touched. Right down to the ants in the ground. Even microscopic dust mites died. Only plants weren’t affected. With a neutron bomb, an enemy could kill all of the people in a city, but leave the skyscrapers, factories and farms intact for their invading forces to seize.

Brognola shook his head. A bomb that killed people, but not property. That was a thousand times worse than the dirtiest thermonuclear bomb ever made, because the neutron bomb had no downside. It let you capture the cities afterward. There was very little fallout from the quarter-kiloton ignition blast, and thus no downside to restrain the indiscriminate use of the weapon. There were countless international treaties banning the development of the doomsday weapon, and not one neutron bomb had ever been used in actual combat. Until today.

Thoughtfully, Brognola tapped a button on the keyboard and played the video once again. He had seen death before many times, but somehow this felt unclean. The people were slain in their seats, without even knowing that they died. There was no flash of heat, no tingle, no…nothing. Everybody just keeled over in perfect unison.

“Anything from the Watchdogs?” Brognola asked hopefully, playing the video again.

“NORAD reports no thermonuclear explosions over the northern hemisphere, if that is what you mean.” The President sounded annoyed. “Or anywhere else, for that matter. And the halo effect of a neutron bomb has a limited range. Even without the uranium jacket. To reach a plane so low to the ground, the bomb would have had to be detonated within the atmosphere.”

“Rather hard to disguise that.”

“Absolutely.”

“Yet these people must have been killed by a neutrino bombardment,” Brognola stated.

“Yes.”

“Only there was no explosion.”

“Exactly.”

Grudgingly, the big Fed was forced to agree with the President that the conclusion was horrifyingly clear. This was what the President had previously inferred about neutron weapons. For the first time in many years, Brognola felt his blood run cold. There would be no heat flash, noise, radiation, or anything else detectable. Just silent, invisible death. The ultimate stealth weapon.

“So somebody has finally done it,” the Justice man muttered, crumpling the report in a fist, “found a way to build a neutron cannon.”

“Unfortunately, that’s also my conclusion.” The President sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. “Some sort of a cannon, or gun, that can fire a focused beam of neutrinos, but without a nuclear explosion as a primer. How that can be accomplished is beyond anybody’s guess. My scientific advisers don’t even have a theory how the weapon could possibly work.”

“So we check with other experts. Who is the top scientist in the field?”

“Dr. Sayar Himar,” the President replied. “But he can’t help us with the matter, because he’s dead.”

“And when did that happen?” Brognola asked, feeling that he already knew the answer.

“Yesterday. Dr. Himar was on VC-25 riding as the guest of the director.”

Brognola bit back a curse. “This must have been what the director was going to talk to you about, sir.”

“Obviously. He had mentioned something called Prometheus. He had wanted to discuss it.”

“Hmm. Any other crashes reported?”

“None so far.”

“Good.” Brognola grunted. So this was why the President had sent the message to meet him down here in the bunker. If some terrorist organization had a working neutron cannon, all they would have to do was to aim the weapon at the White House and pull the trigger. Again and again, over and over, spraying the entire D.C. area, killing every senator and member of Congress, until America didn’t have an organized government anymore, and the nation started to fall apart.

“Can a neutron beam penetrate this far down?” Brognola asked pointedly. “Are you safe?”

The President shrugged. “Unknown. There are no figures for a focused beam, and Himar isn’t around anymore to take an educated guess. However, we’re safe from a conventional neutron bomb strike. We’re surrounded by massive tanks holding tens of thousands of gallons of water, the only thing that effectively stops a neutron halo. Whether this will work for a focused beam…” He left the sentence unfinished.

“Water stops neutrinos?” Brognola asked skeptically.

“Hydrogen, actually. Anything with lots of hydrogen atoms. Gasoline is excellent. All those big hydrocarbons.”

“What about lead?” Brognola queried.

“Useless. And depleted uranium armor is even worse. In a neutrino halo, the DU plates in an Abrams tank begins to visibly glow as it throws off deadly gamma radiation. Anybody inside is fried in seconds. Anybody standing within fifty feet dies in two days, coughing out their major organs.”

Yeah, radiation poisoning was a particularly bad way to die. “Is there anything, anything at all, totally resistant to focused neutrons?”

“Sadly, no.” The President continued, “There is some experimental boronated plastic armor that might do the trick, but nowhere near enough to coat even a single plane, much less entire buildings. I’ve already put production into high gear, but it will be months before the first plates are available.”

And we could all drop dead at any second, the big Fed thought.

“Hopefully the vice-president is in the Yukon,” Brognola declared. “Or better yet, the other side of the world.”

“He’s in a Navy submarine at the bottom of the ocean,” the President said with some satisfaction. “And the Speaker of the House is in Looking Glass, the flying headquarters of SAC. Only four people knew the exact location of the plane, and none of them would ever talk, even under torture.” He paused uncomfortably. “The Secret Service has my double in Florida at the Miami Beach Open Tournament playing golf.”

Laying aside the laptop, the big Fed understood the distaste in the man’s voice. Having somebody else walk around in public to take a bullet for you seemed cowardly, but it made good sense from a security viewpoint. So far, the Man was on the ball, spreading out the targets so the enemy couldn’t remove the entire echelon of the nation in a single shot…volley—whatever. Brognola glanced at the ceiling. If there was a satellite in orbit armed with a neutrino cannon, any city in America could be wiped clean of all life.

“What’s our defense condition?” the big Fed asked, sitting straighter in the chair.

“As a precaution, I have moved the nation to DefCon Two.”

“Targets?”

“Everybody and nobody. But the missiles are ready to fly at a moment’s notice.”

Great, Brognola thought. A couple of hundred thermonuclear ICBMs armed and ready to go, but without targets. How could things have gotten this bad so fast?

“Now it is the belief of CIA that one of the nuclear powers must have created the weapon,” the President noted, running stiff fingers through his hair. “Possibly China, maybe Iran. But in my opinion that’s nonsense. If another government had such a weapon, they could never dare use it, because every nation in the world would instantly attack them out of sheer self-preservation. And if terrorists had such a weapon, the death toll would already be in the millions.”

“Unless this was a field test,” Brognola told him. Most weapons would be tested in the lab, or at a range. But with a neutron cannon, the only possible test would be a mass execution. Or taking down Air Force One, smack in the middle of a wing of jet fighter escorts.

“What can my people do to help?” the Justice man asked, getting to point of the meeting.

“Find the people responsible and gain control of the weapon. Now, I have every resource of the United States probing the sky for the satellite.” The President paused. “If we can find them, then we’ll blow the damned thing out of existence. Our F-22 Raptors can attack a military satellite even in a high orbit with their new missiles. However, if you remember the Sky Killer incident…”

“The weapon was in space, but the operators were on the ground,” Brognola stated.

“Naturally, if we invented it, I would like the machine intact. Or at least a copy of the schematics. But stopping these people is more important than getting hold of the cannon. Kill these sons of bitches. No mercy.”

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

The Black Hawk helicopter approached the Farm at a low altitude. Its unannounced arrival was unusual, so both the mission controller, Barbara Price, and security chief Buck Greene were concerned.

Pulling a radio from her belt, Price thumbed the transmit button. “Any ID yet?” she asked, watching the blacksuits move into defensive positions around the farm buildings. Several of them exited the farmhouse, slamming ammo clips into M-16 assault rifles. Another carried a Stinger antiaircraft missile launcher.

“Negative on the ID…Wait…correction, identification has been confirmed,” the voice said without emotion. “Incoming is a friendly. Repeat, incoming is a friendly.”

There was a crackle of static. “Should we stand down?” a blacksuit asked.

“Hold your positions,” Price said into the radio, squinting at the sky. She could see the helicopter now. Hal Brognola usually used a Black Hawk whenever he visited, but he always let the Farm know when he was arriving. “Stay sharp, this could be a diversion.”

“Or it could be a surprise inspection,” Greene muttered, thumbing back the hammer on the Colt. “Haven’t had one of those in months.”

“Or somebody could be forcing Hal to land,” she countered gruffly.

“Doubtful,” Greene stated. “Hal would eat his own gun before betraying us.”

“Agreed. It is highly doubtful, but not totally impossible,” Price replied. “Let’s go meet whoever it is.”

