Kitabı oxu: «Oceans Of Fire»
THE LONGBOW HAMMERED AGAINST MANNING’S SHOULDER
Downrange, the .338 Lapua round hit the assault team leader at 3000 feet per second. The armored figure lurched forward like he’d been kicked by a horse and slammed into the side of the warehouse before falling motionless to the ground. The gunner beside him spun just in time to take Manning’s second shot in the chest. He staggered backward, tripping over his fallen companion.
The big Canadian rolled away and began to crawl to his next sniping position, as the enemy started to sweep the trees with automatic rifle fire.
Rotors whipped the treetops as someone sought him from above. Green tracers streaked down in vertical lines of smoking light as the door gunners did recon by fire.
“Phoenix One, I’m pinned down! If you’re going to do something, you’ve got to do it fast!”
Other titles in this series:
#20 TERMS OF SURVIVAL
#21 SATAN’S THRUST
#22 SUNFLASH
#23 THE PERISHING GAME
#24 BIRD OF PREY
#25 SKYLANCE
#26 FLASHBACK
#27 ASIAN STORM
#28 BLOOD STAR
#29 EYE OF THE RUBY
#30 VIRTUAL PERIL
#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR
#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT
#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES
#34 REPRISAL
#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA
#36 STRANGLEHOLD
#37 TRIPLE STRIKE
#38 ENEMY WITHIN
#39 BREACH OF TRUST
#40 BETRAYAL
#41 SILENT INVADER
#42 EDGE OF NIGHT
#43 ZERO HOUR
#44 THIRST FOR POWER
#45 STAR VENTURE
#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT
#47 COMMAND FORCE
#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE
#49 DRAGON FIRE
#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD
#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE
#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE
#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR
#54 VECTOR THREE
#55 EXTREME MEASURES
#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION
#57 SKY KILLERS
#58 CONDITION HOSTILE
#59 PRELUDE TO WAR
#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION
#61 ROGUE STATE
#62 DEEP RAMPAGE
#63 FREEDOM WATCH
#64 ROOTS OF TERROR
#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL
#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT
#67 ECHOES OF WAR
#68 OUTBREAK
#69 DAY OF DECISION
#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT
#71 TERMS OF CONTROL
#72 ROLLING THUNDER
#73 COLD OBJECTIVE
#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR
#75 SILENT ARSENAL
#76 GATHERING STORM
#77 FULL BLAST
#78 MAELSTROM
#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND
#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST
#81 SKY HAMMER
#82 VANISHING POINT
#83 DOOM PROPHECY
#84 SENSOR SWEEP
#85 HELL DAWN
Oceans of Fire
STONY MAN®
AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Don Pendleton
To U.S. Special Forces
CONTENTS
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-NINE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
Tajikstan
“There’s the bugger now.” David McCarter scanned through his laser range-finder binoculars. His target led the front of a column of horsemen that wound its way through the mountain pass on ponies bred on the steppes of Asia. The shaggy little horses almost looked like overgrown dogs and the stirrups of their riders threatened to brush the ground.
“I make it an even forty.” Gary Manning lay prone in the rocks beside McCarter and peered at their objective through the 3×10 variable-power optical sight of his .300 Magnum Dakota Longbow tactical rifle. “Man, is he ugly.”
Gotron “The Goat” Khan was a little man with a head like a bowling ball and a body shaped like a pear. The sloping shelf of his brow, his wide, flattened nose and the sparse beard tufting his chin made him look like his nickname. The fact that he had a complexion that looked as if he had taken a fragmentation grenade to the face didn’t help.
“He put the ‘ugh’ in ugly,” Calvin James agreed over the com link.
The ex-Navy SEAL was right, but despite first impressions, Gotron Khan was the most feared man in the Zeravshan Mountains. He was a modern-day warlord with his own fief, a kingdom built on the profits of smuggling guns, opium and slaves, and he ruled with an iron fist. He carried a WWII Soviet-issue Cossack saber in his sash, which was the symbol of his rule. The law of Khan was simple. Minor offences required the removal of a hand; felonies called for a beheading. Khan liked to dispense justice personally whenever possible. His men were heavily armed with black market Russian military equipment of every description, from submachine guns to squad automatic weapons.
It was the suspected black market Russian military equipment wrapped in carpets on the pack mules that held the interest of Phoenix Force’s leader. McCarter thumbed his throat mike. “I want the Goat, and what he’s packing on those mules. Options?”
“Well, I make it a full platoon of light cavalry.” Manning kept his crosshairs on Khan. “We can beat ’em easy, but securing them is another matter. When we start shooting, they can scatter and fast.”
T.J. Hawkins chimed in from farther down the side of the gorge. He was the youngest member of the team but spoke with the hard-won experience of a Delta Force commando. “The next village is ten klicks east. We’re ninety-nine percent certain that’s where they’re going. We can wait until nightfall, insert soft and make it a snatch rather than assault.”
“Rafe?” McCarter queried.
“I don’t know,” Rafael Encizo replied. “We’re in Khan’s stomping grounds. We let him get into the village and who knows how many more men he’ll have, and we’ll have to worry about collateral damage if things go hot.”
“Cal?”
“Rafe’s right,” Calvin James stated. “I say we take them here and now.”
McCarter agreed with the assessment. “We take them here, in the narrow, and cork both sides of the bottle. T.J. you plug the back door. I’ll take the front.”
Manning frowned without taking his eye off his scope. “We’ll need about a minute to get into position. How do you want to play it?”
“I guess I’ll just go chat up the bastard.” McCarter set down his binoculars. “All units. I’m heading down. Equip for Plan B. Be in position in two minutes.”
