Act Of War

“Mother of God,” whispered the first officer, lowering his glasses. “Was…that our fish, or the Russian?”

“Who can tell?” the captain retorted, sounding excited and angry at the same time. “Look, there’s the second fish!”

Another submerged object streaked past the bow of the frigate on a divergent course as the two aquatic hunters tried to find each other. Now it was machine vs. machine.

“Bridge, I want a sonar reading,” the first officer said into a hand radio lashed by a cord to his belt.

“Negative, sir,” came the prompt reply. “We’ve got a lot of hissing, but we can’t track where it’s coming from. They’re just too damn fast, sir!”

“Both of them?”

“Aye, sir!”

“Excellent,” the captain said, looking like a kid on Christmas morning.

Moving incredibly fast, the Firelance and the Squall zigzagged around the Atlantic, one of them trying to hit the submerged submarine, the other trying to prevent that very action. Then they were both gone and there was only the choppy waves.

Suddenly there was a tremendous flash of light from deep below, and the cold waters churned as the bubbling explosion rose to the surface. Every sailor on the Harlow cheered in victory at the sight. An explosion meant the Firelance had taken out the Squall! The Russian superkiller had just been defeated!

Maintaining a tight zoom on the churning patch of ocean, the boson frowned as he heard an odd ticking sound from behind, or rather, a sort of clicking. Suspiciously the sailor attempted to keep the video camera still as he glanced over a shoulder at the closed hatches of the missile launcher set into the main deck. The ferruled steel lids on the honeycomb were all tightly closed, but there was the oddest smell and then incredibly he saw fat sparks crackle on the outside of the WE-177 nuclear depth charges sitting in their launch rack. Stunned beyond words, the boson dropped the camera. Impossible! Those weren’t even armed!

A split second later the Harlow was vaporized, the concussion traveling through the water to crush both of the British submarines in the area, the airborne blast also taking out the RAF Harrier jumpjet carrying the Minister of Defence who had wanted to see the live-fire test, but from a supposedly safe distance. Only seconds later, the British spy satellite relayed wire-sharp photos of the destruction to the headquarters for the Ministry of Defence, and the prime minister was immediately alerted. The United Kingdom had just joined the list of nations attacked by the unknown terrorists.

Memphis Airport, Tennessee

W ITH THE WHINE OF controlled hydraulics, the aft ramp of the colossal C-130 Hercules transport slowly lowered to the tarmac with a muffled crash, and a civilian van drove out of the huge airplane, jouncing hard as it make the transition from the sloped ramp to the smooth asphalt.

“Good luck,” the voice of Jack Grimaldi said in the earphones of the men of Able Team.

“Same to you,” Carl “Ironman” Lyons replied, shifting gears and moving away from the secluded landing strip.

As the man drove the van toward an access road running alongside the landing strip, the loading ramp of the Hercules rose upward and closed with a clang.

When the members of Able Team had arrived at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., they had found Grimaldi waiting for them in the Hercules, with their equipment van already loaded and strapped down for an immediate takeoff. En route, the men changed their clothing and reviewed the information of the nuclear detonations while checking over their stores of weaponry. They had to move fast. If the enemy discovered that Professor Gallen was still alive, they would send an army of mercenaries to kill the man. Or worse, some other group would learn about the scientist and kidnap him, bringing a third party into the matter. It was possible that the Stony Man operatives would simply drive into Memphis, find the man, hustle him back to the Hercules and fly off without any trouble. But every second that passed put the odds against them.

“Hit the hotel first?” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz asked, draping a camera around his neck. Then he adjusted the silenced 9 mm Beretta pistol clipped to a breakaway holster on his belt. Taking on the role of a tourists for this assignment, the Stony Man team was casually dressed in loose slacks and loud Hawaiian shirts that perfectly covered the NATO body-armor underneath.

“Nobody stays in their hotel room on a vacation unless they’re sick,” Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales replied from the passenger seat, tucking a .380 Colt pistol snug in a similar holster at the small of his back. “We should hit Graceland. That’s the Mecca for all Elvis fans.”

“Mecca?” Schwarz asked with a wry smile, checking the batteries in a stun gun.