Price led the way, her hands clasped behind her back to hide her Glock pistol from casual sight. In their line of work, surprises were always bad news. If this was indeed Hal, then the blood had really hit the fan someplace and the mess was about to be dropped in Stony Man’s lap.

Rushing past the outbuildings, the pair reached the Farm’s helipad just as the Black Hawk descended in a rush of warm wind.

The moment the landing gear touched ground, the side hatch opened and Hal Brognola hopped out carrying a laptop. Staying bent, he rushed through the buffeting hurricane surrounding the gunship from the rotating turbo-blades.

“Something wrong with your radio?” Price asked.

“Couldn’t risk it,” Brognola replied, pausing outside the cyclone effect of the idling Black Hawk and checking overhead one more time before finally standing upright. “My call might have been tracked. Are the missiles hot?”

“Bet your ass,” Buck Greene stated, eyeing the gunship suspiciously.

“Good. Keep ’em that way,” Brognola said, although he didn’t know how effective they’d be against a satellite. It was unnerving to think somebody could be looking down upon them at the exact same moment he was looking up. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of the open. We have a lot to discuss.”

“Fair enough,” Price told him. As they started for the farmhouse, Greene pulled out his radio and began relaying instructions to the blacksuits. Moments later, teams of men rushed to unload the equipment trunks from the waiting helicopter. Whatever was going down, the chief had a bad feeling that the Farm might need everything it could lay its hands on. There was no denying the obvious fact that Brognola was nervous. And that was more than enough to make the chief wary.

Stepping onto the front porch, Price proceeded swiftly to the door and tapped in the daily entry code on a small keypad. There was an answering beep and a green light flashed as the automated weapon systems guarding the portal disengaged.

Impatiently, Price waited until the three of them were visually scanned, then the door unlocked and the slab of steel swung aside with the soft hiss of hydraulics. As she entered, Brognola and Greene were right behind.

Stepping inside, Price headed directly for the elevator that would take them to the lower level. If the matter was too delicate to discuss over the radio, then it was too important to discuss in public.

“All right, now that we’re out of visual range,” Price said, hitting the bottom-most button, “mind tell us what’s happening?”

As the elevator started to descend, the big Fed quickly informed the others about VC-25 and the scientist named Himar.

“A neutron cannon? Why didn’t you call us about this?” Price demanded.

“These people have a level of technology we can’t even guess about,” he replied curtly, lifting the laptop slightly by the handle. “So there’s no sense taking a chance on them being able to connect the White House to the Farm.”

At first, Price thought he was overreacting, but then she considered the fact that they had neutralized an Air Force One 747 in midflight. That alone meant the enemy was extraordinarily capable.

“I don’t think we have enough fuel cans to line the entire roof,” Greene stated, running fingers through his hair. “And we sure as hell can’t flood the place. Not with all of this electronic equipment. Only take one or two leaks and we’d go off-line.”

“Even then, the blacksuits would be sitting ducks,” Price agreed. “Not to mention all the visitors in the park. Chief, is there any depleted uranium armor on the Farm?”

“Sure. One of the SAM batteries is plated with it,” Greene replied. “And Cowboy has a small arsenal of the stuff in his workshop, bullets and such.”

Brognola didn’t say anything, but he was impressed. When the hammer came down, these people moved at light speed. He only hoped it would be enough.

“I was afraid of that,” Price said, leaning against the cool metal wall. John “Cowboy” Kissinger was the chief gunsmith for Stony Man. The tall, lanky man was a former member of the DGA, but more importantly, a master gunsmith. Kissinger was personally in charge of obtaining and maintaining all of the firearms at the Farm. He took pride in being able to supply the field teams with anything they might ever need for combat. From a crossbow to an O’Neil coil gun, the gunsmith was sure to have a couple in stock, primed and ready to go at a second’s notice.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime.

“All right, ready the blacksuits and set it on automatic,” Price directed, stepping into the corridor. “And have Cowboy get those DU shells into a lead-lined safe and keep them there until further notice.”

“Done,” Greene said, and turned on a heel to stride away.

“Wouldn’t make a difference.” Brognola grunted. “If you’re in the neutron beam, you’d be dead from gamma radiation long before any depleted uranium will start to visibly glow.”

“True. But I’m thinking about the replacements you send in after we die,” Price said, heading for the computer complex. “If the Farm gets contaminated with radioactivity, you’d have to abandon the whole place and start from scratch to build another Farm somewhere else. That would waste months, which could translate into lives.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Not on my watch anyway,” Price declared resolutely. At the moment she knew everything depended on NORAD finding the neutron satellite and blowing it to hell. But if NORAD failed, the next strike could remove New York or London from the map. Thousands dead? Millions. It was time to activate the teams. She only hoped it wasn’t already too late.

CHAPTER THREE

Moscow, Russia

Gracefully, the three MiG-29 jet fighters streaked across the clear sky. The weather was perfect for flying and visibility was unlimited. A thousand feet below, the city of Moscow was alive with traffic, the endless streams of cars, trucks and city buses flowing along the maze of streets like a smoky river.

The lead pilot of the MiGs scowled at the beautiful city, spread out like the dynorama at some science pavilion. Exhaust fumes, oil spills, gasoline fires…civilization had done away with horses and steaming piles of horse dropping, only to replace them with smog. Briefly he wondered if society really was advancing, or going backward. Suddenly a light flashed on the control board. Time for a react check.

“Sector fourteen, all clear,” Major Alexander Karnenski reported into his helmet microphone, leveling the trim of his jet fighter.

“Acknowledged, Alpha Flight,” a crisp voice from base command replied. “Maintain and report in ten.”

“Confirm,” Karnenski said, dipping the wings slightly to start the long curve around the bustling city. His two wingmen stayed in tight formation on his flanks. Another day, another air patrol. His team had to have circled Moscow ten thousand times in their careers. Still this was an easy assignment, if a trifle boring. Oh well, anything was better than flying combat missions in Afghanistan again.

Checking the radar, the Russian pilot saw several commercial planes in the distance, as well as a couple of news helicopters hovering above the noisy traffic reporting on the congestion near the construction. Thankfully, nobody had been foolish enough to go anywhere near the forbidden zone surrounding the Kremlin. Back in the bad old days of the Communists, the standing orders would have been to shoot on sight anything that dared entered the zone. The revolutionists had been terrified of another revolution. Then came democracy, and freedom, which was closely followed by waves of terrorists attacks, and the ancient orders had been grudgingly reissued. Kill on sight. It was a chilling reminder that hard days require harsh measures.

Their aft vectors thundering in controlled power, the three MiGs arched past the sports stadium, the river, an industrial park, a shopping mall and back toward the Kremlin. Another radar scan, another curve. With almost subconscious ease, the major’s hands expertly operated the delicate controls, even though he was contemplating his girlfriend. Tatya was back in his apartment, waiting in a warm bed.

With a soft exhalation, Karnenski slumped over in his seat and died. Immediately the MiG began to drift off course as the limp hand on the joystick let go.

“Hey, stop thinking about your fat Czech woman,” Captain Constantine Steloriv joked over the radio, from the right MiG. “She can’t be that good in bed!” He knew the woman was Polish, and expected Karnenski to explode in anger over the slur. Czechs were considered fools, but Russians had great respect for the Polish.

Expectantly, Steloriv waited. But there was no reply. Only static.

“Alexander?” the captain asked in growing concern. Dead silence. “Major Alexander Karnenski, respond!”

Nothing. Only the hash of an open microphone.

“Alex, stop playing around, sir!”

By now, the lead MiG was starting to nose down toward the ground. Just a few miles ahead of the jet fighters rose the turrets and domes of the Kremlin, gleaming like gold in the bright sunlight.

“Sir, what should we do?” Lieutenant Ily Petrovich asked as the third MiG-29 pulled into sight.

Growling in ill-controlled rage, Lieutenant Steloriv swung his fighter dangerously close to the wallowing lead MiG. This was going to be tricky, and he had to stay sharp. A tiny slip at these speeds could make their wings tap, and Moscow would get a pyrotechnic display that would make the Rocket Brigade think World War III had started.

Maneuvering carefully, the captain got close enough to see Karnenski through the Plexiglas canopy. The major hung limp in his seat, held upright only by the safety harness, his head rolling around loosely. The man was clearly dead, or dead drunk. Either way, this was a disaster.

“Air Command, we have a problem.” Steloriv spoke quickly into his helmet microphone.