Phoenix Force responded “Affirmative” from their various positions.
McCarter made his way swiftly down through the rocks. As he hit the mountain path, he could hear the clatter of the horses’ hooves on the stones and smell the animals as they approached. The horsemen were in their own territory and at a low state of alert, laughing and smoking cigarettes. The Phoenix Force leader waited behind his chosen boulder until Manning spoke in his earpiece. “Ready on your go, Phoenix One.”
The Briton stepped out onto the path. Horses reared and men shouted in alarm. McCarter smiled at the warlord in a friendly fashion. “Top of the morning, Khan.”
Two dozen automatic weapons whirled in McCarter’s direction. Gotron Khan sawed savagely on the reins. The horse rolled its eyes and stamped, but not in fear. McCarter had startled the stallion and now it wanted to attack him.
“Top of the morning?” The Goat slapped his thigh delightedly. “English! Goddamn it!”
McCarter smiled. “You got me.”
“Hey!” Gotron took in McCarter’s desert camouflage fatigues, body armor and the scarf wrapped around his head. The warlord gazed appreciatively at the Barrett M-468 weapon system draped casually across McCarter’s shoulder. The 6.8-caliber rifle looked like an M-16 on steroids. A SUSAT optical sight had been mounted on the receiver and a 40 mm M-203 grenade launcher hung beneath the barrel. Eight inches of United States Marine Corps OKC 3S bayonet hung conspicuously from the muzzle. The Goat stabbed a gleefully accusing finger at McCarter. “British SAS! Who Dares Wins!”
“Well…” McCarter shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” Khan leaned back in his saddle and scratched his goatee with the muzzle of a Russian A-91 compact assault rifle. “You lost?” He pointed south. “Afghanistan and NATO forces are eight hundred kilometers that way.”
His horsemen, who spoke English, smiled unpleasantly.
“No.” McCarter shook his head. “Not lost.”
Khan cocked an eyebrow. “You are on a mission.”
“As a matter of fact I am.”
“Ah! Goddamn!” Khan leaned forward with almost childlike-curiosity. “A secret mission?”
“No, no secret.” McCarter lifted his chin toward the baggage. “I’d just like to know what those mules are carrying.”
Gotron Khan smiled to reveal a mouth that could only be described as dental armageddon. “Cucumbers!”
The horsemen laughed coarsely.
“Yeah, bloody great big ones.” McCarter laughed. “Or so I hear.”
The laughter of Khan’s men became rougher and their eyes went hard. Manning spoke in McCarter’s earpiece. “All units in position.”
“The biggest!” Khan grinned.
“And where’re you off to with your great big cucumbers, then?” McCarter shrugged innocently. “If I might ask.”
“Mecca!” Khan roared. “We are on Haj!”
Khan’s men laughed uproariously.
The leader of Phoenix Force smiled. Gotron Khan and his forty horsemen smiled back. It was all very congenial.
“I’d fancy a look,” McCarter suggested.
The Goat sighed. “I fancy you give me your rifle now.”
“I think I’ll hold on to it.” McCarter replied smiling. “But, tell you what, mate. Why don’t you and the lads drop yours.”
Gotron Khan stopped smiling. The muzzles of two dozen weapons pointed at McCarter in open hostility. The Briton spoke quietly into his mike. “Show of force, lads.”
Horsemen shouted in alarm as Phoenix Force rose up out of the rocks. Khan craned around in the saddle and looked at Hawkins blocking the narrow path behind and James, Encizo and Manning in the rocks above.
“Well, English. You and your…four men?” Khan shook his head sadly. “Four men, have us surrounded, goddamn.”
“Goddamn bloody right we do.” McCarter nodded. “Now I’m going to count to five, and you and your men had better be dismounted and disarmed.”
Khan stared incredulously.
“One,” McCarter announced.
“Crazy Eng—”
There was no “Two.” Phoenix Force cut loose.
Each man save McCarter held a South African 40 mm Milkor revolving grenade launcher. They hammered off three quick rounds into the horsemen. The grenades broke apart into multiple bomblets as they hit the ground, skipping and hissing beneath the horses’ hooves. Khan’s horsemen struggled to control their rearing mounts. McCarter fired his M-203 into the ground directly in front of Khan and stepped back behind his boulder as his grenade flipped apart. He stripped off his fringed scarf and prudently pulled his gas mask over his face.
Automatic weaponsfire erupted all along the mountain path, but Phoenix Force had already dropped back behind cover. McCarter jacked a rubber baton round into his M-203 as he stepped out from behind his boulder.
Yellow marking smoke flooded the gorge in thick clouds. In the saffron haze the rocky landscape looked like the surface of Venus. Had McCarter not been wearing a gas mask he would have found the atmosphere almost as hostile. Beneath the burning smell of the smoke element for a split second he might have detected the more subtle odor of pepper and apple blossoms as CN/DM gas mixture blossomed unseen in the yellow fog.
McCarter put Gotron Khan in his sights.
The Goat leaned forward and threw up on his horse’s head.
CN/DM mixture was known colloquially as “Super Tear Gas.” It had all the tearing and burning effect of military-strength CN with the fun and frolic of vomit gas. It temporarily blinded and burned the eyes and throat, and at the same time sent the gastrointestinal track and the colon into spasm.
Horses were happily immune to the effect.
They weren’t immune to being regurgitated on by their riders, and they were instantly aware that their masters were no longer in control of them or themselves. Horsemen spilled to the ground as they were bucked spewing from their mounts. Phoenix Force had risen from cover. The 40 mm Milkors thudded in their hands as they emptied their remaining three chambers into the ambush.