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“We’ll hit the hotel first,” Lyons stated, slowing the van as it headed for a tall wire fence that closed off that end of the Memphis airport. “Best to make sure he’s actually here, before we hit Graceland. If we find the room in disarray with blood on the carpeting, then there’s no sense looking for a corpse already floating in the Mississippi River.”

“Plus, we can leave a bug behind, and lowjack his suitcase,” Schwarz added, tapping the pocket of his shirt. “Just in case we miss him and he tries to run.” Several ordinary-looking pens were clipped there, each of the intricate electronic devices worth more than most cars on the road.

“Readiness is all,” Blancanales agreed, reaching up to slide aside a fake panel in the ceiling to take down a M-16/M-203 combination assault rifle. With expert hands, the former Black Beret made sure the 40 mm grenade launcher was loaded with a gel-pack stun bag. Just in case the professor didn’t want to come along peacefully.

The so-called stun bags were nylon bags filled with soft gelatin pellets. The cartridges held only half-charges, but the nonlethal rounds still hit with enough force to break bones.

“Having a few guns doesn’t hurt, either,” Schwarz agreed, doing the same for his own assault rifle and then preparing the Atchisson autoshotgun for Lyons. The first couple of 12-gauge cartridges in the ammunition drum for the Atchisson were stun bags, the other twenty-four were stainless steel fléchettes. Perfect for blowing down locked doors or cutting a man in two.

When done, Schwarz tucked away the excess ammunition and closed all of the hatches until there was no sign of the arsenal within the ceiling and walls of the Ford Econoline 450. The van was a rolling arsenal of military weapons, and the rear was a compact electronic lab for Schwarz. Hidden compartments were filled with munitions, weapons, cash, clothing, medical supplies and anything else needed for the team out in the field. There were also three large blocks of thermite hidden inside the chassis in case it was necessary for them to destroy the vehicle. Burning at 2,000 Kelvin, the thermite would reduce the armored vehicle to a puddle of molten steel in a matter of seconds. It would be impossible for any police forensic expert to track who, and where, the van had originally come from.

Easing on the brakes, Lyons stopped the vehicle just past the wire fence and Blancanales climbed out to lock the gate behind them. Then the team proceeded toward Interstate 240. The traffic was light, the sky overcast, but not raining yet, and soon the sprawling city of Memphis loomed on the horizon.

Soaring skyscrapers marked the downtown area, bright steel and sparkling glass reflecting the streetlights. Neat rows of apartment blocks lined the bank of the mighty Mississippi, with small parks scattered around in artful disarray.

The water in the mile-wide river was dark and slow, with only a few pleasure craft darting across the murky surface. A fishing trawler moved slowly against the sluggish current, and a brightly lit paddle-wheel casino lolled majestically along, looking like something from another century.

“Behold, the Paris of the South,” Schwarz quipped.

Dominating the entire southside of the bustling city was a colossal pyramid, the sloping sides tinted purple from neon lights. Lyons knew that was the Memphis Sports Arena, named not for the place of its birth, but for the ancient city the modern day metropolis was itself named after, Memphis, Egypt, on the Nile River. The gigantic arena was twenty-three stories high, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and easily held a crowd of twenty thousand people. Illuminated by searchlights at night, the Pyramid Arena could be seen for miles, and airline pilots had it listed on their visual reference chart as a landmark in case of any trouble with their GPS units.

“Huge place. We’ll be shit out of luck if we have to hunt for Gallen in the Pyramid,” Blancanales noted pragmatically, tucking a Homeland Security commission booklet into a pocket.

Few police actually knew what the ID looked like for HSA agents, and virtually no civilians did. So the booklets would open a lot of closed doors for the Stony Man commandos, and even if somebody called Washington, the official HSA records properly listed the three men as duly authorized operatives, thanks to a little creative hacking from Kurtzman and his team. As soon as this mission was over, the HSA files would be deleted, only to be recreated when needed. But there was much less of a chance of somebody in Homeland Security spotting any irregularities in the government files if the records didn’t exist between missions.

“Caruthers,” Lyons corrected. “The name is Caruthers now.”

“But calling him Gallen let’s the professor know that we are aware of who he really is.”

“Fair enough.”