“Radar shows clear,” base replied curtly. “And why have you changed course without permission?”

“We haven’t. Major Karnenski seems to be unconscious and will not respond.” The captain swallowed hard. “I…I think he’s drunk, sir.”

“Checking,” the stern voice replied. There was a short pause. “Negative. The on-board sensors show no trace of alcohol in the atmosphere of the plane.”

Glancing at the surrounding array of controls, the captain was astonished. They had hidden sensors for that? Air Defense didn’t miss a trick! But that didn’t change the situation.

“Request instructions,” Steloriv said in a tight voice.

“Under the circumstances we have no choice,” the voice commanded tersely. “Our standing orders are clear. Authorization is given to fire. Shoot him down.”

“My own commander?” Steloriv gasped. “But, sir—”

“We’re over the city!” Petrovich added tersely. “The wreckage could kill hundreds of civilians!”

“We understand. You have twenty seconds to comply before we launch missiles,” base stated harshly. “Nineteen and counting.”

A salvo from the Rocket Defense would probably take out all three MiGs just to be sure of getting the right one, Steloriv realized. No choice then.

“Weapons systems armed,” the captain intoned emotionlessly. He paused for a second, then engaged every missile on board. This was a one-shot deal. “Lasers have a lock.”

“Captain, no!” Petrovich begged. “Surely there must be something we can try. Perhaps we could disable the MiG with our cannons…”

“Fire,” Steloriv whispered with a hollow feeling in his belly. His hand tightened on the joystick as he pressed the trigger button.

The MiG-29 shuddered as all eight wing-mounted missiles dropped. When they were clear of the MiG, the solid-state rocket engines exploded into flames and they streaked away.

Pulling back on the stick, the captain banked his plane hard to get away from the blast. Even with the “iron bathtub” a MiG pilot sat in for protection from small-arms fire, shrapnel often penetrated a canopy to kill a pilot. Come on, baby, come on…he urged.

The third MiG stayed at his flank, and together they climbed for the sky, the turbofans screaming from the effort. On the radar screen, Steloriv saw the nine images move together just as a flight of missiles shot upward from the SAM bunker on the ground. Goddamn Rocket Brigade! he swore. A moment later the lead MiG vanished in a series of thundering explosions that grew in volume and fury as the ground-based missiles arrived a heartbeat later.

Strolling casually through Red Square, people looked up at the terror noise in the sky, then began screaming as flaming wreckage started to rain upon them only a few blocks from the mighty Kremlin.

“Alpha Flight, return to base,” the voice on the radio commanded. “Beta wing has already been launched.”

“Confirm,” Steloriv said woodenly, leveling his trim and starting a sweep to the east. A million jumbled thoughts filled his whirling mind. Everything happened so fast. One moment they were joking about women and the next…

Casting a glance at the radar screen, Steloriv frowned. Could the major actually have died of a heart attack? It seemed highly unlikely. Their medical examinations were most through. Nobody with any weaknesses flew air patrol above a major city, especially Moscow! Even a slight heart murmur could get a fighter pilot grounded these days. But what else might have happened? What could possibly harm a perfectly healthy man inside an armored jet at a thousand feet above the ground? It was impossible, absurd, ridiculous, and had just happened before his very eyes. The idea of a heart attack, or perhaps a stroke, seemed to make sense as there was no other logical explanation.

Not unless somebody detonated a neutron bomb above Moscow, the pilot noted sourly, and we all forgot to notice.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

PROCEEDING DOWN THE CORRIDOR, Price and Brognola passed several blacksuits, one of them working on an air-conditioner vent, another pushing a cart stacked with cases of shiny new shells, each about the size of a tube of toothpaste.

“When did we acquire a Vulcan minigun?” Brognola asked curiously as they got into the electric cart that would take them to the Annex.

“That’s not for the Vulcan. Those are 25 mm rounds for the new Barrett rifle.”

“Rifle?” Brognola repeated. “Barrett has invented a 25 mm rifle? How new is that?”

“Couple of months.” Price almost smiled. “Cowboy is bench-testing one at a rock quarry a couple of miles from here. Our gun range was too small for this monster. If it passes his approval, then it will be added to the arsenal of both teams.”

“A 25 mm rifle?”

“Cowboy says it shouldn’t be harder to control than a Barrett .50-caliber.” She paused. “Or getting kicked in the groin by a Mississippi mule. But you know Cowboy.”

“Yeah,” Brognola agreed. “He should know.”

“Or so he says.”

Reaching the entrance to the Annex, Price and Brognola exited the cart and proceeded on foot to the Computer Room.

Inside, the atmosphere of the room was cool and quiet. A coffeepot burbled at a coffee station and muffled rock music could be heard coming from somewhere.

Several workstations faced an array of monitors on the wall. One of the screens showed a vector graphic map of the world, blinking lights indicating the state of military alert for every major nation. Another monitor swirled with ever-changing weather patterns of the planet as seen from space. The remaining screens were dark.

Four people occupied workstations: a powerfully built man in a wheelchair, a young Japanese American wearing earbuds, a middle-age redheaded woman and a distinguished-looking black man with wings of silver at his temples.

“Aaron, where are the teams?” Price asked, heading for the Farm’s senior cyberexpert.

“In the ready room checking over their equipment and weapons,” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman said, turning to face the mission controller. “When Hal arrives without advance notice, I figure we’re in deep shit.”

“You figured correctly,” Brognola grumbled, placing the laptop on Kurtzman’s desk.

“Is Striker in trouble?”

“Everybody is in trouble,” Price answered brusquely.

“Meaning?” Kurtzman demanded with a frown.

“Do you know about the crash of VC-25?”

He frowned. “No.” The 747 had crashed? Obviously the President was okay because Hal hadn’t called the plane Air Force One. “Was it shot down? Rammed in midair?”

“There’s no mention that anything happening to the jumbo jet on the news services,” Huntington “Hunt” Wethers announced. A pipe jutted from his mouth, but no smoke rose from the briarwood bowl.

“Nobody knows about the incident other than a select handful of people in the American and Canadian governments,” Brognola stated, extracting a disk from the laptop. “And it’s part of this mission to make sure that nobody ever learns the truth.”

“Why not?” Carmen Delahunt asked.

“We’d never be able to handle the riots,” the big Fed said, passing the disk to Kurtzman.

At the fourth console, Akira Tokaido vaguely heard the conversation. He was slumped in his chair, apparently sound asleep. Both Brognola and Price knew that the young man was hard at work. Tokaido would rather be running the massive Cray Supercomputers located on the refrigerated floor below than doing anything else in the world. Even breathing and eating. The Japanese American was a modern-day Mozart with computers, a natural hacker. There was very little Akira couldn’t get done online, and he pushed the envelope further every day.

“Riots?” Kurtzman asked, taking the disk and sliding it into a slot on his console. The center screen came it life and Top Secret seals flashed by in a blur like a diesel-powered rotoscope.

“See for yourself,” Price stated, looking at the wall monitors. According to the computerized maps, the world was at peace. There were a few scattered battles here and there, but nothing major. She wondered how long that would last if the news of the neutron satellite got out. That underwater arcology Japan was building would be overrun with people fighting and killing to get inside.

Kurtzman leaned closer to the monitor. The encryption on the disk was fantastic, the only data file he had ever encountered that had more was the dossier on the Farm. As the files grudgingly opened and slowly loaded, he grabbed a ceramic mug and took a fast swig of hot coffee. A neutron cannon in space? Sweet Jesus…

Running his slim fingers across the keyboard like a concert pianist, Akira Tokaido continued his Internet search. There were a lot of heavily encrypted transmissions going out these days, t-bursts they were called, and every one of them had a fake ID and source code. A t-burst was the newest scourge of the Internet, a computerized version of a blip transmission over a radio, a massive amount of information condensed into a small tone that lasted for only a second, sometimes even less. So far, the young hacker couldn’t trace where they were coming from, or worse, where they were going. Obviously something big was going down in the cyberworld, and that was always trouble. Twice he had caught the garbled word “tiger” inside a picture code and logged it for further investigation.

“Everybody stop whatever you’re doing and access these files,” Kurtzman commanded. “And do it fast, people.”

The members of the cybernetic team did as requested, their curious expressions quickly turning grim.

“Help yourselves to coffee,” Kurtzman told them, reading the incredible material scrolling on the monitor.