CN/DM was rated as a nonlethal riot control agent, but it was toxic in high enough concentrations, and a man who was choking and vomiting at the same time could drown as he swallowed his lunch into his lungs.
A few of Khan’s men who were still mounted fired their guns blindly into the hillside. The sound of gunfire was enough for their horses to renew their bucking and send their riders to the ground. Gotron Khan remained in the saddle. He’d lost his rifle but his razor-sharp Cossack sword rasped from its sheath. He put spurs to his horse and charged, weeping and drooling to stab at McCarter where he stood.
McCarter triggered the M-203 and the grenade launcher thumped. The solid rubber baton round was the size of a shotglass and hit Khan in the chest at 85 meters per second. Remarkably the warlord remained in the saddle. He drunkenly raised his saber for the killing blow. Froth flew from the horse’s mouth as it raced to trample McCarter.
The Briton stepped to starboard to avoid the saber and cracked the extruded aluminum butt of his carbine across the horse’s muzzle. The stallion screamed as it sailed past shaking its head and bucking its hindquarters five feet in the air. Khan catapulted out of the saddle, flying, arms outstretched, until gravity brought him to the ground in a pinwheel of limbs.
McCarter put a knee in the warlord’s back and hog-tied him with plastic riot-cuffs. “The Goat is secure. T.J.?”
Hawkins held up the lead rope to the string of mules. “I have the packages.”
The Phoenix Force leader nodded. “Calvin, give me a head count and sitrep.”
Khan’s men were down in retching agony. Phoenix Force strode among them in their gasmasks and did a quick search. They kicked away weapons and buttstroked anyone who tried to rise with their Barrett rifles.
James was kneeling beside one of the prostrate horsemen. “All forty accounted for.”
“Situation?”
“We hit them with twenty grenades. That’s a high concentration. This one here had an allergic reaction to the gas and was going into anaphylactic shock. I hit him with epinephrine and he’s stabilized.” The ex-SEAL medic gazed upward. The clouds of yellow marking smoke were breaking up. “But the wind is around fifteen knots and we’re getting rapid dispersal. Their bodies should detoxify the agent in thirty minutes, but they’re going to be messed up with nausea, shortness of breath, physical weakness and possible mental depression for the next twenty-four hours. They won’t be following us anytime soon. I’m willing to leave them as is.”
“Aces.” McCarter slung Khan over his shoulder. “Gary, what have we got?”
Manning was over by the mules. The big Canadian had unwrapped one of the carpets and was staring at the contents. “The Goat wasn’t lying. He’s got great big cucumbers all right.”
McCarter approached and heaved Khan over a spare mule. Manning was the demolition expert of the team, but the Briton knew what he was staring at. The gray-green metal casing was roughly the size of a suitcase. Manning had flipped open a small control panel in one corner and he was examining the small bank of knobs and numeric dials.
Gotron Khan was transporting Russian nuclear demolition charges.
“You have a make and model?”
“It’s hard to make out with these goggles on.” Manning scanned the serial numbers along the side. “But this is definitely Soviet-era stuff. By the construction I’d say they were manufactured in the 1980s. They’re dial-a-yield, anywhere from one to ten kilotons depending on the job.”
“Right, let’s wrap this up. Gather your weapons and grab your rucks. I want to be out of here in five minutes and at the primary extraction site in an hour.” McCarter pulled his wandering-frequency satellite phone and deployed the chunky L-shaped black antenna. “Jack, we require extraction. We’ll be at the primary extraction sight in sixty minutes.”
Stony Man’s ace pilot was stationed at the NATO coalition base in Kholm, Afghanistan. “I’ll be there in forty-five.”
“Roger that.” McCarter hit a button on his phone. “Stony Base, this is Phoenix One. Over.”
“Phoenix One, this is Stony Base.” Mission controller Barbara Price was eight thousand miles away in the Stony Man War Room in Virginia, but her voice was as clear as a bell. “What is your mission status?”
“All four packages retrieved, and we have the Goat. We’re moving to primary extraction site. Extraction estimate one hour.”
There was a long pause on the other side of the line. “Please repeat, Phoenix One. Did you say four packages?”
David McCarter’s stomach went cold. He knew it had been too easy. “Affirmative, Base. Four packages. One special guest.”
Several moments passed before Barbara Price spoke again. “Phoenix One, we have a problem.”
CHAPTER TWO
Oval Office, Washington, D.C.
“Six nukes?” The President of the United States wasn’t pleased.
“Nuclear demolition charges, sir,” Hal Brognola corrected. He wasn’t happy, either.
“Demolition charges?” The President frowned. “You mean, backpack nukes.”
“No, sir.” General Jack Harper Hayes was the top military man on the President’s cabinet. The wiry little man seemed almost too short to be a general, but he had started his military career as a combat engineer and he knew a few things about blowing stuff sky-high. “He means nuclear demolition charges. They’re used to blowing things up.”
The President raised a droll eyebrow. “So I gathered.”
“What I mean is, sir, a nuclear demolition charge is not strictly a weapon. Its yield is low, generally between three to ten kilotons. No one has ever used one in combat but its typical purpose would be to destroy a very large or hard target, like a dam or an underground bunker or even to dig a giant hole if you needed one. We contemplated using them in Afghanistan to drop the tunnel complexes in Tora Bora, but the Joint Chiefs decided that although the nuclear fallout would have been nil, the political fallout of the United States being perceived to be using nukes would have been disastrous. So we went in the old-fashioned way.”