“Sure hope he hasn’t donned a disguise,” Schwarz agreed somberly, pulling up a pdf on his U.S. Army laptop to check the picture of the scientist. “We can’t exactly call out something in Finnish. That might give him a heart attack.”

“Agreed. We may have to split up to hit more places,” Lyons said, swerving to get out from behind a Mack truck hauling live hogs. On their way to the slaughterhouse, the fat animals peeked out from the dark interior, squealing unhappily as if somehow sensing their imposing doom. Lyons felt a brief impulse of sympathy for the animals, and only hoped it wasn’t prophetic for the team. “If there’s any trouble, we rendezvous at the Hercules.”

“Check,” Blancanales answered.

“No problem,” Schwarz added, slinging the laptop over a shoulder. The portable computer had a thousand and one uses in the field, from opening electronic locks to deactivating low-jacks on civilian cars. It was also sheathed in galvanized titanium and was bulletproof to any caliber up to a .357 round at point-blank range. There were several small dents in the tough casing, testifying to the truth of the manufacturer’s claim.

As they neared the downtown area, the traffic grew thicker, and Lyons tried to look confused as they drove past a Memphis Police Department patrol car, the officers casually watching the assorted cars and trucks flow past. To add some credence to the air of confusion, Blancanales pulled out a crumpled map, and started scowling unhappily until the police were left behind and out of sight, blocked by a Main Street trolley.

“And there she blows,” Schwarz said, pointing a finger to the right. A few blocks ahead of them was the hotel-casino. It was definitely from the old school, the sort of thing that would have been seen in Las Vegas twenty years earlier, before the corporations took over and cleaned up the infamous Sin City.

But here, the Tunica Hotel was festooned with neon lights that blazed brightly even in the direct sunlight, announcing the hottest slots in town and a famous comic for an two additional weeks. The night’s performance was marked as sold out.

Sparkles, garish paint, mirrors and plastic tinsel adorned everything else, and set among some neatly rimmed bushes were two colossal searchlights patiently waiting for the arrival of night. Cheery music played from speakers hidden in the bushes, a nearby water fountain spiriting up columns to match the beat of the country-western tune, even though it was performed only by violins and pianos. Rolling into the parking lot, the members of Able Team exchanged dour glances, but said nothing. Compared to the rest of the stately Southern metropolis, the hotel looked like a stripper in a nunnery.

The first couple of lots were full of cars, excited people pouring into the casino and weary ones stumbling into the hotel. Smiling politely, large men, probably guards, flanked the glass front doors, receivers in their ears to keep them in constant communications with Security. Video cameras were nowhere in sight, but Schwarz swept the front of the garish building with an EM scanner and found them all over the place.

“Smile, we’re on Candid Camera. ” He tucked the scanner away. “Better try the back, Carl.”

“That was the plan,” Lyons replied, maneuvering past a group of drunks stumbling past a bedraggled fellow staring forlornly at a single dollar clenched in his fist. Obviously he was not a big winner today.

Bypassing the front parking lot, Lyons drove around the hotel and parked behind an enclosed area, the pungent smell in the air telling them this was where the restaurant dumped its garbage.

The men waited for a few minutes to see if anybody would respond to their presence, then gathered their equipment into black nylon gym bags and left the van, locking it. Some low hedges masked the emergency fire exit, and while Lyons and Blancanales stood guard, Schwarz used a locksmith’s keywire gun to shoot the dead bolt full of stiff wire. A sharp turn of the wrist and the lock disengaged without the alarm sounding.

“Easy as pie,” Schwarz said, sliding the tool into the cushioned bag holding his laptop as the others slipped inside.

“Thus speaks a man who has never made a pie,” Blancanales responded, his sharp eyes checking for trouble in the corridor. But there was nobody in sight, just rows of doors leading to rooms on either side. The sounds of laughter came from several rooms, and a couple was having a screaming match about something undetectable.

Closing the fire exit behind them, Schwarz reactivated the alarm, and they proceeded at a casual pace into the hotel. At an intersection filled with plants and overstuffed easy chairs, the team boarded the elevator and rode to the fifteenth floor. A family with two happy children and an unhappy teenager got on the elevator after them.