“Ah…did Carmen make the coffee, or you?” Price asked warily.

“Me, of course.”

“Pass,” the woman snorted, crossing her arms. Strong wasn’t the word normally used for Kurtzman’s hellish coffee.

As they started reading the files, Wethers and Delahunt began to scowl deeply. Typing while he read, the former professor pulled up the passenger list of the crashed plane, while Delahunt fondled the air with the cybernetic gloves she wore, opening files. At the front of the room, one of the wall screens began to display reports on boronated armor, while another blossomed into a vector graphic of satellites orbiting Earth.

There were thousands of them, Price noted dispassionately. Needle in a haystack? she thought. Try a drop of water hiding in the ocean!

Skimming the pages, Kurtzman had trouble believing what he was reading. It would take a major world power to muster the resources to build a neutron cannon. The question was which one, and did it have control of the cannon now? If some terrorist group like al Quaeda, or Hamas, had control of the weapon, Washington would already be a death zone.

“A focused beam of neutrons,” Wethers muttered, taking the pipe from his mouth and tapping his chin with the stem. “Amazing, simply amazing.”

“And we have no idea who might be behind this?” Delahunt asked.

“Aside from the usual suspects, none at all,” Brognola admitted honestly.

“I’ll start a search for any other incidents of people dying without signs of violence,” Delahunt said. “Now that they know the weapon works, the thieves will start using it.”

Just then, a picture of Dr. Himar appeared on a wall monitor. A middle-aged man, short gray hair, black suit and a bolo string tie. The newspaper shot was of Himar receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics.

“Hunt, check the records of the public dossier,” Kurtzman commanded, slaving his console to the others. “Find out who might have accessed any data about Himar under the Public Information Act.”

“Over how long a period?” the professor asked.

“Ever.”

“No problem,” Wethers replied, his hands moving across the keyboard.

“Akira, get me his DNA and run a match on the remains in the morgue,” Price directed. “Himar might not really be dead.”

“On it,” Tokaido replied, both hands busy.

“A duplicate?” Brognola asked in concern, coming closer. “You think that a Nobel Prize-wining physicist could be a traitor?”

“Let’s see if we can find him and ask,” Price stated roughly.

“Bear, how long will it take you to breech the firewall at the Department of Defense?”

“To get files on Himar, and—Prometheus? Is that what the President said?” the burly man asked. His monitor gave a beep. “They’re just downloading now.” The man scanned the scrolling images. “Okay, Himar has a home in Braintree, Massachusetts, but his DOD lab is on Wake Island. His research, code-named Prometheus, is based there.”

The other side of the world. Price nodded. It was a smart move to keep his private and professional life as separated as possible.

“Wake Island,” Brognola mused. “Isn’t that an old missile testing range in the South Pacific?”

“North Pacific. Guess Himar wanted the laboratory isolated and far away from civilization in case something went wrong.”

“Or else he wanted privacy,” Price retorted. “All right, send Able Team to his house for any private files or papers. Phoenix Force will recon the lab. Send the details to Jack Grimaldi, and have Homeland Security tell the ground crew at Dulles to start warming up a Hercules and a Learjet.”

Braintree was close enough for Able Team to use the Hercules so that they could arrive with their equipment van. But Phoenix Force had a long way to travel to reach Wake Island. The tiny landmass was so far away that it was only technically part of the United States.

“And remind our guys to be doubly careful,” Brognola told her. “The only way to survive a neutron beam is to not get hit.” With any luck, NORAD would locate the enemy satellite and the USAF would blow it out of the sky before a major city was destroyed. However, the top cop had a bad feeling in his gut that time was short, and that this was going to get real bloody, real fast.

CHAPTER FOUR

Calais, France

An unseen dawn arrived above the small coastal town. The overcast sky was dark with storm clouds and a torrential rain mercilessly pounded the sprawling array of homes, shops and hotels.

In spite of the early hour, the night’s festivities were still going strong in Calais, the numerous hotels filled with drunken, happy tourists. Lining the old town’s refurbished waterfront, hundreds of expensive yachts were moored at their slips against the inclement weather, and several cruise liners dominated the brightly illuminated public docks. Nearby restaurants were alive with colored lights and pulsating music. Old men and young women were laughing and singing, and the smiling waiters served a nonstop flow of steaming dishes from the kitchens to the tourists.

But on the outskirts of the city, the drab fishing docks were filled with a different kind of excitement. There was no singing or dancing, but hearts were light as calloused hands moved ropes and nets, preparing for the day’s hard work. The deep water report had just arrived and the sea bass were running.

Shouting orders, big men in yellow slickers moved around the sodden dock and trawlers, hauling ropes and nets. Powerful engines sputtered into life among the ranks of squat vessels, the dull exhaust pipes throwing out great clouds of rank diesel smoke. A bell clanged from the church tower in town, announcing the time. A man cursed; thunder rumbled. Somewhere a dog barked and oddly went silent. But nobody paid the incident any attention. Fishing was more than their business, it was their calling, the blood in their veins, and Frenchmen knew that the sea bass didn’t care if it was raining or if there were tourists in town spending money as if it was the end of the world. The fish followed the deep water currents and the fisherman followed the fish. Nothing else mattered. Unless there was a hurricane blowing, the fleet went out.

Chains rattled as heavy anchors were hoisted. Radar swept the storm from a hundred ships trying to map the roiling clouds above the choppy waves. Trucks arrived from town delivering ice to the poorer vessels, while the others started refrigerators in their holds, making everything ready for the day’s catch.

As the ice trucks pulled away from the docks, five large men appeared like ghosts from out of the torrential rain. Their boots thudded heavily on the damp planks, and the men appeared to be slightly hunchbacked in their black overcoats. The wide brims of their slouch hats drooped slightly from the unrelenting downpour, efficiently keeping the rain from their hard eyes, and also masking their features from the busy crowd of hardworking fishermen.

Marching in an almost military-like manner, the group of strangers moved past the trawlers until they reached the end of the dock. Moored at her usual place, a brand-new catamaran, the Souris, was rocking slightly from the force of the storm, her crew shouting through cupped hands at one another as they tried to be heard above the motors and thunder.

Lightning flashed in the sky as the five men climbed on board the fishing trawler without a hail, or even the common decency to ask permission. This was a major breech of nautical etiquette anywhere in the world, and a fighting offense in most French dockyards. Nobody but a fool, or a lunatic, ever did it twice.

As the deck rose and fell to the rhythm of the waves, two of the strangers stayed near the open gate of the gunwale, while the others labored to extend the corrugated steel gangplank to the dock. They moved awkwardly, as if unsure of exactly what to do, but it only took a minute before the task was accomplished.

Pulling a cell phone from his coat pocket, one of the men hit a speed-dial button and spoke briefly. Immediately, there came a soft beeping from the land and a big Volvo van began driving backward along the wooden dock, the boards creaking slightly from the unaccustomed weight.

Startled by its arrival, the angry fishermen scrambled out of the way of the vehicle, vehemently cursing with their gloved hands as only the French can do really well.

As the beeping van rolled onto the gangplank, the strangers opened the rear doors and exposed a large canvas-wrapped object strapped tightly to a bright orange shipping pallet. The rest of the interior of the vehicle was filled with loose blankets and foam to cushion the bulky cargo.

On board the Souris, a young crewman raced up the exposed stairs to the bridge.

“Skipper, we have guests!” he exclaimed breathlessly.

Smoking a briarwood pipe, the captain didn’t look up from studying a chart of the ocean currents. “Guests?” he muttered around the worn stem. “What the devil are you talking about, lad?”

“Them!” the lad declared, pointing down at the middeck.

“Them who?” the captain demanded, leaving the chart to stride over to the aft window of the bridge.

The front windows were equipped with wiperblades, but the rear weren’t, and the captain squinted through the rain. Dimly, he could see people moving around. “Did we order anything?” he demanded suspiciously. “Extra ice, perhaps? In case the refrigeration unit breaks again?” The refrigeration unit was almost older than the trawler.

“No, sir,” the lad replied, catching his breath. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Strange,” the captain mumbled. “Maybe they have the wrong ship.”

“I tried to ask who they were, Skipper…” the lad began.