General Hayes gazed off into the middle distance a moment. “The old-fashioned way” had changed over the years. In Vietnam the then Private Hayes had been the smallest man in his platoon and been “volunteered” to crawl down into the Vietcong tunnels and clear them out.
In Afghanistan they had lit up the tunnel entrances with fuel-air explosives that sent massive blast waves down the tunnels and then hit them from above with deep-penetrating guided bombs before heavily armed and armored Army Rangers had gone in wearing night-vision equipment and hurling tear gas ahead of them.
In Vietnam, Hayes had been sent down alone with a flashlight, a .45 and a knife.
The President nodded. “So you’re saying it’s a giant satchel charge.”
“Indeed, sir,” the general agreed. “An excellent metaphor.”
“But a ten-kiloton satchel charge, nevertheless, and two of them seem to be missing.”
“That does seem to be the situation.” Hayes gazed at Brognola as he said it. The general clearly thought Delta Force could have wrapped things up quite nicely, and like a number of military men before him, he was extremely curious as to why there was a man from the Justice Department in the room, much less why the big Fed seemed to be one of the key people in control of the operation.
The President shrugged at Brognola. “Hal?”
“We got the word from British MI-6 two hours ago. They have a contact in one of the Russian arsenals. He confirms the count is now six. We retrieved four of them in the Zervashan Mountains forty-five minutes ago. We have to assume the other two are taking a different route out of Tajikistan.”
“And we have no idea as to that route?”
“No, sir, we don’t. However, the team took a high-priority prisoner and they have hopes of getting some useful intelligence out of him.”
The President scowled deeply. Both rightly and wrongly, the United States reputation for fair and humane treatment of prisoners had been tarnished in recent times. “That had better be done by the book or not all, Hal.”
General Hayes chewed his lip. “I hate to suggest this, Mr. President, but we don’t have time to ship this guy to Guantanamo and go through normal procedures.”
The President stared at Hayes bluntly. “You’re suggesting torture.”
“I’m suggesting, sir, that while the yield is low and the fallout minimal, a nuclear demolition detonated above ground in an urban center would result in thousands of casualties.” Hayes let out a heavy sigh. “And I’m suggesting we have contacts in that region. Allies with less scruples than ourselves.”
“So…” The President steepled his fingers and looked into a very ugly place. “We wash our hands and let someone else do our dirty work.”
Brognola met the President’s gaze. “Sir, the team currently has the man in custody. They have been in this situation before and produced results in manners your predecessors found acceptable. Give them an hour.”
“An hour?” Both the President and the general stared at Brognola in shock.
The Justice man nodded. “They have very…forceful personalities.”
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
GOTRON KHAN WAS nervous. He had every right to be. The warlord was tied to a chair in a cellar, facing five of the most dangerous men on Earth. Khan sat beneath the single bare bulb and sweated while Phoenix Force stared at him, as silent as headstones. The criminal swallowed with difficulty and screwed up his courage. “I want a lawyer.”
The men of Phoenix Force regarded him like a bug.
“I have been exposed to illegal war gas and wish medical treatment…and an interview with Red Cross representative.”
Calvin James leaned against the wall with his arms folded. “You hungry, Khan?”
“I…” Gotron winced. His body had detoxified the CN/DM gas in his bloodstream, but he was still green around the gills and the violent stomach spasms he’d endured left him hunched and beaten as if he’d gone ten rounds out of his weight class. “I think n—”
“How about a nice, cold, greasy pork sandwich?” James suggested.
Khan paled.
“Mmm, tallowy.” James Calvin sighed. “With a nice, tall, cool glass of olive oil with a butter floater to wash it down and—”
The sweat sheening Khan’s brow began to run in bullets.
Hawkins shook his head at Calvin. “You are one sick dude.”
Gotron Khan was the man who was sick. The warlord was as white as a sheet.
McCarter gazed down at Khan condemningly. “Where are the rest of the nukes?”
“I…don’t…” Khan gasped.
McCarter pulled a spent grenade casing out of a ditty bag and wafted it in front of Khan. A hint of apple blossom and pepper was discernable in the close confines of the cellar. Khan made a gobbling noise as his stomach spasmed in recognition of the scent. It was said that fatigue made cowards out of all men, but pain and fatigue could be endured through training, personal toughness and willpower.
Chemically induced nausea leveled the playing field, and Adamsite gas would bring Superman to his knees.
Gotron Khan shook like a man who had spent a bad eight days sailing the North Sea in winter and had been told he was going back out.
“No…” Khan gasped. “N-no, please, I…”
McCarter held the spent casing a little closer to Khan’s nose. “Where.”
“I…cannot tell you.”
McCarter spun on his heel. “Gas him again.”
Gary Manning slipped a grenade out of his jacket and pulled the pin.
Khan shrieked. “No!”
The big Canadian kept his thumb on the cotter lever and raised an eyebrow at McCarter. The Englishman turned and stared down at Khan implacably. “Where?”
“I do not know, but—”
“But you might know someone who does?” McCarter suggested helpfully.
Khan’s eyes were riveted in horror at the cylindrical grenade in Manning’s hand. “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps you’re about to puke so hard you’re going to bring up your bloody shoes.”
“No!” Khan’s eyes rolled in revulsion and terror.
“Or perhaps not.” McCarter shrugged noncommittally. “It’s up to you.”
“I—” Khan scuttled back as far as his restraints would let him as the Englishman loomed over him.
“Khan.” McCarter peered deeply into the man eyes. “I really want you to get this right.”
