Doom Prophecy

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

“Anytime,” Lyons responded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“From where?” Manning asked.

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

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

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

“The original Cassandra?” Brognola asked.

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

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

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

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

Brognola glared at Lyons out of one eye.

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

Brognola grumbled and shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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