But the captain had already slipped on his slicker and marched into the downpour. Time was short, the fleet would move out soon. As with anything else in life, it was always first come, first served. And after some unexpected repairs to the navigational equipment, he needed this catch to be huge. The sea bass were running exceptionally rich these days, and an early start held the promise of beating the corporate vessels to the day’s catch. Timing was everything.

Keeping a firm grip on the railing alongside the perforated stairs, the captain clumped down to the deck and approached the strangers. He knew instantly they weren’t sailors. The men kept trying to regain their balance, instead of moving with the motion of the sea.

Elegantly raising a single eyebrow, the captain crossed his arms and glowered at the landlubbers. “What is going here?” he demanded loudly. “Who are you people?” The man was furious at the interruption. He had no time for government inspectors or lost tourists.

There was no response from the strangers.

“I asked you a question!” the captain roared. “And this is my ship, so you damn well better answer fast, or by God—”

Turning slightly, one of the strangers pulled a Browning .22 automatic pistol from within his overcoat and fired. There was barely a sound from the acoustical sound suppressor, barely a muted cough. But the captain recoiled, a neat black hole in the middle of his forehead. He stumbled backward, and then tumbled over an electric winch to hit the deck. He shuddered once, then went still.

“Skipper!” the young crewman screamed from the doorway of the bridge, then started to rush down the stairs.

Looking up, the gunman fired again and the lad doubled over. Clutching his bloody stomach, he pitched off the stairs to hit the deck in a ghastly crunch of breaking bones.

“What was that, eh?” a crewmen shouted from the stern of the boat, his outline blurry from the combination of rain and salty spray.

Calmly, the rest of the strangers pulled out Browning .22 automatic pistols, the hexagonal shape of the sound suppressors giving the weapons a futuristic appearance.

“Is somebody hurt?” a different crewmen asked, placing a hand above his eyes to shield them from the blinding downpour.

Another of the strangers fired this time, and the sailor was slammed backward, crimson spraying from the ruin of his throat. The rain washed it away, but more kept pumping in a geyser of red life.

“Zoot!” a huge crewman shouted, dropping a coil of rope and pointing with a massive hand. The man stood well over six feet in height, and his slicker seemed barely able to contain his muscular frame.

The five strangers fired in unison at the giant, red blood puffing from his slicker as the barrage of .22 rounds hammered into him, forcing him constantly backward until he went over the side with a horrible scream and disappeared into the storm. But his death cry alerted the rest of the crew, and a dozen more men climbed from the hold and hatchways of the Souris.

Quickly reloading, the strangers opened fire, driving the fishermen under cover. Starting to realize that something was horribly wrong on board their beloved ship, the sailors frantically scrambled for anything to serve as a weapon: boathooks, an ax, a length of steel chain.

Two of the strangers took up defensive positions near the van, while the others spread out in an attack formation and advanced, their guns at the ready.

Shouting a rally cry, the fishermen charged, waving their weapons with grim intent. But they never even got close. The strangers gunned them down without a qualm, putting an additional bullet into the left eye of each fallen man to make sure he was dead. Nobody was spared.

The strangers began a systematic sweep of the deck, killing everybody they found. An elderly man raised his hands in surrender and was shot in the heart, his twitching body tossed over the side while he still gasped out his last breath.

Hearing a faint shout for help from above, one of the strangers near the van tracked the noise, then aimed his pistol high and emptied the clip. There came an answering cry of pain and a body fell from the crow’s nest to impact on the main winches that operated the heavy nets. The results were ghastly.

Smoking a cigar, a fat man wearing a grease apron appeared in a hatchway holding a Veri pistol. At the sight of the bloody corpses sprawled on the deck, the cook raised the flare gun and fired. The magnesium charge shot across the Souris like a comet, but the strangers expertly dodged out of the way and the sizzling flare ricocheted off the van to disappear into the sea.

A man working on nearby trawler saw the flash of light and tensely waited for a cry for help. Had somebody fallen overboard? Was there a fire in the engine room? When nothing happened, the fellow dismissed the matter and went back to shifting bales of nets. Somebody had to have accidentally shot off the flare gun. That’s how people get killed! Wasn’t anybody concerned about safety anymore? The fisherman wondered.

On board the Souris, the strangers finished the reconnoiter of the catamaran, removing the last few crew members hiding in the bilge, then reloaded their weapons, smashed the radio just in case they had missed somebody and finally returned to the main deck. Time was short, and there was a precise schedule to keep today.

Now that they had some privacy, the five men started to release the chains from the trawler’s boom arms normally used to haul aboard the heavily laden nets full of wiggling fish. Carefully, they attached the array to the orange pallet, and gingerly hauled the bulky mass out of the Volvo, and maneuvered it to the middeck. When it was in position, they pulled out pneumatic guns, firing steel bolts though the flanges on the pallet to permanently attach it to the wooden deck. Then the chains were removed and used to secure the pallet to the mast and several stanchions for additional security.

At last satisfied to the security of the pallet and its precious cargo, the men tossed the bolt guns overboard. In the heavy downpour, the canvas-covered pallet was merely a dark lump set among the other irregular shapes of the boat.

Checking his watch, one of the strangers went to the bridge and started the engines. Meanwhile, one man attached a strong rope to the bumper of the cargo van as the other rolled down the windows of the vehicle, released the hand brake and deliberately set the transmission into neutral.

Returning to the Souris, the strangers replaced the gate in the gunwale and started casting off the mooring lines. With a sputtering roar, the diesel engines came to life belowdecks and the little trawler began to move out to sea.

As the rope attached the van grew taut, the vehicle began rolling backward along the dock and dropped into the choppy waters with a tremendous splash. Ready at the gunwale, a stranger waited until the water started to pour into the open windows and the vehicle started to sink before slashing at the attached rope with a curved knife. The taut rope parted with an almost musical twang and the sinking van was soon left behind, the salt water efficiently removing the last traces of their presence from the stolen vehicle.

Dimly heard through the storm, shocked voices could be heard from the other trawlers, and people started running on the dock. Flares were fired into the sky, but their brilliant light was consumed by the torrential rain. Life preservers were tossed into the sea in the mistaken belief that people may have been in the van. But the only passenger was the dead owner, who had made the foolish mistake of stopping at the wrong parking lot in Paris and politely offering a stranger a lift.

Holstering their silenced weapons, the killers in control of the Souris gave no notice of the growing commotion while they pulled out assault rifles, the barrels tipped with bulbous 37 mm rifle grenades. Warily, the team watched the storm for any signs of the local police, or the much more dangerous French navy.

But the coastline was clear, and soon the frantic dockyard faded into the rain. Slowly building speed, the trawler chugged into the raging storm, heading across the channel toward England. Muttering curses, the big man at the controls tried to coax more speed from the old diesel engines. There was an important rendezvous to keep, and nothing could get in the way.

CHAPTER FIVE

Logan International Airport, Boston

The huge C-130 Hercules transport lightly touched down on the asphalt, the tires squealing at the contact. It rose slightly, only to touch down again, skipping along the runway until finally rolling along the pavement. Reaching a cross strip, the huge military aircraft paused, the propellers spinning with a subdued roar, then it turned and moved along the ground, heading for an isolated hangar at the extreme edge of the airport.

“Another one,” Matthew Liptrot rumbled, lowering his binoculars. The Transportation Administration Security guard was frowning deeply. “I don’t like unscheduled arrivals. They make my ass itch.”

“Then get some salve, buddy,” Jason Kushner replied gruffly, his voice rising in volume as a 757 thunderously took off into the sky. The two members of the TSA waited a few moments until the wash of the colossal jet dissipated. Dimly, in the parking lot, car alarms were starting to bleep and keen, their owners having set the sensitivity of the sensors way too high, in spite of the clearly marked posted warnings at the entrance kiosk.

“Every one of them is probably a BMW.” Liptrot sneered in disdain, hitching back the cap of his blue uniform.

“Or a Lexus,” Kushner agreed with a wan smile. “Chevy and Toyota owners know better.”

“I hear that.” The TSA guard turned to watch the Hercules disappear past the wind flags fluttering in the breeze. “Now, I know we were told to not bother the passengers on this flight, some sort of dignitary from D.C., but still…”

“Don’t,” Kushner warned forcibly. “The last person who violated an order like that is working at an airport concession stand in Alaska selling postcards to polar bears.”

“Okay, okay, the Do Not Disturb order stands.” Liptrot reluctantly relented. “But just the same, I’m gonna keep a sharp watch on the thing. Those 9/11 fuckers left from right here.” He stomped on the pavement. “Our Logan International, and I’m not ever going to let that happen again.”