Chatting casually about the comic concert that night, Able Team strolled along the hallway, passing several more tourists and one drunk grimly determined to feed a fifty-dollar bill into a soda machine that was clearly marked Exact Change Only.

Going through a set of double doors, the team reached room 1544. They listened for a moment for any odd sounds, then Lyons lightly rapped his knuckles on the door. There was no response. After a minute, he tried again to the same result.

Nodding at Schwarz, the Able Team leader went to a corner, while Blancanales stood guard, trying to stand in a way that would block any casual sight of his friend. Kneeling at the door, Schwarz looked it over carefully and smiled. He had been afraid that the lock on a luxury suite might be different from the standard hotel rooms, but the mechanisms were all the same. It was a standard electronic swipe, with a red and green light to tell the guest if they had inserted the keycard correctly.

Snorting in contempt, Schwarz got out the laptop, attached a small probe to the electronic lock and hit a few buttons. There was a short pause, then the door unlocked.

Pulling a stun gun into view, Lyons slipped into the room, the other two men close behind.

“Okay, this place is empty. Is there anything hot?” the Able Team leader asked, tucking away the stun gun and lowering the gym bag to the carpeting. There were no obvious signs of violence. Everything was neat and tidy, with some clothing hanging in the closet and the towels neatly folded over the chrome rods in the bathroom.

“Clean. No bugs or digital recorders,” Blancanales announced, tucking away the device. He tried to keep disdain out of his voice, and failed miserably. The suite was hideously decorated with Elvis memorabilia; old posters from his movies, facsimiles of his gold records, newspaper clippings, a plaster bust of the King, a mirror with his silhouette etched into the glass and lots of photographs.

“Yeah, I think this is where kitch goes to die,” Schwarz muttered, clicking on a UV flashlight and playing the eerie blue light around, checking the curtains, carpeting, blankets and bathroom for any organic residue. Blood, sweat, urine, semen, any bodily fluid would give off a ghostly glow under the ultraviolet beam no matter how well the area was cleaned. Unless they use steam. But the room registered clean, merely in questionable taste. In Schwarz’s opinion, while Elvis may have worn outrageous costumes on stage, in his private life, Mr. Presley would probably have run screaming out of a room like this.

“How clean?” Lyons demanded, his blue eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Has it been steamed?”

“No, there’s soap scum on the bathroom towel and fingerprints on the TV set,” Schwarz stated, turning off the flashlight. “Nobody has been killed here, and the room washed down to hide the fact.”

“You sure?” the Able Team leader asked, lifting up the covers to check under the bed.

“Positive.”

“Good,” Blancanales said, inspecting the telephone.

Under his UV flashlight there were clear fingerprints on the buttons and a palm print on the handset, so Gallen had made a call to somebody. He could have just been asking housekeeping for more mints on his pillow, but maybe not. There was a pad and pencil near the telephone. Blancanales gently rubbed the pencil across the top sheet, but no words appeared, and there were no crumpled papers in the wastebasket. Damn, the man was tidy. It had to be his scientific training where a single misplaced item could ruin months of hard work. Too bad. Slovenly people were always easy to track, the Puerto Rican thought.

Going to the dresser, Lyons opened the bottom drawer and began riffling through the contents for maps or brochures. If the professor wasn’t here, then he was somewhere in the city, and nobody wandered around a strange town with no idea where they were going. With luck, he’d left a clue to his whereabouts. If not, they’d have to hit the streets of Memphis and trust on luck. None of the Stony Man team put much faith in blind luck.

“Better do the mirror,” Lyons directed, inspecting a drawer full of socks and underwear. “That’ll give us some warning if he comes back.”

“Done, and done.” Taking the Elvis silhouette mirror off the wall, Schwarz laid it on the bed facedown. Pulling out a combat knife, he eased off the pressboard backing and used the tip of the blade to slice off a small amount of the silver backing. Next, he carefully positioned a metallic disk to the clear area and reattached the back before hanging the mirror on the wall once more. Pulling out his laptop, Schwarz touched a few keys and the plasma screen lit up with a sideways view of the hotel room. Adjusting the controls, the view rotated until it was right-side up.

“We’re in business,” he announced, closing the lid. “Any maps?”

