Act Of War

“If you say so, sir,” the driver said, hunching his shoulder and trying to look directly at the terrible white light. There was a low rumble building rapidly, the ground shaking enough to jiggle the speedometer in the dashboard.

Observing that reaction, the major openly cursed and thumped the Geiger counter with a fist. The needle in the meter promptly fell off, leaving behind a smear of dried glue.

Glancing up in horror, the major looked at the mushroom clouds forming exactly where the weapons cache was supposed to be located. Then everything went black. Reaching up to touch his face, the major cringed at the realization that he was blind.

“Sir, are you okay?” the driver asked, a raised arm blocking his face from the deadly illumination.

“Just fine, Private,” the officer said in a deceptively calm voice as he reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes. “At ease. Care for a smoke?”

Startled by the uncharacteristic generosity, the driver started to reach for a cigarette, then suddenly realized the truth of the matter. Screaming hysterically, he jumped from the Land Rover and raced insanely through the bushes until reaching the land bridge. Maybe…if he dropped down far enough…away from the blast…

Running straight off the side of the granite bridge, the private was still falling toward the rocks below when the ground seemed to heave upward to meet him halfway as the underground nukes thunderously detonated.

High above the earth, the entire Korean island vanished in a series of nuclear explosions, the expanding shock waves forming a crude bull’s-eye pattern to the watchful long-range video cameras of the orbiting UN, NATO and American spy satellites.

Memphis, Tennessee

B ITING BACK A CURSE , Blancanales went to stand guard near the door, a 9 mm Colt pistol in one hand, the other adjusting the radio transponder clipped to the belt under his Hawaiian shirt. He quickly found the frequencies reserved for the federal government and carefully listened for any traffic in the area. If this man wasn’t FBI or Homeland Security, that meant he was probably a mercenary sent from their enemy to kill the professor. Not sure which of those dark scenarios he preferred, the former Black Beret cycled up and down the bandwidths, even going into the forbidden military frequencies in his search.

With a grim expression, Lyons went over every inch of the unconscious man’s clothing. Whipping out his laptop, Schwarz pressed the man’s hand to a section of plasma screen, then tapped a few buttons. After a series of low clicks, the screen came alive with a small photograph, serial number and federal dossier.

“Mafia?” Lyons asked, looking up from his work at the telltale beep.

“Worse. He’s FBI,” Schwarz replied, closing the computer with a snap. “The damn federal hackers at Quantico must have found out about the Icarus project and are looking for the professor.”

“If they know, then others do, too,” Lyons muttered angrily. He’d thought the Memphis police were staring rather hard at any car with out-of-state plates. “Rosario, any chatter?”

“Bet your ass. There’s a lot of heavily encoded traffic on two of the federal frequencies, and on a military bandwidth,” Blancanales said, wiggling his earpiece. “Company is coming, hard and fast.”

“Gadgets, have Bear check with the staties and local P.D.,” Lyons directed. “Let’s see how badly they want the professor.”

“All ready doing that.” Schwarz adjusted the code and frequency of the transponder clipped to his belt. “Bear says there’s nothing on the wire about the professor.” He gave a humorless smile. “Seems like the FBI wants the matter kept on the QT just as much as they want the professor alive and kicking.”

“Okay, let’s go,” Lyons said, grabbing the gym bag and hoisting it over a shoulder. Time was against them, and every second counted. Now it was a race to find the wandering professor, before the FBI hauled him in for questioning. Or an assassination team gunned down the man on sight.

Leaving the hotel room, Blancanales squirted glue into the dead bolt hole to seal it into place, and Schwarz peeled the backing off a small box-shaped object and pressed it to the ceiling, the sticky pad adhering tightly. Anybody trying to batter through the door would set off the motion detector in the bomb, releasing a nonlethal cloud of military BZ gas, knocking out everybody in the hallway. That would slow down the FBI a little bit, but not by much. The boys from the Bureau were smart and tough, even if their politically appointed leaders often were not.

Going to the elevator, Lyons reached inside and hit the button for the roof, then pulled out and started for the fire exit. That was often a blind spot for folks as they firmly believed the doors could not be opened without setting off the alarms.

As the Stony Man operatives headed down the fire stairs, a group of large men in dark blue suits ran up the main stairwell, sleek 4.6 mm HK machine pistols held openly in their hands. FBI commission booklets were tucked into the breast pockets of their suits, the federal identification clearly on display.

“Spread out,” a bald man directed, a flesh-colored wire going from the radio receiver in his ear and down into his shirt. “Weaver, Harrison, secure this corridor! McNalty, have hotel security turn off that elevator!” The men moved fast.

“Think they’re really on board?” a hulking agent asked, sweeping the door to the room with an EM probe attached to a bulky scanner in his hand.

“Not unless they’re stupid,” the bald man said, scowling at the little box attached to the ceiling panel. “Now what the fuck is that?”

Reaching up with the EM probe, the huge black man took a step closer and with a soft poof, the BZ charges ignited and the thick clouds of swirling purple gas swirled about the hallway.