“I hear that,” Kushner agreed, raising his binoculars to study the massive Hercules. “Nothing wrong with staying alert.”

Pulling out his 9 mm Glock pistol, Liptrot checked the loaded of armor-piercing rounds, designed to go through body armor as if it were soap suds. “Nope, nothing wrong with that,” the man muttered, holstering the weapon. “Nothing wrong with that, at all.”

THE C-130 HERCULES TRANSPORT rolled to a stop in front of the hangar. Jack Grimaldi set the brakes and killed the massive engines.

“All ashore that’s going ashore,” the Stony Man pilot announced over the PA system.

Down in the cargo hold, the men of Able Team unstrapped themselves from the jumpseats lining the curved wall and began to release the holding straps on their custom van.

“I still can’t believe that anybody has a neutron cannon,” Rosario “Politician” Blancanales said, freeing the buckles on the canvas straps wrapped around the rear axle. “How is that possible?”

“Something called induced magnetics,” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz replied, doing the same to the front. “But exactly what that means I have no idea. The math is way beyond me.”

Releasing the last of the locking clamps on the wheels, Carl “Ironman” Lyons grunted at the frank admittance. Schwarz was one of the leading experts in electronic warfare. Under a variety of pseudonyms, he wrote articles for every major scientific magazine and newspaper in the world. If Schwarz was unable to follow the mathematics, then few people could. Himar had to be a genius. And those were often disquietingly close to madness, Lyons thought.

Stowing the restraining straps, Able Team climbed into the equipment van and started the engine.

Watching from the open door to the flight deck, Grimaldi flipped a switch and the rear section of the military transport broke apart and cycled down to the ground with a hydraulic hiss.

“Stay in contact,” the pilot said over their earplugs. “After I refuel, I’ll keep the engines turning over, just in case you boys need some close-order air support.” The civilian version of the Hercules was unarmed, but the one Grimaldi piloted was heavily armed with 40 mm Bofors cannons.

“Or a hasty retreat,” Blancanales replied, touching his throat mike. “Stay frosty, Flyboy.”

“You, too. Stand where they ain’t shooting.”

“Do our best,” Lyons added, setting the van into gear. Carefully he drove the vehicle down the inclined ramp and out onto the paved landing strip.

Logan International Airport dominated their northern horizon, airplanes seeming to take off and land at the same time, passing within only a couple of hundred feet of each other.

A ballet of steel, Blancanales noted. If the neutron cannon attacked at just the right moment, a wall of dead jumbo jets would fly straight into the skyscrapers of downtown Boston. The death toll would be…unimaginable.

“Where did he live?” Schwarz asked, settling into his chair at the small workshop in the rear of the vehicle.

“An apartment building,” Lyons stated, maneuvering onto a private access road. “Himar lived with his family on the top floor, the rest of the place was filled with relatives, cousins and such.”

The scientist owned an apartment complex? Schwarz blinked. “Just how rich was this guy?”

“Not very. He used the money from the Nobel Prize to put a down payment on the place, and the relatives pay rent.” Lyons frowned. “Or so the IRS and Massachusetts Housing Authority claim.”

Blancanales frowned. “So this could be a hardsite.”

“Exactly.” Lyons growled, slowing in front of a wire fence, the top a curly profusion of concertina wire. The sensors in the gate read the electronic signature of the miniature transceiver in the Stony Man vehicle and the gate unlocked automatically, sliding aside.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Blancanales warned, opening a compartment in the dashboard. Nestled inside were rows of fake identification papers, permits and passports. “What do you want to be, FBI again or CIA?”

“NSA,” Lyons suggested, driving through. “That will give us a free hand. Few people have any idea what the NSA does.”

“Including the NSA,” Schwarz quipped, opening a weapons trunk and extracting an M-16 assault rifle.

Behind them, the gate closed with a loud clang and locked.

“DID YA SEE THAT GATE?” Liptrot asked angrily, adjusting the focus on his binoculars.

“Well, I would expect the folks on that transport to have the exit codes,” Kushner muttered unhappily, rubbing his chin. Sure, that was only reasonable. But the man still didn’t like strangers moving so freely around Logan.

“How about we go have a chat with the pilot,” Liptrot said with a hard grin, setting his cap straight.

“Whoa there, brother,” Kushner cautioned, raising a restraining palm. “We were specifically told not to bother the passengers.”

“Ah, but the passengers are gone,” Liptrot replied, glancing at the retreating van. “Go check the regs, if you want. But pilots aren’t considered passengers. They’re crew. And nobody said anything about him.”

“Well, maybe he left in the van.”

“True. But perhaps we smell a fuel leak.”

From this far away? Kushner thought, then smiled. “Son of a gun, I think I do smell a fuel leak. That could endanger the whole airport. We better investigate.” Liptrot headed for their unmarked Jeep in the security parking lot.

Keeping pace with the other guard, Kushner checked his Glock, then his pepper spray and stun gun. Whenever possible, the TSA preferred to take troublemakers alive. However, Liptrot and Kushner enjoyed being the wild men of the TSA. They always pushed the limits on rules and regulations, and caught more drug smugglers and would-be hijackers than the rest of the TSA, on-site FBI and city blues combined. Half cousins, the grim men considered Logan their private property, and God help anybody stupid enough to try to harm the place.

“We talk first,” Kushner stated, climbing into the Jeep.

“Naturally,” Liptrot said, starting the engine. “However, if he—”

“Or she.”

“Or she, refuses to cooperate, then the kid gloves come off.”

“Yee-haw,” Kushner muttered, turning on his radio.

“Unit Nine to Control, we have a possible fuel leak in area thirty-seven…”

MERGING WITH THE MADNESS of Boston traffic, Carl Lyons checked the digital map display on the dashboard and took a secondary road to head for Braintree. The land went from industrial to suburbia, and then stately homes with low stone fences and tall oak trees older than Columbus. The area looked like something out of a movie.

“You know, Braintree is the ancestral home of John Adams,” Blancanales announced.

“I heard he was obnoxious and disliked,” Schwarz said without looking up, thumbing HEAT rounds into a clip for his assault rifle.

Checking the house numbers, Lyons found the correct apartment building. It was a neat, five-story house that had been converted into apartments: brick walls, green shutters, a wooden porch with a swing. A dog slept on the driveway and a birdbath sat in the front yard.

Lyons drove past the building and parked a few houses down. He used field glasses to study the area to see if they were under surveillance. Nothing moved in the whole neighborhood. A television blared from across the street, and Indian music could be heard softly playing from inside the apartment building. That’s right, Lyons remembered. Himar had been born in New Delhi. The tune was catchy, but the words were unintelligible.

“The place looks clean,” Blancanales said, tucking the NSA identification into a breast pocket. Then he pulled a .380 Colt pistol from a shoulder holster and dropped the clip to check the load. Easing the clip back inside, he clicked off the safety and worked the slide to chamber a round. He wasn’t expecting any trouble here. This was a simple data hunt. But no soldier went into danger without a loaded weapon.

“So let’s get going,” Schwarz said, tucking electronic items and plastique into a black nylon gym bag. There might be a wall safe to blow. But they had to stay lowkey. These people might just be civilians. Unless Himar’s “family” was actually his private army of mercenaries. Schwarz briefly inspected his own 9 mm Beretta and threaded on a sound suppressor. Better safe than sorry.

“Wait a second,” Lyons advised, adjusting the focus on the field glasses. “Something’s wrong here.”

Instantly the other two men were alert and reached for the M-16 assault rifles hidden in the false ceiling of the van.

The Able Team leader surveyed the apartment building and lawn again, the hairs rising on his nape. Something about the area had triggered a warning bell inside his head, and the former L.A. cop was trying to spot what was wrong. A few of the windows were open, admitting the cool morning air. But New Englanders had a love of cold that the rest of the nation found puzzling. Just like getting a tan in California, it bordered on a mania. There was nobody moving in the bushes or in the backyard…. That’s when it hit him. There was nobody moving at all. That dog wasn’t asleep, it was dead. And there were tiny dark shapes floating in the birdbath. Wrens?