“Not a damn thing,” Lyons stated gruffly, closing the top drawer of the dresser. “Guess we’re going to—” There was a knock on the door and everybody froze.

“Mr. Caruthers?” a man called from the hallway. “Hotel management, sir. There’s a leak in the tub above your room. May I come in to inspect the bathroom, please?”

Instantly the team was alert. That had been a mistake. If there was a leak, the management would simply use a pass key to get maintenance into the room as fast as possible. Asking for permission meant the person on the other side of the door wasn’t on the hotel staff.

Pulling out his .357 Colt Python revolver, Lyons mumbled something into his palm to disguise the words as the other men took position on either side of the door. Shuffling over, Lyons paused, then threw open the door. Blancanales hit the startled man outside with his stun gun. The man grimaced, his arms and legs going stiff as the electric charge shot though his body. As Blancanales released the button, the stranger toppled over, breathing heavily. Catching the limp man under the arms, Schwarz dragged him into the suite and deposited him on the bed.

The newcomer was freshly shaved and dressed in a hotel uniform. His shoes looked hotel issue, and his fingernails were short and clean. All well and good. However, there was no wallet or car keys in his pants, or any other items—aside from a photograph of Professor Gallen tucked in his jacket pocket, along with a hypodermic syringe full of a dark blue liquid and a pair of steel handcuffs.

CHAPTER FIVE

Ochong Island, North Korea

A glorious sunset filled the horizon, the colors permeating the dense forest of oak trees and willows. Birds chattered constantly from the ruins of an ancient Buddhist temple, the lovingly carved stone blocks tumbling back into the earth they had been taken from a thousand years ago.

There were no roads in sight, no cities, no radio towers, nothing that would in any way hint at the presence of a large military force. Thick white mist moved like a disembodied spirit through the lush jungle. As the soldiers in the old Land Rover jounced along the gravel road, the way was becoming treacherous. Skirting a sharp cliff, the driver tried not to look down into the ravine, knowing that death was waiting for them on the jagged rocks a hundred feet straight down.

“Are you sure this is the correct way, sir?” the North Korean soldier asked, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as if it were a protective charm.

“Shut up and drive,” the major said from behind his mirrored sunglasses, a smoking cigarette dangling from his thin lips.

Dutifully checking the GPS device bolted onto the dashboard, the driver tried to cross the ravine again, and this time successfully found the land bridge, a natural stone arch that connected the two parts of the island like a granite umbilical cord.

“Here we are, sir.” The driver sighed in relief, stopping the Land Rover with a squeal of brakes.

The major scowled at the fog all around them with open dislike, then eased his tense shoulders. Women and the weather, a man could do little about either. Accept or ignore. That’s all the choice there was available.

“Tea, sir?” a young corporal asked.

“Please.” The major smiled, eagerly accepting a cup of the black brew from a Thermos. There was plenty of powdered milk aboard the Land Rover, but it was officially policy for soldiers to drink it with only sugar added.

Suddenly a white light appeared on the northern horizon.

“What is that, sir?” the driver asked, lowering his cup of tea.

Before the major could respond, the fog was blown away by a hot wind that left an odd metallic taste in their mouths.

Muttering curses, the major turned in the passenger seat and fumbled among the equipment boxes in the back to unearth a Geiger counter. The safety instrument added at the last minute in case of any trouble. The hidden cache of tactical nukes purchased on the black market needed to be checked every few days to make sure that none of the troops had decided to get rich quick and sell the bombs on the black market again. At least that one fool who tried put it on eBay first, the major noted, switching on the radiation counter. His death in one of the dreaded learning centers had been particularly gruesome.

Spitting away the cigarette, the major waited for the Geiger to warm up, then exhaled in heartfelt relief as the meter stayed in the green zone, a long way from danger. Good. The nukes were the key to the huge North Korean army crossing the sixteen miles of the DMZ, the dark soil of the demilitarized zone so packed with land mines that sometimes even tiny birds landing on the ground set off a string of fiery explosions.

“Do not worry, Private,” the North Korean officer said with confidence. “There is no danger.” But the light kept getting brighter, the wind stronger, and there was a weird prickly sensation on his skin as if he was being stabbed by a million tiny needles.