But the men merely clamped their mouths shut and started breathing through their noses. The biological filters stuffed inside each nostril making them wheeze slightly.

Scowling darkly, the bald man pointed wordlessly at the door, and the other agent pulled out a hotel security keycard. Inserting it into the lock, he saw the light flash green, but the door refused to open. The bald man asked a silent question, the other agent shrugged and, stepping back, the two men holstered their machine pistols to draw .357 Glock Magnum pistols. They fired in unison, the double report booming in the confines of the hallway. The door slammed open to crash into the closet. Moving through the swirling cloud of BZ gas, the two men swept low into the room, their guns searching for targets.

R EACHING THE FIRE EXIT , Schwarz slid a video probe under the door. On the screen of his laptop, there was nobody visible in the parking lot.

“Clear,” he said, withdrawing the probe and deactivating the alarm.

A split second later there came a muffled sound of gunshots from above and then some sort of crash.

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” Lyons said, the former police detective feeling oddly pleased at how swiftly the FBI was handling the matter.

With a soft click, the fire door swung open and the Stony Man team left the building. Strolling casually to their van, the men checked the seals to make sure nobody had breeched the vehicle, then climbed inside and slowly drove away.

Easing into traffic, Lyons headed toward Memphis again, while Blancanales removed his sunglasses and passed out baseball caps. The men of Able Team would have to change their appearance, just in case somebody had gotten a glimpse of them at the hotel. A complete change of clothing was usually not necessary; simply altering one or two items was good enough in most cases.

“They found the video pickup,” Schwarz said, lowering the lid of his laptop and sliding it into a recharging port built into the vehicle’s wall.

“Already?” Blancanales asked, arching an eyebrow. “That was fast.”

“They had an EM scanner of a type I’ve never seen before,” Schwarz replied, worrying his mustache.

“Never?”

“Nope.”

That was disturbing news. There wasn’t much in the world of electronics that Schwarz didn’t know inside and out. Blancanales took down the M-16 assault rifle and removed the 40 mm stun bag from the grenade launcher to replace it with an armor-piercing shell of high explosives.

“If they’re that good, then these won’t work,” Lyons said, tossing the cap into the rear of the van and unclipping a microphone from the dashboard. The device resembled a cheap CB radio, nothing a would-be thief could possibly be interested in trying to boost. In reality it was a military transponder of astonishing power.

“Jungle Cat to Rock House.” He spoke into the mike. “Uncle Hoover has joined the party, and wants to borrow a Finn. Any chance you can get them to visit Antarctica?”

“Negative, Jungle Cat,” Kurtzman replied crisply. “I was just about to call you with the news. The earlier ID was a fake, planted by wax wing. These are not the real McCoy. These are not, repeat not, Uncle Hoover. Do you copy?”

Merging with the traffic, Lyons grunted at that. Wax wing, Icarus. Damn. Fake FBI agents. To pull off a stunt like that would require some serious hacking. And one mother of a powerful computer. No matter how good a computer expert was, not even Kurtzman could break into the DOD database without at least a Cray Supercomputer at his command. Only in the movies did somebody hack the White House with a regular PC.

“Confirm, Rock House, we will bank the Finn and remove any troublemakers from the game. Copy?”

“Roger,” Bear replied, and the radio went silent.

“Fakes!” Schwarz said furiously, reaching for his laptop then pulling his hand back. If the enemy had fooled Kurtzman for a whole ten minutes, there was nothing he could do to hack their location of a portable. It would be like hunting elephants with a derringer. Absolutely useless.

“Okay, our best bet is to find Gallen before these assholes do, and get him safely out of the state,” Lyons said. “Pol, if our boy hasn’t gone to Graceland, what else is there in this town for an Elvis fan to do? A wax museum, film retrospective, anything like that?”

“I’ll check the Zagat,” Blancanales said, pulling out a PDA and opening the electronic version of the international travel guide.

“And I’ll have Jack warm up the Herc for an immediate takeoff,” Schwarz said, pulling out a cell phone. “He already has the documents on board for an emergency departure ferrying a living heart to be transplanted to Seattle.”

“Works for me.” Twisting the wheel to maneuver around a bright red sport cars that looked like an oversize toy, Lyons turned onto Broad Street, then cursed as construction made him take a detour.

“Oh, hell, there’s a hundred places!” Blancanales complained, using a thumb to scroll the tiny screen. “The Elvis Musical Museum, Elvis Miniature Golf Course, Elvis Dry Cleaner’s, the Elvis Karaoke Bar…”

Under his breath, Schwarz muttered something about itching like a man on a fuzzy tree, and his partner shot him a stern look.

“No, wait, Gadgets has a good idea there,” Lyons said, looking over the crowds of people streaming by on the busy sidewalks. “Which bar has the best Elvis impersonator? The absolute cream of the crop?” It would be a million to one chance of running across Gallen this way, but experience had taught the man that such things did happen, and only a fool would not take advantage of every opportunity coming his way.

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