Deadly Payload

“Too many to count,” Price answered. She pinched her brow between her eyes and sighed. “You’d think they’d learn by now.”

“The bad guys go with what works,” Kurtzman said. “And we keep stopping them cold, so the world’s leaders don’t get a chance to learn any better.”

“Check on that transmission from Panama. Home in on it,” Price ordered. “I’ve got to make sure that we can keep our government from misbehaving.”

“My eyes are wide open,” Kurtzman said, returning to his keyboard.

Price left the Computer Room and headed to her office. She picked up her phone and began conferring with her contacts in the CIA and NSA, making certain that the word got out about the uncertain origins of the Chinese submarine video. Both agencies confirmed Kurtzman’s findings, though it took some cajoling to get their admissions. Intelligence agencies were notoriously tight-lipped about their information, even among their own departments. Price’s contacts, however, were people she knew when she worked for NSA, and they shared a mutual respect. While the Department of Homeland Defense had been devised to eliminate jurisdictional disputes and information smoke stacking, the reality was that petty rivalries often strangled the flow of intelligence between those who needed to know.

Price’s hot line rang and she picked up. It was Hal Brognola.

“What’s happening, Hal?” she asked.

“The president is working on building a case for Beijing not to take action against Taiwan. Information from the CIA, NSA and the U.S. Navy has given him enough counterindication to work on, but it’s not going to be too easy,” Brognola said. There was a short pause. “Good work.”

“Sometimes intelligence and logic can prevail,” Price replied. The past few hours of wheeling and dealing over the phone had left her with a throbbing headache, but relief flooded her after hearing Brognola’s news. “What about the other fires on?”

“FARC has stepped up action, making it difficult for Colombia and Venezuela to step down. Both sides are on full alert, and it’s hard to tell the difference between terrorist activity and legitimate military action,” Brognola explained. “The National Reconnaissance Office’s notes are that northern and central America are pretty heavily masked. Electronic surveillance is difficult, and orbital cameras are being obscured by all the smoke from Maracaibo.”

“I got the same from Aaron,” Price answered. “We’re doing our best, though, and Able is on the ground.”

“If anyone can shake answers loose, it’s Carl,” Brognola admitted. “Keep in touch with him.”

“I suppose we don’t have to worry about any more international incidents with all this going on,” she said with a sigh. Price checked her screen and received McCarter’s report on the meet in Lebanon. She saw the postscript, and as usual, the men of Phoenix Force demonstrated knowledge and political awareness. The report came in just minutes before the video on the Chinese submarine, and McCarter had voiced concerns about the conspiracy they were in conflict with attempting to spur tensions over Taiwan.

“David can be scary sometimes,” Price murmured.

“Don’t tell me that. I’ve driven with him,” Brognola quipped.

“I mean, he and the others were concerned about China being the next hot spot the drones hit,” Price corrected him.

Brognola clucked his tongue. “Oh, that. Last time I checked, the average IQ of the members of Phoenix was around genius level.”

“Dummies don’t last long in field operations,” Price replied. “I’ll see if there’s anything new on the Chinese front, and see if there’s any breakthrough in Panama.”

“I’ll brief the President on what you’re sending me,” Brognola replied. “He’s headed to New York to speak with the United Nations.”

“Talk about tap dancing on thin ice,” Price remarked. “After the world accused the U.S. of overreacting to Iraq, the President calling for cool heads…”

“There’s no other choice, Barb. Either we get the world to put its sabers down and look for the real cause, or World War Three hits,” Brognola told her. “It’s world-saving time again. And we can’t screw up.”

“I know, Hal,” Price answered. “We’re on it.”

“Never doubted that,” Brognola replied. He hung up.

C ARL L YONS CROUCHED , the SIG 551 Masterkey cradled across his knees as he peered through the foliage at a pickup wending its way across a dirt road. The back was covered with a tarp, and two dirt bikes with submachine-gun-armed riders rolled parallel to it. Two more dirt bikes snarled into view, coming from the direction that Able Team had marched from.

“They’ll know we got out of the SUV,” Susana Arquillo whispered to the Able Team leader.

Lyons nodded toward the riders. “They have radios, so they’ll have reported the lack of corpses back at the drop-off.”