U.S. Embassy, Dushanbe
PHOENIX FORCE SAT in an arc around a titanium laptop attached to a satellite link. David McCarter checked his watch. “The lad’s late.”
T.J. Hawkins walked in on cue. He held an ice bucket loaded with drinks and set them on the table with a frown. “Explain to me how I became manservant for this chickenshit outfit, again?”
“Because you’re the youngest.” Calvin James reached over and snagged a beer. The lanky black man grinned. “And it would be politically incorrect for me or Rafe to do it.”
Hawkins considered for a half second suggesting Manning get up off his dead ass, but the big Canadian had put his feet up on the table and apparently was waiting for it with a smile on his face. Hawkins let that one die on the vine.
“T.J.?” McCarter pulled a bottle out of the bucket and frowned. “What is this?”
“Uh…a Coke?” Hawkins pointed at the wasp-waisted, fluted-glass bottle defiantly. “Look at that shape.”
McCarter stared at Hawkins unblinkingly. “It’s diet.”
Hawkins stared at the bottle. Aside from the Coca-Cola logo it was covered with incomprehensible scrawl. “You read Tajikistani?”
“No, Tajikistan doesn’t bottle Coke. They import from bottlers in Russia and the former Soviet states. This is Ukrainian, and diet. You can tell by the gold cap and the Cyrillic writing.”
Hawkins blinked. “You need an intervention.”
McCarter shoved the offending soft drink back into the bucket and pulled out a beer.
“Man…” Hawkins dropped into a chair and cracked himself a Russian brew. “How do I get transferred to Able Team?”
McCarter hit some keys on the computer. “Khan gave us two names.”A picture of a bullet-headed man appeared. His shaved head and his face had uniform-length stubble. His flat black eyes lived up to his nickname. “Here we have Sharypa ‘The Shark’ Sharkov. He’s Russian mafiya, and represents Moscow organized crime interests in Tajikistan. Interpol has a rap sheet on him as long as your arm. Standard provincial mafyia scumbag. He breaks legs, extorts, runs guns and prostitutes, and sends a piece to Moscow.”
“First we get ‘The Goat’ and now ‘The Shark’?” Rafe snorted in amusement. “All we need are Camelboy and the Limpet and we’ll have our own bad-guy petting zoo.”
McCarter hit another key. A disturbingly handsome man appeared on the screen. His black wavy hair was pulled into a short ponytail and his Vandyke made him look like Satan in an Armani suit. “This is Aidar Zhol, our local boy. He doesn’t have an animal nickname. He is an animal. Name a law of nature and he’s broken it. He likes the high life, likes gambling and spends a lot of time in Moscow. If you’re a Russian general or high-ranking politician and you want a beautiful, virgin Tajik girl fresh from the hills for your rape room, Zhol’s the man you see. He also owns a piece of any Afghani heroin that comes through the capital and owns the only casino in town. If you’re transporting nukes through Tajikistan, it’s a good bet Sharkov and Zhol at least know about it if they aren’t actually extracting a safe-passage fee. We have two devices unaccounted for. I’m betting either one or both of them have them or at least know which way they went.”
James took a long pull on his beer. “Russian nukes don’t just go missing. Someone has to deliberately misplace them.”
McCarter nodded. “MI-6 has an informant who broke the news about the nukes. There’s no doubt a Russian general had to be involved. The question is, which one? If these were actually nuclear warheads, we could narrow the selection down to officers of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, but these are nuclear demolition charges. They aren’t governed by any treaty and several Russian military branches have their own small stockpiles, so tracking our wayward general is going to be tough on the Farm’s end.”
Hawkins leaned back in his chair. “So we’re going to have to find him starting from the gutter up. Typical.”
James echoed the sentiment. “Tell me we have some kind of in with these guys.”
“We just might,” McCarter stated.
James didn’t like the smile on the Englishman’s face. “Shit…”
“That’s right. Our in just might be you.” McCarter clicked more keys. A black man with a shaved head appeared on the screen. His powerful physique strained his immaculately tailored blue-silk suit. To the trained eye it was clear that he was wearing a pistol beneath his jacket. He sat at a table with a beautiful, grinning blonde under his left arm while a second leaned over his shoulder laughing. A massive diamond adorned one ear. Dozens more glittered on the gold rings on his fingers and the custom Rolex Submariner on his wrist.
Sitting next to him was Aidar Zhol. They both had their arms over each other’s shoulders and were smiling happily into the camera.
“That is Clayborne Forbes.” McCarter hit another button and the same man appeared staring forward, iron-jawed and stern, wearing the dress white cap and blue jacket of the United States Navy. Service ribbons adorned his chest. “Lieutenant Clayborne Forbes. Former United States Navy SEAL. A year ago he was on operations in Afghanistan. His tour was up and he declined to reenlist. Honorably discharged. The last that was heard of him was that he was an independent contractor in Afghanistan for one of the stateside security companies.”
“And now the brother is dripping in blondes and bling in Tajikistan.” James shook his head. “Bodyguard?”
“Ostensibly. The name Navy SEAL has a hell of a lot of cache. Having a man like Forbes for a bodyguard would certainly enhance Zhol’s reputation,” McCarter stated. “But the Farm figures he’s probably a hell of a lot more than that. In the past year most of Zhol’s competition has wound up dead. Now, I’ll grant you, what with the civil wars, ethnic in-fighting, separatist movements, Russian mafiya and Muslim extremists, the former Soviet South Asian states are the wild, wild west. But Zhol’s enemies aren’t dying in the usual drive-by bloodbaths or car bombings, they’re—”
“They’re getting ghosted,” James concluded. “SEAL style.”