Turning, Lyons swept the whole block. Nobody was moving around any of the other homes, either. No leaves being raked, no mail being delivered, no dogs barking, no birds in the trees. Several houses away, a man was smoking while lying in a hammock. Focusing the field glasses, Lyons saw that the fellow had once been smoking, but now his shirt was smoldering. A cigar laying on the blackened ruin of his chest.

“Get hard, people,” Lyons ordered, tucking away the field glasses. Reaching down, he pulled the Atchisson autoshotgun from the bag on the floor. “We’re the only people alive on this street, possibly in the whole damn town.”

“Why would Himar beam his own house?” Schwarz said, frowning, working the arming bolt on the assault rifle. “Unless…”

“Unless Himar really is dead, and somebody else also wants his files on Prometheus before we can get them,” Blancanales conceded, thumbing a fat 40 mm round into the M-203 grenade launcher. “Mighty easy to rob a place if everybody is dead.”

Just then the happy Indian music was cut off and a window on the fifth floor of the apartment house closed, a dark shape moving behind the curtains. In a house of the dead, somebody was still moving.

“Where did Himar live?” Lyons demanded, shrugging out of his suit jacket.

“Fourth floor, but his office was on the fifth,” Schwarz said, passing out the NATO body armor. “I’d say that we’ve got hostiles inside.”

“Could just be a street cop checking the place out,” Blancanales warned, strapping on his light-weight bulletproof vest. “Or maybe a survivor who was taking a bath. You know, safe under the water.”

Lyons clicked the safety off the Atchisson and stepped to the curb. “Let’s go find out.”

Moving across the lawn, the Stony Man operatives headed for the house, each trying not to think about the deadly satellite in space possibly pointing directly downward at their location. If the neutron cannon attacked, they would never know it, and so the soldiers banished the consideration from their minds and concentrated on the task at hand. Get in, get the files and get out.

“Stony Base, this is Einstein,” Schwarz said into his throat mike as they passed the birdbath. “Our twenty may have been neutralized. If you don’t hear from us in an hour, consider this a hot zone. Out.” It took a moment for the message to be condensed, then the radio gave a short beep as the transmission was burst back to the Farm. Unless the enemy was listening to the precise frequency, at exactly the correct moment, Schwarz knew they would never be able to detect the microsecond radio pulse. Much less break the encryption created by Kurtzman and his team.

The world seemed unnaturally still to the Stony Man operatives. Traffic could be heard in the distance, and a jet liner rumbled overhead toward Logan International. But it was almost as if they were moving through a dream. No voices, no laughter, not even birds in the trees.

“We want them alive,” Lyons whispered curtly. “But retrieving those files is more important.”

The other men nodded, their eyes sweeping for danger.

Moving onto the brick porch, the Able Team leader saw a bearded man in slippers lying crumpled behind the laurel bushes, a folded newspaper still clutched in his hand. Lyons stopped and pried it loose. It was an afternoon edition. The attack had only happened a short while ago.

The front door was closed, but unlocked, and the three men eased inside, their weapons at the ready.

The foyer was empty. There was a grandfather clock softly ticking, and a coatrack with an attached bench that Schwarz recognized as an antique from before the Revolutionary War. A brass umbrella stand was in the corner and a ceramic bowl on a small table contained car keys.

Blancanales made a noise and gestured to the left.

In the living room, the shapely legs of a teenage girl stuck out from behind the couch in the living room. A cat lay lifeless next to a ball of yarn, a goldfish floated upside down in a glass bowl. But more importantly, there was a ten-gallon can of fuel sitting in the middle of the living room with a radio detonator attached to the side.

Tightening his grip on the autoshotgun, Lyons tried not to curse. The Prometheans, as Price had dubbed them, weren’t here to steal the files, but to burn the place down to make sure nobody else got them! And they weren’t going to take any chances on missing some papers hidden in the wall or under a floorboard. That firebomb would reduce the whole house to rubble. The neutron cannon could kill from space, but the deadly beams would have no effect whatsoever on computer disks and simple paper. Those had to be destroyed by hand.

Shouldering his M-16, Schwarz went to the colossal firebomb and pulled the wires free. As he turned, the electronics expert grimaced at the sight of a second firebomb in the kitchen. There was another firebomb at the foot of the stairs.

Fast and silent, the team moved through the first floor, deactivating the explosive charges. Reaching the cellar door, they paused for a wordless conference, but then heard footsteps upstairs on the wooden floor.

Separating into a one-on-one defense formation, the Stony Man commandos walked up the old stairs, carefully keeping to the outer edges where the wood would be the strongest and least likely to creak and betray their presence.

The second and third floors proved to be the same as the first, and the team quickly neutralized the bombs.

Reaching the fourth floor, Lyons paused alongside the railing. He could hear murmuring voices, and somebody was happily whistling. A fierce rage swelled within the man. The bastards were enjoying themselves!

“Hey!” a man shouted. “What the fuck are you doing, asshole?”

Able Team froze, swinging up their weapons for the expected attack. Heavy footsteps stomped closer.

“I wasn’t doing anything, George,” another man replied. But the man was cut off by the sharp smack of a slap, and a rustling sound was made by some small items scattering across the floor.

A glassine envelope went over the edge of the landing, and Blancanales made the catch. Opening his fist, he scowled at a tiny packet full of blue crystals. Interesting.

“You’re a fucking liar, Troy!” the first voice snarled angrily. “I saw you stuffing packs in your pockets!”

“Hey, I only figured—”

Another hard slap sounded, then two more. “If Ravid sent us two pounds of crystal meth to sprinkle around the place, then we use every ounce!” George ordered brusquely. “That son of a bitch knew enough about our strongarm operations to send us to Wadpoole prison for the rest of our freaking lives!”

That caught the team by surprise. These were street toughs blackmailed to plant evidence of a drug lab in the house before burning it down. If the local police found traces of the deadly narcotic in the ashes, their investigation of the blaze would stop right there, assuming it was just case of the drug makers falling out over the business. Ravid. They would remember that name.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Troy mumbled. “I was only just—”

“Shut the fuck up,” George snarled. “Hey, Mike, you wanna remind me why we brought the feeb along?”

“Had to. He’s my cousin,” Mike mumbled. “And don’t call him that word again, get me?”

“Go screw a rolling doughnut,” George replied. “Okay, Troy, get the rest of this crap and meet us on the fifth floor. He said they were all to be strewed around the office.”

“Sure, no problem, eh?”

“Did you put the tanks of ammonia in the basement?” a fourth man demanded. “Nobody’s gonna believe this was a crystal meth lab unless there’s lot of ammonia.”

“Sure thing, Jeff, did that first off,” Troy replied quickly. “Ah…do they really make meth from ammonia?”

“Oh, for the love of…Just pick up the envelopes!”

“Right away! Sure, no problem. Hey, you know me…”

The other men tromped away, and there came the sounds of somebody crawling across the floorboards, sweeping up the packets in their hands. Soon, a bald head appeared over the edge of the fourth-floor landing, and Troy gasped at the sight of the Able Team looking back up, their arms full of military ordnance. The man went pale and froze motionless.

Shaking his head, Lyons pressed a finger to his lips for silence, while Blancanales and Schwarz aimed their assault rifles.

“I surrender!” Troy cried, raising both hands, casting a deluge of packets upon the Stony Man commandos. “Don’t shoot me!”

Muffled curses came from the fifth floor, and all of the arming lights on the cheap detonators strapped to the fuel canisters started blinking.

Furiously, Lyons charged up the stairs and fired. The Atchisson ripped off a short burst, and Troy stumbled backward from the barrage of 12-gauge stun bags.

“Freeze! This is the FBI!” Blancanales shouted, adding a long rip from the M-16 assault rifle into the ceiling. With any luck, the hardmen would simply surrender.

“Fuck you, cops!” George yelled, and a pair of black metallic globes sailed over the railing to hit the fourth-floor landing and bounce away.

“Grenades!” Lyons roared, diving aside, his teammates only a heartbeat behind.

The team was still airborne when the charges cut loose, filling the landing with thundering flame. Still kneeling with his arms raised in surrender, Troy was blown apart by the double explosion.

As they hit the floor, there came a sharp patter of antipersonnel shrapnel smacking into the doors and walls. In a bathroom, a plastic fuel canister ruptured, the pink fluid gushing out to spread along the wooden floor, heading dangerously close to the burning ruin of the smashed landing.