Arquillo looked up. The thick tree canopy overhead blocked the sky, but with some forms of imaging, they might as well have been hiding under clear plastic wrap. Her lips were drawn tight.

“Nothing in the air.” Schwarz consoled her. “We’re okay for now.”

“They won’t have to send aerial scouts for us,” Blancanales countered. “They know they’re our targets. If we’re not charred skeletons in a burned-out vehicle, then we’re on our way to check them out.”

“We’ll be answered by some serious security, in that case,” Arquillo said.

“Good,” Lyons answered.

“That’s good?” Arquillo quizzed.

“The more protection we run into, the more important the base, and the more answers we’ll get after we crack it open,” Lyons explained.

“That’s Ironman,” Schwarz quipped. “He’s a Pollyanna, looking for a silver lining in every cloud.”

“More like a Silvertip hollowpoint in every .45,” Lyons corrected him. “We’ll stick with the road, but keep to the forest. Pol?”

“I’ll take point,” Blancanales answered, accepting the role. The eldest Able Team member was at home in tropical jungles and could lead the group through the densest of rain forests with nimble ease. Schwarz was a jungle warfare expert, as well, but he was busy monitoring a frequency meter to determine enemy activity and watching for drones being directed toward them. With Schwarz glued to his PDA monitor, it was up to Blancanales to watch for more terrestrial challenges.

The Stony Man warriors and their comrade continued parallel to the road the motorbikes and pickup took for a few minutes when Schwarz gave the hand signal for them to stop cold.

Arquillo and Lyons crouched deeply. The leaves of the canopy were thick overhead, but to some forms of detection, they might as well have been standing on barren tundra.

“Tree trunks, break up our pattern,” Schwarz whispered, crawling into the crooked fingers of a tree’s roots for cover. The others did the same, sweeping leaves and mud over themselves. The ambient temperature of the forest floor would allow the leaves and mud to mask their humanoid heat patterns, however, all the metallic gear they carried would provide enough to lock on with focused radar sweeps. Even the pound of metal in Arquillo’s polymer-framed Glock would register.

Schwarz inwardly hoped that because of the low-cost Chinese electronics in the unmanned drones, that they wouldn’t have the technical capacity to operate a focused beam radar sweep. He doubted it, though. The drones were supposed to be untraceable, but the enemy would undoubtedly want prime-quality gear for the UAVs protecting their home base. He braced his SIG and aimed toward where the PDA’s sensors picked up the drones’ approach, ready to empty a magazine of 5.56 mm NATO rounds into the Predator.

The thrum of engines sounded overhead as the UAVs took up an orbit. There were two of them, Schwarz’s monitor picked them out as they described a lazy circular arc overhead, setting Able Team and their ally perfectly in the middle. The electronics genius scowled.

“Found us,” Schwarz said. He still stayed close to the tree trunk, but the mulch of the forest floor was no longer needed. “But these aren’t armed.”

“The last time they hosed us down from the air, they got bupkis,” Lyons growled. “This time, they want confirmed kills. That means…”

The buzzing snarl of dirt bikes rose to a crescendo in the distance, but then stopped. Blancanales gestured toward where he placed the enemy’s last position. His SIG, equipped with an M-203 grenade launcher, swept the forest.

Lyons squirmed out of most of his gear and laid the SIG Masterkey beside it. The only metal he had left on his person was his combat knife and his Kissinger-tuned 1911 pocket revolver and spare ammunition. It was still a significant amount, but the Able Team leader had been briefed well by Schwarz about the radar capability of the Predator drones. His sheathed magazines, pocketed revolver and battle knife, under radar-absorbent ballistic nylon, would provide a negligible signal for the drone to pick up. He threaded a suppressor onto the barrel of the .45 auto and nodded for the others to do the same.

The implication was clear.

His teammates dumped their gear except for their handguns and knives.

Arquillo was about to do the same, but Lyons shook his head.

“You’re our anchor,” he told her in a low whisper. “I know you’re okay with fighting, but this isn’t going to be self-defense. This is going to be slaughter.”

Arquillo frowned as she gripped her .45. “I can handle myself.”