“That is the current conclusion we’re working with.”
“I don’t like pulling the race card, David.” James’s eyes went hard. “But I don’t like being sent to hunt my own, know what I’m saying?”
“I can understand that, but we’re talking about a man aiding and abetting in heroin trafficking and selling little girls. There’s also the matter of two loose nuclear demolition charges. And if his name was Nigel Ian Smythe and former SAS, I’d be the one going in.”
James let out a long breath. “I hear you.”
“Zhol’s casino is called the Silk Road. When he’s in town he lives in the penthouse. Intelligence says Zhol is in town. It’s Friday night, so he’ll probably be in the house and Forbes should be with him. We need to arrange a meet-and-greet.”
McCarter gazed around the table. “Any suggestions?”
CHAPTER THREE
The game was Texas Hold’em. Calvin James was winning, and winning big. He stared coolly into the smoldering eyes of his remaining opponent. Everyone else had folded and it was James’s deal. The man in front of him was heavy-shouldered and wore a poorly tailored suit of local manufacture, and a short turban.
The man was a maniac.
In poker a maniac was a hyperaggressive player who raised, bet and bluffed big pots whether he had a great hand or nothing at all. A genuine maniac wasn’t a good player, though he or she could often dominate a timid table. Players who occasionally played maniac to confuse their opponents were quite dangerous.
James’s opponent was positively psycho.
The game had attracted a crowd. The Silk Road mostly attracted Russian businessmen and local women who were ready to be relieved of their hard-earned currency. A smattering of diplomats and ex-patriots rounded out the clientele. Onlookers gasped as the man in the turban shoved chips forward to the tune of ten thousand dollars. He leaned in and thrust out his jaw, daring James to match it. It was a form of tell, or a habit that gave away the strength of another player’s hand. The most amateur forms of tells involved leaning. People unconsciously leaned forward and projected aggressiveness when they were bluffing. By the same token they leaned back with unconscious relief when they were dealt a strong hand.
Psycho Boy might as well have put a neon sign over his head.
James’s piles of chips tinkled and spilled as he shoved ten thousand dollars forward. “Call.”
The maniac turned over his cards to reveal two pair, aces and eights, the Dead Man’s Hand.
James turned over his cards. “Four ducks.”
The man in the turban started stupidly at the four deuces on the table. James had cleaned him out, and reached for the pot. “Nice playing with y—”
“Cheat.”
The immediate environment around the table went dead silent. The man looked up from the cards with murder in his eyes. “You cheat.”
“Listen.” James held up both hands in peace. “I—”
“Blackie…cheat.” The man was literally vibrating with rage. “Every time you deal, you win.”
James took a calming breath. “Friend, you—”
“Cheating negro,” the man declared.
A mountainous pair of bouncers began moving toward the table.
James’s fist closed around his drink. “You know, not my country, not my house, not my cards. I don’t speak the language. Hell, I’m not even that good a player. I’m just lucky.”
“Luck!” The man spit the word.
“Yeah.” James leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Lucky to be sitting across from a loser like you.”
The man froze.
James took a dainty sip of his gin and waggled his eyebrows over his glass insultingly.
“Bismillah!” The man erupted from his seat. He screamed incoherently and grabbed the edge of the table. The crowd screamed as he heaved the poker table upward, flipping it over and sending chips and cards flying. “I kill!” the man shrieked. “Kill you!”
The bouncers descended, trying to smother the irate gambler with shear weight. The man in the turban seemed awkward, but his fist flew into one bouncer’s jaw and dropped him like he’d been shot. The other bouncer reached to grab the frothing man and was scooped up into a fireman’s carry, airplane spun and sent flying across the craps table. Furniture shattered and patrons ran screaming in all directions.
The demented gambler advanced on James, his fingers curled into claws. “Kill you! K—!”
James rose from his chair and flicked his wrist, sending two ounces of gin into his attacker’s eyes. Before the man could even react to the stinging liquor, the Phoenix Force commando’s fist pistonned three times in chopping right-hand leads. The first blow snapped the man’s head back. On the second, he turned his wrist over and jammed his thumb into the notch between the maniac’s collarbones. The man had no time to gasp as his throat compressed because the third punch took him in the solar plexus.
The turbaned man made a sucking noise and went pale. James grabbed him by his shoulder and spun him, seizing him by his collar and the back of his pants. He marched the blinking and wheezing man past cringing patrons to the front of the building.
He whispered in the maniac’s ear, “Sorry about this, Rafe.”
Encizo’s eyes rolled and drool came from one corner of his bloody mouth, but his voice was very quiet and lucid amid the chaos in casino. “No problem, amigo—”
James took two lunging steps for momentum and flung Encizo through the smoked-glass double doors. People outside the casino screamed as the Cuban flew to the pavement in a cascade of glass. He rolled to a stop and lay bleeding on the sidewalk.
“Punk,” James announced as he made a show of wiping his hands.
The cocktail waitresses were still screaming and casino patrons shouted in consternation. A pair of Indian businessmen stood clapping their hands delightedly at the show.
James smiled and took a bow.
Shotguns racked behind him. He put up his hands and very slowly turned. Clayborne Forbes was pointing a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver at his face. The weapon was a custom job, a product of the Smith & Wesson Performance Center. Its frame was made of titanium while the barrel and cylinder were stainless steel. James could clearly see the extra pair of holes that turned the revolver into an eight-shooter and the ugly lead cavities of the hollowpoints it had been stuffed with. For the average human, firing a Magnum with a two-inch barrel would be problematic at best.
Forbes didn’t look as though he’d have any problems.