Charging into the bathroom, Schwarz tackled the canister, shoving it into the bathtub. Heading into a bedroom, Blancanales ripped the arming wires off a firebomb and went in search of another.

Rising up from behind the fire, Lyons dropped the drum of stun bags and slapped in a drum of fléchettes just as Jeff jumped down the stairs to land heavily on the splintery wood. Grinning fiendishly, the Boston muscle swept the entire fourth floor with an AK-47 assault rifle, the 7.62 mm rounds slamming into pictures, bookcases and the still bodies of the former occupants.

Ducking behind a wingback chair, Lyons fired a short burst from the Atchisson, the hellstorm of steel slivers tearing Jeff apart, arms and legs going in different directions.

Bracing against the recoil, Schwarz fired a 40 mm round up the stairs. The charge detonated against the ceiling, spraying down a hellstorm of plaster and wooden splinters. Somebody screamed, the noise becoming a demented howl as Mike staggered into view. His upper body was riddled with holes, red blood pumping out in a ghastly spray from the ruptured arteries.

Mouthing obscenities, he sprayed his twin Ingram MAC-10 machine pistols, the 9 mm Parabellum rounds hammering down the stairs in crisscrossing streams of glowing tracers and hot lead. From the bedroom, Blancanales peppered the banister, the 5.56 mm rounds chewing a path of destruction along the polished wood. Still shooting, Jeff retreated to the fifth floor. But just as he disappeared, George appeared and fired a line of tracers rounds directly into the pooled gasoline, dripping over the landing. With a whoosh, it ignited and wild flames raced along the floor going straight into the bathroom and up the wallpaper. Standing in the bathtub, Schwarz turned on the shower and angled the spray onto the walls, but the water did little to hinder the lashing orange conflagration.

“You men up there, get the hell out!” Blancanales shouted, slapping in a fresh clip. “The house is on fire!”

“Lead the way, cop!” George retorted from somewhere above. “I’m not going back to Wadpoole! I’d rather die here with you!”

Lyons shot his friend a hard look and Blancanales frowned from the doorway of the bedroom. It sounded crazy, but many men who had spent decades in jail swore death before returning to the rigid discipline of government cellblocks.

“We need those files,” Lyons ordered, touching his throat mike. He burped a short burst up the stairs. “Think we can cut a deal?”

“No way,” Blancanales replied, cracking the breech of the grenade launcher. He dumped the 40 mm stun bag and thumbed in an AP round. “We have to take them out.”

Another grenade bounced down the ruined stairs and disappeared below. A moment later there came a muffled whomp and then a welling aura of hellish light. Lyons cursed. The grenade had ignited the canisters of fuel! The ground floor, maybe even the second, was on fire, and soon the flames would reach the other canisters. They only had a few minutes before the entire building was an inferno. With us trapped on the top level, he thought.

Turning the Atchisson upward, Lyons emptied the entire drum of 12-gauge fléchettes directly into the ceiling. The fusillade chewed open a gaping hole, and Blancanales and Schwarz instantly triggered 40 mm rounds. Once more, the shells exploded on the next ceiling, and men screamed.

Charging for the stairs, Lyons swept the room at waist level, blowing apart office furniture, computers, blackboards and both of the stumbling hardmen. But as they fell, a skinny blond man hit a radio detonator clipped to his bloody belt.

“Not going back…” George said, then went still.

A split second later, a muffled series of blasts erupted in the lower levels of the house, and the closet across the office was brightly illuminated from within, the door blowing off as the expanding fireball of the hidden incendiary charge cut loose. The only desk was coated with a sheet of flame, the DOD security documents vanishing into ash from the volcanic heat.

Rushing to a file cabinet, Lyons yanked the top drawer open, then quickly backed away as a secondary charge set the gasoline-soaked folders ablaze. In grudging admiration, Lyons was forced to admit that was exactly how he would have done it. They were amateurs, but not fools.

Ramming the stock of his M-16 into a computer, Blancanales smashed the machine into pieces. Using a knife, Schwarz pried loose the hard drive and shoved it into a pocket.

Flames licked out of the stairwell, and the crackling fire raced along the ceiling and walls, the updraft from the hole in the floor feeding the growing blaze.

“Let’s go!” Lyons shouted as a thick cloud of pungent smoke rose up the stairwell. House on fire, files rigged, the book case empty of any technical journals, there was no place left to search in the scant time remaining. Besides, every soldier knew the danger of fighting in civilian homes. The carpeting often gave off toxic smoke that could kill a person.

However, Lyons had barely taken a step when his nose caught a sharp aroma. It was actually rather pleasant, and the man felt oddly good, almost drunk, his heart beating wildly.

“Don’t breathe!” Blancanales cried, exhaling as hard as possible and slapping a hand across his nose and mouth.

With sleepy movements, the Stony Man commandos stumbled away from the hundred melted bags of crystal meth sizzling on the charred floorboards. The fumes were making them feel woozy, almost light-headed. A strange lethargy stole the strength from their bodies, their weapons suddenly feeling as if each weighed a million tons….

Fighting off the weakness through sheer force of will, Lyons aimed the Atchisson carefully, and triggered a long sustained burst at the flaming stairs until the smoky wood was torn into wreckage. It dropped away with a strident crash, and the heat in the office decreased slightly.

“Okay, that bought us a few minutes,” Lyons said, coughing raggedly. He fumbled to reload the autoshotgun with clumsy fingers. “But we have to leave fast—or die.”

More dull explosions sounded from below, the rising smoke becoming thicker, the floor growing hotter beneath their civilian shoes.

Snarling in rage, Blancanales fired from the hip, blowing out the rear windows. Rushing to the sill, he drank in the fresh air and momentarily his head cleared.

Firing to the left, then the right, a coughing Schwarz took out both side windows. The thick smoke thinned immediately, but the roaring fire noticeably increased.

Shuffling to the left window, Lyons saw only a gazebo on the ground five stories away.

Firing the M-16 nonstop, Schwarz blasted away at something outside the right window, then grunted in victory. “This way!” he shouted, slinging the exhausted weapon over a shoulder and hastily climbing through the opening.

Quickly joining their friend, Lyons and Blancanales saw Schwarz grab a dangling power line, a telephone pole at the corner of the property sparking and snapping. Wrapping the thick cable once around his waist, Schwarz rappelled down the side of the apartment building to land hard on the roof of the garage.

As he rushed along the sloping expanse of shingles, Blancanales arrived, then Lyons. Going to the edge, they jumped into the rosebushes, uncaring of the thorns, and fought their way to the front lawn. A heartbeat later, the roof of the garage collapsed, writhing flames licking at empty sky.

Returning to the van, the bedraggled Stony Man commandos piled inside and divested themselves of weapons before driving away. Oddly, there was no wail of incoming fire trucks, police or ambulance. The men solemnly realized that was because there was nobody alive in the neighborhood to report the mounting blaze.

Breaking out bottles of water, the men of Able Team drank deeply, clearing their sore throats, the clean air pouring through the vehicle slowly washing the stupefying effects of the cooking drug from their brains.

“At least we got this,” Schwarz croaked, inspecting the hard drive.

“And even if that is blank,” Blancanales wheezed, “we now have a name. Ravid.”

“Any terrorists called that?” Lyons asked, lowering their speed as he headed for Logan International.

Tucking away the hard drive, Schwarz shrugged. “None that I know.”

“I do,” Blancanales said, pouring water into his open palm and rubbing his face clean. He shook himself dry like a dog coming out of the rain. “Two, actually. There’s a Ravid in Hamas and another in Tiger Force. But it couldn’t be them. Neither group has resources to put a satellite into orbit.”

“Unless they got some major-league assistance,” Lyons returned, settling back into the seat. Anybody who hired thugs to do their fighting, might also have been hired as mercenaries in the first place. Hamas or Tiger Force, were they the real foe? Or was Stony Man facing a cartel of terrorist organizations this time? That would be a nightmare come true. And there was no way to know for sure until the hard drive was downloaded. Hopefully, that could be done on the Hercules.

Changing his mind, Lyons angled onto a highway and went straight past Logan to head for downtown Boston. If they could find the office where George and his crew worked before the word spread of their demise, Able Team might be able to find out exactly who Ravid was. Definitely a long shot, but worth the effort.

Merging with the thickening flow of honking traffic, the Able Team leader just hoped that Phoenix Force was having better luck at the Wake Island laboratory.

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