He was even bigger in person, six-foot-four and built like an NFL tight end. His huge hand engulfed the grips of his pistol. Two more bloated, bearded bouncers flanked him, armed with enormous, 23 mm Russian KS-23, folding-stock shotguns.
“Well, goddamn.” Forbes blinked at James in surprise. Black men weren’t exactly common in Tajikistan. He lowered his revolver slightly. “You African or American?”
“African American.” James smiled. “Chicago, south-side born and raised.”
“No shit?” Forbes jerked his head toward a steel security door at the far end of the casino. “Follow me, Chicago.” He nodded at the bouncers. “Mukhtar, Askar, a round of drinks on the house and get this shit cleaned up, and find the brother’s chips.”
The two men lowered their shotguns and began shouting at the cocktail waitresses and the busboys. James followed Forbes into a standard casino security suite with banks of monitors watching the action at every table. Three security men stared up from their screens at James in open curiosity.
Forbes sighed. “Gonna have to relieve you of that piece.”
James nodded and reached under his jacket. He drew his Heckler & Koch P-9 from the concealed small-of-the-back holster he wore and handed it over. Forbes took in the big .45’s rakish lines appreciatively. “Nice.”
Forbes’s gleaming revolver rose to James’s face and the cylinder full of gaping, 125-grain hollowpoints turned as Forbes cocked back the hammer. “Now, you want to tell me what you’re doing in my crib? Or do I call in Mukhtar and Askar and have them squash it out of you?”
James leaned back slightly from the .357’s muzzle and held up his hands. “Heard a rumor a brother was getting ahead up north and came to see for myself.”
“Now that’s the kind of rumor that can get your ass killed. You—” Forbes suddenly stared at the ring on James’s finger. It was gold and carved with an eagle holding a trident and an anchor. It was the symbol of the United States Navy SEAL. Forbes’s face went flat. “If that ain’t for real, I’m going to cut it off you at the wrist.”
James grinned delightedly at a similar ring on Forbes’s gun hand. “Oh, man, you’re shitting me!”
The security men stared uncomprehendingly as the two men began a sudden, rapid exchange of Navy SEAL–speak involving teams, operations, mutually known naval officers and the halcyon days of BUDS, or basic underwater demolitions/SEAL student training.
After about five minutes of family reunion, Forbes holstered his pistol. “Well, fuck me running. Calvin James, you know I think I might even have heard of you at a SEAL meet or two.”
It was entirely possible. James and Forbes were two different generations of SEAL, but the United States Navy SEALs were a small, tightly knit community and African-Americans an even tinier minority within them. SEAL meets were get-togethers where SEALs past and present met to swap stories and gossip, engage in miniature SEAL-style Olympic events and down enormous quantities of alcohol.
“Man, they say you just up and disappeared one day, went all spooky. Got recruited by a special operations group or some other kind of top-secret black ops shit. Dropped off the Earth.”
The best lies were told by omission and cradled in truth. “That is a fact.”
Forbes handed James back his pistol. “And you came all the way here just to see my sweet ass? I mean, I know I’m pretty…” Forbes left his doubt hanging between them.
“I was retired for a while, and I really didn’t care for it. Then the Man asked if I would like to reenlist for the War on Terror. I took a year contract, the coin was decent, but I heard the private work was better. Hired on with Knight Securities to help train their newbies.”
“Heard of them,” Forbes acknowledged.
“But I got all nostalgic and shit, and decided I wanted to see some action.”
“Always a mistake.”
“Don’t I know it.” James shrugged. “So I hit the dirt in Iraq. Hadn’t been there in years. It was still 115 degrees in the shade, still infested with sand fleas and a brother still couldn’t get a piece of ass to save his life, but the car bombings, private security boys being dragged and hung from bridges and the hostage beheading? That shit was new. I didn’t dig it, so I went to Afghanistan. Lot of guys were making money in the private sector over there, double or more than what Uncle Sam was paying. Then one day in Kabul, I heard that rumor about a brother living large in Tajikistan. Sounded so crazy it had to be true.” James opened his hands, taking in the cut of Forbes’s suit and the diamonds and gold dripping from his hands. “And here you are.”
Forbes frowned. “You sayin’ you came here for a job?”
“You hiring?” James countered.
Forbes’s laughter rumbled in his chest. “Well, now, I’ll tell you. I got this town shit-scared. These Tajiks never seen a soul brother, much less soul brother SEAL. Shit, two of us? We could take this whole cracker-barrel country for every last somoni they got.
“Somoni?”
“Yeah, it’s the currency they replaced the Russian ruble with around here.” Forbes shook his head. “I wipe my ass with it.” He dug into his pocket and held up a gold money clip thick with U.S. one-hundred-dollar bills. “The good news is this gig pays in long, cool green.”
One of the security men nodded respectfully at the big man. “Mr. Forbes.”
One of the monitors showed Encizo lurching to his feet. His turban was askew and his eyes rolled dazedly.
Forbes lifted his chin. “You want me to jack him up?”
“I already did.” James flashed his smile. “And I took him for 10 K.”
Encizo staggered away into downtown Dushanbe, bleeding and mumbling.
“Well, brother, I feel the love. I surely do.” Forbes loomed forward. “But you are going to need references, and then you are going to have to meet the Man.”
“CALVIN’S IN.” McCarter confirmed.
“Excellent.” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman said over the satellite link. “How did the initial insertion go?”
McCarter looked across the table to where Encizo sat holding a chemical ice pack against his lumped and purpled jaw. “Smoothly.”
Kurtzman’s brow furrowed at McCarter across the Web cam. “He’s not wearing a wire, is he?”
“Calvin said to get the love he’s got to show the love, and with a SEAL running security, wearing a wire would be suicide. I agreed with him. T.J. is watching the casino and will engage in a loose tail when he emerges. Rafe and I are ready to move on word go, and Jack has a helicopter hot on the pad with a full war load at the Dushanbe airport. Any other action is Calvin’s call.”
Kurtzman scratched his beard. “You know you’ve put that man out on a limb.”
“The good news is that he has the best cover in the world, and that is his cover isn’t a cover. He is who he says he is. The head honcho over at Knight Securities is a former SEAL, knows Calvin and was happy to back up his private contract story. Anything else Calvin can ad-lib as the situation warrants. Also, Special Forces groups are clannish, thick as thieves. Forbes is a United States Navy SEAL, and he’s got to be as giddy as a schoolboy to suddenly have a fellow SEAL as a partner in crime. On the criminal front, Forbes has done yeoman’s work decimating Zhol’s enemies, so Zhol has every reason to want to double his fun.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“You get paid not to like it, Bear, and we appreciate that.”
Kurtzman sighed. “When does Calvin have his interview with Zhol?”
McCarter glanced at his watch. “He should be meeting the man as we speak.”
“AN AMERICAN SEAL?” Aidar Zhol’s eyes looked Calvin James up and down. The crime lord sat in the casino office. The walls were covered with crushed-red velvet. His thronelike chair was red leather, and the wood of his desk and the carpet matched. Zhol was dressed from head to toe in black. He sat in his blood-red room, draping himself elegantly across his chair, and looked positively satanic.
“Man, did you see the security tape of him whipping that deadbeat’s ass?” Forbes waved a hand. “What else could he be? Besides, I’ve checked his references. He’s who he says he is.”
“Indeed, I do not doubt you.” Zhol leaned back in his chair. His deep voice and accent made him sound like Dracula. “Though he seems a bit small to be a bouncer.”
“I’m not suggesting you hire him as a bouncer, and you aren’t thinking it.” Forbes leaned his massive frame against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “The brother has skills, know what I’m saying?”
Zhol lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “As good as yours?”
“Well, he is old-school SEAL,” Forbes conceded with a grin. “But I can bring him up to speed.”
Zhol’s eyes were unreadable. “And you, Mr. James. What kind of employment are you looking for?”
“Well, like Clay said. I am old school. I gotta start thinking about my retirement. Now, I got some money squirreled away, and I can always sit my ass behind a desk at a security firm. For that matter I’ve got that Navy pension waiting for me. But you know?” James shook his head in disgust. “Fuck that shit. I’m thinking I want to shrivel up and die someplace warm, with a beach and a boat and a lot of willing señoritas as a comfort in my old age. That’ll take some investment money. Honestly? I came up here looking for some fat paychecks.”
A slinky cocktail waitress entered the office with a loaded tray. Her hair was so black and her skin so pale she looked like a vampire. Her lips were blood-red against her complexion. Her dark eyes slid up and down James in a very friendly fashion as she handed him a gin and tonic. Forbes lifted an immense snifter of brandy from the tray and a cigar from an open box. Zhol took mint tea from a gold cup and an unfiltered Turkish cigarette between his little and ring fingers. The girl lit their smokes. One corner of her lips quirked upward and she gave James a lingering look before swiftly disappearing.
Zhol let out a long stream of blue smoke toward the overhead lighting. “So, tell me, Mr. James, what are you willing to do for me?”
“Well, I’d rather not run drugs or pimp little girls. But I still have a few skills.” He sipped his gin. “Tell me, Mr. Zhol. You have enemies?”
Zhol smiled at Forbes. “Significantly fewer than I once had.”
“The law of business is to expand or be swallowed up. You strike me as an expansionist. I have no doubt you’ll be making new enemies, and encountering new problems.” James had kept his attitude relaxed, but he was a trained Special Forces soldier. Such men were a breed apart. Having joined Phoenix Force, he was now the elite of the elite, and one of the most dangerous men on Earth. He let that intensity show through as he stared deep into Zhol’s eyes. “Both of which I can make disappear.”
“Shee-it!” Forbes’s smile lit up the room as he pointed at James, recognizing the eye of the tiger. “I told you, Mr. Zhol. I told you. Just look at that beautiful man. You put me and him together? We could take goddamn Moscow.” Forbes became serious again. “And we have current projects, and we have run into problems. This man would be a fucking force-multiplier, guaranteed.”
Zhol didn’t blink as he stared into James’s eyes. The Phoenix Force commando saw the sociopath behind the flat black eyes and knew the man was a killer. Zhol’s eyes slit almost imperceptibly in decision.
“Mr. Forbes, give Mr. James ten thousand dollars. He will room with you in your suite until we find him his own place. We are on a swift timetable, and you will indeed need to bring him up to speed. However…” Zhol suddenly smiled disarmingly. “Bermet found you pleasing, Mr. James. Did you like her?”
“The Goth girl?” James sat up in his chair. “Oh, hell yes.”
Zhol nodded at Forbes. “Tell Bermet Mr. James’s door will be open to her tonight if she so desires. Tell her she might wish to bring along her friends Dariga and Tatiana.” Zhol shrugged at Calvin. “They’re twins.”
James blinked. “Really.”
Zhol rose and extended his hand. “Have a pleasant evening, Mr. James.” He smiled as they shook hands. “I look forward to a profitable association.”
“Man…” Forbes put a massive hand on James’s shoulder and nodded as Zhol left the office. “I told you this was a good gig.”
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
